Runaway by Wendelin Van Draanen

sentences of phony French, shoving them through my nose as I spoke.
    â€œStop!” the cop snapped. “You don’t understand English?”
    â€œOui! Oui!”
I said, then spoke a bunch more phony French. And, in an effort to get away from her, I channeled my phony mother,
Louise,
as I curtsied and said,
“Au revoir!”
    It worked. The cop threw her hands in the air, made some grumbling sounds, and got back in her cruiser.
    Inside, I felt really good. Like both my mother and Louise were watching over me, helping me.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Crud. There I go again. I hate getting all weepy about my mom. Why isn’t she here with me? Why did she have to go and OD? I hate Eddie for getting her hooked, you hear me? I hate him, hate him, hate him! If he wasn’t dead already, I swear I’d kill him.
    Lousy good-for-nothing creep.
    But I really don’t want to talk about him or her. I was working up to telling you about this dog named Knobs, so that’s what I’m going to do.
    After I ditched that cop, I got off the main drag quick, thinking it would be smarter to follow a parallel, less patrolled road. That’s when I spotted Knobs coming out from between some buildings. All of a sudden it seemed like ages since I’d seen a dog. You know,
petted
a dog. So I started walking quicker and called, “Here, boy!” (I didn’t know his name yet.) I whistled and said it again. “Here, boy!”
    He glanced over his shoulder as he pranced along the sidewalk in front of me. So I said, “Hey, wait up, fella! What’s your name?”
    He walked a little faster but kept looking over his shoulder. Not like he was afraid of me. More like he had someplace to get to and sort of wanted me to come along.
    So I followed him. Up the street. Over. Up another street. Over. Up another street. Zigzag, zigzag we went until we got to a park. It was small and scroungy, with a lot of dead grass and scrawny trees and graffiti. But Knobs waited by the water fountain, tail wagging, obviously wanting me to push the button so he could jump up and get a drink.
    See? Dogs are smart.
    After we’d both lapped up about a gallon of water, I read his tag and started calling him his name and just ruffled and hugged and let him happy me up. He was so panty and waggy and sweet. I tossed a stick for him some, I shared my food with him. (I gave him the stuff that was getting pretty borderline from baking in my backpack in the sun.) Then I gave him another drink from the fountain and got a drink myself, but when I turned back around, he was gone.
    You probably already figured this out, but I was so busy following Knobs that I got totally lost. And when I started walking again, I
thought
I knew which way was west, but my west turned out to be north. And do you know where I am now?
    Beverly Hills!
    This area is like the
opposite
of where I’ve just come from, and something about that is so, so weird. How did it go from concrete, barbed-wire fences, graffiti walls, and scroungy, scraggly brown grass to
this
in just a few blocks? There are palm trees. Tall, graceful palm trees. Whole streets are lined with them. And you should see the lawns these people have! They’re like lush oceans of grass. And the temperature is a good twenty degrees cooler here, too. I’m not exaggerating.
    So, are these movie-star homes?
    I have no idea.
    But I can tell you this: There’s one person who spent last night in Beverly Hills who is definitely not a movie star.
    She’s a sea gypsy!
    Ha ha!
    And you should see the stuff these people throw away. The food in their trash bins could feed an army! I had some kind of cheesy scones, a baked potato (with plenty of butter and sour cream still on it!), and the rind of a roast beef for dinner.
    Yum!
    Plus, I found a great hideaway behind some shrubs in an amazing backyard. You wouldn’t believe this backyard. It has actual rolling hills for a lawn,