A page of The Leaf With One Side, a gamebook. Pick a line at the bottom to go on, or start at the beginning.
The Naturalist
He is not old. He is tired in an old way. His sleeves are rolled and a loupe hangs from his neck like a medal for something small.
I don't kill them, he says, before you ask. I find them after. I keep them from the afternoon.
He does not look up. With the side of a brush he eases one wing flat under a strip of tracing paper. The other wing is already flat, held by two strips and a row of pins. At his elbow there is a tin of straight pins and a saucer with one bent pin in it.
Behind him on the wall, six frames. In five of them, pinned flat: a cicada, a green beetle, a leaf insect, a dragonfly, a mantis. The sixth is empty. It has a brass label with today's date.
- Hold a finger an inch from the cicada's wing.
- Lift the wing cover of the green beetle.
- Look for where the leaf ends and the insect begins.
- Lay your hand flat beside the dragonfly's four wings.
- Meet the mantis's eye.
The book · Colophon and credits
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