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collected from Captain Wagner’s military tours of duty. Most army homes are like that, where you can tell exactly where the officers and their families have been stationed by what they bought while they were there.
    At the Wagners’, the heavy wood trunk and matching dining room table came from Germany, the wooden screens were brought back from Seoul, Korea, and the oversized Mola pillows and the bamboo chair in the hall are already souvenirs of here. I like recognizing the overseas tours from the furniture. It’s like seeing a living history of a family.
    Steph and I kick off our shoes at the door and run to Rat’s room.
    “Your professional mourners are here for the funeral!” Steph yells, pouncing over to where Rat’s hunched at his desk. I trail behind and lean in his doorframe, feeling out of place, because I know that he doesn’t like people to enter his sacred domain—the Rat-trap, Steph calls it. “My brother’s a pack rat,” Steph told us when we all first met at the annual Army Hail and Farewell picnic. “Just call him Rat.” And so we do.
    Rat’s room is so jammed full of stuff that there’s almost no place to stand. The blue wall-to-wall peeks out in patches, but mostly it’s covered by boxes filled with strange rummage that Rat won’t throw out. His bookshelves spill over with papers and paperbacks and science fiction comic books, not to mention his rock collection, shell collection, and rare bottle collection.
    Lots of pictures of himself and Steph are hung or taped up like a pattern on the wall. A good one is of the two of them standing together, wearing their Little League softball uniforms. Steph’s arm is roped around Rat’s neck and it looks almost like she’s choking him, but they’re both smiling at something and you can even see a little silver dot of filling in the back of Rat’s mouth.
    “Ever hear of knocking?” Rat growls at us now. “Get out. Steph. Lane. Out.” He’s holding what looks like a cross made from two sticks, held at the center with a twist of puke-green yarn. “I’m busy.”
    “We want to help. That’s why we’re here,” Steph wheedles. “You said you needed me to come back.”
    “I un-need you. I want to do it all myself. You’ll just take over the whole thing if I let you in on it.”
    “I will not! And Lane came specially. It’s better for a funeral if a lot of people show up, so it looks like Robin had a lot of friends.”
    “Shut up, Steph. You’re making fun of me.”
    “Shut up, Rat. I am not.”
    “Both of you.” I clear my throat. “Come on.”
    Rat surveys his sister through his army-issue black-rimmed glasses. The awful twist in Steph and Rat’s twinship, is that, no matter how you look at it, Rat seems made from whatever was left over after Steph came out. When she told me that she’s eighteen minutes and twenty-three seconds older, it only reinforced my secret theory.
    Steph got all the appetite; for running and talking and fighting—Rat’s quiet, more of a hibernator. Steph’s reddish-brown hair and greenish-brown eyes drained into regular old brown on Rat, and his eyes have the double insult of not even working very well. And although he’s the one who looks like a perfect candidate for nerd-of-the-month club, he and Steph get almost exactly the same grades, not counting gym, where Steph has all the physical advantages.
    I decided a long time ago that Rat’s general grouchiness is because he has to live with this everyday unfairness. In a weird way, though, he clings to Steph, as if he suspects that some of the best bits of himself might be trapped in her.
    “I’m gonna bury Robin near the carport, close to his family,” Rat informs us. “Either of you guys know any Bible prayers or poems?”
    “I’ll sing the National Anthem,” Steph volunteers.
    “I know a poem,” I offer. “But it’s not about a funeral or anything.”
    “Good enough so long as it rhymes.” Rat examines the cross. “I think this’ll