Home by Another Way Read Online Free PDF

well-behaved children that result when you give a small being a large amount of sugar.
    Sara will lay out some crumbs of bread along the rail, and the birds will go back and forth between the railing and the tree. If she is slow to bring the bread, they will come right onto the table and walk up to the edge of her book and cock their heads and stare at her. Once they badger her into delivering a snack, they will set to haggling among themselves over who gets which piece and when. I am unable to determine the pecking order, but there certainly must be one.
    They are not the only animals for whom this cottage is home. There are lizards living around the pool deck, and they spend their days skittering along thefence rails and lying in the sun on the tiles around the pool. Most often we see them out of the corner of our eyes as they zip past. There is one lizard living on the top shelf of the bookshelves in our bedroom. There is a potted plant that he uses as home base, I believe. When I am no longer unnerved by his staring at me as I read at night, then I know I have begun to relax and my vacation is upon me.
    There is a cat that belongs to the people who own a house on the point of the headland below Windbreak. They are not always there when we visit; we have only seen them a couple of times. We know when they are there though. He is forever touching up the paint on his house, which is not particularly remarkable. What is remarkable is that he wears only a hat while he is doing so. He is sort of a legend around here.
    As near as we can figure out, they are away for a month or two at a time, and the cat is left on her own. So when her people are away, she wanders up the hill to see who is in for vacation. Seastone is the first cottage she runs into as she comes up the hill, and she willhang around for a few days hoping for a handout and some company. She spends most of her time under our car in the shade, but sometimes she comes closer.
    One day after shooing her off our porch, I tried to explain to her that I am not a cat person. I have made the same argument to the cat that lives at our house in Tennessee when I am trying to get her off my lap or out of my closet. Both cats, all cats, look at me as though they do not understand why I still think that it is the person who decides whether or not they are a cat person.
    Between the sugarbirds and the lizards and the cat, I sometimes feel as though I am vacationing at a game preserve. It is a feeling that is intensified by the occasional mongoose sighting and the herds of goats that walk along the road below us and the dogs that belong to the manager, the dogs that come around for a visit every morning. They think of themselves as canine concierges and drop by every bungalow at Windbreak every day to make sure that all is well. They cannot do anything but be cheerful and glad to see us—dogs are like that—but it is a nice gesture on their part.
    There is also a family of monkeys living at the top of the hill. One of them—the head monkey, I assume, though I only assume it because he is the tallest one—will work his way through the property at night and then down to the shore. On the way back up the hill, on his way to get out of the heat of the day, the monkey stops by the cottages as he goes along to see if anyone has left something to eat that should be taken back to the rest of the family or something shiny that will look good in a monkey’s nest. The first time I saw him, he was standing by the kitchen door when I came around for my first cup of coffee, and it scared me half to death.
    One morning during the scribbling round, I had one of those moments when I felt certain someone was looking at me. I thought it was Sara, awake early for some reason, gazing fondly at me from her breakfast-and-bird-feeding station on the porch. She has grown used to my early-morning ritual over the years, and she rarely interrupts me.
    I am a romantic, both a hopeless one and a hopeful