I wondered if a neighbor brought chickens for us to eat. Maybe. I had to run to catch the tinfoil because wind was getting inside it and pushing it away. I grabbed it up and went back to the kitchen. There was a rabbit casserole from Shar’s aunt in the fridge, and a container full of something orangey brown with Mrs. Murtry’s name written on a piece of tape. A chicken, too. Just one though. All roasted up brown. But it looked weird and kind of sad because the drumsticks were already gone.

—

When I woke up again I was under the table with Chicken. I could see lines on Gloria’s legs. They were blue and red branches. Her feet were inside pink slippers with a pompom on the top.

Gloria smacked her hand on the table just above my head. It was loud and I jumped. She bent down and frowned at me. “Get out right now! How long have you been under there?”

“Just a little bit,” I said.

“And what’s that?” She reached down and grabbed the tinfoil. “Where did this come from?”

“The backyard.”

“With all we’ve got going on, people just let their trash go?” She crumpled it into a ball and threw it in the sink. “First thing Telly’s going to do when he gets back is put up a fence. I don’t care if nobody got one. I won’t have garbage blowing all over.”

I nodded.

“Now, you need to get out from under there and call him.”

I got out quick. When I stood up, my head and arms filled with fuzz. I held onto the edge of a chair. “Telly?” I said.

“Of course, Telly. You know, that man who was supposed to stay here last night? And decided he was just too tired to be with his family?”

I swallowed fast. Gloria told me the numbers and I turned the dial careful. It rang and rang and then a lady answered. I looked at Gloria.

“Ask for Telly,” she said. Her face was angry.

“Um. Is Telly there?”

“You’re not calling the queen,” Gloria said loud. She picked up a spoon and waved it at me. There was jam on the end of it. “Just tell her to put him on.”

“She says he’s not home, Gloria.”

“Home? Thinks that’s his home, now, does she? Well you tell her to tell him, he got to be at the police station for ten sharp.”

“Um. Gloria says Telly got to go to the police for ten sharp.”

“And that he’ll be bringing us back here. To our home. His real home.”

“And he’ll, um, he’ll—”

“Be driving us back, I said.”

“Be bringing us back.”

“And that we don’t need to be taking the bus both ways.”

“And that we don’t—” I stopped talking and chewed at my lip.

“What?”