YOU GOTTA LOOK out for yourself. JuJu say that all the time. Before our parents died, words like that never came out of her mouth. It was their job to take care of us, my father and mother would say. “Your job is to go to school. Get a good education.” JuJu thought that way too, at first. Then they died. Three months later, she quit waking me up for school, making my breakfast. One day she walked in my room smoking weed. She lifted the shade up and sat at the foot of my bed. “You big enough to take care of some things for yourself.” She swallowed the smoke. Blew it out when she couldn’t keep it down no longer. “Want some?”

I never liked the smell of weed. So, I said no. Anyhow, Mom and Dad never smoked. They ain’t let nobody smoke in the house, either. I sat up and pointed my finger at her. “JuJu. You gonna get in trouble.”

“You not a baby. And even if you was, who got time for you to learn to walk. If we don’t run—we gonna get ran over.” She shoved the blunt my way.

I pulled the blanket over my head.

“I dropped out of school yesterday.” She was in community college, her first year. It took Mom three years to talk her into going. Before then, JuJu worked at the corner store and the gas station ’cross town. She never got enough hours, she said, or could afford to get the nice things she wanted. She was taking things back then too, only Mom and Dad didn’t know it.

“We need money, Char. We down to three eggs and one piece of chicken.”

“Don’t steal. Mom won’t like it.”

I remember her saying we might have to do things Mom and Dad never had to. She brought up the rent, electric, and water. All past due. Our cable was already turned off.

I came out from under the covers crying. She put the blunt between my lips. “Try it.”

One puff was enough. I ain’t never done it since.

JuJu walked across the room with that blunt stuck between her lips. “I make the rules.” She was almost out the door. “Here’s the first one. Don’t tell nobody what go on in this house.”

The parties JuJu threw, plus the clothes she stole and sold, been good business. We ain’t had nothing turned off since she started. Plus, the rent is always paid three months ahead. She take that job with the bank and she might end up homeless, I told her. “Maybe,” she said, like she ain’t care one way or the other. “But I gotta do something different—otherwise nothing’s gonna change.”

Truant officers came by our place on the regular. People complained that our grass was too high and called the city. A neighbor—Miss Kim we think—reported me to Children and Family Services. They made a wellness visit once. But never came back again. Maybe JuJu is tired of living that way. Could be Miss Saunders is making her change, or told her she was better off without me. She that type of person.