Florence sat next to me in home room and we ate lunch by my locker, where the window overlooked the roof and you could spot rock pigeons nested in the rafters. We decided to do our project on the carbon cycle. There’s an end of year science project we have to do in pairs.” ![]() “I just thought we might be in the same grade. A girl new to town, who had never been to my house and also hadn’t been told to avoid it. I was looking for the girl whose churchy dresses bloomed from the car Sundays mid-morning. She wore plain jeans and an emerald sweater with stitches so porous her collarbones and the lace trim of her camisole peeked through. ![]() The first day I rang the doorbell, the daughter had answered. That spring, I’d befriended the new girl whose family moved in to the corn-yellow bungalow up the lane. She had never had a boyfriend even though she was beautiful, and said it was because boys were afraid of her. She stole Dad’s pickup truck for days at a time and he’d find her three counties over with a crack laced across the windshield, bruises hemming her hairline. She could extinguish matches in her mouth and wouldn’t let me into her room. At seventeen, August wore bellbottoms, used paperclips as earrings, and chopped her strawberry blonde braid off at the chin so it slashed at her jugular like a brass knife. I’d grown into something wry and boyish since then, with my bale-brown hair cropped around my ears, fingerprints forensic on my glasses, creases webbed into my t-shirts and overalls. ![]() The ground winked with crescent-moon ribs, unidentifiable shards of bone. She never buried the rabbits, just tossed their carcasses into the copse of hickories in front of our house and let the turkey vultures whittle them. But she never did, perhaps so I would always need her.įour years later, I could still find bones scattered across the yard and cinched into the ryegrass. I could not do jigsaw puzzles because it conjured this inevitability. What I feared most was the day she’d hold a knife out to me in one hand and a rabbit in the other and demand I slot blade into animal. My eyes glassed so I watched the slaughter through a kaleidoscope, and she’d tell me that if this was enough to break me, I had no chance in this world. The sound of it-that mucusy snap-found me when doors slammed, when resin popped inside the pines. She’d carry one up the bluff behind our house each afternoon, hind legs noosed in her grip, then kneel in the scrub grass and order that I watch her wishbone their necks. I hope this answers your question, and thank you for contacting Ask an Expert.My sister used to make me watch her slaughter rabbits, until I could observe without crying. If you are interested in learning more about snakes in your area, here is an excellent field guide: Here's a link to a New Jersey government publication where you can learn more about the eastern milksnake and other species of snakes found in New Jersey: After the initial bite, they can continue to chew. When threatened they may vibrate the tip of their tail, release a strong-smelling musk from anal glands and strike and bite. They can also feed on invertebrates such as slugs, beetles and roaches. ![]() They have a varied diet that includes small rodents, small birds, amphibians, lizards and snakes, including venomous species. They are commonly found under rocks and debris in and around former agricultural fields and meadows and under logs near the margins of woodland areas. They are found in dense forests as well as open field habitats. Typical length of this species is slightly over 2 feet, and maximum length can exceed 4 feet. The eastern milksnake is found from Maine west to Wisconsin and south to the northern portions of South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. They are found from Maine to the northern portions of South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, then west as far as portions of Utah. The snakes in your photograph is an eastern milksnake, scientific name Lampropeltis triangulum triangulum.
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