Free to Write

At the far end of town, past the Walmart and the few scattered farms that spread cotton across the landscape all summer in little puffballs of white and brown, at the river's edge, we live in a row of ten houses, all the same. there are white picket fences and thatch on the rooftops and shutters painted the same weather beaten red as Mr. Nebbit's barn.

There's a pack of us. Me and Joey and Lisbeth and Jamie and Carolyn, and the young ones who try to keep us and the older ones who are too lazy to run around since they started high school. All the kitchens are open to us--in fact, there was one summer when I didn't eat at home for a whole week because Mama insists on trying out new vegetables.