Dayne’s on-off-off-on stepdad, Kel, says stay away from that new pet shop.

They put the shock collar on the boy and that was it for the nanny. First they put the collar on one another. They were professors in English and Philosophy, all of them smart people.

Word of mouth gets him the job and gets him past the gatehouse. He tramps towards the house like a stray dog, turrets and crenelations coming into focus.

I date Brodie while I’m visiting Seattle. He shares a draughty old house with a bunch of roommates, including a blue-naped parrot who lives in a big cage looking out at a treehouse.

She wants to meet the pig—snout down, paraded through the town square of sodden earth and
stump dimples, now trailed by serpentine line of freshly showered farmer with tomato noses and
breath prematurely soured from all that auctioneer talk.