"Dick Stones"

--> Within the first week a coyote made off with Devito, the family pug. The next week, a deer hopped the fence and drowned in the pool. The twins had come home from school and found it. They poked at it with the skimmer before deciding to just play dumb when their dad made the discovery. The deer stayed there two days. The twins suspected their dad was waiting for them to declare it.

The twins didn’t like Arizona, hated Sierra Vista. They got nosebleeds and heard the heat gave you dick stones.

Bored one weekend, they borrowed the car and grabbed a bat for mailbox baseball. But there were no mailboxes in the neighbourhood. The mail went to these many-slotted monoliths at the end of the block. So they settled for dragging the bat out the window for the sparks.

Sometimes they hated the desert more than they missed their mom and brother.

Two months in, there was a story on the news about a hunk of charred rocket ship garbage falling out of orbit and landing on a ranch nearby. This wasn’t supposed to happen, but it had. The twins rode their dirt bikes out to look but didn’t get past the string-thin cattle fence, scared it was electrified as well as barbed. They spent forever daring each other to crawl under.