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cleared his throat. "Okay, young lady. Out with it. Why were you breaking into our car?"
    Miranda wheeled around to stare at Abby. "You're kidding!"
    "She was trying hard, too," Helen told Miranda. "First with a coat hanger, poking around trying to get it in the window crack. We were in the grocery store parking lot. Dad picked me up at the hospital after work, and we did the shopping. We put the bags in the car, then went into the drugstore. When we came out, we saw Abby and rushed over to the car." Helen glanced at Abby's set face and frowned. "Before we could get there, she had taken a brick from her bag and started bashing at the window!"
    "You're kidding," repeated Miranda, but she knew her mother was not.
    "I figure she was trying to get in to take the tape player," said Helen, "unless she was going to try to hot-wire the car."
    "But—why?" asked Miranda.
    "That's what we asked her," said Philip. He put his hand on Abby's bony shoulder, and she flinched as if he had struck her. "She tried to run off, but we caught her."
    "Normally we would have taken you—taken any thief—straight to the police," Helen told Abby sternly. "But since I recognized you, and since I've been worrying about you since the day you fell in the road—well, I thought you should have a chance to explain."
    Abby suddenly burst into tears. "I said I was sorry! Why can't you just leave me alone?"
    "Attempted robbery is too serious to be left alone," said Philip firmly.
    "Why in the world would you try to steal our car?" asked Miranda. "Abby, you're too young to drive, anyway."
    "I didn't know it was your car, Miranda Browne, or believe me, I would have stayed miles away." Abby's voice was sharp despite her tears.
    "You could have recognized it from the day we nearly hit you—," began Miranda, but then remembered that her mother's car was out in the garage. Today they had been driving Philip's car.
    "Well, I didn't! It was just there, just like all the other cars in the lot, but it had—," she stopped.
    "What did it have, Abby?" asked Philip intently. "Tell me."
    Abby ground both fists into her eyes and did not answer.
    "Answer him, young lady." Helen's voice was tight.
    Abby's voice was barely audible. "All right, all right. It was the food. I saw the bags."
    "You mean you were hungry?" questioned Helen.
    Abby did not answer.
    "I felt we really should call the police right away," Philip told Miranda. "But she begged us not to. Then I said we would call her parents—but she said she doesn't have any. And since I knew she was not just any old thief, but someone who had recently become a household word around here, I said she could come home with us and talk this whole thing out first. I didn't think," he added in a gentler tone, "that she looked like a violent criminal needing to be locked up."
    "More like someone needing a good meal?" Miranda remembered the bulging beaded bag, the bread and peanut butter from the little shop, the sandwiches and chips from the cafeteria.
    "And needing someone to talk to," added Helen. "Will you stay for dinner, Abby?"
    As Abby's eyes filled with tears, she lowered her head so her hair hid her face like a silk curtain. Then she nodded. "Oh, yes, please."

Chapter Four
    M IRANDA LED a silent Abby upstairs while Philip and Helen fixed dinner. "In here," said Miranda, ushering Abby into her bedroom. The two girls perched in opposite corners of the brightly cushioned window seat. Miranda couldn't think of anything to say to this unexpected visitor.
    The silence settled uncomfortably over them as Abby looked around the room. Her glance took in the old-fashioned double bed with its carved wooden headboard and thick quilt, the matching desk and chair, strewn with clothes Miranda hadn't put away, her bookcase well-stocked with old favorites, the dresser, and Miranda's music stand in the corner.
    "I play the flute," said Miranda just to break the silence. "Do you play anything?"
    Abby took a long time to