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   But that would now be impossible. In frenzied desperation Loretta flung herself down the hillside. As she tumbled and rolled, bits of grass and a thin coating of dark soil accumulated on her rotund form, and by the time she had traveled barely fifty feet she resembled a green, forested planetoid hurtling through space.
   Along the way she overtook the old Labrador, who was sprinting down the steep slope, narrowly avoiding a disastrous collision with him by launching her heavy body away from the dog. This would ultimately prove to behoove her, as she managed with this new trajectory to avoid hitting the small stand of spruce at the bottom of the hill. The ground leveled back out, and her catastrophic (but lifesaving) tumble approached its terminus. There, in the middle of the dusty lane, and under the frantic attention of the startled Lab, she came to a stop, sore and bewildered.