We were way farther down on Moreland than I usually went. Once or twice a year, when Dad suddenly had what he called “a hankering for a real taco,” he’d drive us this way and order dinner in fumbling Spanish from a bright orange shack. But we hadn’t done that in a long time, and anyway, I hadn’t known there was a grocery store this way. We were miles from the Publix or the Kroger.

As I followed Jasper across the sea of dingy parking lot, she explained the plan. “Okay,” she said. “So the deal is that I try to get things at the Dollar Tree. If they don’t have what I need, we can try the Family Dollar, but those are more expensive, and we have to walk a ways.”

“Makes sense,” I said. I hated to admit that the dollar stores were all the same to me. That I’d never set foot in any of them, even though they were only a few miles from the house where I’d spent my entire life.

As it turned out, they had everything on Jasper’s little list at the Dollar Tree. Peanut butter and granola bars and crackers and applesauce and roach powder and canned vegetable soup and SpaghettiOs and corn and bottles of apple juice and chili and sour gummy worms.

“Your mom sent you to the store to get gummy worms?” I asked, trying not to notice the roach powder.

Jasper laughed. “When you do the shopping, you wield a certain amount of power over your grocery list.”

“Good point,” I said. “We never buy candy. Maybe I should see if I can help out a little more with the shopping myself.”

“Like you helped with the vacuum and the shampoo that time?” asked Jasper, raising her eyebrows.

“Ha. Fair point,” I said.

As I strolled around the store, I was amazed at what they had there. Fourth of July decorations that lit up and silk flower wreathes for the door and shoes for kids and the big shiny helium balloons my parents had always said were a waste of money. But everything was somehow only a dollar.

“Why do people pay more at other stores if this stuff is all so cheap?” I said, fingering a packet of really cute penguin stickers and wishing I had money to spend.

“You tell me!” said Jasper.

At the checkout, Jasper magically produced two cloth tote bags from her pocket and loaded all her stuff in. Then she handed me one of the full bags and headed straight next door into a giant secondhand shop that looked like it had once been a big grocery store. It was hard to keep up with her. All those cans really weighed down my bag.

“What do you need here?” I asked, as I stepped inside and nearly bumped into a naked mannequin with no head.