“So, you don’t have to look out for me, okay?”

I think about my leg, the way the councilwoman looked at me, the aches still in my body from hauling all that shit outside Lettie’s house. I pull one of the plants out of the ground and drop it on the path and squash its little roots under my foot.

Lettie sighs. “Look, kiddo, I’m not ungrateful for what you’ve done. What you tried to do. But look at this.” She waves at the house. “It isn’t normal, is it?”

I don’t answer.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not great with throwing things out.” I give her a half laugh for that one. “They reckon they can help sort it out. So I’ll see. I’ll just talk to them and see.”

I’m not delusional, I know they’re coming; you can’t score eights and nines and pretend there’s not a problem. But I’d thought maybe, just maybe, if the house wasn’t too bad, just a little bad and a little smelly, Lettie’d be able to convince them she could take care of it herself and they’d stay away.

Of course that was never going to work. I was foolish to think it. People don’t come through, that only happens in movies.

“ ’S’okay, Lettie. I’ve gotta go. I’ve got stuff to do.”

DAY 41

FRIDAY

I’M STILL ON the couch when I hear it, the beep-beep of a truck reversing and the boom of heavy metal landing in the street. I peer out your window. A scraped old container, once blue, possibly orange before that, now just a dirty, rusty bang of a skip, rests in front of Lettie’s. The truck it was dumped off is already halfway down the street.

The cleaners.

I didn’t think they’d be here this soon. I thought I’d have a week or so, a few days at the very least. I pull on my school gear and hurry to the kitchen. I grab mosquito coils from under the sink, the purple lighter from the drawer next to the stove and step out the back. My thumb keeps slipping off the lighter. By the time I manage to get each ring smoldering my fingers are aching. I place one on the table next to the door, one on the pavers and one in a mosquito-coil tin near your shed. The coils smoke and the heavy scent pushing into my sinuses makes my eye sockets ache. I breathe in through my nose, long and deep. It’s still there, underneath, sweetly sour, a sharp sinking rotten that catches at the back of the throat and forces my feet back. I light another coil and place it near the fence line. Splinter sneezes and shakes his head. I loop my fingers through his collar and step us both inside. He might bark and I don’t want anyone popping their face over the fence. I cut the tape and open the windows from the kitchen so I can drop incense sticks in jars on the outer ledge, half a packet in each. I light them and pull the windows mostly shut, hoping to keep the smell on the outside. Overkill? Maybe. It’ll give me a few hours, at best. What else can I do?