MRS. BYRNE WAS MAD BUT GLAD TO SEE US WHEN Esther and Lon got us back to Sunnyside Plaza.

Dorothy cried. She said she thought she’d turned around and let something bad happen to us and couldn’t forgive herself.

Mrs. Byrne said she’d got called in the middle of the night by Dorothy and rushed over in her slippers. She wore blue pajamas under a tan coat and shook her head from side to side, over and over.

“Never, never, never make me… worry like that again,” she said slowly, with splashes in her eyes. “Never, never, never, never.”

Darnell, Pilar, Tony, and me could just say, “Yes,” very softly.

Dorothy took us upstairs. She said we didn’t have to brush our teeth and should just go straight to bed. She sat with me and Pilar while we whispered about the night and tried not to wake Shaaran and Trish.

“We went… everywhere!” Pilar told her. “We went to a place with fire in the window where they gave us orange juice! Boy, it was good.”

“And the place with the nice lady and singing,” I added. “We prayed. Usually people pray for us. But this time, they thanked us with a prayer.”

“I forget for what,” Pilar said. “And then—egg rolls!”

“At the place with the big fiery red pig!” I said.

“Sounds like Duke’s,” said Dorothy.

“And fortunes in cookies,” said Pilar. “Like little messages. Mine said I could make myself happy. And Sal’s message said meeting people can change your life.”

“It sure can,” said Dorothy. “People you don’t know out there can change your life, if you let them in.”

I think Pilar got quiet first. It took time for me to fall asleep, but when I did I began to dream. I felt like I didn’t get to sleep at all. I was running, jumping, falling down, jumping up, and laughing. I don’t remember much of what happened in the dreams. I remember they were loud and fun and colorful. I could read. I had a dog, named Chester, black and fluffy, and he’d play with my socks. Then I woke up, and when I woke up and realized the dreams were over, I felt a little sad but got up with a smile.

By the time we got down to the kitchen the next day, Esther Rivas and London Bridges were there with Conrad. They already had cups of coffee.

“Sorry, Sallie Gallie, but we couldn’t wait,” said Conrad. “Besides, I heard you folks had some fun last night. Figured you needed to sleep a little more.”

I felt my face get warm.

“And we need your help,” said Esther. “You can really help us just by being yourselves.”

“Who else can I be?” asked Tony.

“You can’t be me,” said Pilar. “I’m me.”

London Bridges had walked over to the door that we sometimes opened into the alley.

“Half an hour or so from now, George Nellos should ring this bell.”

“The butthole,” said Darnell, and London smiled.

“Let’s try to keep that little nickname just between us,” he said.

“He’ll be delivering things,” Esther explained. “Like he always does. Including cans. We’ve piled up some of the old cans he’s already brought,” she said, and tapped the tops of a few with her fingers. It sounded like tiny tin drums.

“Conrad will ask him, ‘What’s going on with these old cans?’ We’ll be in that closet around the corner,” London Bridges told us. “Hearing every word George says, nice and loud, in our ears. Recording it, too. Who knows what he’ll say? Maybe he’ll tell us that he didn’t know. Maybe he has a good explanation.”

“But he has to think this is just like any other day,” said Esther Rivas. “So maybe he’ll tell Conrad what’s been going on for so long. And that’s where we need you to be you,” said Esther. “Yourselves. Just working, chopping, running water, stacking bowls.”

“When George and Conrad begin to talk, maybe you can walk just around the corner, too, one by one,” said London Bridges. “So he doesn’t think anything is out of the ordinary. But, Sal Gal,” he said in a softer voice, “Esther and I think you need to stay here in the kitchen. With Conrad. Maybe turn your back on George, and be busy. You won’t see him. He won’t see your face while he’s talking. But he’ll see you, and think everything is normal. We don’t want to leave Conrad alone. We don’t know what George Nellos might do if he thinks he’s totally alone with Conrad.”

Conrad turned to me and put a hand on my shoulder.

“I need you here, Sal Gal” is all he said.

“And don’t you worry, Sal,” said Esther. “Lon and I will hear every word. We’re just around the corner. We won’t let anything happen. If we hear George say something we don’t like…”

London Bridges made sure to find my eyes with his and look straight into mine.

“…something we don’t like,” he continued, “we’re around that corner and on him in no time. Lickety-split,” said London Bridges.

“Lickety-split,” Darnell repeated. “I like that word. I like ‘lickety’ things.”

We were still laughing and smiling and chopping and running water when we heard the bell on the door ring, and Esther Rivas said softly, “Places, everybody.”

It all happened too soon for me to be scared.

Conrad had me fish for pear slices. Tony stacked bowls. Darnell ran a cloth across the smooth steel counter. Pilar counted out forks.

Conrad opened the door.

We knew George. He was a little shorter than Conrad, and he wore a white shirt with black pants under a short blue coat. He had 2 boxes in his arms and smiled as the door opened.

“Bring her in, George,” Conrad told him, and George Nellos came in and stood up on his toes a little to put the boxes in his arms on the smooth steel counter.

“Ketchup and mustard,” he told Conrad. “And I threw in a couple jars of pickles.”

George said nothing to me, or to Darnell, Pilar, and Tony, and I was glad. Conrad had on his white apron and the white cap that made him look like a doctor and wiped his hands on a damp white cloth. He pointed to the pile of old cans on the counter and asked, “George, all these here cans. Look at the labels.”

George Nellos asked, “What?”

“The dates,” Conrad told him. “On the labels. The expiration dates. We ripped off the labels. The original ones—the real ones—are underneath, aren’t they? Did you put on new ones?”

I could see George Nellos lift his arms up just below his shoulders and shrug.

“So?”

“Some of these cans are five, seven years old,” Conrad told him.

“Oh, that means nothing.”

I could hear Pilar put down forks, 1 on top of the other, 1, 2, 3, and then again.

“It means you shouldn’t sell them,” said Conrad.

“The stuff inside is fine,” said George. “Good as ever.”

“Says you.”

“Look, Connie, you find one that’s gone bad, I’ll replace it,” George told him. “No charge. But this stuff lasts forever. Every few months they find a can of peaches some soldier left behind in Afghanistan. They open it up, plop it on ice cream, and have Peach Melba. No big deal.”

Conrad kept turning the white cloth in his hands. He smiled but didn’t seem happy.

“Now and then, yes, I suppose,” he told him. “But some cans get a dent, or a scratch, then a hole. Or they stew in the heat and explode. Or just go bad. It doesn’t matter. You’re not supposed to sell stuff this old. It could hurt people. And a lot of people here can get hurt if they eat stuff that’s old.”

When George Nellos talked this time, his voice got higher. I’d never heard him with that voice before.

“What am I supposed to do, Connie? Just throw out all those cans? Throw away money like that?”

“Take them home and feed them to your family,” Conrad told him. “If they’re so darn good.”

I heard Tony clack a last bowl into place and he went around the corner, like he’d been told. I lost my place trying to fish for pears with the spoon and told myself I had to at least look like I was trying and not listening.

George Nellos told Conrad, “That’s all I’m trying to do, Connie—feed my family. Throw away those cans, I lose money. Sell them—I make an honest living.”

“Honest?” Conrad asked him. “Selling expired goods?”

“Selling what I have left on my shelves, Connie,” he told him. “Not throwing it away.”

Darnell had run out of counter to wipe, and then he went around the corner. I kept my back to George Nellos, and I could hear the kitchen get more quiet.

“Sounds to me like an excuse to cheat people, George,” Conrad told him.

“You feel cheated, Connie?” he asked. “I don’t want that. Tell you what: We keep this between us, and I’ll give you, oh, ten percent of the money I get each month.”

I could still see Conrad, and he flapped his lips, almost like he was trying to spit.

“That’s a bribe,” he told George.

“A bribe is just a good deal, Connie,” said George Nellos. “For two people who know the score in life. You served in subs. I was in the infantry. We’re two people who know how to look out for each other.”

Conrad wrung the white cloth tight in his hands. He pulled and stretched it and held it against the middle of his chest as he talked.

“George, the police are sniffing all around this place,” he told him. “We’ve had three folks get sick here. Two died. Another, Mary, a great gal, works right here in this kitchen—you’ve seen her—may never be the same. They’re going to go years back and find out everything. Old food can cause them problems because of the medications they’re on. It can build up and trigger strokes and heart problems.”

I heard George Nellos puff out a long breath of air before he spoke.

“Well, I can’t be responsible for what their meds might do, can I, Connie? I’m not Dr. Albert Schweitzer. I’m in the food business.”

Conrad said nothing. I thought his face had gotten red. His lips looked flat and hard, like it would even be hard for him to talk.

“I could do twelve percent, too, Connie,” George told him.

“Are we the only place lucky enough to get your old stuff?”

“I serve a select clientele, Connie. All these places want fresh stuff now, direct from the farmer’s muddy hands. I can’t give them five-year-old cans and take a chance someone gets sick. And I can’t sell those cans to one of those fancy schools along the lake,” George Nellos said. “They’d sue for sure.”

“Our folks are people, too, George,” Conrad told him. Conrad’s eyes looked like hard round stones. “Our folks are just like—just as good—as anyone.”

“Oh, heck, Connie, I know that,” said George. His voice was even higher now. “And I love what you and the lady—”

“Mrs. Byrne.”

“—right, I love what you do for them. I know they’re people. Good people. But, Connie, what kind of lives do they have with their challenges? Or whatever you have to call it these days?” said George Nellos. “They look at the walls. They stare at screens. They don’t know if it’s Tuesday or Friday. The way they walk, talk, and draw. You see the scribbles of a five-year-old and think, ‘Hey, another Picasso!’ You look at the scrawls of these grown folks and think, ‘How depressing!’ I don’t blame the folks, Connie. They’re just different. It’s how they were born. I’ll bet if their parents could have known how they’d be, they’d wish they’d never been born. I know I would.”

It was hard for me to look at Conrad. But I did. I’d stopped trying to fish for a pear because I didn’t want to bang the spoon against the side of the can and make a sound that would make George Nellos stop talking. I felt like shaking, but I didn’t shake. I could see Conrad stay very still, and say nothing. Finally, George Nellos said something else.

“I’d even go to fifteen percent, Connie. If it would make you happy.”

Conrad stretched the white cloth in his hands until his hands began to jiggle a little to hold it against his chest. I thought Conrad might tear the cloth in two.

“What would make me happy, George,” he told him, “is for you to rot in jail!”

I heard a door roar open. I heard the sound of the city rush into the kitchen. Esther Rivas and London Bridges came around the corner to where we stood in front of the counter and the cans and the boxes of ketchup and mustard. They opened their coats as they stepped into the room and lifted their gold badges.

“George Nellos,” said Esther, “we’re Detectives Rivas and Bridges. Nineteenth District, Town Hall. We have a small camera and microphone right there—”

London Bridges had a finger pointed at a shelf just a little lower than his shoulders.

“—next to one of your cans of ten-year-old tomatoes.”

George Nellos opened his eyes, big as baseballs, and just said, “What the…?”

“The recording goes to investigators from the health department, city and state,” Esther told him.

“I’ll get a fine,” George Nellos told her. “At most.”

“And then to the state’s attorney’s office,” London Bridges added. “To look into criminal penalties.”

“I’ll write a check and be back next week,” George Nellos told them. “The people who got sick here—you can’t hang that on me.”

“Once investigators and prosecutors see this”—and Lon turned again to point toward the tomato cans and the small camera and the microphone—“they’ll hang everything they can find on you. Like a coatrack.”

Darnell, Tony, and Pilar had walked back into the kitchen. They were quiet. They stood and looked. George Nellos stood silent for a moment and looked at Conrad. Conrad looked away. Then George lifted his shoulders in a shrug and turned. He began to walk away. He was reaching his hand for the knob on the door to go back into the alley when I decided I had to say something.

No, I had to shout something.

“I’m glad I was born!”

George Nellos didn’t turn around. But he also didn’t leave. So I kept talking.

“I know I’m different,” I said. “I may not know if it’s Tuesday or Wednesday, or how to ride the bus alone, or walk to the park by myself, or how to tie my shoes. But I know my friends. I know when people like me. I know when I like them. I like to work. I like people. I like to draw dogs and cats. I give them smiles, and they make people happy. I’m glad I was born. And I’m glad that I’m different than you.”

George kept his hand on the knob of the door for a little while, and then pulled it open and left without turning around. We heard birds in the alley and another car and then a bus and then George’s truck cough and begin to drive away.

Conrad held the white cloth over his eyes for a moment, and in another moment he came over to me. He put his head on my shoulder, and his white hat fell off and hit the floor, and we all laughed, me and Conrad, Darnell, Tony, Pilar, Esther Rivas, and London Bridges, and then Mrs. Byrne, who had come in. We all had our arms around each other and laughed until we had tears in our eyes and began to cough and then we had to laugh some more.

“I never laughed so much in my whole gosh darn life,” said Conrad. “Pardon my French.”

Darnell said, “I think I laughed so much, I wet my pants.”

“You did,” said Pilar.

We laughed and laughed again some more, and the laughs bounced and bounced off all the black pans and silver pots and the hard white walls and the shiny cool steel counter.