“Not Lansing, Michigan, that’s for sure,” Natasha went on.

“Why not?” asked Charlie.

“It sounds the most boring,” replied Natasha. “What’s in Lansing? Nothing.”

“It’s the state capital,” pointed out Fiona.

“You just said that to show off,” said Natasha. “You don’t care that it’s the state capital.”

“I’m just stating a fact,” said Fiona. “Because I happen to know it. If you studied your geography as you’re supposed to you would know it too.”

Fiona was the quintessential big sister.

“Kingsport, Tennessee,” said Charlie. “I think that’s the best. It sounds like it’s full of castles.”

“Because it’s got king in the name?” asked Marlin. “You will be disappointed. It will not only be boring, you won’t be able to understand anything anyone says because they’ll all have those thick southern accents where it sounds like people are trying to talk with a mouth full of marbles. And everyone there will be in love with Elvis Presley and probably wear big sunglasses and white jumpsuits.”

“That’s Graceland,” said Natasha.

“Graceland isn’t a city, it’s the name of Elvis’s house,” said Marlin.

“Where is Graceland?” asked Charlie.

Fiona didn’t know and after her geography comment she decided to change the subject.

“You’ll understand the accents better in Tennessee than you will in Shreveport,” she said. “I am stumping for Shreveport anyway despite the accents. There are bayous in Louisiana. I have always wanted to live on a bayou.”

“What’s a bayou?” asked Charlie.

“I don’t know,” admitted Fiona. “I just like the sound of it.”

“It’s something swampy and pelicans fly over it,” said Natasha, who liked birds and knew where different ones lived. “I wouldn’t mind living somewhere that had pelicans.”

Mrs. Weatherspoon usually started silently weeping at this juncture. Her great fear and the one she knew the girls hadn’t considered was that no one would want them and then what? These little hopeful discussions were like piercing arrows to her heart.

As it turned out none of those four sets of aunts and uncles in those much-discussed destinations did. They were very sorry and regretful but even after so much consideration, and knowing no one else had stepped forward, they just didn’t think they could do it.

Mrs. Weatherspoon was beside herself with anxiety as each declining letter arrived. As the end of her year with the girls approached she finally sent a letter to Martha McCready. Mrs. Weatherspoon had stayed on in the Borneo jungle, sure that at any second, someone in the girls’ family would agree to take them. But the thing she feared most was now in play. She paced and shredded dinner rolls and generally lost control of herself while trying desperately to appear calm each time a regretful no arrived.

Fiona actually was calm. “What is going to happen to us now?” she asked after the fourth letter arrived.

“Social services,” said Mrs. Weatherspoon through tears, “is (gulp, gulp, sob, sob) certainly a possibility.” And she blew her nose into her ever-ready embroidered hankie.