Things You Should Know Read Online Free PDF

mother says.
    “I am,” the girl says, putting the waffles in the toaster, getting the butter, slicing a few strawberries.
    “What’s this called, breakfast for dinner?”
    “Never mind,” the girl says, pouring syrup.
    “That’s all you ever say.”
    She goes back outside. A naked young woman sits by the edge of the pool.
    “Is it still you?” the girl asks.
    “Yes,” the coyote says.
    She hands the coyote the plate. “Usually we have better choices, but the housekeeper is on vacation.”
    “Yum, Eggos. Want a bite?”
    The girl shakes her head. “I’m on a diet,” she says, getting back onto her raft.
    The coyote eats. When she’s finished she licks the plate. Her tongue is incredibly long, it stretches out and out and out, lizardly licking.
    “Delish,” she says.
    The girl watches, eyes bulging at the sight of the tongue—hot pink. The coyote starts to change again, to shift. Her skin goes dark, it goes tan, deep like honey and then crisper brown, as if it is burning, and then darker still, toward black. Downy feathers start to appear, and then longer feathers, like quills. Her feet turn orange, fold in, and web. A duck, a big black duck, like a dog, but a duck. The duck jumps into the pool and paddles toward the girl, splashing noisily.
    “These feet,” she says. “They’re the opposite of high heels and still they’re so hard to control.”
    They float in silence.
    She sees her sister come out of her room. She watches the three of them, her mother, father, and sister, through the glass.
    She floats on the raft.
    Relaxed, the duck extends her neck, her feathers bleach white, and she turns into a swan, circling gracefully.
    Suddenly, she lifts her head, as if alerted. She pumps her wings. Her body is changing again, she is trading her feathers for fur, a black mask appears around her eyes, her bill becomes a snout. She is out of the water, standing on the flagstone, a raccoon with orange webbed feet. She waddles off into the night.
    Below ground there is a shift, a fissure, a crack that ricochets. A tremor. The house lights flicker. The alarm goes off. In the pool the water rolls, a small domestic tidal wave sweeps from one end to the other, splashing onto the stones.
    The sliding glass door opens, her father steps out, flashlight circling the water. He finds her holding onto the ladder.
    “You all right?” he asks.
    “Fine,” she says.
    “Come on out now,” he says. “It’s enough for one day. You’re a growing girl—you need your beauty sleep.”
    She climbs out of the pool.
    Her father hands her a towel. “It’s a wonder you don’t just shrivel up and disappear.”

GEORGICA
    A phosphorescent dream. Everything hidden under cover of night becomes abundantly clear, luminescent.
    Hiding in the dunes, she is a foot soldier, a spy, a lusty intruder. The sand caves in around her, the silky skin of another planet.
    What was so familiar by day is inside out, an X ray etched in memory. The sands of Main Beach are foreign shores. With her night-vision goggles she scans the horizon on the lookout. At first there is just the moon on the water, the white curl of the waves, the glow of the bathhouse, the bleached aura of the parking lot. Far down the beach Tiki torches light figures dancing, ancient apparitions in a tribal meeting. Closer, there is a flash, the flick of a match, a father and daughter burst out of the darkness holding sparklers. They have come to the sea to set the world afire; thousands of miniature explosions erupt like anti-aircraft fire.
    “More,” the little girl shouts when the sparkler is done. “More.”
    “Do you think Mommy is home yet?” the father asks, lighting another one.
    Checking her watch, she feels the pressure of time; the window of opportunity is small, twelve to twenty-four hours. Ready and waiting; her supplies are in a fanny pack around her waist, the car is parked under a tree at the far edge of the lot.
    She has been watching them for weeks, watching