A New Home  I'm in a car at a stoplight with my brother Wally and other family members. The car is a stick shift. We're going uphill, turning at the intersection. Wally has a huge burger, drink, and side order that he has just picked up to go. He tells me it only cost him 35 cents on his card, some type of card. We drive down a road and talk with my mom. Our house has burned down, I understand. We go by a lake on which there are canoes and boats on the other side of this divided highway. My mom tells me our boat was lost in the fire. Someone is going to give Wally $12,000 for his car- a ridiculous amount of money for it. I react, asking why anyone would give so much for such a piece of junk. We drive from the highway, which seems to be the Thru Highway, going north from Superhighway 100 near by teammate Olie Kecker's house. We get to a neighborhood near Riverside school. I have seen a map with a thumbtack hole in frequently visited places. I see our home in Oak Valley and a tack hole worn in there. There are many other holes, including another heavily worn, near Riverside. It may be marked in a solid color, indicating a house. We arrive at a dark brown single story house, a few houses north from my friends the Hackers. My mom, Wally, my sister Ramona, and I are there. I follow someone who has or gets the key to the front door. We walk in to the living room. The carpet is coral colored. There is a collection of black and white china vases in the fully furnished room. We turn right into the kitchen. In the sink there is a white plastic bowl with salad in it, partially covered with a plastic bag. Who know that this is the doing of my aunt Elaine Grains, who was coordinating the preparation of this place before we arrived. There is a box of pet white rats in the kitchen. They belong to Ramona. I go into the basement. The floor is hard, the ceilings low, and the walls are finished off. There are three or four bedrooms in the basement. I look into each one. Some are connected to others such that one has to walk through one to get to the next. I disturb Wally, who is sleeping in a larger bedroom in the basement.