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"I still don't understand why she was brought here, Grandmother. Why is your house suddenly a foster home?"

"I didn't come here as a foster child," I snapped at her.

"Why did you then?"

I looked at my mother.

"We've been through this already, Alison. I explained what the Save a Child Foundation's purpose was."

"Yeah, you know about that," Brody said. "Just last night you and Rachel Sanders were talking about it at Rachel's, right?" he said with a wry smile. He gave me a side glance. "Billy Crammer told me all about it."

Alison shot darts at him from her eyes, but he held his smile.

"Don't you remember what you did just last night?" "Shut up, Brody."

"You want to help clean up, right?" he emphasized.

She looked at Grandmother Hudson and then at me. Without comment, she picked up her own dishes and silverware and headed for the kitchen.

Brody smiled at me.

Alison really wasn't much help and in fact, when she went to hand me a bowl, she deliberately let go before I had my fingers around it and it shattered at our feet. "You're so clumsy!" she cried.

I stared at her. Boy, I thought, would Beni make mincemeat out of you.

"That was your fault, Alison," Brody said. "I saw it."

"It was not."

"What's going on in here?" Grandmother Hudson asked from the doorway.

"She dropped a bowl," Alison said pointing to me scraping up the pieces.

"No, she didn't, Grandmother. It was Alison's fault," Brody said.

Grandmother paused for a moment when she looked at him. Then she turned to me.

"Just clean it up," she said.

"Why are you such a bitch, Alison?" Brody asked as soon as Grandmother left.

"How come you're taking her side?" Her round eyes became oval and cold. "What, do you like her? She's black, Brody."

"Shut your mouth," he said through clenched teeth. Alison smiled.

"You do like her. I'll tell Mother how successful her charity work is," she said, glanced down at me, and left the kitchen.

"I'm sorry about her," Brody said.

"Forget about it. I've heard a lot worse."

"I know you have. It's not fair," Brody said.

"Fair? That's a word that was removed from my vocabulary a long time ago," I said bitterly. "I'd better get the mop."

"I'll finish bringing stuff in," he said and went out to the dining room.

He and I put away the leftovers, put the dishes into the dishwasher and cleaned up the sink and counters. When we were finished, we discovered everyone had gone back to the living room to talk. Alison had been upstairs and learned I had been given what was supposedly her guest room. As we walked down the corridor, we could hear her grumbling about it.