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"Papa George. . . died?"

"Didn't you know? Yes, I'm afraid so. He suffered so. It was for the best," she said, nodding. "Where's your mother, honey? She back, too?" she asked gazing past me.

"What?" I shook my head. I couldn't talk. Dead? Mama Arlene gone?

"Here comes that service man to fix my washing machine," she said, as a truck pulled into the development. "Only two hours late. I got to go see to him. Nice to see you back, honey. Say hello to your mother. Hey there! I'm here!" she called to the driver, who poked his head out of the truck window. She marched away and I turned back to the door of Mama Arlene and Papa George's trailer.

It can't be, I thought. They can't be gone. I peered through a front window and saw the furniture covered and the trailer dark. Disappointment weighed me down. My legs felt as if they were lead. I gazed at my old trailer house. It looked just as deserted.

Where would I go now? Who would I go to? I wondered, but I was too tired and to overwhelmed to care. I went to our old home and tried the front door. There was a For Rent sign on it. Of course it was locked, but all that had happened to me on the trip and the shock of this news put me into a frenzy. I searched the yard until I found a short metal rod, which I brought back to the door. I jabbed it into the small space between the door and the trailer and I pulled and tugged, shaking it and putting all my weight behind it until the door snapped open and I went flying back on the patio. I got up, threw the rod away, and went inside. One way or another I was home again, I thought.

Everything had been turned off in the trailer home: electric and gas, and even water. The cupboards were empty, the refrigerator door left open with nothing on its shelves. Someone, probably the bank, had come into the trailer and removed

everything else.

After I had wandered through the trailer, I curled up on the ragged living room rug just about where the sofa had been. I didn't know the time. There were shadows in the corners and whispers in the walls. Time was as irrelevant as honesty, I thought. I lay there sobbing until I fell asleep again. The sound of someone calling my name woke me. I sat up, grinding the sleep from my eyes. The late-afternoon sun was blocked by some high clouds, so the trailer was dark and I could see only a shadowy silhouette in the doorway.

"Melody?"

"Alice!" I cried, so happy finally to hear a friendly, familiar voice. "How did you know I was here?"

"Your cousin Cary called me very late last night. He found my phone number in your notebook and remembered you had mentioned me as your best friend in Sewell."

"Cary?"

"Yes. He told me he put you on a bus and he was very worried that you would arrive safely," she said.

"I almost didn't," I replied and described my nearly disastrous adventure.

"Wow!" she said when I had finished. "You're lucky you got here, but. . ." She gazed around. "Is your mother supposed to meet you here?"

"No. I don't know where Mommy is, Alice," I wailed. I sat on the floor again and she sat beside me just the way we used to sit together on the floor of her warm room in her beautiful house.

"What do you mean, you don't know where she is? Didn't she call you? Didn't she tell you to meet her here? I don't understand," she said.

Finally, I told her my story.

With her eyes widening as I spoke, she absorbed it and then dropped her jaw in amazement and shock. "Chester Logan was not your father? And you don't even know who your real father is?" I shook my head. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. I ran away because I was hoping to live with Mama Arlene," I said. "I never heard about Papa George."

"I went to the funeral," she said. "Papa George is buried close to your. . ."

"I know. I don't know what to call him either." I sighed deeply. "I'll just keep calling him Daddy until I find out the truth about my real father."

"You must be starving. Come home with me and get something to eat," Alice urged.

"I am starving, but I know what your parents will say. No thanks, Alice."

"You can't stay here. This place doesn't belong to you anymore. It belongs to the bank."

"I'll stay until they throw me out, I guess. In the meantime, can you loan me some money? I'll buy some food."

She thought. "I know what I'll do. I'll go home and get some food for both of us. I'll tell my parents I'm studying chemistry with Beverly Murden and I'll come back here. I'll bring us some candles, too. It'll be like a picnic. Like the old days, okay?" she said with enthusiasm.

I laughed. How ironic. My predicament provided Alice with the most excitement she'd had in months.

"Okay," I said.