IN A NEW neighborhood, it’s best to know your surroundings. You might have to run for it. Or report to the police something somebody did to you. “Memorize street names and numbers, landmarks and good alleys to run up,” I tell Cricket. She a baby, I know. But a girl got to learn early how to look out for herself.

The motel is on Best Avenue. It ain’t too wide or too dirty. Yeah, people drop their trash—pepperoni boxes, iced tea bottles, Tastykake Pie wrappers and stuff—but I seen worse. Done worse.

I’m across the street in front the daycare center when a girl my age pass by, staring. I tell Cricket that every girl ain’t gonna be her friend, even if they do her a favor now and again. Her nose wrinkles like a rabbit’s. Her fist tightens into balls. “Good. Keep ’em that way. You gonna need to use ’em on somebody someday.”

I shift her from my left to my right hip. She bunching up, yawning, holding tight to my collar like she do a lot now. I kiss her fingers. Sniff her baby sweetness. A daycare worker pushing a stroller stops to ask how old Cricket is, if she’s my sister. “Three months.”

She smiling. I tell her Cricket is mine. Ask if she look like me.

“Sure does.”

More grown-ups smile at me and stop to ask about Cricket. Only one of ’em says I’m too young to be a mother. Like that’s any of her business. Stopping in front the one-dollar store, I see something Cricket could use. A carriage. Expensive. The kind that sit high off the ground and got big wheels and shiny spokes. It’s new, I bet. Cost nine hundred dollars or more. I look both ways, then sit her in it. If my phone had a camera, I’d take her picture. Show her that she was balling even when she was a baby. I look around to see who watching me. Not that I would take it. I just want to give her a taste of the good life. It’s what I tell the woman when she come running out the store holding a baby. She the kind that people think make neighborhoods like this better. “Okay, all right—dang.” I take Cricket out. “It wasn’t like I was gonna steal it.”

Her blue eyes go up and down the block, like she hoping to find a cop. I speed up. Walk as fast as I can, pushing a cart into the store with Cricket in my arms. On our way up one aisle, down another, I tell Cricket what I’m picking up and why. Babies understand more than we know. Plus, talking and reading to them makes ’em smart—even I know that. “Let’s get you a book.” I drop two in the cart, including one that pops up. The coloring book and crayons is for me. We stop in front the paper plates last. I like the ones for weddings and baby showers. Six packs go into my cart. Some got baby bottles and blocks on ’em. The rest is covered with silver wedding bells. One day I think I’ll be married.

By the time I get to the line, the cart is full, hard to push with one hand. It take forever to get things on the counter. “Sixty dollars,” says the cashier.

“What?! For this?!” I look at my things. “I thought y’all only charged a dollar.”

Things add up, she say. I can put something back or pay up, she tell me. I sit aside two bags of corn chips, a liter of Mountain Dew, and a deck of playing cards with black people on ’em. Things I bought for myself. Cricket needs Similac. That cost more than a dollar. What I bought is just as good, I hope. Six cans sit in my cart next to Desenex for her bum, ten packs of diapers with five each in it, baby shampoo and conditioner. I put her books in a empty cart near the register, then take one back. I can’t make up my mind what else to leave behind. “Y’all hiring?”

The man behind me changes lines. The cashier, around my age, says, “Sometimes.”

“Is now the time y’all hiring?” I get rid of more things.

She point to the back of the store. “The manager’s that way. You can ask him.”

I leave twelve packages of Oodles of Noodles on the counter, plus two candy bars, and wait for her to say what I owe now.

“Forty dollars.”

Yeah, I need a job.

I pay up. She pack my things. Cricket and me go see the manager. “Y’all hiring?” I ask as soon as I get in his office.

“Hiring yes. Hiring kids with babies, not today.”

“I just asked. I didn’t know you had no opening.”

“We have an opening.” He looks at Cricket. “If you want to make a good impression—next time leave your kid at home.”

“So, I should apply another time?”

“No.”