Lena Read Free Page B

narrowed her eyes at the girl, then went back to reading her book.
    â€œHow much money we got?”
    Dion didn’t even look up from her book. “About ninety-eight dollars.”
    When we left Chauncey, turned out Dion had seventy-two dollars stashed in this old yellow sock she had stuck way back in her drawer. That’s how smart she is—only eight and was already saving for some rainy day. All along, I’d been trying to save everything I could too. Some days, I’d go down to the Winn-Dixie and pack up groceries for people. After buying us knapsacks and some supplies, I had about thirty dollars left.
    I counted the bills from Larry. “Another forty here. You hungry?”
    â€œA little. We could eat the sandwiches he bought us.”
    â€œThat’s lunch food. Lunch food’s for lunch.”
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    â€œA person can eat a ham and egg sandwich for breakfast,” Dion said. “Why can’t they eat a ham and cheese sandwich?”
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    â€œIt’s got mayo and lettuce on it, that’s why. Mayo and lettuce ain’t for breakfast. Mess your day all up eating the wrong thing at the wrong time. Just ’cause we kind of in between homes now don’t mean we start acting like we don’t have home-training.”
    I got up off my knapsack and looked around the station. “I bet you there’s a town to this place with a little diner or something where we could get us some breakfast food.”
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    Dion tore her eyes away from her book and squinted up at me. She didn’t look scared like a lot of little kids. Just small and—I don’t know—like she trusted me.
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    â€œLet’s head over that way and get us a ride.” I pointed out toward the fields. “Seems more cars heading left than right so we should hitch left.”
    â€œThey going west,” Dion said, putting her knapsack on her shoulders and stuffing that book in her back pocket. She’s smarter than me about things like east and west. Numbers too. And she knows a lot of big words. If you’re reading a book and you come across a word you don’t know, she could probably tell you what it means, save you a trip to the dictionary. Lot of people’d be embarrassed if their kid sister was smarter than them but I figure me and Dion more of a team than other people. She fixes my words and numbers and I save her from our daddy. I keep it so she can read in peace and not be scared to go to sleep at night.
    â€œWhat you reading anyway?”
    â€œJust some poems.”
    â€œThey rhyme?”
    Dion shook her head. “I don’t like the rhyming kind anymore. Those are for babies.”
    â€œYou gonna read me one later?”
    â€œIf you want me to, I guess.” She slipped her little skinny arm around my waist and we started walking.
    â€œIt’s gonna get cold again soon,” she said, looking up at the sky. “It’s too warm for December.”
    â€œI know.” But I didn’t want to think about it. It was December but for some reason it was warm again, like spring some days. At night it got real cold but in the daytime, I swear the temperature would climb to sixty degrees. I swallowed, remembering Chauncey, how right before it snowed there had been this Indian summer and me and Marie had walked around with our coats hanging from our heads. Besides our rain jackets, me and Dion only had flannel shirts and heavy sweaters now. It had been so warm when we left Chauncey, we left our coats behind because we didn’t want to look suspicious. Every day I held my breath, hoping this wouldn’t be the day it got real cold out.
    â€œThey call it the greenhouse effect,” Dion was saying. “It’s ’cause of chemicals or something.”
    â€œWhat’s ’cause of chemicals?”
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    â€œThe warm, ” Dion said, sounding annoyed. “I bet you every year it’s going to get hotter and hotter and soon the