“Come sit and I’ll show you, long as the battery holds a charge.” Cinnamon pats the blue milk crate beside her. Pulling a lock of hair up, she clips the ends, layering the sides, letting it hang over the ears. “Let’s make you look like a badass in a Mad Max movie.”

Nervous, Anne tells her, “Surprise me.”

Standing before her, Cinnamon leans forward, holds a swatch of hair between two fingers. Starts on the left side, pulling it long, thumbs the clippers. They start buzzing, and the vibration feels pleasant against her head. Locks fall to her shoulders and the ground. Going up about midway, fading it right on down to the pale skin beneath, leaving the longer lengths on top. Then she goes to the opposite side and repeats the same method.

Blowing and brushing away the clipped hair. Clicking off the trimmers, Cinnamon lays them on the ground, goes to get something from her backpack, comes back. She then takes the length on top of Anne’s head, pulls it over to her right side, and begins braiding. She has taken from her pack colorful friendship bracelets of various lengths, which she braids into Anne’s hair.

With this radical change of do comes a feeling of elation, electricity flowing and surging through Anne’s body. The way she is being pampered. Re-created by Cinnamon. Appreciation. An act of caring for her. Something she doesn’t remember feeling with her mother, father, or brothers and sisters. She is becoming a new person. Shedding her old skin. Cinnamon is changing Anne’s public proclamation of who she is.

Looking around, Cinnamon finds a cracked hand mirror, offers it to Anne.

“Take a look.”

Anne holds the reflection of herself in the mirror. Feels the welling tears of happiness. Thinking that two or three days ago she was in Tennessee, miserable, unaware of what she was doing or where she was headed. Constantly at odds with what she was born into. The years of fighting, mistreatment, and abuse. And here she is, immersed and accepted into a new family. A real family.

“Well?” Cinnamon asks.

“I don’t know what to say,” Anne says, eyes brimming with tears. “It looks badass.”

“So you like it?”

“I love it!” Anne says. “What’s next?”

“We need another day of panhandling. Gather some more money. Supplies. Then we can catch out down to Louisiana. Hook up down there and head out west. Warmer climate. More desolation. There’s other encampments I think you should see, more good people to meet. Canary and her little brother and sister wanna go.”

“Sounds good to me,” Anne says, ecstatic. “What about Trot?”

“What about him?”

“Can he go with?”

“Of course. But when I say we gotta go, we go.”

“I understand.”