.1.

The scene is straight out of an alien movie set. Tall, stark, and grotesquely fitted with bluntly truncated, scaly angular spikes, bulky columns huddle in groups of three, as if mocking the sky. Each is crowned by a cropped, fan-like tuft not unlike the coiffed top-knot of a tribal 'yute' or a punk rocker. Mini sandpits hang suspended below shimmering phantasmagoria under snaky heat wave lines.

This turns out to be signature landscape development procedure being staged on construction sites in South Florida. The 'columns' are palm trees transplanted live from gigantic nurseries, shorn of all fronds and each buttressed in place by three 2x4 planks, nailed to their crucified trunks. The splay-footed wooden supports anchored in the ground are also bound across their tops by two reddish-brown metal plexi strips.

To soften the scene, a bevy of young leafy saplings pose nearby as if hoping to relieve the starkness. But, alas, they too are leashed in place, albeit with a little more slack, by three black nylon strips. Although these beauties defiantly toss their heads, they are held too firmly in place to topple over even in those intermittently high breezes that signal the beginning of el huracan - the season.

But pass by your scary landscape again in a few months and you will notice that yon open-fingered crown-of-palm is no longer groping at the sky but has evolved into an attractive Chinese fan waving a breezy welcome, and that the shag carpet at the base is actually red wood chips spread there to keep intrusive weeds at bay. Man-made lakes have appeared, their verges and gentle slopes carefully set-squared with sod, prostrating their custom-made shapes to the overcast skies, transforming the little deserts into oases. Already an arriving pair of mallards greets the spring, necking their way across the open water.

A sudden squall prickles the surface with silver droplets.

A flurry of blackbirds puts on a well-choreographed five-second display and is gone.

There is a beauty, too, of twisted things.

.2.

Okaaay. So this is the season to eschew folly and look to exam-speak across all borders, because June and July are not only about storms outside the classroom. With or without calculators and computers, across the Caribbean and Florida there's a G-sat here and an F-cat there. You older book-beaters or bashers - the difference doesn't matter now - may have already sat entrance tests, common or clepped, and gone on your merry way; but did you know that youngsters from the latter group have found a way to override the well-established Grade Point Average and come up with amazing scores? And they are able to defend them, too. What a quest! Do recent rumblings about the quirks of measuring a school's accountability and/or performance scores by a single grade come to mind?

Among the thirty State-run high schools in Florida this year, eight got A's and B's and 21 got C's and D's, according to research done and reported in the Broward Sunday Herald. Some principals posted protests about current measurement techniques used in some Charter (public and state-funded) schools, taking into account the circumstances peculiar to them as well as the newish state policy of No Child Left Behind.

Regarding the mutant GPA, one director of student services explained how this is effected. A student engages in 'dual enrolment' by taking extra classes - in Florida this may be Computer Gaming or any Internet-based subject - which are not part of his course requirements, to inflate his average and ultimately to outrank his classmates by perhaps making him a prime candidate for class valedictorian, a position which carries big stakes in terms of scholarships and placements in prestigious tertiary level institutions. Some claim it's legal but admit that the procedure blatantly manipulates the system, though it may enhance the status of the school in question. A column allowing speak-up by concerned watchers indicated that some parents have already condoned this kind of student action. This year, for instance, instead of the usual grade point average of 4, students have claimed 6.46, 7.4 and 7.43. Students from the diaspora may soon feel inclined to attempt this adventure - when they migrate.

And then there are the 'indigo kids'. Call them special, call them gifted, intuitive, more aware than the average child, but whatever colour you assign them, they need extra attention. You might raise eyebrows when you find that this group includes the autistic and Down Syndrome and physically-handicapped children, but you have to admit that the brain works in mysterious ways. A 'blue aura' is said to crown their puzzling scalps. Shall we colour ours black, green or gold?

Forty million city children go there to try out grown-up careers and activities which, hopefully, will enhance their adult lives. This real-play concept is indeed staggering and forward-looking. It's in Wannado City, located not at Disney but at or near the Sawgrass enclave. It's already noticeable that, with all the manipulative style, real advertisement references, there is a built-in limit to the element of make-believe, which was thought to be the be-all of childhood existence. But this is 2005, and things which seemed impracticable a while back are now embarked upon with gusto. Harry Potter can get his social security number and his Green Card any time now.

Also new at Wannado is the radio frequency chip I-D bracelet, which is installed on entry and indicates departure or lack thereof.

And then there is Fear Factor. Go figure.

.3.

And then there is the apparently simple matter of a brown shoe lace on the ground in this country of Velcro-fastened sneakers, and a blackened firestick, also on the ground, the latter an anachronism in this land of store-bought briquettes to light barbecues and grills.

When my nephew lived in England, he had become accustomed to the prickles of hedgehogs instead of the Jamaican macca in his backyard. But he was not prepared to encounter black snakes in his built-up Florida backyard; heck, even in the very green grass of the front lawn, for chrissakes!

This discovery has brought home forcefully to him three facts. He cannot now relocate to Buckinghamshire and pull his son out of aeronautical school. He has spent three years purchasing the land and having the house constructed on it, and now the real estate bubble is about to burst, sometime soon. His wife, who had resolutely left all known species of lizards in Jamaica from she was a girl - and a slim, childless one at that - back in the '50s, was now expected to begin acting like Belleview was still in operation on Windward Road - especially since a croaker had appeared on the mesh of the new cost-effective Florida Room.

Dear nephew, with so much more space at his disposal, far from the house he had just left at Sunrise (no pun intended), was meeting the challenge by, first, purchasing a motorised lawn mower on the damn reptile-infested, quick-growing grass, second, dumping topsoil to the rear and potting mix to the front, and third, buying something he last saw his grandfather using to chop bush (again, no pun intended). He has joined the new brotherhood of escape artists who have been contributing their bit to enhancing this landscape with cane and ackee, banana and sweet cassava.

Pass a well-tended yard planted out with the prescription plants approved by state and county and your sharp eyes will spot fever grass and cerassee, Scotch bonnet peppers and leaf-of-life as standard yard fare highly touted and boasted about, even though they may be restricted to one single root which might not survive above the county line. My relative's row of bananas in Palm Bay bore one paltry fruit three years ago, and now there is a row of diffident, bedraggled weepers. And the early frost had put paid to her gungo blossoms one October. She has not tried that again, but her neighbour showed us how she was being overrun by bonavist beans.

Yes, retirees propelled down from New York by hailstones and clouds of fire are thinking twice before venturing out into their bright sunshiny days without water boots and motorised grass-whacking scooters. They are rolling down the automatic garage doors with more alacrity than the monitors can muster, and spending thousands on mesh.

'You t'ink is a piece a fire'tick dat, Aunty? Is a good t'ing dem blacks no see so well. Dem can hear, but dem cyan see so well.'

Many of our dear refugees did not realise that they would see big rats with bushy tails. In the storybooks they confined themselves to mighty oaks, ate only acorns, and their pictures were labelled 'squirrels'. Well, this particular squirrel went away, and quite gleefully, I might add, with my nephew's canetop. For the ignorant, this is the part you plant.

The patois, once neglected, is being restored to its rightful place at the top of the communication registers - right up there along with the trusty old machete. Many who would not be caught dead chopping bush are depriving the Haitians by slinging the handle and buying files. A friend in Fort Lauderdale was heard chopping and shouting one day when she was supposed to be hanging out clothes on the line (yes, some have been ignoring their washing machines, and dishwashers, too). Thinking that she was in the spirit, the mesh was cautiously approached.

'Yu brute, yu. A waitin' on yu fo' days. A' seh to myself, if de pickney dem bungle up side de generator, de modda sure fi come back.'

The august lady had reverted fully to yard, swinging and poking and standing on tiptoe. Sure enough, the mother of the young reptiles had poked its head out from under the cooler, where it was both moist and warm, likely with more maternal concerns than she cared to demonstrate in the open. Mrs. Whacker felt much better after she had disposed of the unwelcome tenants. But she saved her choicest vocabulary for her husband who, hearing the furor, had retreated through the front door and across the road to a sympathetic neighbour. She revealed that he kept away from both the backyard and the machete.

- Cordella Lewis