By the time we get to my street, three police cars are parked in front of my house. People in pajamas and street clothes are standing on porches and sidewalks. I know why before I even get to our house. Miracle’s here.

Momma’s sitting on the porch step with Ling in her lap. A policeman is standing over her taking notes. Miracle is by the police car, pointing my way. She’s not screaming, like you’d think. Her voice is calm, like maybe she’s too tired to go off on people.

She’s talking to the police and pointing at Momma. “She owes me money. Three months’ back rent.”

He asks her if she was renting a place to Momma.

My mother gets loud when she says she doesn’t owe Miracle a dime.

“You missed it,” Sato says, almost running over to me. “Miracle walked up to your mom, like she was gonna hit her or something.”

Su-bok and Mai pull me over by the tree. Miracle came to the house with two other girls, they say, but the girls took off when the police showed up. Miracle’s been living on the street every since she got put out the apartment. She’s blaming Momma. Saying she started everything when she got Shiketa put away.

Miracle points to Momma. “She living in this nice house. Working. Why I gotta live in the streets, and her have it so good, when it’s her fault what happened to me.”

Momma shakes her head and sits Ling in Dr. Mitchell’s lap. When she heads Miracle’s way, Dr. Mitchell and the rest of us tell her to stay where she is. She keeps walking. Miracle gets loud. More neighbors come outside to see what’s going on.

“Miracle!” Momma shouts.

Miracle looks hungry for whatever words Momma’s gonna toss her way.

“Don’t you dare!” Momma screams, then lowers her voice. “Don’t you dare think you have to act like trash, just because you slept in trash last night. You hear me, girl?”

Miracle’s weave is gone, and her short, black curls look dusty. Her shoes are run over and her peach shorts set looks grimy. “You don’t understand,” Miracle shouts. “If it wasn’t for Shiketa, I woulda been out in the streets years before now. Most people don’t want no fifteen-year-old around, not even parents.”

Dr. Mitchell comes over to Momma, holding Ling in his arms. He whispers in her ear, and she walks back over to the porch with him.

I walk over to Momma. Sit down in her lap. Listen to her tell the police that she don’t want to press charges. They want her to. They say they can do it, even if she doesn’t. “People in Pecan Landings don’t want this kind of nonsense going on,” one cop says.

I watch their eyes, our neighbors. See them whispering, curling up their lips and talking ’bout us. A woman Momma’s color says, “That’s why we tried to keep ’em out the first time.”

They put Miracle in the backseat of the car, and the police say for everybody to go home. Nobody moves, not till they drive away and another whole hour passes.

Momma’s head hurts. It’s been a long time since she said it did. Ja’nae’s in the bathroom getting her an aspirin.

I’m rubbing her neck and Dr. Mitchell’s handing her water.

“We ever gonna eat?” Sato asks, patting Couch on the head.

“You had two burgers,” Mai tells him.

Ming heads for the backyard. “Any chicken left?”

I look at Momma. Her and me got the same kind of sad in our eyes. ’Cause even though we don’t like Miracle, we don’t want her living on the streets neither.

When Ling and Su-bok go to the airport, Mr. and Mrs. Kim take Mai and me too. Ling is crying. She wants to stay here. So does Su-bok.

I speak up for them. “Just come back next summer.”

Mai looks at me. “Well. Maybe.”

Su-bok writes down my phone number and address. She says maybe she can stay with me part of the time. “You and your mom have so much fun.”

She’s outta her mind, I think.

“But I wish you still had the old apartment. There’s cuter boys around there.”

Ling’s arms go up. “Sato gave me this.” She holds up her fingers. She’s wearing three plastic bubble gum rings. Blue, green, and red. “He’s my boyfriend.”

Mai tickles Ling’s stomach. “No. He’s Raspberry’s boyfriend.”

Su-bok asks me if that’s true. “’Cause if you don’t want him, I do. I could call him up sometime.”

Mai looks at me like, See how she really is?

I say the words even if they not really true. “Yeah, we go together.”

Mai’s parents say it’s time for Ling and Su-bok to go to the boarding area. They have special permission to go with them. Couch is already in cargo. Mai and I have to stay behind. I pick Ling up. “Kisses,” I say, sticking out my lips.

She pushes her face into my chest and strangles me with her arms. “I wanna stay . . .”

I try not to cry. “Here,” I say, putting a handkerchief full of quarters in her hand. “There’s twenty dollars’ worth of quarters.”

I give Su-bok a pair of earrings that Ja’nae gave me once. “I’d rather have money,” she laughs.

Mai and me wave good-bye. “Your cousins were cool,” I say, pulling dead skin off my knees.

She looks at the door they just walked through. “Yeah. Not as bad as I figured.”

Me and her wait a long time for her dad to get back. When he does, he asks her if she wants to stay with them next summer.

“No,” she says, stepping onto the escalator. “Not by myself. If Raspberry goes, maybe. Or Ming.”

Her dad kind of smiles. “Uh tok hae hae bohjah.”

“What?”

Mai tells me. “He says, ‘We’ll see what we can do.’”

Mai’s parents hold hands and walk to the right of us. Mai and me are walking side by side staring at some cute boy who’s staring over at us. “I have to learn some Korean before I go stay with them.”

Mai looks down at her tattoo. “Maybe.”

“Maybe what? Maybe you gonna teach me?”

She looks at me and smiles. When she does that, she looks just like her dad.