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wouldn’t be no more stains on my soul like them nuns at school say, and so’s she could go to her rest without worrying about me so much. And I went ahead and swore like she wanted. And that made thinking ’bout going in that house real hard.
    But I gotta say the idea’d come to me that to save our house I might just have to do exactly what I swore I wouldn’t. What would my mother say to that? What if I got to slip to help Daddy and Leezie?
    Thinking like that, my mind sort’f made itself up, and I thought, Tonight, ’cause I couldn’t see no other way. And bad as it sounds I gotta say the old thrill came back, and I felt the hair on my arms risin’, just thinking of what I might find.
     
    Few minutes later I went down. Daddy was still there, sitting on the sofa in the dark. Leezie, she was upstairs.
    I don’t say nothing, but Daddy says, Billy?
    I’m headed to the door and stop.
    Yeah, Daddy?
    Know what I seen today? he says. I was going to that job counselor. It got too late, so I got off the bus. Went to this shop I saw. I stood out there an hour looking at that shop. FRESH FISH , it says on the sign, and the name of the man who owns it. Wish I had that.
    He turns his face to me, just enough light from the streetlights outside come in the window to shine rings off his glasses. Can you imagine that, Billy? he says, sort’f whispers. It’d take care’f us all. And you could work with me.
    I smile. He’s just dreamin’, I think.
    Fish? I say.
    No, not that. He looks down, then up again, slow. Fruit, he says. What your mother loved. Remember how she used to set a bowl out every day?
    Yeah, I remember, I said.
    He nodded. That’s what. FRESH FRUIT, right there on the sign. Can’t you see that? Right on the sign with my name on it. And your name on it.
    He sat up a bit. Looked at me.
    Well, maybe it ain’t just a dream, I’m thinkin’. ’Cause for a second there he had more life in’m than he had all day, and even smiled a little.
    Then he slunk back on the sofa in the dark.
    All right, Daddy, all right, I say, and I opened the door. Then I turned and put the money I made on the sofa beside him.
    You pay the TV cable, I say.
    He don’t budge.
    Then I go.

Chapter Eight
    I went up the alley behind the houses so’s not to get seen, and after a while I sat and waited until I seen most house lights go out and I figured it was past eleven. Then I went on, and after a few minutes was out back Simon Hooper’s. I listened to hear if Bear was out, ’cause if he is you can hear’m pawing the ground or his collar jangling, and it’d be no good for him to sniff me out and start barking and tryin’ to get at me. But everything was quiet. So a minute later I was climbing over that board fence into the yard of the house next door.
    No lights was on at the house. There was trees all round, and bushes, all of’m overgrown, so going up on the porches was no trouble, but the doors’n windows were locked. I’d figured on that. So I went around side, where the yard was narrow near the board fence. I chinned up to the window I’d looked in earlier, and tried to shove it open, but it was locked tight. Then I tried a few more windows, all round the house, and none of’m budged an inch. So I looked up at the shadows of the trees. One had a branch overhanging the second floor roof, so I climbed up and dropped down.
    I crawled over the roof till I found a window I could open, and real quiet I got to work. I couldn’t see inside ’cause behind the window, it was hung with black plastic, kind you get from a big trash bag, sort you might use for bagging up leaves you raked. I figured it was there ’cause either the folks who owned it didn’t want nobody looking inside or else they’d sprayed for bugs and didn’t want to let no air in.
    After a minute I wiggled open the window and slid it up, didn’t even squeak. Then I put a leg in and ducked inside, tearing away the plastic as I moved. I stepped down real soft, no