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“Mom, please”

“We need a plan,” Elsa said “Getting to California That was all we thought about Clearly it wasn’t enough We need information Someone here will be able to help us”

“They don’t look like they can help themselves,” Loreda said

“One night,” Elsa said She forced a thin sht”

Ant whined again “But it stinks”

“One night,” Loreda said, staring at Elsa “You promise?”

“I proht”

Elsa looked out at the sea of tents and saw a break in theed tent and a shack made of scrap wood She drove into the empty area and parked on a wide patch of dirt tufted eeds and grass

The nearest tent was about fifteen feet away In front of it was a collection of junk—buckets and boxes, a spindly wooden chair, and a rusted wood-burning stove with a bent pipe

Elsa parked the truck They got to work, set up their large tent, staked it in place, and laid the caht down on the dirt floor, and covered it with sheets and quilts

They unloaded only the supplies they would need for the night Their suitcases, the food (all of it would need to be guarded constantly in this place), and buckets both for carrying water and for sitting on Elsa built a small campfire in front of the tent and placed overturned buckets nearby as chairs

She couldn’t help thinking that they now looked no different from everyone else here She dropped a blob of lard into the Dutch oven, and when it started to pop, she added a precious chunk of haarlic, and a potato cut into cubes

Ignoring the buckets, Loreda and Ant sat cross-legged in the grassy dirt, playing cards

When Elsa looked at her daughter, she felt an abiding sadness creep in It was strange how you could stop seeing people ere right beside you, how ies stuck in your head Loreda was painfully thin, arms like matchsticks, knobby elbows and knees One sunburn after another had left her cheeks full of freckles and peeling skin

Loreda was thirteen; she should be filling out, not wasting away A neorry Or an old one, grown more vivid in the past hour