You might not even know where we are since you aren’t reading my messages. My mom and sister and I moved to my mom’s cousin’s house in Stony Butte, Arizona, to get away from everything for a while. We have been here for two weeks now, and today is the first day of sixth grade. Even though our school in Vegas, Circle Square, has its issues, such as too much talking about what color our feelings are, it’s about a thousand times better than Stony Butte Elementary, at least so far. I’m writing this on my lunch break, so maybe things will get better? I wore my Doug Stokes shirt. Remember when we got those? Anyway, I thought people might notice it, but so far nothing. Probably should have worn my Van Johnson shirt. I was going to save that T-shirt for tomorrow.

Okay, well, you’ll probably never read this, but even so, I hope your first day was good. I don’t want to say I miss you and Trelawny and Emily and Monty, the whole first-name-ends-with-a-y Circle Square gang, because that would be embarrassing, but I do sort of wish I was there.

Keep it casual!

Rodney

2

Hey, Larry,

Okay, so I have to tell you about the afternoon.

If the first morning at Stony Butte was lame, the first afternoon was…whatever is a lot worse than lame.

Here’s the deal. I know you’ll appreciate this. Like I said before, I wore my Doug Stokes T-shirt. Remember how when we showed up at Circle Square last year with our Doug Stokes shirts, everyone was impressed, and they wanted to hear about how he came to my house for a pool party and a barbecue, and you and your mom were there, and we got some major points for that? So I was happy when the kid who sat next to me in homeroom noticed my shirt after lunch.

“Who’s that?” he asked, after staring at the big picture of Doug’s face.

“Doug Stokes,” I said. I thought he would say awesome or ask where I got it. I was ready to tell him how Doug was a nice guy, even though my dad said that for a smart guy, he’s terrible at poker, and how my friend Larry and I went to a taping of his show. I hoped that would give me a chance to get the conversation going so I could implement Rule #4 for Living a Lucky Life: Learn about People. I was relying on my Doug shirt to get things rolling.

“Who’s Doug Smokes?” asked the kid. He is massive and has dark hair in a flattop brush cut. He looks like he might ride BMX or motocross or something. He looks like the kind of kid who might have a gun that his dad gave him.