“Can I come this time?”Charlotte asked, loudly popping her gum.
Gale glared at his little sister. “No way. You’re still too young.” He slid the red wagon from its hiding place at the back of the playhouse, under the clunky wooden desk their mother had salvaged from some auction or other.
“I’m not too young. Sassy goes with her brother all the time. Besides, you’re only three years older than me.”
“Practically four years,” he said as he pried loose one of the floorboards. Inside, nestled in a cocoon of hay, lay the stash of coal black shotguns and boxes of shotgun shells. He gently picked each one up, checked to make sure they weren’t loaded, set them inside the wagon, and then added several boxes of bullets. “And Sassy knows how to use one of these. You’re still too sporadic.”
She popped another bubble and crossed her arms over her chest. “Am not. I can hit three out of five.”