CHAPTER 54
“Is all of that really true?” Mary asked Ward and Albert after Warble told her about their exploits in the Congo and Botswana in 1885. It seemed far-fetched to her, like something out of an old-time corny novel or a fever dream.
Warble’s old right-hand-man Ward and former nemesis Albert corroborated all of it. “If anything,” Ward added, “Warble is minimizing the role he played. He even knocked a pile of money out of a poacher’s hand and didn’t give it a second look or thought. Your husband is a changed man, Mary.”
“I needed to change,” Warble said. “And I still have more changes, improvements, to make,” he added, smiling, shaking his head, and even chuckling a little as he thought about the person he used to be.
Yukyuk was listening outside the open window, and she chuckled then, too. It was a sympathy chuckle, I guess, because her ancestors had been remarkably similar to the Warble of old in their greed and rapacity.
“Do you want to go home now, Warble — back to Oconomowoc?” Mary asked.
“I don’t know, Mary; if we do, let’s go back to Oconomowoc but remain in the year 2525. I don’t want to return to 2025. What do you think? How do you feel about it?”
“I’m torn, Warble; I miss the old place, but then again Africa has grown on me.”
“And you’ve grown things in it,” Sojourner said. “Those bougainvilleas you planted are blooming like none I’ve seen before, Mary.”
Warble watched his wife intently to try to determine what her preference would be. She was trying not to divulge any leaning one way or the other, though.
“So what’ll it be, Mary: do you want to plant Begonias, or Bougainvilleas?”
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