I’m good at navigating people, laying low, creeping under their radar, letting them see what they want. I know when to shut up, and that’s most of the time. I’ve found that it’s the way to pass most painlessly between place to place, even if it means they never know the real me. Even if it’s lonely because they don’t know that my favorite song is “Imagine,” because they don’t know my dreams about designing clothes and dressing like a rock star, or that I’ve already read almost all the books in Charlotte’s room, even Tale of Two Cities.

It doesn’t matter anyway. Does it?

Enough heavy thoughts, I think, stretching out on the damp hammock and opening the The Violin for Dummies. I’m not sure why Charlotte has it, because clearly she is more advanced than any of us Dummies. But it’s helpful anyway.

I get lost in my reading. Thank god for knowing how to read. I’d be dead without it.

“Shane,” Sandy calls, sticking her head outside the door, and . It is darker, the light less direct. I’ve been out here for at least an hour.

I walk inside, catching my reflection in the sliding glass door. My hair is messy and I’ve gotten so... lanky. It’s changing the way I walk. I slouch worse than ever. I’m glad I’m no longer with the Rodriguez family, because Angelica would be constantly nagging at me to stand up straight. I’ve started growing breasts, just a little, but somehow the older I get, the more I have the body of a skinny boy. That’s not supposed to happen, is it? I look away from my strange reflection.

Sandy is smiling at me, and nothing in her smile seems dangerous or scary. “Hey, there you are. Petra’s leaving and I thought you’d want to say goodbye.”

I look at Petra. Goodbye, I think. I don’t know what to say. “Thanks,” I blurt, and extend my hand.

Petra smiles, though she still looks tired, and with that smile she seems for a second to be beautiful. I think about her later that night, after Johnny and Jake come home, and we’re all eating dinner. I wonder what it would take so that Petra doesn’t look so tired, so weary. Maybe it’s us kids that make her like that. Maybe she’s seen too much of our crappy little worlds. It makes me sad. When Petra smiles, she’s beautiful.

The food is good, chicken cacciatore, but I feel so bad. The awkwardness, of sitting here eating with three strangers, is... uncomfortable. No, worse than uncomfortable... searing.

Jake is cute. He’s about six. He just stares at me, which doesn’t faze me much. Kids his age always stare at the new kid.

The dad, Johnny, is a tall guy with a baby face and horn-rimmed glasses. “So, Shane, how do you like our house?” he says, comfortably oblivious to my torture, chomping on his broccoli. I’m not sure if I like him. The verdict’s still out. It’s way too early to tell.

“Um, it’s really nice.” I drink a sip of my milk, not sure what to say. “You keep it up really well.”

He eyes me over his glasses for a second, and I panic for a minute. Did I say the wrong thing? My fifth grade teacher called that a faux pas, and I think I just made one. But then he smiles, and I relax because I realize that he’s just surprised. “Thank you,” he says.

“She’s gonna get along great with Charlotte, isn’t she?” Sandy asks, smiling at me. I smile back, just a little. I pray she’s right.

Prayer is pretty much all I got. What do I have in common with someone that beautiful?

“Charlotte’s a booger,” Jakey says, and I almost snork on my food. But like a cat, my reflexes are quick. They’ve had to be. I press my lips together and try not to laugh.

“Jakey, why are you calling your sister a booger?” Mr. Greene calmly asks.

“I dunno.”

“It’s not very nice,” Sandy says.

Jakey shrugs, and that is that. Ok, score one point for the Greenes. They’re minimalists in the parental discipline department.

“What grade are you gonna be in?” Jake asks me.

“Seventh.”

“My sister’s gonna be in seventh too.”

I’m glad my full mouth prevents me from speaking too much. “Cool,” I say. Great. If she hates me, school will be as hellish as home.

“Do you like to read, Shane? I saw you were reading earlier.”

I nod. Normally I tell them what they want to hear, but in this case it’s true.

“There’s a great library near here. Charlotte rides her bike there.”

“Yeah?” That’s cool. Hopefully she didn’t take her bike with her. Someplace for me to escape.

“Yeah, we can swing by there tomorrow and get you a library card if you want.”

“Yeah. Um, thanks.”

.

I open my eyes, surprised at how much the light has shifted. I sniffle and sit up. The clock says eleven o’ three. That’s really late for me, especially for the first day in a new place. It might have something to do with the fact that I couldn’t fall asleep until four.

The house is unusually quiet. I change from my ratty nightgown (actually one of Frankie’s dad’s old tee shirts) into shorts and a top. Where is everybody? I come downstairs, careful to walk quietly, and look in the kitchen. No Sandy. The car is there. I look into the back yard and I find her in the small garden in the corner, kneeling down. Her hair is up in a knot and as I watch, she wipes her forehead with the back of her hand.

Dora darts from the living room toward me, making three rapid little meows. I reach down to pet her. She’s fluffy like a big marshmallow. She winds around my ankles, purring. I think I used to have a cat. Way back when, my dad and I, and I think, a yellow cat. But I’m not sure.

“Hey pussycat. You’re a nice kitty. Yeah.” Dora tilts her head eagerly into my hand, and I reward her with a scritch to the ears. Nice. Nice to be liked. She purrs so loudly. What was that cat’s name? Morris? Sunshine? I don’t remember. The top of Dora’s head is silky and it feels good under my fingers.

“You want out, puss? I’ll let you out.” I open the door and Dora streaks out into the grass. I step outside and shut the door behind me. A second later, Sandy looks up from her gardening. “Good morning, Shane,” she calls, and I wave.

I see that Jake is out there too, sitting in the garden, all but hidden by tomato plants.

“Hi Shane. Come play with me!”

“Okay.”

I approach them. Sandy is apparently weeding, because there is a big bucket filled with plants, soil still clumped in their roots. Sad for them, but the rest of the garden looks great. I see tall tomato plants in a row, and some other plants I really can’t identify.

“Hey Kid. Did you sleep okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Shane. Shane!” Jakey is yelling, trying for my attention.

“Yeah?”

“This is the dirt road the Dukes of Hazzard live on. Here, you drive the General Lee.”

I take the little matchbox car with the confederate flag on the roof. “Okay, what are you gonna drive?”

He grins and pulls out his Tonka truck, which is about ten times the size of my little car.

“Hey, your vehicle is a little bigger.”

“Yep.”

“No fair.”

I watch, amused, as he loads the back of the truck full of dirt with his hands.

“Shane, do you like to garden?” Sandy says.

“I dunno, I never did before.”

“Charlotte won’t get near it. That’s her little flower garden area over there but she hasn’t touched it.” She points to a small space, about four feet by four, that is overgrown with weeds. Some tall plants with little blue flowers have grown up taller than the rest, and the flowers are pretty, but they look like they could be weeds.

“Shane, you drive over that way and you can be Daisy Dyke, since you’re a girl.”

I turn away from the blue flowers, and look at him. Why did he say that?

Sandy chuckles. “Jakey, it’s Daisy Duke. Not Dyke.”

“Well, what’s a dyke?”

“You don’t need to be saying that word, Jakey.”

I get up, walk toward Charlotte’s overgrown little patch of earth. I felt bad for the weeds, that they were pulled, but now I see that’s necessary. Behind the growth of weeds I see snapdragons and geraniums, barely growing.

I sit down and pick a plant that looks like a weed, and yank it. It breaks off at the leaves, leaving the roots still firmly in the ground.

Sandy comes over, hands me a funny tool, like a fork, but with two short prongs instead of four. “Use this, honey. You have to get them out by the root.” And she leans over me, smelling of some faint perfume, and tells me which plants are weeds, and which aren’t.

What determines if a plant is a weed or not? I want to ask but I’m not sure I want the answer. The whole idea makes me uncomfortable and I’m not sure why. Stupid. I feel a tinge of guilt as I sink the pronged tool into the earth, then wrench the plant from its roots. Crazy girl, I think, feeling sorry for a plant.

But I keep going, and when I’m done, I have a big bucket full of weeds. Sandy tells me I’ve done a good job and we water the flowers, using a special contraption that adds food to the water.

Then we hear a faint meowing from the side of the yard. “Mom, Dora’s up in the tree,” Jakey says.

“Jakey, I told you not to let her out. She’ll get hurt.”

“I didn’t let her out.”

“Oh,” I say, blood draining from my face. “Um, I didn’t know she wasn’t allowed out. I’m sorry.” My heart is pounding. If this was the Devlins’, they would go postal.

“It’s no big deal, Shane. You didn’t know.” Sandy stands up as if it makes her back hurt, and slips out of her gloves.

“I’ll get her.”

“You don’t have to. I’ll get the ladder.”

“No, really, I want to.” I walk to the far side of the yard. Dora is mewling pathetically. In no time I’m up the tree, clinging to the trunk.

“C’mere, girl. It’s okay. C’mon.”

Dora meows, then just stares at me. She is hunched into a tight shape. Scared.

“Com’ere, it’s okay.” I stretch my hand out as far as I can.

Dora comes to me, and I withdraw my hand. She comes closer, sniffing nosily. Her little pink nose feels cool on my fingers. And her whiskers. “You tickle, cat.”

I wrap a leg around the tree for balance and carefully reach for her with one arm. Sandy and Jakey are standing down below. Dora meows in protest.

“S’okay, puss. Good kitty.” I hold her tightly to my chest, pet her for a few seconds. She presses her front paws into my shoulder but there’s no claws. Suddenly I understand why she’s not allowed out.

She squirms and I hold her tight with one arm as I carefully begin climbing down. When I’m a few feet from the ground she meows and makes it clear that she’s really not happy. I learn that her front claws are gone, but her back ones are still in good working order. The claws hurt on my belly as she struggles.

“Shh,” I whisper, and hold her close as I drop the rest of the way to the ground.

“Sorry,” I say to Sandy, and I don’t let go of Dora until I’m inside.

.

By the end of the next day I decide I like Sandy Greene because she lets me be, but not in a negligent sort of way. She doesn’t ask a lot of questions. We go to the library and she reads a trashy novel while Jakey goes to the story hour. I check out three books, including The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which I’ve already read eighteen times.

It’s a ritual. I look it up first thing in every new school or home they put me in, and although I could have bought a copy with my slim life savings of $34.50, I haven’t. It would probably be stolen at the next stop anyway.

Besides, it means more for me to track it down. It means I’m still connected to the world. That I’m not finished yet. That until they put me in a place where I can’t get The Witch, I’m still okay.

The day after that we go to the mall and she buys me some clothes for back to school, which is in a month and a half. There is a pair of black pleather pants in K-Mart that has me drooling. They would look so cool.

When I’m older I’m gonna dress however I want, and not worry how foster families think of me. I won’t need to. Because I’m gonna have a great job and I’ll be able to buy whatever I want.

Maybe she would buy me the pants, and maybe she would like my rock star look. The pants have square metal studs down the sides. So cool. Maybe... But right now I tear my gaze away from the pants, and all the cool clothes I’d love to buy.

She takes me along when she gets her nails done, and the whole time I sit in the waiting room and read magazines. I love looking at magazines, looking at pictures of pretty models like Christy Turlington and Cindy Crawford. I could never be a model, but I am skinny enough. They have to walk a certain way on the catwalk, and with my nasty slouch, I could never do it.

I’m reading an interview with Azzedine Alaia, daydreaming about making my own clothing label, when the girl walks in. Half black, or Puerto Rican, I’m not sure what she is but I stare at her. She is there with her mother, who is the same mysterious mocha color.

The girl is wearing a very short white dress, sleeveless, simple cotton, and a moonstone pendant. Her hair is pulled back in a headband and from there it tumbles down her back in soft bushy curls. I can’t take my eyes off of her. She looks clean and crisp but exotic at the same time. Like she’d taste of citrus, just a hint of sweetness. Sixteen or maybe seventeen. She has a piercing in her eyebrow.

I hope that they’re there just for the mother, so she’ll stay perched opposite me in that chair, but I hear them tell the Vietnamese girls behind the counter that she wants a manicure too. Her nails are long and perfect, white tips. You don’t need a manicure, I think. You need to sit here and talk to me.

Before I can think of a way to talk to the girl, Sandy gets up and moves to the drying station, and the girl is called back to take her place.

I watch her walk. Long strong brown legs, a sway to her hips. I don’t know what I want from her. All I know is that I’m drawn to her.

.

Charlotte is coming home on Saturday. I’m dreading this, because the situation as it is now is livable. Jakey isn’t so bad, Johnny doesn’t feel me up, and Sandy seems cool.

I spend a lot of time reading and that’s what I’m doing on Thursday night when Sandy knocks on my door. Another thing I like about her. A lot of foster moms barge in like they own you, or worse.

“Come in.” I feel silly saying it, because this is their house.

Sandy hands the phone to me. I just look at her. ‘Who would be calling me? Rona, I think, and my heart jumps in my chest. No, that’s ridiculous.

“Charlie wants to talk to you,” Sandy says with a smile. Sharlie, she pronounces it.

Why? I’ve been dreading this girl all week, and now she is seeking me out? What does she want with me? Probably gonna tell me to stay away from her stuff.

I take the phone as if it might bite me.

“Hello?”