The Prince (Masterpiece Duet 0.5)

I pretend to think about it. “One thousand one hundred and sixty-one.”

“That’s right, Penny. And what about…” Now he’s the one pretending to think. “What’s sixty-nine times four hundred and twenty-eight?” After a moment he adds, “Point two.”

I don’t want to know the answer. I try to forget, but the number 29545.8 hovers in my mind. It’s like he asked me my own name. I can’t forget it if I try. “Can you say it again?”

He repeats himself, slow and patient.

I bite my lip, trying to look worried. “We haven’t done points yet.”

“Without it, then.”

I worry the hem of my dress between my fingers, wondering where Mrs. Keller is. Why doesn’t she come and help me? I know the answer. She sent him here. That’s how he knew I liked numbers. This is who she was waiting for all morning. I was afraid of a group of small boys, when instead I only needed to worry about one big one.

“Twenty-nine thousand,” I say, before taking a breath. “Two hundred and twelve?”

My failure hangs in the air, as thick as the leftover rain. I don’t want to play it dumb completely. He would wonder why Mrs. Keller called him at all. It might get her in trouble. And worse than that, he might know I’m pretending.

“Or maybe twenty-nine hundred, five hundred…and forty-five.”

“Correct,” he says softly, but he isn’t impressed. Not now that I’ve gotten it wrong.

I don’t want to put red lipstick on. I don’t want to wear a new dress. I don’t want to be interesting to a man like this. He might want me for a different purpose than Lisa, but I’m safer if he doesn’t want me at all. “Do you want to try fractions?” I offer him. “We started those.”

“No, little girl. We’re done here.”

He turns and walks away, leaving me leaning against the red brick. Only when he’s gone do I take a breath, that sickly sweet air a familiar relief in my lungs. For the rest of the school day I have to keep reminding myself that I can breathe. I’m not underwater.

Even if it feels like that.

*

When the school bus screeches to a stop in the road, a cloud of dust rises into the air, turned golden by the waning sun. The Happy Hills Trailer Park is to the west of the city, nestled between Tanglewood’s slums and a ridge of wilderness on the other side. It gets dark here before anywhere else, in the shadows of either side.

My backpack feels heavy with the book Mrs. Keller gave me. Trigonometry Proofs, it says in large block letters. The cover is wrinkled and torn, the inside pages marked up with pencil. I don’t know where she got it from, but she said it’s mine now.

I want to go home and look inside, but there’s a hurt inside that stops me. I don’t think it’s only hunger. Guilt. That’s what I’ve been feeling all day, the hundred-dollar bill I stole burning hotter in my pocket with every minute of the day.

What I should do is return the whole thing, but it’s already Friday. The school gives me breakfast and lunch with my number, but that leaves me awful hungry on the weekend.

The bus lurches forward, leaving me in the middle of the road. Dust settles back around me, a thin layer sticking to the sweat on my skin.

Instead of taking the path into the park I follow the road to the end.

Thick burglary bars cover the windows of the Tanglewood General Store. Colorful lottery posters and cigarette ads peek through the black iron. A bell rings above me when I open the door.

Mr. Romero stands up and comes around the counter, leaving his baseball game playing on the small TV on the counter.

“Penny,” he says, his voice scratchy. Nothing like the smooth voice of the stranger at school.

“Hello,” I say without meeting his eyes.

If Daddy comes back with money I can get candy sometimes. Kit Kats are my favorite because I can eat one and save the rest for later.

Instead I head down the pantry aisle, where the noodles and peanut butter are.

I don’t know if Mr. Romero thinks I’m going to steal something, but I’ve only done that a few times. He follows me down the row, staying too close for comfort. I pick a few cans of soup—mushroom barley and turkey rice. When I have four cans my arms are full. I walk to the counter and set them down so I can take out the hundred-dollar bill.

The bushy eyebrows on Mr. Romero’s face go up. “Where’d you get that?”

I shrug, because he doesn’t really want to know. He doesn’t really care.

“Your daddy come back?”

“Not yet.”

A grunt. “He’s been gone a long time, this time around. What’s it been? A week now?”

Two weeks. “I don’t know.”

Mr. Romero runs a blackened rag across his forehead. “Runs off and leaves you behind. I know times have changed, but that doesn’t seem right. I don’t say anything to him usually, since he’s one of my best customers.”

Half the trailers in Happy Hills are empty. Some of them have squatters, but they don’t spend much at the store. I’m sure Daddy has bought most of the lottery tickets that get sold here. Every so often he wins a hundred dollars, but it’s never more than he spent.

There’s such a long pause that I think Mr. Romero isn’t going to sell me the soup. Then I would have to walk a long way into town to buy something else. Or most likely go hungry again.

“If your daddy doesn’t come back, you come see me. You know which trailer I’m in.”

There’s a lot I’ll do to survive—lie and steal. But I won’t ever step foot into Mr. Romero’s trailer. He looks at me like he’s calculating. Not numbers, though. Something else.

If I went inside I don’t think I’d ever leave. “Okay.”

He presses a button and the register pops open. Slowly he counts out change.

Ninety-eight fifty-two. That’s what I should get back.

He puts four twenty-dollar bills on the counter. A five. Two ones. Twenty-five cents.

It’s short, so I hold my ground until he adds the rest of the money. Finally I meet his eyes. His flash with dislike. I don’t like letting people see what I know, but it’s not worth losing money over.

Especially when the money isn’t mine.

He gives me a thin plastic bag, the handles stretching under the weight of the cans. I pass my trailer and head into the woods, the same way I went the night before. I have this idea for a deal. Or maybe it’s a plea. Whatever the word, I’m going to offer the cans and the money back to the boy. Then he’ll have what he started with, so maybe he won’t be so mad.

Maybe he’ll let me take one of the cans.

When I get to the lake there’s no one there. Nothing left of his backpack or the Styrofoam or his grown-up magazines. Only a few scuff marks by the water to show that anyone was ever there at all.





Chapter Three





The first time I cheat is by accident.