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She stopped and looked terrified.

“That’s the difference between us, Barbara Ann. I don’t rat. I bet you don’t have any friends, do you?”

“I do too.”

“They would have to be fellow rats.” I shook my head and went on to my room.

It wasn’t too hard to fall asleep. The moment I crawled into bed, I realized how tired I was. I didn’t want to think about my situation anymore so instead I looked forward to drifting off. The next thing I knew Barbara Ann was in my face to tell me Aunt Mae Louise wanted me up and about to help with breakfast, clear the table afterward, and take out the garbage.

“And Mama says you’d better have this room looking like it was before you go to school,” she added, wagging her head.

“Get outta here before I turn your fat ears around,” I warned her through clenched teeth.

Her eyes brightened with terror and she ran from my room. For a moment I just lay there wondering if I should simply refuse to do everything and get thrown out. Reluctantly, I rose, washed, and dressed in a pair of jeans and a blouse over which I put on a sweater I had lifted from the same department store I had been caught stealing from last month.

“Squeeze those oranges,” Aunt Mae Louise ordered as soon as I appeared. “Your uncle Buster likes fresh juice every morning, and make sure you get out every drop. That’s expensive.”

Still half asleep, I did it, but she had to show me I had left some juice in every single orange.

“A penny wasted is a penny lost,” she recited.

After I served Uncle Buster his juice, I got a lecture on how poorly I ate and why breakfast was the most important meal of the day. Aunt Mae Louise came to my room to inspect it after I had made my bed and went about criticizing everything: how I hung up my clothes, how loosely I had left the cover sheet, how I didn’t fluff out the pillow correctly, on and on until I pointed out that I would miss the school bus.

“Don’t forget to take out the garbage on the way out,” she called after me.

I returned to the kitchen, got the bag, and dumped it in the c

an.

Barbara Ann was standing on the corner, embracing her books and talking to two other kids who looked about her age. They all turned as I approached, their eyes obviously brightened by the stories Barbara Ann had told them about me.

“Boo!” I said, and they jumped.

When I stepped up on the bus, I noticed immediately that Ashley Porter was sitting alone. He smiled and I slid in beside him.

“You survived, I see,” he said.

“Barely. What about you?”

“My father took away my driving privileges, not that I had that much. Both he and my mother work and use their cars all day, six days a week. They let me use my mother’s car Saturday nights and Sundays, but that’s gone. I’m supposed to come right home after school, blah, blah,” he said. “And you?”

“I gotta break a pile a rocks in the backyard with a sledgehammer.”

He laughed and then asked me more about myself, about my school in the city and my friends. We talked so much, neither of us realized we were at the school until the driver opened the door.

“Maybe I’ll see you at lunch,” he said as we walked off the bus.

“I don’t even know when that is. I came in after lunch yesterday and they keep us in that room.”

He paused at the front door.

“Tell you what,” he said; “Get sick about eleven-thirty. The nurse’s name is Mrs. Fassbinder, and she’s easy. You tell her you have cramps or something like girls have all the time and she’ll let you lie down. I’ll be there, too.”

“What good’s that?” I asked him.

“You’ll see,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, and left for his homeroom.

Armed with the results of my reading test from yesterday, Mr. Cody greeted me eagerly.