Where'd You Go, Bernadette: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

for removing my neighbor’s blackberries. If you need to get one of those machines, fine. Whatever it takes, as long as it doesn’t literally involve swine.
    Once I have this estimate in hand, I will pay you for your past work in full. But I’m hosting a very important school brunch in less than two weeks and I need my yard back.

W EDNESDAY , D ECEMBER 1
Note from Tom
    Audrey,
    For a job this size, you’ll definitely need the Hillside Thrasher. But my guy prefers not to use it until after the rains. The earliest he could start is May. For an estimate, we’d need to gain access to the neighbor’s property. Did you ever talk to them that day? Do you have their phone number?
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Note from Audrey Griffin
    Tom,
    I feel like I am living in cuckooville. In ten days, Seattle’s elite are descending on my home for a momentous school function and will want to enjoy my backyard. I can’t have their clothing shredded by pricker bushes. May is not OK. One month from now is not OK. I don’t care if you need to rent the Hillside Thrasher yourself. I need those blackberries gone by December 11.
    As for gaining access to the neighbor’s property for an estimate, she is very prickly, no pun intended. My suggestion is we meet at my house on Monday at 3PM sharp. I know for a fact that’s when she’ll be at school picking up her daughter. We can quickly climb through a hole in the side fence and look at her blackberry bushes.
    *

Excerpt from my report on Sir Ernest Shackleton
The Drake Passage is the body of water between the southern tip of South America at Cape Horn, Chile, and the Antarctic continent. The five-hundred-mile passage is named after the sixteenth-century privateer Sir Francis Drake. There is no significant land at the latitudes of the Drake Passage. This creates the unimpeded circular flow of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. As a result, the Drake Passage is the roughest and most feared water in the world.
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    From: Bernadette Fox
    To: Manjula Kapoor
    The things you learn from eighth graders when you ask rhetorical questions like, What are you doing in school these days?
    For instance, did you know the difference between Antarctica and the Arctic is that Antarctica has land, but the Arctic is just ice? I knew Antarctica was a continent, but I figured there was land up north, too. Also, did you know there are no polar bears in Antarctica? I didn’t! I thought we’d be watching from our boat as poor put-upon polar bears attempted to leap from one melting iceberg to another. But you’ll have to go to the North Pole for that sad spectacle. It’s
penguins
that populate the South Pole. So if you had some idyllic image of polar bears frolicking with penguins, disabuse yourself now, because polar bears and penguins are literally on different ends of the earth. I suppose I should get out more.
    Which brings me to the next thing I didn’t know. Did you have any idea that getting to Antarctica requires crossing the Drake Passage? Do you know that the Drake Passage is the most turbulent body of water on the entire planet? Well, I do, because I just spent the last three hours on the Internet.
    Here’s the thing. Do you get seasick? People who don’t get seasick have no idea what it’s like. It’s not just nausea. It’s nausea plus losing thewill to live. I warned Elgie: All that matters during those two days is that he keep me away from guns. In the throes of seasickness, blowing my brains out would be an easy call.
    Ten years ago I saw a documentary on the siege of that Moscow theater. After just forty-eight hours of the terrorists confining the hostages to their seats with no sleep, the lights blazing, and being forced to pee in their pants—although if they had to shit, they could do so in the orchestra pit—well, more than a few hostages just stood up and walked to the exit knowing they’d get shot in the back. Because they were DONE.
    My point is this. I’m getting really scared about the trip to Antarctica.