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need to find you a Russian bride to join the trip,” Mom half joked at the end of his tale.
    “Well, you’ve got all of,” pausing to look at his belt watch, “two hours to make that happen. Oh, and good luck. So long as I have the three of you around, I don’t have a prayer. I’m just glad to be getting out of here,” he concluded. Ammon had changed since we’d arrived in Russia. For the first time on the trip, he wasn’t walking a block ahead of us. He’d spent days dragging his feet and trailing in our wake, leaving a visible trail of drool behind him.
    He’d even stated more than once, “This might be the only country where I won’t complain about going shopping.” These women had him wrapped around their pretty little fingers. I mean, Ammon? Staying behind to shop? It wouldn’t have happened anywhere else, that’s for sure.
    “Oh look,” he would say, waving his hand in the direction of yet more ladies wearing skirts that just barely covered the curve of their cheeks. “More pretty butts to torture me.”
    “Ammon!” Mom had no problem correcting her eldest, fully grown offspring, given that we were one step away from having to peel him off the pavement and carrying him the rest of the way.
    “What butts? You mean those toothpicks wearing skirts?” I asked.
    “I want to scream or just jump out of my skin and die! It’s so frustrating to see such beauty. If this is how Sky and Dad feel all the time, because they actually like how the girls at home look, then it’s no wonder they are so crazy.”
    Ammon rarely talked about women, and he had always been too busy to have an official girlfriend. It was Skylar, two years Ammon’s junior, who was the heartache-inducing chick magnet. They say you can figure out a lot from a person by taking a peek into their bedrooms. Well, you didn’t need to look much beyond that to know my brothers are complete opposites.
    Both rooms were always clean, with beds made and laundry folded, but Ammon’s room had three televisions, as well as a Nintendo and stereo equipment, all of which were usually on as he studied. His wallpaper consisted of pages of complicated scientific calculations on which he’d spent countless hours studying to pass difficult exams. Flags of each country he’d visited hung from another wall, and if you looked in his closet, there would be all of five lonely articles of clothing hanging there, and maybe a single pair of spare shoes.
    Sky’s room, on the other hand, had posters of lions and other large felines, as well as combat marines and SWAT teams. There were special places for his swords, ninja throwing stars, and other unique weapons he’d collected on some of our family camping trips around the United States and Mexico. A wide array of cologne, aftershave, and hair gel products were arranged neatly on his desk. His closet contained twenty-five (or more!) pairs of shoes. Clothes racks broke more than once from the weight of his neatly hung, fashionable clothes, some of which were brand new and had never been worn.
    It was no surprise that their taste in women also differed. Skylar tended to be attracted to pretty, full-figured gals, while Ammon’s taste ran more to tiny, practically butt-less figures. Seeing him even attempt the art of flirting or talking about romance was entirely out of character. But his was a bit like any other addiction; the more he saw, the more he wanted, and the more frustrated and angry he was without it. He often vented his anger on us these days, conveniently blaming his problems on being stuck with three women. Our group’s optimism had suffered more than once from his volatile mood swings.
    Our fearless leader had essentially become butter, melting into a mere puddle of grumpy-dumpies. So I was happy – we all were – to move on and, hopefully, pull him out from under his cloud of unrequited desire and back to earth.

    Everyone had to get off the bus to go through the small immigration building to