Chapter 10: Saturday

Lois had twenty minutes, a four-year-old in a fur parka, and a house full of evidence.

She stood in the middle of the kitchen and made herself breathe.

"Okay," she said. "Okay. Think like a lunch lady."

A lunch lady always knew where everything was, and what to hide before the inspector came.

She picked Ilu up and ran upstairs.

Her late husband's flannel shirt went on Ilu again, with the sleeves rolled four times.

She found a pair of his wool socks and pulled them up to the girl's knees.

The parka and the leggings and the hide boots went into a trash bag, and the trash bag went under Lois's bed.

Ilu stood in the middle of the guest room with a fistful of the shirt, looking down at herself.

"Mar," she said in alarm. "Where are my clothes?"

"Safe. Under the bed. Tomorrow I'll buy you real ones, I promise."

"Real?"

"Pants. A coat. Mittens."

Lois knelt and took her by the shoulders.

"Ilu, listen to me. A lady is coming. She's nice, but she's going to ask questions."

Ilu looked at her, very serious.

"You don't talk. You eat. If she asks your name, say..."

Lois hesitated.

She had no cover story, no plan, nothing.

"Say Lucy."

"Loo-see."

"Good. And you're my grandniece, and you're visiting."

"Visit-ing."

"And you're shy. Very shy. Can you do shy?"

Ilu put her thumb in her mouth and looked at the floor.

It was so exactly right that Lois almost laughed.

She had just put on lipstick and hidden a bag of rice in the pantry when a car door slammed in the drive.

Carl came in without knocking, with a stranger behind him.

She was a woman of about fifty in a navy parka, with a lanyard around her neck and kind, tired eyes.

She carried a clipboard, and she smiled.

"Mrs. Kester? I'm so sorry to barge in. Carl said you'd be expecting me."

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Starving Little Girl Who Saved Her Tribe from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.