Ree smiles her one-sided smile. She swings her pack to the ground like it’s as light as a feather, which, I know for a fact, it is not.

“Hey, yourself,” she says. Linda waves from behind Ree and says in a real shy voice, “Hi.”

“Is that a dog or a pony?” Fire asks, pointing at Duke.

A smile breaks across Linda’s face. “He’s a Great Dane and my best friend. His name is Duke.”

Fire shakes her head in wonder. “He better be a really good friend for all the food he probably eats. I bet he could eat two bags of dog chow a day!”

Ree laughs. “Our dogs don’t want for much,” she says with pride.

“Speaking of dogs,” she says, “what’s the word on Baby?”

We fill Ree and Linda in on what all we’ve found out about Baby and Jewel. Ree grabs on tight to each bit of information, keen as a hawk.

“I bet you’re right about where Jewel was going,” she says. “And because she ran out of her medication, she lost her way.”

Linda nods. “That happens to a lot of people living on the street.”

I wonder what Linda’s story is.

Karina, who’s been quiet since Ree showed up, finally says, “I think the two most important things right now are to let the doctors at the hospital know she needs these pills and to find out where her sister is.”

Ree smiles with admiration. “I do like a girl with a plan.”

“It’s her superpower,” I explain. “Planning, I mean.”

Ree laughs from deep down in her belly.

Karina looks at her watch. “It’s almost four, probably too late to go to the hospital now.”

“Maybe we can go right after school tomorrow,” I say.

Fire grins. “No school tomorrow, though. It’s a teacher workday.”

Hope rushes through my veins. “Perfect! We can go to the hospital tomorrow. We’ll take the pill bottles and postcards—and, oh, there’s photographs too.”

“How will we get there?” Karina asks.

“Bus,” Ree says. “I’ll go with you so you don’t get lost.”

Fire thrusts her chin up. “We’re Firefly Girls. We won’t get lost.”

“But,” Karina says, “they may not allow kids in to see patients without an adult. Hospitals have rules, you know.” Karina finds comfort in rules.

Linda nods. “Ree,” she says, “I’ll keep Ajax while you go with the girls, okay?”

“Thanks, Linda,” I say.

She smiles and tucks a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “Anything for Jewel.”

“And for Baby,” I say.

Daddy’s working late again tonight; Mama says, not for the first time, she’s about at her wit’s end.

“He acts like all I do is sit around all day and night reading trashy paperback novels and painting my toenails,” she says, shoving our newly cleaned clothes into drawers.