..it's really not that big a deal…" "WHAT??" I repeated."WHAT 'what', Dave? What in the hell do you mean by 'What'??" she shot back, her nerves obvi...ously frayed.I knew I had to think of something intelligent to say, but my mind raced with a million questions. I took a deep breath, and began my interrogation."How long had this been going on before it stopped?" I asked."Oh, it never stopped. It's still going on, Dave," she half-whispered. Again, I was lost. "Dave, remember how I always go over to. ." ... Almost as priceless in seeing your expression when I phoned up the pest control people to ask 'em if they did frogs," I interrupted."I knew you were windin' me up," she replied coolly to my bark of sardonic laughter as we carried on past the rose bushes to our left and onto the cool grass where I stopped to see how ripe the pears were."D'you fancy one?" I asked."I do, but I'll have the fruit after," she said with a leer."Ok, ok, spare me the 'carry-on' innuendo," I said, waving the. Aphrodite, after she gave me this chance, offered to wipemy memory of ever being a boy, but I am who I am. Didn' t Popeye theSailor say that?My mother and grandmother and Aphrodite opened my eyes to the fact thatI could be whatever I wanted to be. I've gotten a lot better at magic,actually, not to be full of myself, but Grandmother says I might bebetter than my Mother. I asked her once how I was able to do the magicwhen I went back to being a boy in Hades. She said she had oftenpondered that. I knew it was lunch time but an egg on his kibble made it breakfast. I took a look around the place after I ate the eggs and sausage. I had to thaw the sausage first since Alice had thrown everything out of the dorm refrigerator. It had been a good call frankly. Since I found a couple of questionable things in the larger refrigerator in the Circus Tent.When dinner time came, I hadn’t done one thing other than try to wrap my head around the present condition of Gatehouse plantation. I had a.