Maida told Jilly when she and Zia dropped by the professor’s house for a visit at the end of November. Zia nodded happily. “Yes, we’ve become veryvery respectable.” Jilly had to laugh. “I can’t imagine either of you ever being completely respectable.” That comment drew an exaggerated pout from each of the crow girls, the one more pronounced than the other. “Not being completely respectable’s a good thing,” Jilly assured them. “Yes, well, easy for you to say,” Zia said. “You don’t have a cranky uncle always asking when you’re going to do something useful for a change.” Maida nodded. “You just get to wheel around and around in your chair and not worry about all the very serious things that we do.” “Such as?” Jilly asked. Zia shrugged. “Why don’t pigs fly?” “Or why is white a colour?” Maida offered. “Or black.” “Or yellow ochre.” “Yellow ochre is a colour,” Jilly said. “Two colours, actually. And white and black are colours, too.
