She nodded, squeezed my knee as though I was the one in need of comforting. “I know. Went to a foster home in Columbus, Georgia. Strict Protestant family with more rules than they’ve got in North Korea. The father was an accountant for a few of the fast-food places in town. Had a bald head that gleamed like he polished it or something. The wife was a court clerk. Or maybe she worked for the DMV, I can’t remember. I just remember she had these really big jelly arms that jiggled when she waved her hands. These girly charm bracelets that jingled all the time.”

Malia’s eyes zoned out as she gazed into the past. “I used to get in trouble for my night terrors. For screaming in panic from the sound of a cabinet closing at night, certain some maniac was breaking in.

“There were five of us total. Me, the youngest. So the other kids used me as a scapegoat for all the shit they weren’t supposed to do. A spill on the carpet – I did it. Someone raided the pantry – it was me. Door left unlocked so that one of them could sneak out – you’re looking at her. They’d hide their stash in my drawers – molly capsules and acid strips and pot brownies. Talk about a gateway drug. Chocolate that gets you stoned, mmmm. The oldest was a girl named Danny who was like thirteen but could pass for sixteen, easy. Filched our house mom’s stodgy makeup – the maroon lipstick, beige concealer, the cherry blush – and turned herself into a pinup girl. Get this, she used to put sugar sprinkles on the corners of her eyes to look like a pixie. Would coat her lips with Pop Rocks and have boys lick them off. I loved her; she was super twisted. If our mom noticed anything missing, though.… You guessed it, all me!”

Good story, but I was starting to get fidgety. This felt like a stall. “Oh man, Pop Rocks,” I deadpanned, taking a closer look at the room with its two doors. The one we’d entered and the one on the other side that I was expecting to crash open any minute now – that acid-spitting homunculus thing to storm through.