There was once a lake at Camp Green Lake, a town too. The largest lake in Texas. Now the land was miles and miles of desert, after a hundred years of drought. The town shrivelled up with the lake, and the people too. At Green Lake during the summer, the daytime temperature hovers around ninety-five degrees in the shade, if you can find any. Out on the lake, scorpions and rattlesnakes find shade under rocks and in the holes the campers dig daily.

Desert heat, no water, scorpions and rattlesnakes: Why would anyone go to Camp Green Lake? Most campers weren't given a choice. Camp Green Lake was a correctional facility for criminal youths. Stella had been given a choice: "There is currently an opening at Camp Green Lake juvenile correction camp," the judge had said. "I could send you to jail, and not lose a night of sleep over you," her mother had been very upset when the judge said that, "or you can go to Camp Green Lake. Which do you prefer?" Her mother asked if the judge would allow them time to think about it. He advised choosing quickly; "Openings at Camp Green Lake don't last long." Stella had never been to camp.

Stella Hargrove was the only passenger on the bus to Camp Green Lake, not including the driver and the guard. The guard sat next to the driver, a rifle on his lap. Stella sat about ten rows back, handcuffed to the rail of the seat in front. Her backpack lay on the seat beside her, filled with a toothbrush, toothpaste, a stationery set and some of her favourite books. She had promised to write her mother at least once a week. The judge had advised taking a hat and sunglasses, and Stella could see why when the bus left 'civilisation' and began the long, unpaved and dusty road to the 'lake'.

Stella looked out the window. There wasn't much to see but fields of hay and cotton. She was on a long bus ride to nowhere. And the bus wasn't air-conditioned, and the hot, heavy air was as stifling as the handcuffs.

Stella and her mother and grandmother had pretended she was going to a summer camp, like the ones the richer children's parents could afford to send their children to, with daily activities and campfires to tell ghost-stories around. When she was younger, Stella used to play with her dolls instead of friends. Stella didn't have any friends at home. All the kids in her junior class thought she was odd because she had no father and lived with her grandmother in a two-bedroom apartment in the not-so-nice neighbourhood of town, while all the others lived in million-dollar mansions and already drove big SUVs and Mercedes. They teased her about being poor, and about the puppy-fat that never seemed to drop off her arms and stomach at puberty. Maybe I'll make some friends here, Stella thought hopefully.

Stella was arrested the day a group of boys in a Hummer had stopped by the road and thrown their 7-11 slushies over her from the windows, driving off laughing loudly. Stella sighed and looked at the guard, wondering if he had fallen asleep. He wore mirrored sunglasses, so she couldn't see his eyes.

Stella wasn't a bad girl. She hadn't committed the crime she had been accused and sentenced for. She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was all because of her no-good-dirty-rotten-money-stealing-great-great-grandmother. She smiled. It was a family joke, passed down from her great-grandmother. Whenever things went wrong, and they went wrong a lot, it always felt good to have someone else to blame. Supposedly the first Hargrove, Sonja, had stolen money from a gypsy, and she put a curse on her and all her descendants. Stella would have liked to believe in magic. She certainly didn't believe in luck; her family had a legacy for bad luck.

Stella stared out of the window, daydreaming, repeating the verse her grandmother used to sing in her hoarse old voice;

"If only, if only," the woodpecker sighs,

"The bark on the trees was as soft as the skies."

While the wolf waits below, hungry and lonely,

He cries to the moon,

"If only, if only."

It was the song her grandmother's mother used to sing to her. It was about the only thing her family had to its name. That and the legacy for bad luck.

The bus hit a bump, making Stella even more uncomfortable, and the guard sat up, instantly alert.

Stella's mother was an inventor. To be an inventor, you need three things; intelligence, perseverance, and just a little bit of luck, the good kind. Stella's mother was smart and had a lot, if not too much, perseverance. Once an idea came into her head, which was often, she would not rest until she had tried every conceivable experiment. Every time an experiment failed, Stella could hear her mother cursing her no-good-money-stealing-great-grandmother. Stella's great-grandmother, not Sonja, Sonja's daughter, was the first Stella Hargrove. Our Stella is Stella Hargrove II. Each woman from the Hargrove line was named with an S. Sonja, Stella, Sarah, Sandy, Stella. And each woman before Stella II had the unfortunate circumstance of losing their husbands. Sonja Corvin, her maiden name, married a man named Hargrove, with the stolen money of the gypsy as a considerable dowry. They had moved to America, where they had their only child and daughter Stella. The first Stella's husband was killed, leaving her with their young daughter Sarah and little else. Sarah grew up and fell in love with a young man, who gave her Sandra, or Sandy, out of wedlock, which even in that time was quite unacceptable. Sandy, Stella II's mother, was a widow. Stella's father had died several years ago in a car accident. Stella was an only child, as every Hargrove woman had been before her. They all had something else in common too; each Hargrove remained hopeful. As Stella's mother said, "I learn from failure." It was part of the curse: always remaining hopeful. If they weren't always hopeful then it wouldn't hurt so much every time their hopes were crushed.

"Not every Hargrove lady did bad for herself," Stella's father once pointed out, whenever his wife and daughter became so discouraged that they actually started to believe in the curse. Stella's great-grandmother, the first Stella, had married exceedingly well for someone of such low situation and lived in some grandeur. But at such times of hopelessness Stella's father neglected to mention what befell Stella Hargrove I. Her stagecoach was robbed by the outlaw Kissin' Kate Barlow when she was moving with her husband and young daughter from New York to California, and consequently lost their entire fortune in the stock market, and her husband. He was kissed. Kissin' Kate Barlow only kissed the men she killed.

If it weren't for that, Stella's family would be living in a California mansion, not a two-bedroom apartment in the only bad part of town that smelled of foot-odour. If only, if only…

The apartment smelled so bad on account of Stella's mother's inventions. She was trying to find a way to recycle old sneakers. "The first person to do that," Stella's mother said, "will be a very rich woman." It was this latest experiment that had led to Stella's arrest.

The road got bumpier as it was no longer paved.

Stella was quite impressed she had a relative robbed by Kissin' Kate Barlow. She would have preferred living in a mansion in California, but it was still kind of cool to have someone in her family robbed by a famous outlaw.

"She was lucky to survive," Stella's father said of the first Stella Hargrove. Stella sighed. The bus began to slow down. The guard grunted and sighed as he stretched his arms.

"Welcome to Camp Green Lake," the driver sighed. Stella looked out the dirty window. There was no lake. And hardly anything was green.

She felt somewhat dazed as the guard unlocked her handcuffs and led her off the bus. She'd been on the bus for over eight hours.

"Be careful," the driver warned in a low voice as she stepped down from the bus. Stella wasn't sure if it was a warning getting down the steps safely or if he meant to be careful in Camp Green Lake.

"Thanks for the ride," Stella said politely. Her mouth was dry and her throat hurt. She stepped down onto hard, dry dirt. There was a band of sweat around her wrists where the handcuffs had been.

The land was barren and desolate. She could see a few run-down buildings and some tents. Farther away there was a cabin beneath some tall trees, some of the only shade the little town had to offer. Outside the buildings she could see groups of boys in orange jumpsuits, and each looked worse for wear.

Though the heat was above a hundred degrees, the sudden douse of dread, like a cold shower, turned her blood cold. Perhaps the girls were in another area of the camp. She stared around. The camp was too small to have two sections. The expression on the guard's face didn't comfort her. The guard led her to a small building. The sign on the front said 'You are entering Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility'. Next to it was another sign which declared that it was in violation of the Texas Penal Code to bring guns, explosives, weapons, drugs, or alcohol onto the premises. Well duh, Stella thought. Inside the building, a wave of welcome air-conditioning swept over her. A man glanced up from a cluttered desk, squinting from below a straw cowboy hat. He chewed on sunflower seeds and spit the shells into a jar. The guard strode into the room and handed the man a clipboard of papers.

"Take a seat," the man said shortly, glancing at Stella. Stella sidled into the chair in front of the desk.

"What's with the sunflower seeds, man?" the guard asked, and Stella got the impression he and the man at the desk knew each other well. He probably accompanied all the juvenile delinquents to Camp Green Lake.

"I quit smoking last month," the man growled. He had a tattoo of a rattlesnake on his right forearm. As he signed the papers the snake seemed to wiggle. "I used to smoke a pack a day. Now I eat a sack of these a week." The guard laughed. The man behind the desk spit out more sunflower seeds and turned to Stella. He glanced at the files he had been given.

"Stella Hargrove, the second?" Stella nodded.

"My name is Mr. Sir," he said. "Whenever you speak to me you will call me by my name, is that clear?"

"Yes Mr. Sir," Stella nodded. Mr. Sir sighed as he took in her appearance.

"This ain't a Girl Scout camp," Mr. Sir said. "Understand?" There must have been a small refrigerator behind his desk, because the man with the cowboy hat produced two cans of soda. For one hopeful second Stella thought one was for her, but the man handed them both to the guard. Stella thought of the long, miserable bus ride and felt sorry for the guard and the bus driver. Mr. Sir saw Stella eyeing the soda cans.

"Are you thirsty Stella?" he asked.

"Yes Mr. Sir," she answered gratefully.

"Well you'd better get used to it," Mr. Sir said in a low voice. "You're gonna be thirsty for the next eighteen months." Behind her the guard snapped the soda can open. The guard nodded to Mr. Sir and left the building, stepped onto the bus and the driver sped away as quickly as he could. Mr. Sir stepped outside too, to give Stella the 'tour' of the camp.

"Look around you, Hargrove" he said, walking ahead of her with a true cowboy-strut. "What do you see?" Stella thought it was rhetorical. There was nothing to see. "Any guard-towers? How about an electric fence? Hm?"

"No, Mr. Sir," Stella shook her head.

"You wanna run away," he gestured, "go ahead, start running. I won't stop you." He turned to one of the buildings, and one of the boys glaring over at them from the old wooden walkway raised off the ground and touched the gun on his hip. "I'm warning you!" he yelled. Stella eyed the gun as he turned back to her.

"Oh, don't worry," Mr. Sir said in what Stella thought might be a soothing tone if she knew his character more acutely. "This here is for the Yellow-Spotted Lizards. I wouldn't waste a bullet on you."

"I'm not going to run away, Mr. Sir," Stella said quietly.

"That's good thinking, Hargrove," Mr. Sir said. "Doesn't nobody run away from here, you wanna know why? We've got the only water for a hundred miles; our own little oasis. You wanna run away, them buzzards will pick you clean by the end of the third day." Stella was led to a small building, an outhouse of supplies. Inside there was an older boy, maybe a year older than Stella. He was blonde but his hair was slicked back to the nape of his neck, and he had a permanent scowl. The orange jumpsuit was tied around his hips revealing an off-white t-shirt. To the left of the shack there were shelves of black leather boots, cupboards of the orange jumpsuits. Other items cluttered the rest of the shelf space. Mr. Sir sighed and glanced at Stella as he threw a pair of the black boots to her. Stella caught them but wasn't ready for Mr. Sir's order to undress. Stella had hated even undressing for P.E. in a roomful of the girls in her class. They had teased her because, unlike them, she had a higher percentage of body fat than the two-percent they had between them. Stella glanced uneasily at the boy behind a desk, but Mr. Sir just went around picking things from the shelves. Stella sighed and set her backpack on the floor, and as quickly as she could changed into an off-white t-shirt and the orange jumpsuit, exchanging her white Payless sneakers for the heavy boots. She realised she had had to strip so Mr. Sir could see she wasn't hiding anything. Mr. Sir took her backpack and handed it to the boy to search for similar reasons. It was cleared and Stella received everything inside back. The boy smirked as she had seen the birth control patches her mother had insisted on giving her so she wouldn't have to deal with the hassle of her period. Now Stella was grateful for them. Though she had no intention of sleeping with anyone, it would ensure she wouldn't have to embarrass herself in front of a camp full of boys asking for tampons. Who would she ask anyway? Surely there would be no female councillors in a boys' camp. A camp full of boys, Stella thought.

"You get two sets of clothes; one for work, one for relaxation. After three days your work clothes will be washed and your second set becomes your work clothes. Is that clear?"

"Yes, Mr. Sir," Stella gasped, tightening the laces of her boots.

"You are to dig one hole each day," Mr. Sir said. He never looked at her, or even the boy making a neat pile of things for her. "Five foot deep, five foot in diameter. Your shovel is your measuring stick. The longer it takes you to dig, the longer you'll be out in the hot sun. You'll need to keep alert for lizards…and rattlesnakes." Stella hated snakes.

"Rattlesnakes," she repeated.

"If you don't bother them, they won't bother you," Mr. Sir said sagely. "Usually. Being bitten by a rattlesnake is not the worst thing that can happen to you. You won't die," he spat out sunflower seed shells. "Usually. But you don't wanna get bit by a Yellow-Spotted Lizard. That is the worst thing that can happen to you. You will die, a slow and painful death. Always." Stella stared at him from the floor, tying the second set of laces. The door beside her swung open and a short man in sandals and grey tube socks came into the hut.

"Stanley Hargrove," he said, and Stella raised her eyebrows. The man peered down at her curiously for a second and then turned to Mr. Sir.

"Stanley Hargrove is a girl," he frowned in surprise.

"There must have been a mix up at the courts," Mr. Sir said in a low voice. "This is Stella Hargrove." Stella stood up straight and was quite a few inches taller than the man.

"She can't stay here," he said, and Stella thought she heard a little bit of genuine concern in his voice.

"Bus already left," Mr. Sir shrugged. "She's stuck here until we get another opening." Stella was already feeling nervous, but the idea of going to jail, which was probably much worse, with much harder criminals, didn't appeal to her. The new man sighed and stared at her in the eyes, which made Stella notice that Mr. Sir never made eye-contact with anyone.

"Well, Stella Hargrove," he said. "I just want you to know, that you may have done some bad things, but that does not make you a bad person." She felt sure he had changed the lines written on his little notepad from 'boy' to 'person'. "I respect you, Stella." Stella thought he was kind of creepy, in an in-your-face kind of way. He shook her hand. "Welcome to Camp Green Lake. I'm Dr. Pendanski, your councillor."

"You start that touchy-feely crap I'm out of here," Mr. Sir growled. He spoke to the boy behind him. "Give her some towels, some tokens." Dr. Pendanski started out of the hut but Mr. Sir kept Stella back by a hand on her shoulder.

"Young lady, this ain't the Girl Scouts," he had said that before, Stella thought. "Zane," he glanced over his shoulder, "are you lonely?" Stella's eyes widened.

"Yes, Mr. Sir," the boy said in a low voice.

"Are the other boys lonely too?"

"Yes, Mr. Sir," the boy answered.

"Zane, it's your responsibility to make sure none of your boys gets any ideas regarding our new camper," Mr. Sir growled, and securing his hat, he left the hut. Stella glanced worriedly at Mr. Sir's receding back and Zane. Zane smirked and shoved a stack of clothing and bed sheets across the table with a large canteen of heavy plastic, which was unfortunately empty.

"Thanks," she said quietly, and hurried out of the cabin after Dr. Pendanski.

"You'll be in D-tent," Dr. Pendanski said, marching at a quick pace to make up for his lack of leg. "D stands for Diligence." He pointed out some of the buildings. "That's the mess hall, that's the rec room, and there's the showers. There's only one knob, because there's only one temperature; cold…And that's the Warden's cabin." The Warden lived in far more luxury than the campers, and from what Stella could see, the councillors as well, with his own satellite dish, well-manicured 'garden' and water to clean the old Chrysler, which several boys were washing. "That's the number one rule in Camp Green Lake; Do not upset the Warden."

"Yeah," Stella nodded in agreement, "he seemed kind of…"

"Who?" Dr. Pendanski asked, and his eyebrows raised above the brim of his hat. "Oh, Mr. Sir? He's not the Warden. He's just been in a bad mood since he quit smoking." Nearing the D tent, three dirt-covered, scruffy boys, each carrying a shovel and a canteen, came round the corner. Two were black, and one with thick, black-rimmed glasses and a bandana tied around his head with a handkerchief or other strip of fabric hanging over his neck and ears spoke to Dr. Pendanski.

"Hey Doc," he called, "who's the girl?" The second black boy, who far outweighed anyone Stella ever met, with a dirty cap on, and the white boy, who was just as dirty as the two others, wore a strip of cloth around his head like the first boy with a dirty baseball cap set on top, both stared at Stella.

"This is Stella," Dr. Pendanski said.

"So what's happening with Barfbag?" the rotund black boy asked. The white boy chewed a piece of straw or wood. Dr. Pendanski's expression changed to concern.

"Oh, Lewis won't be returning," he said. "He's still in the hospital."

"Stella, meet Rex," Dr. Pendanski gestured to the black boy with glasses, "Alan," was the toothpick-chewer, "and Theodore," was the large boy.

"Hi," Stella said, trying to keep the nervous tremor in her voice from being too conspicuous.

"My name is X-Ray," the boy with glasses said hostilely. "That's Squid, and Armpit." Stella couldn't understand why anyone would want to be called Armpit, but then she couldn't understand how a judge could be so careless as to send a girl miles into the desert inside a boys' juvenile correctional camp.

"Him," Squid nodded to Dr. Pendanski, "he's Doc." Dr. Pendanski chuckled.

"They all like to have their little nicknames," he laughed, "but I prefer to use the names their parents gave them, the names society will recognise them by." X-Ray rolled his eyes animatedly. "Alan, why don't we show Stella her cot?" X-Ray, Stella quickly determined, was the leader of their group, of the entire D-tent. Squid waited for X-Ray's approval before nodding to 'Doc' and walking off to one of the large grey tents labelled with a black D.

"Welcome to your new home," Dr. Pendanski said, pushing mesh doors of the tent aside.

"Barfbag slept here," Squid said, patting an empty cot. A stain on the mattress suggested the reason the previous owner had earned the nickname Barfbag. Stella was given a crate from a stack at the end of a bunk turned sideways against the length of the tent, and she stored her bag inside it. Two more boys entered the tent, seemingly without noticing her. One boy was shorter than the other, of Hispanic descent, and the other was blonde underneath the dirt.

"I'm Magnet," the shorter boy said, and jerking a thumb at the other boy, named him Zigzag. Stella peered closer at Zigzag and recognised his facial features.

"Hi Ricky," she sighed softly, shaking her head slowly as she took in Ricky's appearance. Ricky looked quite surprised to see her in such a remote location and glanced at Dr. Pendanski. He moved on to his cot without a word, while Magnet scolded Squid for leaving something on the floor.

"And this," Dr. Pendanski said, pointing down at the smallest boy in the tent, lying on the cot opposite Stella's, "is Zero." Whether Zero was a nickname or his real name Stella didn't know. X-Ray didn't correct Dr. Pendanski and Dr. Pendanski only used the boys' real names.

"Say hello to Stella, Zero," Dr. Pendanski said. Zero didn't look up from the hands clasped on his stomach as he lay on his cot. He didn't even move except the gentle rise and fall of his chest. "Do you wanna know why they call him Zero? Cos there's nothing going on in his stupid little head." For a councillor, Stella didn't like Dr. Pendanski's tact.

"Did you tell her about the lizards?" Ricky, or Zigzag asked Dr. Pendanski.

"Ricky, let's not scare Stella," Dr. Pendanski said sombrely.

"Yo, his name's not Ricky, it's Zigzag, a'ight," X-Ray said savagely. Dr. Pendanski ignored his comment.

"Stella, if you have any questions, just ask Alan," he said, knocking the baseball cap off Squid's head. "Alan will be your mentor. Got that, Alan?"

"Yeah man, whatever," Squid sighed, throwing himself down onto his cot, propping his head on his arm.

"I'm depending on you," Dr. Pendanski said. He left the tent, and as he did so, he shouted back at them; "It should be no labour to be nice to your neighbour." In small groups the boys left the tent, all but Zero who had curled up on his cot facing the canvas wall. Stella took her crate, which was at the top of a stack of three, and put it like Zero's beside her bed near the door. Hers was the first cot on the right, and 'Zigzag' slept beside her, then X-Ray, Squid, and on the other side of the tent, Armpit, Magnet and Zero. There were seven occupants. Stella didn't empty her bag into the crate, just dumped it inside, taking her hat, a slightly crushed straw cowboy hat, she exited the tent with her canteen. Armpit, Squid and Zigzag were standing near the showers, throwing small stones at nothing in particular. Stella trudged over to them, annoyed with how heavy the boots were and how badly the jumpsuit fit her. She felt like a proper gangster with her jeans by her knees! What would Grandma say if she could see her now? Stella smiled to herself at the thought. Grandma was always very proud of appearances. She never allowed Stella out of the house looking like a slut.

"Um…Squid? Is there somewhere I can fill my canteen?" she asked quietly. Squid frowned at her from under his bandana and layers of dust and dirt and nodded behind her at the showers.

"Yeah, there's a water spigot over there," he said, nodding to the couple of boys freshly showered, draping soaked handkerchiefs around their necks. Stella nodded and walked over to the spigot, sizing the boys up. Apart from the initial stop-and-stare of seeing a girl in an all-boys camp, they ignored her. She didn't fill the canteen up to the brim; she had a feeling water was in high demand. She walked back over to the boys and took a large gulp of water. Zigzag took the canteen and almost drained it, passed it to Armpit who did likewise, until it was Squid's turn and there was little left. Stella took the almost-empty canteen back to the tent and returned, after Squid's advice, to them, and they went to the mess hall for dinner. Stella took a tray and followed Magnet down the line. The food was reminiscent of what Stella's mother produced: The meat was brown and the helping of beans was almost the exact same colour. They were each given two slices of good bread and a small metal cup of water. Stella was surprised the cutlery was metal too.

"Hey Stella," Zigzag called, waving her over. Ricky moved down the bench which he and Magnet shared and Magnet moved down too. "This is where you sit." Stella put her tray down and climbed onto the bench. It was unnerving, being the only girl in an enclosed room of over fifty other boys, and outside there were more still. She felt terrible; she had always been shy, but here every eye seemed to be on her. She wasn't used to that. She sat huddled in her seat, and Ricky openly stared at her, turned in his seat to face her. X-Ray sat at the head of the table, and it was evident now that he was leader.

"Hey new kid," he said, "new kid. See, you didn't dig today, so uh, you wouldn't mind giving up your bread to someone who did now, do you?" He reached across Zigzag's tray and took the bread from Stella's tray. Stella watched him take it mournfully. The bread was the only thing that looked appetising.

"No, you can have it," she mumbled.

"So what'd they get you for?" Squid asked interestedly. Stella glanced up at him.

"Stealing a pair of shoes," Stella mumbled. All the boys except Zigzag and Zero laughed. Zigzag still stared at her calculatingly. Zero just frowned at his tray.

"From the store?" Squid asked, "or were they still on someone's feet?"

"Oh no, she just killed the guy first," Zigzag guessed. "You just left out that little detail, right?" Stella glanced at him and Squid.

"They were Clyde Livingston's baseball cleats," Stella said. The boys just laughed louder. Zero looked up, frowning.

"Sweet-feet's?" Armpit snorted.

"What? Man, you did not steal no Clyde Livingston Sweet-Feet's shoes," X-Ray argued.

"They were his world-series cleats," Stella said.

"Hold on, hold on," Magnet said. "How did you get them? He's like the fastest guy in the majors, right?"

"He only scored four triples in one game," Squid nodded. This was all news to Stella. She hated baseball.

"Clyde Livingston donated his shoes to this homeless shelter," Stella said.

"Did they have red Xs on them?" Zero asked. Several boys dropped their cutlery and all were shocked into silence. Squid, sitting next to Zero on the opposite bench, turned to the little boy in similar fashion as Zigzag stared at Stella.

"You got Zero to talk," Squid gasped.

"Hey, what else can you do Zero?" Armpit asked. Zero glanced at Armpit but ignored the question. Stella nodded.

"Yeah, they did," she said quietly. Zero returned to his tray of food. Stella began to pick at her food, eventually deciding she wasn't going to get anything else and just didn't breathe while she ate. There was nothing disgusting to it; the food had no flavour; it was bland from overcooking.

Clyde Livingston had been at Stella's hearing. He had told his lawyer that he had donated his shoes to the same orphanage that he had grown up in. He said he couldn't understand why anyone would steal from homeless children. Stella's sentence was shortened due to no evidence in her apartment to suggest motive for stealing Sweet-Feet's cleats.

It was ironic; when she had told the truth about not being the one who had stolen the shoes from the orphanage, no one had believed her except Grandma and her mother. And now, when she said she'd stolen the shoes, no one believed her.

The camp was surprisingly noisy at night. Stella couldn't sleep. She lay on her cot, tossing and turning until she was so annoyed she buried her head under her pillow to drown out the noise of Armpit's snoring. Of course, growing up sharing a bedroom with her grandmother, who sounded like a freight-train roaring through the room, Stella was used to noise. Stella kept turning the story of Sonja Corvin over and over in her mind, spoken in her grandmother's voice hoarse by age.

"It was all because of your dirty-rotten-money-stealing-great-great-grandmother. That's who sealed our destiny. Why do you think none of her inventions work?" she frowned at Stella's mother.

"Ma!" Stella's mother exclaimed, and turned to Stella, "I learn from failure."

"It doesn't matter how smart you are," Grandma chuntered. "You need luck, something we ain't got."

"Yeah? What about your mother, the first Stella Hargrove? She wasn't so unlucky. You told me her husband made a fortune in the stock markets," Stella's mother frowned.

"Some luck," Grandma laughed bitterly. "She lost everything. She was robbed by Kissin' Kate Barlow.

"Are you kidding me?" Stella said in surprise. "Did she kiss her?"

"Oh no," Grandma shook her head. "She only ever kissed the men she killed."

"She'd have kissed her, she'd have killed her, and you'd have never been born," Stella's mother said seriously. But Kate Barlow did kiss Stella's great-grandfather, leaving the first Stella Hargrove with only a little water and no food in the middle of the Texas desert with a small baby, stranded for sixteen days.