A white-haired woman who appeared younger than forty clasped a holiday mug in her thin, manicured hands and, with effort, maintained a nervously positive expression. Tiffany’s fine clothing all remained intact, still her seams teased apart whenever she didn’t actively hold the edges together. The steam and the warmth from the mug helped. The piles of hoarded garbage around her did not. From where she sat at the buried kitchen table, Tiffany could see her daughter and her guest sitting on clothing piled on the sofa. They sat on clean clothes, albeit clothes she hadn’t sorted through in recent memory, but at least the stacks weren’t actively rotting under their guest. At least, she hoped. The boy fidgeted and had an underhanded look about him, with his weird bangs, eyeliner, jewelry, painted nails, and his way of speaking softly. She didn’t trust him. The daughter she didn’t recognize anymore lay her legs across his lap and stared into his face hungrily.

“Are you going to start going to school?” Daiki asked.

“I guess if they think they can make me,” Bevie replied with half a shrug. She had a thick, blunt object voice that hit like whiskey. “But I’m old enough I can just drop out, right?” Her arms wrapped around a large stuffed dog with a ripped leg and the fuzz rubbed off the plastic nose.

“Sixteen?” guessed Daiki, perking up a bit behind his glasses.

She nodded. “I’m guessing you’re friends with the tomboy? You dress alike.”

“Goth,” said Daiki.

“Emo,” said Bevie. She wore an oversized black sweater off one shoulder over a lime green spaghetti-strap tank top, white and lime striped thigh high socks, and a faded blue denim mini skirt.

Daiki looked a bit offended. “No.”

Bevie worked her feet over his thigh and chewed one of the floppy ears of the stuffed dog. Her hair, much cleaner than the last time he’d seen her, was ash blonde and shoulder length. She’d need to get some more vitamins into her before her hair got its luster back. She smelled of sweet pea perfume masking the odor of cigarette smoke.

“But no, Calvin doesn’t really like me. I did get along pretty well with Paul, though,” said Daiki. He tried to guide the heel of her foot off the center of his lap. She jammed her foot right back where she’d had it.

“I could not care less.”

“I thought you asked.”

Bevie rested her chin on the toy dog’s head. “Did I? I just don’t know you or why you know who I am, where I live, or where I was.” A bored look crossed her face and she twisted her finger into a lock of her hair. “Don’t tell me; I don’t care.”

“Huh. Well, it saves trying to explain. What do you care about?” Daiki asked.

Bevie kneaded her heels into his lap and waited for him to take that as her answer. He just got a guilty look and shifted around on the clothing heap. “You’re dumb,” concluded Bevie. She grinned. “That’s okay. Mom, we’re going outside!” Bevie threw the stuffed dog into a mound and nimbly wound through the mess to the back door. Daiki followed, moving with a bit more care.

“Don’t go far,” Tiffany urged.

Bevie smiled. “We won’t.”

Out back they had a patio, a few lawn chairs, a round glass table, overgrown hedges, and a couple fruit trees. A wooden fence blocked off the small yard from the neighbors. Bevie glanced at the windows and saw just curtains, and the sun picking out smudges in the glass. A narrow gap between the house and the fence led to a side gate. She found a mossy spot that looked cozy. As soon as Daiki caught up, she planted a foot on his gut and pushed him down into the grass, down in the shadow of the hedges, then dropped to the ground with him. He scrambled clumsily on the wet moss, pushing his glasses up his nose and looking for something to say, but Bevie put a hand over his mouth and held him down.

Duria slipped to the forefront as Daiki slipped into a nonverbal cocoon. She yanked her wrists out of Bevie’s grasp and provided the will to look Bevie in the eye. Her face grew hot and she only had access to words from the night of her murder, so she didn’t try to speak. Daiki had this terror of inflicting fresh abuse on somebody so recently retrieved from Scott’s basement. Bevie’s kisses pushed hungrily into Duria’s mouth.

Dude, she is literally wrestling us into the ground. How the fuck do you think this is you forcing yourself on somebody?

I don’t know. I’m just scared, alright?

Thinking for ways to comfort Daiki, Duria cued Bevie by grabbing a fistful of her hair and biting her shoulder. Like she’d hoped, Bevie bit back. The pain melted Daiki’s worries and brought him back to himself.

---

Fern swept the kitchen around Daiki’s feet. He stepped aside so she could get the area right in front of the stove, then moved back to the burner to stir the stroganoff with a plastic spatula. Tulip walked in and leaned against the counter by the sink. For housework she had an orange kerchief to keep all the hairs that strayed from her braid in check, and had mushroom dangly earrings, orange-red corduroy pants, and a little brown raglan t with a print of a moth in thin golden outline across her bosom. Fern wore olive green overalls with sunflower embroidery and a sunny yellow cropped hoodie with miscellaneous shirt buttons sewn in a stripe from shoulder to cuff on each sleeve. Her pale green hair hung loose around her shoulders.

“Rody says the planting went perfect, but we haven’t heard about the flower pot since. Never should have let it out of our sight,” Tulip told Fern in a low voice.

“When they germinate, they should contact us,” Fern replied, then in the barest whisper added, “I can’t wait to see their little faces!”

“Find somebody who knows where the flower pot is.” Tulip looked at Daiki.

Daiki felt eyes on his back and looked over his shoulder.

“You’re friends with the pink-haired twink from the party, right?” Tulip asked. “I saw him talking to you like he knows you.”

“Petting your head like a puppy,” giggled Fern.

“Um, something like that,” Daiki replied slowly.

“Do you know where he lives?” Tulip asked.

He nodded.

“Great, he’ll show us,” Tulip concluded.

“I’m not going to promise that. Um...the egg noodles are done. With the sour cream in there I can’t try it myself. Somebody want to see if it turned out alright?” Daiki asked.

The girls looked at the pot of stroganoff and replied in unison, “No.”

Fern swept crumbs and dust into the dust pan with the broom. “Just dish it up and bring it out.”

“I can bring her to the table,” volunteered Tulip.

“What’s the gardening code thing about?” Daiki asked.

“What code?” asked Tulip.

“Planting in a flower pot. Flower pots don’t wander off. Then you asked about Sid.” Daiki turned the burner off and grabbed a ladle from a pitcher on the counter. “Were you involved when he got drugged at the party? Or, he probably did that to himself, but it was more than the usual, uh, loopy. Superloop.”

Fern stared at Daiki until he squirmed away from her stare. Tulip walked away.

He ladled some stroganoff into a bowl. “Just curious.”

“You pay too much attention,” Fern accused. “Stop that.”

“Uh, no.” He gathered utensils and napkin for setting the table. He called after Tulip as she walked away, “When you get Becky, ask what she wants to drink! We’ve got apple juice, milk, or there’s the two liter of Surge.”

Tulip gave the thumbs up before she left the room.

“Surge makes your balls shrink,” said Fern. “That’s what everybody says.”

“Um, I don’t drink soda,” replied Daiki. “I doubt it has steroids, though.”

“Why not?”

“Just...because. Look, I won’t tell you where Sid lives if I don’t know why you’re looking for him. It’s not that I like him or anything, I just don’t trust you.”

Fern tilted her head and pouted. “What did I ever do to you?”

“Your shell necklace is clearly made of human molars, not seashells. You drink honey straight from the bear, and your green hair never shows roots of a more natural color. I don’t care that you’re weird, I just...want to know more before I just give somebody’s address like that.”

“Honey is the best. Fuck you.”

“Are those baby teeth or grown up teeth?” Daiki asked.

“Baby teeth.”

“Weird.”

Fern stuck her tongue out at him.

Somebody pounded on the door. Daiki flinched. Fern leaned the broom against the wall and walked over to peek out the window.

“It’s your leader or whatever,” Fern said. She opened the door and Scott walked in. “Rude. Nobody invited you,” Fern told him.

Scott ignored her. He got a poloroid out of his pocket and showed her, then Daiki. Daiki recognized the green door. “Do you know where this is?” Scott demanded, looking from one to the other.

“No?” replied Fern.

Daiki shook his head.

“Anybody else here with you?” asked Scott.

“Yeah, you,” replied Fern.

Tulip returned guiding a shy woman with long brown hair and cozy pajamas. Scott walked over and showed each woman the photo. Becky looked uncomfortable with an unexpected visitor shoving a photo in her face.

“Do you recognize this?” Scott asked.

“Did somebody break into your place?” asked Becky, noting the broken door.

“Why, do you know where this is?” he asked.

“I’ve never seen it before,” she replied.

Scott looked to Tulip, who shrugged and shook her head. He sighed impatiently and left.

“Was that Scott Mason-Whitney?” Becky asked.

“Sure was,” confirmed Tulip.

“Well, whatever. What’d you make?” She sat down in the chair Tulip pulled out for her at the kitchen table.

“Stroganoff,” replied Daiki, and he brought the bowl over to the table. “What would you like to drink?”

---

Daiki scrubbed dishes before loading them into the dishwasher. He scrubbed out the sink, washing his hands, then hurried to catch up with Fern and Tulip just as they walked out the door. The two green-haired girls glanced at him and continued on their way to the bus stop, gossiping about somebody and breaking into the bubblegum. They passed a tarred wooden telephone pole in a trampled patch of lawn with a lost dog poster of a Jack Russel terrier and an offer to buy junk cars. Wind pushed on the chestnut trees lining the street, roots warping the sidewalk into a jagged mess of mossy cracks. Seams of asphalt glue veined the suburban street, repairs butting against freshly puddled potholes. Tulip patted the trunk of the nearest tree in passing and made a sound in her teeth echoing the wind in the branches. Spiky fallen chestnuts choked the grass, storm gutter, and sidewalk.

“You want a piece?” asked Fern, holding up a small cube wrapped in paper.

“Sure,” accepted Duria while Daiki withdrew from the social gesture on the grounds of his usual dislike for sugary treats. “Thanks!” She unwrapped it and popped it into her mouth then put the wrapper in her pocket. “What would you do to Sid if you had him?”

“He the pink twink?” asked Tulip.

“That’s him.”

“Maybe we’ll skin him for boots and sell his meat on the black market,” replied Fern.

“Oh, cool. Continuing what his mom started. So how did you get so many baby teeth? How many babies did you harvest?” Duria joked.

“You know they just fall out, right?” Fern explained. “You can just steal them after they dropped out of the larva’s head.”

“Oh, true. Larva. Yeah.”

A dark blue sedan pulled up to the curb. Rei parked and stepped out. She had a high forehead and long face, long black hair down around her shoulders, wearing a cream colored coat. She could have been thirty for all the age that didn’t show on her face.

“Daiki?” his mom called out. “Why didn’t you call for me to pick you up? You don’t have to take the bus.”

“Um, hi Mom,” greeted Daiki. He tried not to look at how Tulip and Fern watched him. “Do I have to come home now?”

Rei walked over and looked him over, putting a hand on his chin. He appeared to be okay, but it wasn’t like him to be chewing gum. “Where were you going to go?”

“I…” Daiki looked at the two girls. They stared. His mom took him aside and lowered her voice to exclude their audience.

“Who are they?” Rei asked.

“They cleaned the house and I made dinner for somebody.”

“Why? Who did you cook for?”

“She’s just a depressed woman living alone and we go help out with stuff for -”

“She can make her own dinner. They’re not even paying you?”

“I, um. No?” He decided not to bring up the tattoo on his back as a form of compensation. “I didn’t expect you to come pick me up. I’m alright.”

Rei looked over at Tulip and Fern. “Why do they both have green hair? They could have some originality. Dark green and light green. They’re just copying each other.” She turned back to her son. “You don’t have to cook for people. You can get a job if you’re going to be working anyway.”

“...Mom…”

Rei sighed and brushed her son’s hair out of his face. “What do I do with you? You don’t tell anybody where you’re going. You don’t even know where you’re going. Are all your friends girls?”

He thought for a second. “Mostly, yeah.”

“I never see you. You can rely on me a bit, you know? Didn’t your father take care of you?” Rei asked.

A piece of glass inside him broke. “No.”

“Well. Have you done your homework?”

“Um...it’s...it’s fine. I’ll do it.” Daiki looked around and at the ground and anywhere but at his mom or the girls. “I can take care of myself.”

“And random other people as well. You have no idea how young you are.” Rei took his glasses off and polished them on her sleeve before fitting them back onto his face. “Have you eaten?”

“I, no, but -”

“Tell me when you’re coming home, alright? Don’t stay out too late.” She touched his cheek, then glanced at the girls and leaned in closer to Daiki. “Are you using condoms?”

He blushed and backed all the way up. “Bye! See you at home! Later! Bye, Mom. Bye.”

Rei tsked and batted dismissively at him and went back to her car. “You better be! And eat something.”

Still red, Daiki sulked back over to the bus stop and sat down on the little bench under the shelter. The girls ignored him and spoke in whispers in their own little world.