The neat frame house had blue shutters and a yellow door, and under any other circumstance, Jed would have thought it was right pretty. What he didn’t understand was why it was sitting in the Hall of Miniatures. “You got some kinda head injury, Laredo?” he asked. “We’ve got our dioramas already. This is…what’s the word? Don’t fit in the time period?”

“Anachronistic,” Larry said. He looked strangely as if he was trying to stifle a laugh. “It’s for you and Octavius. I know you two are, uh.” He made some vague motions with those ginormo hands of his. Jed glanced with distaste at his hangnails. He knew hard work and all, but darn it if he didn’t have some standards about not letting those ragged things hang there like dried leather. Guy’s mama ought to be ashamed of him. “Don’t make me spell it out.”

“We shall neither spell it out ourselves nor make you do so,” said Octavius from beside him, lifting his chin in that proud way Jed liked. “We appreciate the gift, but why a dollhouse? You’re well aware that we are not dolls.” He punctuated the last two words with a stamp of his foot.

“I, uh.” Larry rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, looking a lot like a popped balloon. “It’s a j…just go check it out, okay?” He reached for the hinges on the side, obviously intending to open up the house. “It’s got wiring and everything. You’ll like it.”

Octavius held up his hand. “There’s no need to open our home for us, Larry,” he said. “We will enter through the front door like civilized people.”

It wasn’t so long ago, Jed knew, that ‘civilized’ wouldn’t have applied to the West, as far as Octavius was concerned. No matter how oblique the reference, Jed would take it.

Once they were inside and the light switch had been flipped, Jed couldn’t help but exclaim appreciatively over the entryway and the living room that it led to. “Furnished, too!” he exclaimed. “Dang, this must’ve set you back. What a nice present.”

“It wasn’t too much,” came Larry’s muffled voice through the walls. It was so weird to hear him without seeing him. “It’s all modern stuff. I didn’t test it out to see if the stuff comes to life like the car, but that’s for you to do, I guess.”

“Jedediah!” shouted Octavius from across the room. “This chair is a Lazy Man!”

“Be right there!” Jed hollered. Recliners? Hot damn.

---

A couple of weeks later, Larry had to admit even to himself that his joke had backfired when he looked through the window and saw something that he would never forget as long as he lived. No, really. Never. Even if he actually poured bleach into his eyes like the Internet suggested. “Guys!” He spun away and slapped a palm over his face. “You do know this house was a joke, right? Because you’re miniatures?”

A few moments and a rustling noise later, Jed appeared at the window in the kind of suit that only compounded Larry’s agony. “Don’t mean we can’t make use of it,” he said with an insouciant wink. “You know, like normal people. Not you giants. I ain’t never movin’ back to the diorama if I can help it.”

“Gevalt,“ Larry groaned, borrowing one of his mother’s expressions. This had been the worst idea ever.