“I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU, GIRL! WHY DO YOU INSIST ON making trouble everywhere you go?” Cora asked.
“Connor started it.”
“Well, how come I’m picking up you instead of him?”
Harper stared out the window and didn’t answer.
“I think you like spending time with me.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, child, I cannot adopt you.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have three kids of my own, I don’t make enough, and you’re white.”
“I don’t think that’s politically correct.”
“What’s not?”
“You can’t adopt me because I’m white.”
Cora Grant chuckled. “I’m sure it’s not.” She looked over. “So Mrs. Lewis said you didn’t feel good. You all right now?”
Harper shrugged. “I guess.”
“One thing’s sure—you don’t eat enough,” Cora said, reaching into her purse. She pulled out a candy bar. “Want this?”
Harper looked down at the Snickers bar. “You trying to kill me, Cora? I’m allergic to nuts, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right—I forgot. I’m sorry. Too many damn kids to remember who’s allergic to what.”
“I am hungry, though,” Harper added, spying a McDonald’s ahead.
Cora chuckled. “Does that mean you want the golden arches?”
“Only if you do.”
Cora shook her head. “I could use a nice big-ass coffee,” she mused.
“Me, too.”
“You don’t drink coffee.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Lordy, girl, you are ten years old. . . .”
“Nine,” Harper corrected.
“Nine . . . ten—don’t matter, you should not be drinking coffee.”
“It’s my source of comfort,” Harper said, repeating the words she’d often heard Cora say.
Cora looked over and chuckled. “We need to find you a home. You’re way too smart for your own good.”
“So find me one.”
Cora turned into McDonald’s and as she pulled up to the drive-through, she rummaged in her purse. “What do you want?”
“Chicken McNuggets, fries, and a big-ass coffee.”
“You’re not having coffee.”
“Coke, then.”
Cora shook her head. “That’s probably worse.”
“Probably, because it’s like drinking straight sugar.”
Cora edged up to the speaker to place their order: “A six-piece McNugget, value fry, value Coke, and a large coffee—light and sweet.”
“Barbecue sauce,” Harper whispered.
Cora nodded. “And barbecue sauce.”
“You’re gonna hafta stop and pee if you drink all that coffee,” Harper teased after they’d picked up their order.
“Probably,” Cora said, chuckling again as she reached for a fry.
“I thought you gave up fries,” Harper said, eyeing her.
“That was the other day. Today, I’m hungry.”
“Well, have some more, then,” Harper said, holding out the bag.
Cora looked over and took a handful. “You only live once!” she said with a sigh.
Twenty minutes later, they pulled into the DFCS parking lot and Harper sighed. “Home sweet home.”
“Girl, if you didn’t have such an attitude, you’d have a home sweet home.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what you keep telling me, but if people weren’t such a-holes, I wouldn’t have such an attitude.”
“There you go again,” Cora said, scooping up her purse, paperwork, and coffee. “You can’t go ’round calling people a-holes.”
“I’ll just call them by their full name, then—because, unfortunately, the world is full of ’em.”
Cora sighed. “Please grab your garbage. I have to hurry inside.”
“I told you you’d have to pee,” Harper called, laughing as Cora waddled across the parking lot. Harper stuffed her wrappings into the McDonald’s bag and threw a fry she found on the floor out into the parking lot. Almost immediately, a seagull swooped down and snagged it while three other gulls cried out indignantly. Harper looked up and thought of the seagulls in her two favorite movies, Finding Nemo and Finding Dory. “Mine! Mine! Mine!” she mimicked in her best seagull voice, and then she noticed the sunset. The rain had stopped, and the bright orange sun, slipping below the horizon, was turning the lingering clouds purple and pink and coral. She stared at it and then crumpled the bag in her hand and slammed the car door. She looked back at the ever-watchful gulls. “Mine! Mine! Mine!” she teased again.