Baby took Uncle Asis out of his milk carton. She unwrapped the newspaper from around his fur head and took off the Kleenex covering his face. His brownie eyes peeped at her. She touched his wood nose.

A roach long dead was trapped in the newspaper around his feet. She wrapped it inside a scrap and folded the rest of the paper into a boat to hold its dried-out body. She put the boat on the windowsill.

It took her a while, but she pulled the stuffed chair from the other end of the room up to the window. She climbed up and found the hole in the screen with the tips of her fingers. Then she made a top for the boat with a cotton puff and wrapped a rubber band around it. “Jesus take you softly,” she said as she put it through the screen.

She inspected Uncle Asis’s backside. It was still torn. She thought for a moment. It was probably better to move the chair back against the door. Quiet as she could, she pushed a little every so often. In the meantime, she put one leg up on the bed and pulled the string between her legs. Out came the baggie she’d put up there that morning. Inside was a needle wrapped in a chewing-gum foil and a spool of thread she’d lifted from a 7-Eleven. She took some nail-polish remover from the dresser, and another cotton ball, and cleaned the bag before taking the items out. She put it in the bottom drawer, inside a beret.

She listened. It was quiet in the house. Earphone wasn’t home. He was in jail. She thought it a good time and a bad time for this chancy behavior of hers. On the one hand, he wouldn’t come pushing through here and do something. On the other hand, all girls were free without Earphone on them. That meant Goodie. Goodie was satanic. She had already done some things to Baby. One was setting her clothes on fire. Another was peeing on her bed.

Earphone didn’t let any of them have a purse. He checked into all their wastebaskets. Time to time, he emptied drawers. He snuck under their beds, between the mattress and the bottom part. He once cut up a girl’s pillow. He said they were thieves and would hide a nickel. No one had a closet. Cheats, all of you, he said.

She held the needle up to the light. She put the misty strand close to the eye of the needle and guided it through.

She placed him on his side. She slid the needle into the frayed fabric; it came right out. There was a sound downstairs. The stairs were loud, and here came the bang, and the knock on her door.

“Babee,” whined Tulip.

“Babee Waybee,” cried Goodie.

“Titty face, open the door!” Giggles came through.

She sat there.