Chapter 2: Plant response to elevated CO2 - DRUM - University of ...

comfortable way to live, but always found the wrong ones which jutted out, stiff
and inflexible.
The phone kept ringing at the other end, so she dialed the number again
and listened to the rings, and the subsequent click of the answering machine.
Though she liked the voice mail service (she could get away without having to
talk to her mother) talking to a recorder still made her slightly uncomfortable.
She wondered how should her tone be? Should she imagine that she is talking to
her brother or should she acknowledge that she is talking to a machine and
respond with an equally dead‐pan voice? She liked to imagine her brother and
that prompted her to leave a long cheery sounding message, though she felt
relieved when she hung up. A clap of thunder above the opposite building tore
across the sky and the glass panes shuddered. It made her jump. Soon a thick,
opaque rain descended, pelting down the windowpane, splotching it in ugly big
water drops. Rainwater dribbled down the wooden door that separated the
balcony from the drawing room and a small puddle of water near the doorstep of
the terrace grew larger. A younger Mrs. Mehta would have surely rushed to shut
the door and stop the water from coming in but now she would have to wait for
Suvarna to clean. Maybe she thought, she could even ask Mrs. Kapur.
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