HOW YOU TELL your sister somebody stuck you with their baby, and you don’t know their last name, where they live, or nothing? You don’t.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I ask how she doing. She already mad because I should be at my grandmother’s house by now and I ain’t. I keep quiet and listen—then lie. “The bus broke down—twice. We just got here.”

“You shoulda called. Greyhound shoulda called. They know you a child.”

She ask what time the next bus gets to Alabama, then says never mind, she gonna call and ask herself. I beg her not to. “How can I grow up if you baby me?”

I sound more mature already, she think. For a while, we both quiet, and so is the station. Then Cricket wakes up crying. “That a baby I hear?” I tell JuJu that baby belong to a lady sitting next to me. “Well, tell her to keep her quiet. Who wants to hear all that racket this time of night?” She ask me to hold on while she take care of business.

She got a surprise waiting for me when I get to Alabama, she say once she’s back. “I didn’t want to tell you but—I got you in a Catholic school. The money from the parties gonna pay your tuition.” She swear the one she throwing next weekend will be the last one. But that’s what she said about this one.

“It’s a new start. A chance for you to make your own life right.”

“JuJu. I thank you, but me and school—like water and oil. Hurry … get your money back.”

She say I’m smarter than she is. That if I only apply myself, I could end up in college … with a real good job one day.

“Quit using her words. Thinking you and me is like her or anybody else.”

“We can do better. I’m trying. Anything is possible.”

Anything is possible? She don’t even talk like that. But Miss Saunders do. For spite, I tell JuJu, “I got a baby.”

“What?”

I lay Cricket on her blanket on the floor and tell JuJu the whole story.

“Is you nuts? Didn’t I raise you better than to fall for something like that?”

“She’s coming back.”

“Like Tupac coming back.”

I’m watching the cop across the room watching me. The place is more filled up than it was before, but empty enough for him to keep an eye on me. “I need to go.”

“What station you at? I’ll call ’em. Report her. And make sure they put you on a bus.”

“What’s gonna happen to Cricket?”

“Foster care, Char. Kids end up there all the time.”

“Then how will she get her baby back?”

“WHY DO YOU CARE?!”

Cricket looks up at me, smiling. “’Cause …’cause—she don’t have nobody like you and me didn’t have nobody.”

“We had each other.”

“But no mother and father.”

“I’m trying to give you a better life.”

“I ain’t ask you for that.”

“You won’t let nobody help you, Char. I see that now. You a tornado tearing down your own life. Wrecking everything. Miss Saunders said—”

I’m yelling when I say Miss Saunders never did nothing for me. She helped Maleeka, sure, but never me. I was drowning right in front of her, and she was happy to let me go under.

I close my phone and call him. “Answer. Please.” I knew he wouldn’t.

That cop is on his way over. So, I’m packing as fast as I can. Walking by rows of empty seats and lines with people standing up asleep, I hold her tight, look over my shoulder, almost start running. I got too many things in my hand to open the front door, so a nice old lady does it for me.

I stop at the first car I see in front the bus station. “I need a hotel. A place to stay. Cheap.”

He asks my name. Says he’s here to pick up someone else. I pull out two twenty-dollar bills. That’s his money on top of whatever the ride cost, I say. Inside the car I tell him, “I’m underage. So, it’s got to be a hotel ran by somebody that don’t care.”