CHAPTER SIX

She stopped for a while and looked at her surroundings. There were several fruit trees; coconuts, mangoes, guava all just within reach, swaying lazily in the cool breeze. The trees offered shade and a cool place to run around in the green meadow beneath. There were flowers of different colours. Suzie did not know the names of the flowers, but she loved the sweet scent emanating from the petals as she smelled a few. What she really marveled at were the butterflies; they were everywhere. The flapping of their multi-colored wings were drowned- out by the chirping of the nearby birds as they moved from flower to bush, blending with the foliage.

 Suzie loved the outdoors. Ma always told her that she took more of her father. She could not decide if this was a good thing. Everyone knew one another in Larouse. There were hardly any secrets, and the residents looked out for one another. Suzie saw it as a big family, but she saw that most people had no ambition. They did the same