After he dropped the bird in the hole, I scooped the dirt. Rowan pushed down on the spot with his bare foot. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, so I could see the white spots on his back. It looked like when Gloria spilled that cleaning stuff all over Telly’s clothes. Accidentally. I never told Gloria, but I thought my brother’s skin was like a special map. I spied on him whenever I could. I was waiting for his islands to grow because I knew someday a tiny x would show up and it would tell us where we had to go. Just me and Rowan. And Gloria, of course. I’d never leave her behind. Maybe Telly. I didn’t decide yet about him.

I rinsed off the dirt with the hose. The water was hot. Then I went and sat on the steps of the front porch. Nails were poking out of the boards, but I knew just where to sit so I wouldn’t get stuck. Rowan plunked down next to me without even looking. He didn’t care about getting a nail in his rear end.

Gloria was painting the front door of our house. It used to be angry red and she was making it look like sunshine. But she wasn’t a neat worker. The paint was on her T-shirt and the porch and on the screen and even on Chicken’s fur. He was yipping in his sleep and didn’t mind.

“So? What do you think?” Glorai said.

“It’s nice,” I said.

“Nice?”

“Super duper?”

“That’s better.”

“Do you think Telly’ll love it?”

My hands turned sweaty. “Is he coming home?”

She didn’t answer me. She just started growling. I saw spit pop out of her mouth. Paint went all over. I knew she was making a mess because she was in a big knot ever since Telly went away. Once after he left we took the bus out to his garage. I snuck a secret love note under his windshield wiper. Then me and Gloria hid in the bushes and we saw this lady who had yellow hair. She walked over to the garage and went inside and her laughing came right out through the big open door. That made Gloria mad. She threw rocks at Telly’s truck and they bounced off the roof. On the way home she kept asking me, “Do you think she’s pretty?” I shook my head, but we got off the bus early and went into a store and Gloria bought a box of stuff so she could make her hair yellow too.