I TAKE MY time eating. Like, what else do I got to do? Nothing but try and figure out where I’m going next. But then I also need to exchange my ticket. Not that I know where I want to end up. It won’t be Alabama. I know that for sure.

I stop and check out the cities people going to. I know I don’t wanna go to some of ’em, based on the people in line. Why would you wear old clothes? Who travel with rollers in their hair—missing teeth? But then again, most of them are with somebody. I’m all by myself.

That dog sees me, looks at me, scares me. So, I turn around, start walking and don’t stop until I’m out the main door, on the corner bumming a cigarette. That’s when I see her—April—by the curb on the phone with Cricket on her hip. I’m surprised she still here. It’s been a while since we got dropped off.

I don’t have to ask to hold Cricket. She hand her to me. “I called four times. She never picked up. I came out here to wait for her.”

She give the side eye to everybody that pass it seem—a man in a wheelchair with half a leg, a little girl that don’t want to hold her mother’s hand, some dude who can’t take his eyes off April, and the cop with the dog. I watch them get in the police van.

April tries her aunt again. Cricket starts crying. April screams, “Shut up! Be quiet! Let me think.”

People around us stare. I wanna give ’em the finger, a piece of my mind, cuss ’em out. But JuJu say I got a way of making things worse, turning a windy day into a hurricane. Anyhow, I see by how upset April is that me wowing out won’t help her any. It’s my idea for us to go back inside. She on her cell while we walk. “Yo, Snow.” Some dude grab her arm. “I got that.” He take all her bags. Nobody helps me.

When April and me sit down beside each other, I roll my eyes at the girl sitting across from us. She gossiping about April—I can tell—to a girl next to her. I can’t hear what they say, but I notice things. Like her leaning with her phone so her friend can read something on it. If I was in school, I’d get the twins to jump her. Like I got Daphne to beat up Maleeka. But I got to do things different now, or poop gonna keep flying my way. So, I tell April we need to brainstorm and come up with some ideas. Miss Saunders taught our class to do that.

I take out my composition book. Rip one page out for me, one for her. We supposed to make a list of every idea in our heads, I tell April—even the worst ones. Miss Saunders said you should ’cause a bad one might lead to a good one, then to a better one.

Miss Saunders said no idea is a bad one. That’s not true. There’s some bad ones here, I swear. Foster care? But I keep it on my list. Share it with April. She do the same with me. I point to one line on her list that surprise me. “Drop her off at a hospital?”

Hospitals will take your baby, no questions asked, she say. “Fire stations too. I saw one around the corner.”

“Wouldn’t you worry about her … for the rest of your life … if you ain’t get to be with her no more?”

She heard me. I know she did. But she don’t answer the question. She take Cricket from me. “I want a new life.” She smiling. “This one is all used up. Beat up. Raggedy. And I don’t want her life to turn out like mine.”

Cricket’s got no better sense than to smile.

“So—you never coming back for her?”

April’s staring out a window when Miguel run up to me. Fast as I can, I hand Cricket over, stand up, and spin him around. “I thought y’all left a long time ago.”

They had a three-hour layover, Mrs. Rodriguez says. So, they went to a restaurant. They just got back. “We came to say good-bye.”

Miguel jumps down. I got my arms open wide. “You’re not saying good-bye to me, Gabriella?” She walks up and hugs me hard. So does her mother.

“Char.” Mrs. Rodriguez reaches into her bag. “For later.”

It’s a small bag of pretzels. She offers one to April, but she turn her down.

She ask me to walk them to their gate. Miguel’s got his thumb in his mouth when he take my hand. Gabriella holding on to the other one, swinging my arm like rope.

“You are a good girl, Char. Remember that.”

“Yeah, right.”

She make me promise not to say that no more. I promise, but I ain’t sure I mean it. When she hugs me one last time, I hug her right back, extra hard. “Make your mother proud,” she say, “your poppa too.”

I want to. I do. I’m just not sure how.