Two fair-haired girls, one big, one frail. They play in the dirt with their mangled Barbies, a terrier looking on ponderously. The frail one is smoking a cigarette, her hand extended like a monkey’s paw.

“I have an idea,” the thin one says.

“Oh?” The big one is eating the dirt, her face filthy, smeared. This makes the whites of her eyes pop - they’re the size of dinner plates.

“Put your head here,” the little one says, sticking out her palm. The fat one complies. “Now hold still” the little one commands as she draws her cigarette up to the other’s face. A clod of dirt falls from the fat one’s mouth as she responds with garbled sounds. The frail girl takes a noisy inhale from the cigarette before pressing the lit end into the flesh above the fat girl’s lip. The big one moans flatly and her feet flop in the soil.

“There,” the frail one exclaims. “Now you have a beauty mark.” She steps back, licks her lips as she waits for a response from the fat girl.

The fat one’s eyes are watering but after a moment she collects herself, produces a compact from her pleated summer skirt and stares at her new burn mark in the mirror admiringly. “Like Marilyn Monroe!” she cries. “I’m Marilyn Monroe!” She stands and gallops down the hill, clutching her skirt between her thick thighs and still screaming “I’m Marilyn Monroe!”

“Where are you going?” the small one hollers, watching the big girl shrink in the distance. She coughs, spits, lights another cigarette with a book of soggy matches. Clenching the cigarette firmly between her teeth, she picks up the mangled Barbie dolls stuck in the soil. Smooshing their heads together, she makes them kiss. The frail girl leans in close with her cigarette until the heat from the end of it starts to melt the plastic faces of the Barbies, warping them into drippy, elongated knots. “Fatty,” she mutters.

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