I tap your card.

LUGGING THE BAGS home is hard work. It’s heavy, especially the milk and bleach. I have to keep stopping to swap the bags around. If I carry them with my hands the handles dig into my fingers and the bags bang against my legs. If I hook them in my elbows they make my arms ache and my fingers tingle. The toast feels like hours ago.

I’m a sweaty mess by the time I get to the front gate.

A movement next door catches my eye.

Lettie.

“Shouldn’t you be at school?”

I’m hot and pissed off and hungry and I want to get inside and make myself a sandwich. With fresh tomato and ham that I don’t have to give a sniff test. Who does she think she is? The cops?

I give her a look. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

She lobs the look right back. “Does your mother know you’re wagging school?”

Fuck you. I yell it in my head. Not brave or silly enough to say the words out loud. A muscle in my jaw twitches. She has no right to lecture me about anything. I glare at her. “Does the council know you live in a dump?”

She stares back. “You’re one rude kid.”

I huff the bags through the gate and stomp up onto the porch, not looking at her. I swing my arm up and shove the key in the lock, banging the bags against the door. The bottom of one gives out, the one with the eggs. I close my eyes. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight—

“This what kids do when they wag these days, huh? The shopping.”

She’s leaning over the side fence now.

I give her a dirty look. In my mind I’m throwing the eggs at her.

She smiles. She’s different when she smiles. Nice. An acid prick stings the back of my eyes. I blink, trying to maintain the glare.

A warm, wet, treacherous thing slides down my nose. I lean down, angling my face away and furiously shoving the stuff from the broken bag into the others.

“Hey—” Her voice is kind.

I leave the cracked eggs on the mat and drag the bags through the door. She’s still saying something and I don’t want to hear it.

I kick the door shut behind me.

DAY 34

FRIDAY