Lucy answered. “How bad?” “Very,” she said, “apparently.”

murderers though they were. Having practiced,

acting PO’d, like hearing himself when he took a leak was some personal

owners had left behind. But then he got

and mouth. It didn’t help. The stench was impervious to a whole forest of pine trees. “Light a match,” he said finally, resorting to his stepfather’s fart humor. And then he thought about it. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I guess that’s my job.” 19 For the first several evenings when it was time to stop for the night, Lucy would break into a home within the

Dev wondered if that was the job of fiction, to test-drive the impossible, to loosen our grip on conventional reality.

“I thought love was supposed to be like fireworks,” the boy said. “Nope,” his dream dad said. “It’s like a lump in your throat. But in your heart.”

well as of smoke, water, and/or flames. So that was good. His mom and the other guy both likely did their dying at the thrift store or at work, respectively, which is where they usually were while Dev was