Niun

Dumb Luck is smarter than you'd think just by looking at her. 14, lazy-eyed, a reluctant and slow filament of living from just short of the border of the Russian part of town.

"Niun," she says in that way she has. Not accented exactly, in the way you'd imagine.

Each time, the words spray out of her. I'm not kidding. They spray out and land blacky against whatever surface is nearest. It's always primitive, a blight for the eyes; it drains you, drains all of us.

So where's the smartness in that? It's there. You just have to find the order in it, part it like deep water, and duck in.

So far, nobody's dared to take it that far.