Summary

In "Nina, Age 9," Nina visited her great-great-grandmother Rosita in the hospital. Rosita "didn't speak much English" (2). When she tried telling Nina a story, Nina had to use the translator app on her phone. However, the app could not translate many of Rosita's phrases. One of the few words it picked up was "nightmare" (3). When Nina asked her dad about the translation, he said she was speaking Lipan, a language "nobody spoke . . . fluently" anymore (5). Because Rosita was one of many people in Nina's family who had lived past 100, Nina was curious about what she had wanted to tell her. "Later that year," Rosita died before Nina could determine the story (6).

In "Cottonmouth is Cast From Home," when Oli was 15, his mother chased him from home (7). On the day he left, his mother gave him instructions. Because he was...