Karen Gifford, age 9, of West Warwick, Rhode Island, for her question:

Do flies have homes?

The pesky housefly has no home of her own. But my, how she likes to share ours. She likes to live around us, indoors and outdoors, because we provide the things she likes. Naturally, we don't do this on purpose. But she hovers around hoping to find crumbs and trash in the kitchen and garbage in trash cans that have no lids. When time comes to lay her eggs, she chooses a pile of rotting garbage. This is where her hungry little maggots spend their kindergarten days    eating and eating.
Later they become little chrysalises and sleep a while. When they hatch, they are grown up flies with wings. Then away they buzz, looking for a human home to share. When they get a chance, they poke around in trashy garbage then come indoors and wipe their dirty feet on our food. This is dangerous to human health because it spreads germs.