The Weenie then turned to me. “Are you scared?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“That’s because you didn’t do it. Dewy did it. Is that right?”

I didn’t dare move. Dewy sat on the couch, watching, his face pale and mottled.

“All right, then. If you’re not willing to talk.” He did not grab me as he had Dewy, but instead led me to the couch and let me position myself on the cushions. The sound of the spanking, of his hand meeting my skin, belied the fact that it did not hurt—he was not trying.

The next day, Dewy began making threats. “The next time the Weenie stays the night, I’m ripping up my homework,” he told our mother.

“Don’t be dramatic,” she said. “It’s summer.” We were in the car, on the way to a restaurant where the Weenie had reservations. Dewy had gel in his hair and she’d made us wear stiff button-down shirts with horses on the breast pockets—presents from the Weenie.

“Then I’ll take his wallet again. And this time I’ll burn it.”

“Why can’t you just let me be happy for once?” she asked.

“Don’t we make you happy?”

“You make me happy in a different way. And I deserve to be completely happy. Don’t you think I deserve that?”

“Your logic is skewed,” Dewy explained, putting on his scholarly voice. “As a mother, you’re obligated to pursue a happiness that makes your children happy, too. But you want the Weenie around for yourself. For the company and the fun and—let’s not kid ourselves—his money. You want his money, and that’s selfish. And mothers should never be selfish. It’s not in their evolutionary nature.”

“Dewy,” she said, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Have you ever thought that if you talked like a boy for once you might have a few more friends besides your brother?” She turned to look at him. “Nobody likes a smart-ass.”

Dewy turned to the road and stared.

At the restaurant, he refused to speak. When the waiter came around, he simply pointed to the menu.

“We had a little tiff in the car,” our mother explained to the Weenie.

The Weenie chuckled. “I once gave my parents the silent treatment for a whole week. It’ll pass. Isn’t that right, Dewy? Eventually you’ll need something and you’ll have to speak?”

Dewy did not seem to register this question, or any other stimuli. I knew his new minimum of silence was a week. If Dewy knew one thing, it was discipline. He’d once eaten nothing but foods with blue dye for a whole month, to see if it would change the color of his stools. He’d marked his data in a spiral notebook, which he kept on top of the toilet. In the end, he’d developed stomach cramps and his tongue grew a white film that he had to scrape off into the sink each night. Our mother nearly died of worry—she took to dissolving vitamins in his blueberry Kool-Aid, so he wouldn’t get scurvy.