My name is Albie, and I like sticks. A normal amount, I think. Too much, according to Momma.

I have three of them. Steve is for walking into trouble. Gary’s my sword for defending against it. And Stella is for making monsters friendlier than they look… or for making snacks out of leaves.

We tried making pizza once. It ended up being salad. Leaves are tricky.

Papa says I’m the man to see for stick information. He loves their names. He says Gary sounds like a guy who’d do your taxes, and Stella probably teaches at my sister Nomi’s dance school.

Momma says I love sticks. I don’t. Not exactly.

They’re just useful. They used to be parts of trees. And trees stay put. They stand and wait.

Also, if you draw in the mud with sticks, they never complain.

Out the front door is my town: sidewalks, stores, traffic. I yelled at it once when I wanted to cross the street. It ignored me.

Out the back? There are fields and woods, old rusted-out cars nobody remembers parking, goats, crickets, and one fence squirrel who is always planning something.

There’s a nice cow I named Doris who sometimes looks at me. Papa says she’s predictably unpredictable. I don’t know what that means.

I’ve got two tree stumps for thrones on the little hill behind the house. But you can only rule from one at a time, so Nomi gets the other if she wants to be a queen.

Back here in my kingdom, imagining things—or sitting and waiting—counts as doing something. I can smell dry grass, old tree bark, and sometimes a cow. It’s close enough for a sandwich sprint. Far enough from the noise to feel like our place. Big enough for adventure. Small enough to wait with my turtle.

His name is Rock. Because he is.

Rock stays in my pocket when he’s working. He’s my turtle advisor. He doesn’t say much. Just blinks.

On any day, Nomi and I can make up any kingdom adventure we want, no matter where we are. It’s our favorite thing.

I picked up Steve. His bark-scrape smell got on my hands. The fence squirrel froze. Stared. I stared back. Neither of us blinked.

Well, Rock did. He always does.

The squirrel twitched once and ran. I started to chase him, but something tugged at me. I saw a line of ants.

They were marching in a straight line, each carrying something tiny. Treasure. Or a crumb. Or both.

One ant staggered under its crumb. Its legs shook. A wobble, but it kept going.

By the time I looked up, the squirrel was gone. Typical squirrel.

That’s when Maximum Moo showed up, barking like he’d saved the world from squirrel crime.

He’s a long-haired chihuahua. Weighs seven pounds. Basically, he’s a tongue with furry legs. It flaps when he runs and nearly trips him.

He’s heroic. But messy.

I leaned Gary against the porch rail. The bark smell stayed on my fingers. Rock blinked once. Slow.

That’s the thing about being king of the stump. Sometimes you fight. Sometimes you wait. Sometimes you get distracted by ants.

Either way, the kingdom stands.

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