Margaret and the Moth Tree by Brit Trogen, Kari Trogen Page A

well-behaved children. You won’t find a more adorable child anywhere, I assure you.”
    At a final nod from the friendly man, the sweet-faced woman smiled with delight. “We’ll take him!” she said.
    But Margaret barely heard what happened next. As Christopher whooped and ran into the arms of his new parents, all Margaret could hear were the words she wished she could have said to the friendly man and woman.
    â€œMy name is Margaret Grey,” she would have said. “I’m not loopy, it’s just that I can’t make a sound or I’ll be fed to the coyotes. Please take me far away from here.”
    But of course, the man and the woman couldn’t read minds.
    The papers were signed. And as the new family said their goodbyes and climbed into their car and drove away down the dirt road, Margaret stared intently downwards, her eyes blurry with tears.
    CHAPTER 13 Serendipity
    Margaret’s Great-aunt Linda had often said, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” which was her way of saying that you should try to make the best of a bad situation. However, a far more useful saying would be, “If life gives you lemons, water, sugar, a pitcher and a long spoon to stir with, make lemonade.” Everyone knows that if life gives you lemons alone it is just bad luck, and the most you can do is try to trade them for something better.
    But if life gives you lemons and you are already in possession of water, sugar, a pitcher and a long spoon to stir with, that is something else entirely. That is
serendipity
.
    Margaret Grey had lived in silence once before. And because she had once lived in silence, her new punishment — though she didn’t realize it yet — was a stroke of serendipity.
    Even though she was very lonesome without anyone to speak to, and even though her arms became bruised and sore from all the pinches, Margaret found that the quiet was strangely familiar. As day after day went by without even a hint of conversation, she began to notice a very odd thing.
    The first time it happened, she was dusting the kitchen rafters from the top of a teetering ladder. As she swept her duster across a cobwebby beam, sending a great cloud of dust into the air, she heard —
    Achoo!
    Margaret nearly fell off her ladder, because for a split second, she thought she’d heard a sneeze coming from a spider’s web.
    That’s ridiculous, she told herself, giving her head a shake. No one can hear a spider sneeze.
    But a few days later, it happened again. She was sweeping under the kitchen table, cleaning up after Miss Switch’s afternoon feast, when from somewhere in the walls —
    Grumble
.
    Margaret bumped her head on the underside of the table. She could have sworn she’d heard the growl of a tiny mousy stomach.
    That’s absurd, she reminded herself, rubbing her sore head. No one can hear a mouse’s hungry belly.
    But with every passing day, it happened more and more.
    She would be scrubbing the front steps and hear a crow land on the roof. She would be cleaning the Pets’ bedroom upstairs and hear two dregs whispering all the way down in the basement.
    Margaret knew these events were ridiculous. She knew they were absurd. She knew that, in a sensible world, they simply couldn’t be. But just because something is absurd or ridiculous doesn’t stop it from being true. And as the very smallest of sounds continued to trickle in, she realized what was happening.
    She was hearing things no one else could hear.
    Without even noticing she was doing it, Margaret had started to
listen
again. You see, there are some talents that can never really be lost. They are only hiding, like a sleeping turtle in its shell, waiting to be coaxed out and used again.
    As Margaret went mutely about her tasks, she soon discovered something else: she could control her talent. When she focused all her attention on her ears, she felt them
open
to the faintest and