“Welcome to the real world, Allie. Safe is not a guarantee.”
They sat for a long time, Allie twisting her body slightly to get more upwind of the smoke. She hated breathing anybody’s smoke.
“So,” Allie said, continuing to nurse that liquid fear. “That offer to go with you still hold?” She was half kidding. Or maybe one-quarter kidding.
“Yeah. Absolutely. I’ll probably go tonight or tomorrow. Just in case she found out I talked to the cops, too.”
“I’m not sure it has to be anything so radical as running away,” Allie said. She was lying on her back on Jasmine’s roommate’s bed—after a dinner that Allie had not so much as nibbled—waiting to see if Brick was coming back. And thinking about her mother. Picturing her face. Wishing they were home together. “I could ask them to put me in a different home.”
“They don’t usually have openings. You were lucky to hit an opening here.”
“This is lucky? Where would I have gone if I was unlucky?”
“Probably that big juvenile detention place downtown. You think this place is bad? You don’t want to go there. That place is hell compared to this.”
“Oh,” Allie said.
Then she let a long silence fall for lack of anything helpful—or even coherent—to say.
“I just couldn’t stand her taking my stuff,” Allie said. Probably a good hour of silence later. “About a week ago I had all this stuff. I never even thought about it. I just sort of took it for granted. I’d always had enough stuff. You know. Everything you need and most of what you want to be happy. Then the social worker showed up and made me leave most of it behind. What I had to leave behind . . . it feels like me. I’m not even sure who I am without it. I always swore I wouldn’t be one of those people who’s all about their stuff. But now I just have these two bags’ worth. Then Brick starts going through it and taking the best of it for herself. And she wasn’t going to stop. You know that as well as I do. She would have taken everything I had if I hadn’t stood up to her. I mean, really.” She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at Jasmine, who looked back. Right into each other’s eyes. “What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know, Allie. I really don’t. That’s a tough one. I figure the minute you got thrown into a room with her, your life was more or less over.”
Jasmine’s roommate showed up about an hour later. A plump, round-faced girl with big hair and a knowing face. She looked at Allie trespassing on her bed and said nothing for a time. Just hung in the doorway as if trying to figure out where things would go from there.
“Hey,” Jasmine said to her. “Is there anything . . . and I mean anything . . . I could say or do to convince you to room with Brick just for a little while? I mean, if she even comes back. If she doesn’t, you get your own room.”
“Nothing. Nuh uh. No way. Not one single thing. Up to and including ‘That hard thing I’m holding to the back of your head is a loaded gun. Very high caliber.’ Nope, not doing that. Sorry your new friend here is gonna die. We’re not wishing it on you, girl.” She said that last sentence in Allie’s direction.
“Hmm,” Jasmine said.
Allie took heart at that simple sound. Maybe Jasmine had another idea up her sleeve. Maybe she really was serious about offering Allie some kind of protection. Or assistance, at least. Or, failing that, friendship. Someone who was on her side.
“Anything I can do to convince you to slip downstairs after lights-out and sleep on the couch?” Jasmine asked her roommate.
The girl—Bella might have been her name, but Allie didn’t trust her memory—mulled that over for a few seconds. She seemed to be chewing on the idea, almost literally.
“Yeah, okay. I guess that much wouldn’t kill me.” She looked over her shoulder at Allie before walking away. “Good luck,” she said.
Allie waited, wincing slightly, sure the girl would add some comment about how much luck Allie would need.
She never did.
Then again, she didn’t need to. It was a thing that went without saying.
Half an hour before lights-out The Elf came knocking on Jasmine’s bedroom door. Then, immediately after knocking, she tried to let herself in. It didn’t work. Jasmine had wedged the back of a wooden chair underneath the knob.
“Jasmine? Bella? How is this door locked? Did you put a lock on this door? That’s strictly against the rules.”
“No, ma’am,” Jasmine called. “No lock. There’s just something up against the door.”
“Do you know where Alberta is?”
Jasmine looked at Allie, an obvious question in her eyes.
So this is how the new life goes, Allie thought. This is how seriously these girls take the concept of not telling on someone. Jasmine was not going to answer the question without Allie’s permission. There was a whole set of rules, a complex code. And everybody in the world apparently knew it except Allie.
“I’m here,” Allie said.
“Okay. I see. Well . . . I’m going to get Lisa and bring her back. I can understand your being a little nervous, but rest assured—I’ll have a talk with her on the way home and make it clear I won’t tolerate any kind of revenge.”
“Um . . . ,” Allie said. Then she didn’t know where to go from there.
Jasmine rolled her eyes at Allie and Allie rolled hers in return. It felt good to make light of something for a change.
“You can spend one night outside your room if you really feel it’s necessary, Alberta, but tomorrow morning we’re going to sit down and talk, the three of us, and settle this once and for all.”
“Okay,” Allie said. “Thank you.”
Tiny elf footsteps disappeared down the hall.
“Oh, she’s going to talk to her,” Jasmine said, stressing the absurdity of the word. “That should turn her into a normal person again. You’ve got nothing to worry about anymore.”
“Yeah,” Allie said. “I feel so much better now. What’s with that lady, anyway? Does she not get how awful Brick is? Or does she just sort of figure we deserve her?”
“I don’t think she knows. Brick’s quite the actress. And besides, the only person who ever thought it was a good idea to tell on her was you.”
Less than an hour later they heard the front door of the house open and close. Allie lay awake in the dark, her eyes open wide. She couldn’t see Jasmine well in the dim light, but she found it hard to imagine her friend was asleep.
“You awake?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
Allie waited, desperately trying to breathe, her panic lodged in her chest. Not like an obstacle she couldn’t breathe around. More like a paralyzing agent that prevented her diaphragm from functioning, creating even more panic.
She heard Brick’s footsteps fall along the hall. Past the barricaded bedroom door. She waited for that moment when Brick opened the door to her—and Allie’s—room and saw that Allie was gone.
Nothing happened.
The door opened. Then it closed.