Excerpt from Argus, 1990 Penelope was starving. She had passed the point of being hungry about two hours ago. Hunger is craving pizza, hamburgers, or filet mignon. Starving is when the human body starts craving even Aunt Mildred's pot pie or Uncle Harry's barbecue squash and beans. Penelope felt as though she had reached a new level of consciousness. It was bad enough to move to Kansas. It was even worse to move to the country. Nothing had prepared her for this. Penelope had been in the middle of a cornfield, cooped up in this old house for three days. Of all the times to have a blizzard, this had to be the most inopportune. Her parents were stuck in Chicago trying to move the rest of their belongings, and here she was. Sixteen, starving, and stuck in the middle of a cornfield. In Penelope's mind, the worst part about this whole ordeal was the fact that no one besides her parents even knew that she was here. The phone lines had been out for three days, and the power went out the day before. The only thing that kept her together was the fact that there was plenty of wood for the fireplace. Oh boy, she thought, heat and light all in one convenient package. Penelope had gone through the cupboards like a little blond rat, searching every nook and cranny for something to eat. Even though no one had lived in the house for ages, she hoped that maybe there might be something canned, pre served, or pickled somewhere. Whether or not she would enjoy it was an entirely different question, but she knew that she was not going to die of starvation, and she was most certainly not going to die in Kansas. If it was edible, she was going to have to be a woman about it and eat it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.