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  tires spin,

  as the woman and dog

  dance in the snow light.

  11

  Just Piper

  When I wake up this morning, the first thing I do is look outside the little window. The light is gray. Snow pecks against the glass, making tiny ticking sounds. Everything is white.

  Down in the lobby, breakfast stuff is lined up on two long tables. Mama makes us each drink a small carton of milk before we can have a doughnut. Dylan cries when Mama tells him he can have two bananas but not two doughnuts. I bet Daddy gets to eat all the doughnuts he wants over at his shelter.

  Thinking about Daddy makes me sad.

  I hear Mama say, “Oh no, we don’t need to apply for food stamps. We’ve just hit a little rough patch, that’s all.”

  This patch we’ve been in for the last four months seems like a football field full of briars if you ask me.

  But no one does. Or has.

  I feel a light touch on my arm. It’s the girl with the long black hair.

  “Hi,” she says, smiling with powdered-sugar-dusted lips.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “You’re new here, right?”

  “Yes,” I say. “We came here from Abilene, Texas, but,” I add, “I was born and raised in Louisiana.”

  She nods. “We came from a town north of here. We’ve been here for one week and four days.”

  I think about Mama sleeping on the floor between our two cots and the tiny window and the mouse droppings behind the wooden chair and Daddy living across the street. A week feels like a very long time.

  “We won’t be here that long,” I say, glancing over at Mama. She’s got storm clouds in her eyes. Not a good thing.

  The girl with the long black hair sips her juice box and nods. “We’re hoping to get in the family shelter any day now. Maybe we can be friends there.”

  Mama grabs Dylan’s hand and marches over in our direction. I hear myself say what I’ve heard Daddy say a million times over the last few months: “We won’t be staying here long. We’ll be moving on to something better with more opportunities soon.”

  Or the best thing, go back home.

  Mama gives the girl a tight smile, then says to me, “Breakfast is over. Your brother can’t be trusted around doughnuts.” Dylan hangs his head and sniffles.

  The girl smiles. “Brothers,” she says. “You’re lucky you just have one.”

  I roll my eyes.

  Halfway across the lobby, she calls, “My name’s Gabriela, by the way. Gabby for short.”

  “My name’s Piper. Just Piper.”

  After Mama gets Dylan cleaned up, we bundle into our coats and gloves and hats and meet Daddy out front. Dylan leaps into Daddy’s arms with a yip. I wish I could too. Instead I just say, “Hey, Daddy.”

  He reaches out and pulls me to him. “Hey, chicken. You doing okay?”

  “I’m okay, Daddy,” I say against his new coat. It already smells like him.

  Daddy lifts Dylan up and up onto his shoulders while we wait for the bus. “I can see the whole world!” Dylan sings.

  I take off a glove and run my hand over the snow resting on the bench. It’s cold and wet and melts as soon as I touch it. I bring my fingers to my lips to taste the snow.

  “Piper,” Daddy says, frowning down at me. He shakes his head. “It’s dirty.”

  But how could something so white, so new, be dirty? I take off my other glove and, not looking at him, bury my hand beneath the snow.

  We spend all day standing in lines.

  Lines at the employment office and lines at the unemployment office.

  Dylan ate too many doughnuts at breakfast, so he has the sugar crazies. I about wear myself completely out trying to keep him from turning everything upside down and getting us kicked out.

  Then we walk three blocks through the wet, cold snow to wait in another line at the Department of Human Services.

  My red high-tops have turned into popsicles. Dylan’s sugar’s worn off and turned him into a screaming, whining meemie. I try my best to distract him with I spy, but it doesn’t work. At all.

  By the time we get to the front of the line, most of Mama’s hair has come loose from her braid and Daddy has a twitch in his eyelid.

  I am almost asleep on my feet when I hear my mother say in a voice I’ve never heard, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” My eyes pop open.

  Mama’s face goes red, then white. She’s quivering all over. I haven’t seen her look like this since Grandma Bess’s funeral.

  The woman behind the glass divider taps a sign taped to the window with her red fingernail. “It says right here: children under the age of sixteen must have birth certificates in order to apply for general assistance.”

  Mama looks at the woman like she has two heads. Then I see something shift in Mama’s eyes.

  “Look,” she says. “I understand the need for the rules, I really do.” Mama leans in closer and puts on her best practical voice. “And I know you’re doing the best job you can”—she glances at the woman’s name tag—“Mrs. Fulton.”

  I relax just a little. Mama will get this straightened right out.

  “But,” Mama continues, nodding to us, “we’ve never been in this situation before. All we want is for our babies to be safe and warm, with food in their bellies. The last thing on my mind was birth certificates.” She blinks back real tears. “You can understand that, can’t you?”

  The woman sighs. She taps the sign again, a little less enthusiastically this time. “Sorry,” she says. “Those are the rules.”

  If Daddy weren’t holding a sleeping Dylan, I think his fist would go right through that glass.

  The woman leans to the side and looks around Mama. “Next!”

  It’s snowing again. I think I still like snow, but not the cold. I pull the hood up on my coat and trudge through the slush to the bus stop. We’ll wait in line again to eat our supper at the Sixth Street Community Kitchen. I’m so hungry and cold and tired even canned green beans with their weird squeak and that gray goopy gravy sound good right about now. I feel snow sting my cheeks and tears sting my eyes.

  I look around for that old woman and her little dog, Baby. I sure could use a dose of dog medicine right about now.

  Then something catches my attention: It’s a flyer stapled to a pole. At the top of the flyer it says in big letters “Firefly Girls Troop 423 Meets Tonight!” I stop and look at the smiling girls on the flyer. I don’t bother reading what it says, I just look at those big smiles, shining eyes, and familiar electric-blue-and-yellow uniforms. I loved being a Firefly Girl. I loved the songs and crafts and field trips. I loved earning pins and badges. And I was the best, top-earning gourmet brownie seller in our troop back home in Cyprus Point. But most of all, I loved the friends I made, being part of something.

  The bus pulls up, splashing cold, dirty water on my jeans. I turn away from Firefly Troop 423 and climb onto the bus.

  Daddy settles into a seat, holding Dylan. He doesn’t look at me or Mama, but I can see the muscle in his jaw working. Mama’s always said Daddy may be a man of few words, but his face and hands speak volumes. When Daddy’s jaw muscles work like that, it means he’s worried and frustrated.

  I slide into an empty seat a couple of rows back. Mama plops down next to me with a sigh. “What a day,” she says.

  I’m too tired to say anything. The Firefly Girls motto is “Let Your Light Shine.” I don’t feel very shiny right now.

  Mama looks down at my wet, dirty shoes. I look down at hers. They’re not in much better shape.

  She shakes her head and brushes the hair away from my face. “It never crossed my mind we’d need different shoes.”

  “Me neither,” I say. “I never knew snow would be so wet.”

  “Or cold,” Mama adds. The corner of her mouth twitches.

  “Or white!” I giggle.

  “And fall straight from the sky!” Mama crows.

  Don’t ask me why, but me and Mama both
start laughing so hard, we can’t stop.

  “Who knew!” I gasp between giggles.

  Mama makes her eyes big and round. “Who knew?”

  Daddy looks at us like we’ve completely lost our minds. We probably have. He shakes his head and turns around.

  Mama wipes tears off her cheeks and leans her head on my shoulder. “Oh, Piper,” she says, “what in the world would I do without you?”

  She takes my hand and squeezes it three times for “I love you.” I squeeze back twice: “How much?” In answer, she squeezes my hand so hard I know I’ll feel that squeeze even when I’m asleep.

  12

  Jewel

  Jewel sleeps a fitful sleep on a thin blanket on top of even thinner cardboard in the doorway of a bathroom in the park where she and Baby live. In her dreams she is lost in a long hallway lined with doors, all locked. She once had a key. Where is the key? Where did she leave the key? Panic floods every inch of her body until she feels Baby’s heart beating against her chest.

  A car door slams. Voices drift through the cold morning air. Baby worms and wriggles out of her coat, stands on Jewel’s chest, thrusts his unaccountably tall ears forward.

  Jewel watches him for clues. How keen his ears, how clever his nose. Baby wags his little tail tentatively at first, then a full-bodied wag of joy. “Friends?” Jewel asks, pushing the blanket aside, standing slowly. And then she sees them coming across the parking lot. The last of the morning snow glitters all around them, halos of diamond dust.

  “Angels,” Jewel whispers.

  Behind them, they pull wagons. “Who needs food?” one calls. “Who needs blankets?” someone else asks.

  Jewel squints. She is quite sure she can see wings folded, barely concealed under their coats.

  Like shadows, from under the sheltering arms of trees, picnic tables, bathroom doorways, a dumpster. The people of the park come.

  Ree and Ajax.

  Judy, Trooper, and Doc.

  Tony and Rudy.

  Linda and Duke.

  Tommy and Buzz.

  Jerry and Lucky.

  “Our family, Baby,” Jewel says. She kisses the white snowflake on the top of his head.

  The angels bless each and every one with thick blankets, sheets of plastic, hats and gloves, sandwiches, oranges, apples, bananas, leashes, collars, dog food, cat food, dog jackets.

  “Thank you kindly.”

  “Bless you.”

  “Bless you.”

  Jewel pulls a hat onto her head and down over her ears. She closes her eyes and smiles. “Warm,” she whispers. “Like God’s love.”

  The man with the barely concealed wings paws through the piles in his wagon.

  “Try these,” he says, holding out a pair of gloves.

  Gently, Jewel puts Baby down and pulls on the gloves. “Divine,” she sighs. Baby sniffs Jewel’s hands and sneezes.

  The man laughs and scratches the top of Baby’s head.

  “Where Baby and I come from, we only needed gloves for church on Sundays.”

  “Where did you and Baby live?”

  Jewel starts to say the name of a place filled with warmth and music and yellow, but it’s gone. The door won’t open.

  She’s lost the key.

  She frowns. She plucks at her hair. She picks up Baby and clutches him to her heart. “I can’t remember.”

  Baby smells her confusion.

  “Why can’t I remember?”

  The angel touches her shoulder, bringing her back.

  She blinks. Her heart slows.

  “God bless you,” she says.

  She watches as the angels pull their empty wagons back across the park toward the parking lot, leaving narrow straight lines in the white snow, their wings barely concealed.

  13

  No Dogs Allowed

  Baby stands next to Jewel waiting

  in a line of sounds and smells.

  Baby hears the shhh shhh

  of restless feet

  on concrete.

  He smells

  sharp black coffee

  sweet yellow butter

  earthy brown potatoes

  salty white cheese

  riding on warm waves of scent

  from the inside

  to the outside

  where the line of restless feet

  and cold hands

  and empty stomachs

  wait.

  Oh, but he is hungry,

  that Baby is!

  All day as the sun crossed the sky,

  Jewel slept.

  She did not eat the bit of food

  Ree and Ajax brought them.

  She did not answer when Ree asked,

  What can I do to help?

  Baby knows what will help.

  Food.

  His feet tap-dance.

  His tail wags.

  His body wiggles.

  His pink tongue licks

  his black lips.

  Oh, how glorious it will be

  to eat! He yips.

  Jewel bends down with a groan and picks the little

  dog

  up

  and holds him close.

  Baby hears her breath rattle like the plastic they slept

  under

  the night before,

  wrapped up tight together.

  Baby hears footsteps behind them.

  A newish smell,

  a getting-to-know-you smell.

  Baby peers over Jewel’s shoulder and sees

  the girl, that girl

  he has seen and smelled before

  in this same line.

  He likes the smell of her,

  the way she looks directly into his eyes

  likes she’s hugging him.

  “Hi,” the girl says in a soft voice.

  Baby lays back his ears in welcome,

  ears that say, “Hey, I like you too.”

  Beneath Jewel’s coat, he wags his body.

  The girl reaches out one finger.

  Baby stretches out his neck to

  touch nose tip

  to fingertip.

  Jewel moves forward

  away from the girl.

  Close, so close, almost inside

  the smell of food!

  “Morning, Jewel,” a deep voice says.

  “You going to leave your dog outside

  so you can come inside today?”

  Baby feels Jewel shudder.

  He hears her say, “Please, Rick, you know I can’t.”

  Baby wiggles against the waves of heat

  coming from Jewel’s skin.

  “You don’t sound too good, Jewel,” the man says.

  “Go on over to the emergency shelter

  and get out of this cold.”

  Baby smells fear and desperation on Jewel’s breath as

  she says,

  “I’d have to give up Baby to stay there, Rick.”

  She clutches Baby so close, his heart beats in panic.

  “Baby’s all I have. He’s my family.”

  Baby feels that dark thing settle on Jewel’s heart.

  Baby whimpers, licks her chin.

  He cannot let her go to that dark place.

  He must keep her from that dark place.

  He nips the bottom of her ear like he used to when

  he was just a pup and she’d laugh and say,

  “Oh, Baby, you are such a little pistol,” and then

  everything

  would be fine.

  Instead,

  Jewel bows her head against the cold, stinging rain

  that has just begun,

  against the faces turned away from them as they walk

  past,

  all except one face,

  the face of the girl.

  14

  Stormy Waters

  I wish I could say I was so angry, so sad that that woman and Baby got turned away again in the cold and freezing rain, that I couldn’t eat a bite of supper. Bu
t I did. Before I even knew it, I’d eaten every speck of spaghetti off my plate. The garlic bread was delectable. See, Mrs. Monroe? I’m still keeping up with my vocabulary, even though I haven’t been to school in months. I can’t believe how much I miss school, especially learning new words. Mrs. Monroe always told us that words have power, something most kids don’t have much of. I want to learn as many words as I can.

  Now I’m lying (or is it laying?) here on my skinny cot half listening to Mama read Where the Wild Things Are to Dylan. That was the book in his special bag Miss Becky gave him when we first got here. I don’t know how Mama’s managed it, but she’s stretched out next to him reading all about Max and his adventures. Dylan listens with his eyes half closed, his thumb in his mouth, something he’s been doing lately.

  “The night Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind and another . . .”

  Pellets of ice tick against the high window. I think again about that woman saying she’d have to give up her little dog if she came to a shelter. Where are they now? How are they keeping warm? Does anybody care?

  We may not have much in this tiny room with two cots and one small window on the world. And, of course, Daddy’s not with us. But at least we’re warm and dry and safe.

  And together. Kind of.

  That’s all the woman wants too.

  Mama’s voice stops. I look over. Both she and Dylan are fast asleep, the book resting on Mama’s chest.

  I slide my backpack from under the cot. I unzip it as quietly as I can. When we had to leave Cyprus Point, Mama said all we could take were our favorite clothes—those went in one of the big suitcases—and a few things that mean the most and could fit in our backpacks. Dylan, of course, filled his little backpack with plastic superheroes and his favorite Plush Pocket Pets. She said once we got settled somewhere new, we’d get everything we needed and more. So far, that hasn’t happened.

  I feel my way to the bottom of my pack, past my shell identification guide, my dog-eared copy of My Side of the Mountain, a Band-Aid box with saved-up allowance money ($22.60), an envelope with photos of my grandma Bess (before she died) and my best friends, and past my little stuffed dog, Beans, until my fingers touch a rolled-up piece of cloth. Gently, I slide it out. My Firefly Girls sash.

  I unroll the sash. The electric-blue background and yellow and white dots looks like the Milky Way.