Designer Genes Read Online Free PDF

and when we prove ‘em wrong, they sneer at our name.”
    “People from
Groundhog sneer at your name?” She appeared to find that notion amusing.
    “Yes’m, and we
got mighty tired of attending the Groundhog Nearer to Thee 0 Lord Church, which
sounds like more of their bragging. The congregation was dwindling till we
changed it.”
    “Didn’t
anybody think about the implication?” she asked. “That you’re nowhere nearer to
God?”
    “The Lord
understands what we mean,” he said. “Unlike those snobs from Groundhog, we
don’t consider ourselves any closer to God than anybody else. We’re all equal
in His eyes.”
    “Good point.”
Her attention shifted to their surroundings. “This can’t be your main street,
is it?”
    He had to
admit, there wasn’t much around except a storage yard and a warehouse. “We’ll
be coming up on the downtown section in a minute,” he assured her.
    “I can hardly
wait.”
    As they neared
the center, he tried in vain to imagine how the block-long business district
must seem to Buffy. Small and dark, he supposed, although a few signs glimmered
in his headlights.
    Over the
darkness lay Carter’s memories of crepe-paper-covered trucks carrying homemade
parade floats every Memorial Day. He could see costumed schoolchildren
trick-or-treating on Halloween at the grocery, the dry goods store and Binny’s
Beauty Salon. And of course the Christmas season, with the school principal
ho-ho-hoing as Santa Claus in the park and everyone gussying up their stores
with colored lights. Despite the evening quiet, he couldn’t visualize the town
empty and silent, even when he was staring right at it. But things must look
very different to a visitor.
      “Those signs.” Buffy shook her head. “I can’t
believe what they call their shops. No wonder you think the church’s name is
normal.”
    “What do you
mean, what they call their shops?”
    She waved her
hand. “Gigi’s Grocery and Anderson’s Coffee Shop and Drugstore.”
    He puzzled
over her meaning as they turned onto Cross Street. “What’s wrong with those
names?”
    “They’re
dull,” Buffy said.
    He supposed
she had a point. “But accurate.”
    “This town
could use some pizzazz.”
    Her
mispronunciation surprised him. “There’s a pizza parlor down the road.”
    “Not pizza.
Pizzazz. That means style and glamour.”
    “Who needs a
glamorous grocery store?” They were passing the ten-bed Nowhere Junction
Hospital, two blocks from his garage. To be polite, he added, “What kinds of
names should they have?”
    “Just off the
top of my head, how about the Smart Shopper Supermarket,” Buffy suggested,
which wasn’t a bad idea, considering how Gigi was always laying in big supplies
of whatever had fallen off the wholesaler’s truck. “Or the Poets’ Corner Café.”
    “We used to
have a poet in Nowhere Junction,” Carter said. “Only he moved to Austin.”
    The lights had
gone off at the school, he noticed, and wondered what else had been
accomplished at the meeting. With the start of the new fiscal year less than
three months away, there’d probably been a lot of talk about ways to raise
funds.
    Five million
dollars. Maybe they should change the name of the school district to the
Broken-Down-But-Not-Out Education Association.
    That might
rouse someone’s charitable instincts.
    *
    The large
overhead door of the Nowhere Garage stood open. Buffy could understand how
Mimsy Miles had walked in and answered the phone.
    In the dim
light, she detected a couple of hulking vehicles awaiting repairs. “Don’t you
worry that someone might steal something?”
    “Not likely.”
    “You can’t
tell me nobody in this town ever feels temptation!”
    “I’m sure
you’re right, because the pastor talks about that sort of thing all the time,”
Carter said. “It’s not much of a risk, though. They couldn’t sell anything they
stole in Nowhere Junction without getting caught. And since the main highway
bypasses us, we