The Summer Kitchen by Lisa Wingate

of the apartment and walk someplace.
    “How about we go down to the Book Basket and get something new to read today?” The Book Basket was just down the road in an old gas station across from the little white church. I liked it there, because MJ, the lady who owned the store, had tons of books, and she didn’t care how long you stayed and looked at them. She also took trades, which was good when you didn’t have any money.
    “Maybe we’ll walk on down to the Just-a-Buck store, too,” I told her. “Sometimes they’ve got old cans of stuff on sale for cheap. You want to go look for cans?” Squirt nodded, and her braids scratched up and down on my chest where my nightshirt hung loose. If we could get some dented cans instead of paying full price at Wal-Mart, that’d help the groceries go further. We still weren’t gonna be able to get by all week on thirty-six dollars, even if Rusty stayed out of the drive-thru windows and gave up Mountain Dew, which wasn’t too likely. Rusty couldn’t hardly go six hours without a Mountain Dew.
    “Unnn-ungwee,” Squirt whined, and after listening to it all day yesterday, I knew what that word meant.
    “We’ve got McDonald’s for breakfast,” I told her. At least this morning we had food. I’d cut all the hamburgers in half last night, saved some of my fries, and put my vanilla shake in the freezer.
    “Mmmmm,” she said, then sat up in my lap, pulled the thumb out of her mouth, and smiled at me. I hadn’t ever seen her smile before. She really was cute, even with her hair pulled half loose from her braids and sticking up all over her head. Maybe before we went to the Book Basket we’d take out the braids and make a couple pigtails.
    “Guess we should get some breakfast,” I said, then looked at my bedroom door, wondering if, while she was in there crashing out in my bed, Kiki wondered at all how her kid was getting fed. Squirt could be wandering out in the street for all Kiki knew. How could somebody’s mom be like that?
    I put Squirt on her feet and we went to the kitchen together. She tried to crawl up my leg when I got out the hamburgers, so I lifted her onto the counter. Pulling her knees under the big T-shirt I’d put on her last night, she sat with her chin resting on them as I got out the burgers and scooped some of the shake—ice cream now—into a couple bowls. She watched the food move from the counter to the table, like a little puppy dog waiting for a bite.
    “Let’s eat,” I said, and she put out her arms so I could move her to the table. I took the broken chair and gave her the good one. For a little thing, she could eat a lot, and really fast. When she was done, she wanted more. I told her that was it, and she got up, went to the refrigerator, and tried to pull it open.
    “There’s nothing in there,” I told her. She looked confused, so I said, “All gone.” She knew what that meant.
    A memory of our refrigerator back home went through my mind, and my stomach rumbled. Mama always kept sodas, and there was a gallon of milk on the middle shelf, sometimes two. There was butter, and jelly, and string cheese we could pull out for a snack anytime we wanted it. Usually there were leftovers—a casserole or something Mama had made that Rusty and me complained about. . . .
    My insides ached, and I wrapped my arms tight around myself. There’s not any point in sitting here thinking about the stupid refrigerator, Cass Sally Blue, I told myself, but I couldn’t help it. It hurt deep down, like the past was eating me up a little at a time. I wanted Mama to put a casserole in front of me, and I’d eat every bit of it and tell her it was good. I wanted her to holler from the kitchen to wait until we all said grace together. I wanted her to put a glass of milk by my plate, and push my chair up on two legs when she squeezed by. . . .
    “Ook?” Squirt was standing there watching me with my book in her hand. She held it up against her face and peeped over