“Hello, Bituin. Dad.” She shrugs off her satchel, dropping it on a chair, then, the flowers in hand, goes to the cupboard to look for a vase.
“You’re late.”
“Pandora’s on a case,” says Matiu, artfully managing to excuse himself and accuse Penny all in the same breath.
Their father grunts. “Your mother’s waiting in the living room. You know she’s not going to be happy…”
When is she ever happy?
“OK,” Penny says. “I’ll go right through, just as soon as I’ve put these flowers in water.” Taking the flowers out of their wrapping, Penny crushes a pale green sepal with her fingers, hopeful its minty perfume might calm her. But there’s none. Nothing detectable anyway. She shouldn’t be surprised. Odorant molecules are tiny, typically less than 300 dalton, and these are in too low a concentratio
