I DON’T SLEEP well. For once the thoughts aren’t all about me, or you. I keep thinking about Lettie’s house. It’s bigger now, breathing, crouched next to ours like a great, hulking, maimed creature. I think about Lettie. Where does she sleep in there, in the belly of that sad thing where there’s barely room to stand? Not outside, right? She must go inside to sleep. How does she sleep in there with all that smell? It’s too cold to sleep outside in winter. I think of the room I found her in. Which part of it’s for sleeping? That lady’s going to come back on Wednesday and Lettie’s going to give her that paper that says she’s a nine. My left eyelid keeps twitching, flickering my lashes, letting the TV light into my closed eye. I fall asleep eventually. I know because I wake up with the inside lights dimming against the dawn and the solution in my head.

We’ll clean up before Cardigan comes back. We’ll just fix the problem. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just enough to show she can take care of it herself, just enough to make them go away.

THE MORNING LIGHT’S a sharp yellow, spiking between the buildings across the street as I knock on her door. She’s not on the porch so I guess she does sleep inside. It can’t be that bad, then. I shift my bucket of cleaning stuff to my other hand and knock again.

“Go away.” The voice is loud and mean.

I remind myself it’s just Lettie and keep knocking.

The door flies open, or it would have if there wasn’t so much stuff on the floor. In reality, it flies open about a face-width before it crashes into something soft and unmoving, which I’m guessing is the pile of newspapers I squeezed past to get out. Lettie’s face pokes through the gap.

“Oh. It’s you.” She peers at the bucket in my hand. “What do you want?”

“We’re going to clean your house. Then that busybody can just leave you alone.”

Lettie pinches at the bridge of her nose between her eyes and sighs. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“It’s six forty-five. School’s not for two hours.” I don’t bother to tell her I’ve already marked myself absent.

“Can’t clean this mess in two hours, kiddo.”

“We don’t have to do all of it.” She raises an eyebrow at me; I ignore her and continue. “Just some of it, to show you can take care of it yourself.”

She snorts. “And which bits do you propose we do, then?”

I’ve been thinking about this. “The hallway, kitchen and bathroom. The first thing she’ll see, where you need to eat and how you keep clean.”