Murray Mckinney, age 10, of Chattle, Wash., For his question:

Do we have any marsupials in North America?

Most of the world's marsupials live in Australia and its nearby islands. In the rest of the world, these pouched animals Went out of Style long ages ago. One, just one of these strange animals managed to survive in North America. He is the timid opossum, and some experts suspect that he survived because he is such a scared little animal.

When he meets an enemy, our opossum plays dead or so it seems. Actually, the terrified creature falls into a dead faint. Foxes and other eaters of fresh meat think he is really dyad. They walk away, and later the opossum revives to live another day.