Stars Like Dusty Earrings

"What're you donin'?" Asked Leon, walking up behind his sister, who was sitting at the dining room table typing on her laptop.

"I'm writing a poem," Leah, paused, looked up at her twin. and smiled.

"What's it called?"

"The Stars, Like Dust," she refocused on her poem, hoping Leon would return to whatever role playing game he was creating.

"You're writing a sci-fi poem? I thought you only wrote romantic stuff."

"No! It is a romantic poem! I don't write..."

"But, Sis, The Stars, Like Dust was a novel by the late, great Isaac Asimov. I don't remember there being any romance in it."

"There probably was, but a nerd like you wouldn't know." She sighed, "I suppose now I'll have to change the name, or I'll have every nerd in the world spamming me."

Leon grinned, a mischievous look coming into his eyes. "Why don't you call it Stars, Like Dusty Earrings?"

Leah frowned, she knew if she responded Leon would continue to badger her with his inane comments, but she couldn't suppress the urge to ask. After all, she was the older of the two, by nine minutes, and it was her job to squelch her brother's weird ideas. "What is your reasoning for me using that title?"

"Because, all your protagonist lose a gold, silver, or pearl earring in the first chapter, and spend the rest of the novel looking for it. When they do find the earring, it's always in the dust of some obscure or out-of-the-way town in Timbuktu or some other continent no one has ever heard of."

"Timbuktu isn't a... Tell you what, Leon, you leave me alone for the next twenty-four hours, and in my next novel my protagonist will find the earring on Mars."