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Dubner’s chapter on Cain and Abel Syndrome. “I hate her, I hate her!”
    Even when Zenobia wasn’t being abused by her brother, she made a lot of noise—sharp, jagged wails that shot from her fault lines like volcanic debris. Often she became so fussy that nothing would do but for my parents to baby-sit Asa while we took her on a long drive up Route 322 to the top of Mount Skyhook, a windy plateau featuring Jake’s Video, an acupuncture clinic, and a chiropodist on one side and the Milky Way Galaxy on the other.
    â€œThe minute our Land-Rover pulls within sight of the stars,” I wrote in
Down to Earth
, “Zenobia grows calm. We unbuckle her from the car seat,” I told our readers, “and set her on the bluff, and immediately she begins rotating on her axis and making contented little clucking sounds, as if she somehow knows the stars are there—as if she senses them with her dark loamy skin.”
    Years later, I learned to my bewilderment that virtually everyone on our mailing list regarded the Zenobia bulletins in
Down to Earth
as unmitigated put-ons. The customers never believed anything we wrote about our baby, not one word.
    Our most memorable visit to Mount Skyhook began with a series of meteor showers. Over and over, bright heavenly droplets shot across the sky, as if old Canis Major had just been given a bath and was shaking himself dry. “Fantastic,” I said.
    â€œExquisite,” said Polly.
    â€œZow-eee,” said Zenobia.
    My wife and I let out two perfectly synchronized gasps.
    â€œOf course, it’s really just junk, isn’t it, Mommy?” our baby continued in a reedy and accelerated voice: the voice of an animated raccoon. “Trash from beyond the planets, hitting the air and burning up?”
    â€œYou can talk!” gushed Polly.
    â€œI can talk,” Zenobia agreed.
    â€œWhy didn’t you
tell
us?” I demanded.
    Our baby spun, showing us the eastern face of her northern hemisphere. “When talking starts, things get . . . well, complicated, right? I prefer simplicity.” Zenobia sounded as if she were speaking through an electric fan. “Gosh, but I love it up here. See those stars, Daddy? They pull at me, know what I mean? They want me.
    At which point I noticed my daughter was airborne, floating two feet off the ground like an expiring helium balloon.
    â€œBe careful,” I said. “You might . . .”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œFall into the sky.”
    â€œYou bet, Daddy. I’ll be careful.” Awash in moonlight, Zenobia’s clouds emitted a deep golden glow. Her voice grew soft and dreamy. “The universe, it’s a lonely place. It’s full of orphans. But the lucky ones find homes.” Our baby eased herself back onto the bluff. “I was a lucky one.”
    â€œ
We
were the lucky ones,” said Polly.
    â€œYour mother and I think the world of you,” I said.
    A sigh escaped from our baby’s north pole like water vapor whistling out of a teakettle. “I get so scared sometimes.”
    â€œDon’t be scared,” I said, kicking a rock into the valley.
    Zenobia swiveled her Africa equivalent toward Venus. “I keep thinking about . . . history, it’s called. Moses’ parents, Amram and Jochebed. They took their baby, and they set him adrift.” She stopped spinning. Her glaciers sparkled in the moonlight. “I keep thinking about that, and how it was so necessary.”
    â€œWe’ll never set you adrift,” said Polly.
    â€œNever,” I echoed.
    â€œIt was so necessary,” said Zenobia in her high, sad voice.
    Â 
    On the evening of Asa’s twelfth birthday, Borealis telephoned wanting to know how the baby was doing. I told him she’d reached a circumference of thirty-one inches, but it soon became clear the man wasn’t seeking an ordinary chat. He wanted to drop by with Hashigan, Croft, and