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package of Chicken McNuggets. There were three nuggets leftover from supper the night before. I’d been planning to have them as a bedtime snack but I’d forgotten. I pulled one out of the package.
    â€œI think I can afford to share one with you. Here you go.”
    She snatched it from my hand, her little sharp teeth scraping against my fingers. It dropped to the ground and she gulped it down hungrily.
    â€œYou’re even more hungry than I am, aren’t you, girl?” I looked at the two remaining nuggets. The cat needed them more than I did. Besides, they didn’t look too appealing. I dropped them to the ground. She grabbed a second nugget, chewed it a couple of times, and then swallowed it down. The third was gone in seconds.
    The cat looked up at me.
    â€œThat’s all I’ve got,” I said. “Sorry.”
    She began rubbing up against me again. It felt good.
    â€œI don’t have anything more . . . but maybe I can bring you something some other time.”
    She looked as though she understood what I was saying.
    â€œHey, Dana!”
    At the sound of Brent’s voice I jumped up, and the cat scrambled away.
    â€œThere you are,” he said. He and Ashley were standing at the end of the alley, and they were both carrying newspapers . . . lots of newspapers.
    â€œWe couldn’t see you at first,” he said.
    â€œWas that a cat?” Ashley asked.
    â€œI was feeding it.”
    â€œThat’s not too bright,” Brent told me.
    â€œHey, it was hungry!”
    â€œEvery mangy, stray cat in the whole city is hungry,” he said. “Who knows what disease it might have? You’ve got to think about yourself. Besides, aren’t you hungry?”
    â€œNot really . . . not that hungry.”
    â€œGood. Then once we sell these newspapers I can have your breakfast as well as mine.”
    â€œWe’re going to sell papers?”
    â€œYeah, what did you think we were going to do with all of these?”
    I shrugged. “Where’d they come from?”
    â€œWe liberated them,” Brent said.
    â€œWe set them free,” Ashley added, and chuckled.
    â€œThey were locked up, imprisoned really, inside a newspaper box. We just opened up the door and let them escape.”
    â€œYou bought them?” That didn’t make sense.
    â€œWe bought one ,” Brent said. “We put in fifty cents to open up the box and then we took out all the papers that were in there.”
    â€œAll forty-three papers,” Ashley said.
    â€œYou stole them?”
    â€œDon’t sound so shocked,” Ashley said.
    â€œI’m not shocked . . . not that shocked.”
    Brent shrugged. “Haven’t you ever stolen anything in your whole life?”
    â€œI’ve stolen things before,” I lied.
    â€œYou have? Like what?” Ashley asked.
    â€œStuff,” I said, unable to come up with a more specific lie.
    Ashley laughed. “Stuff . . . yeah, right. You probably didn’t have enough time to steal anything because you were too busy taking piano lessons and tap-dancing classes.”
    â€œActually, it was jazz and hip hop,” I answered sheepishly.
    â€œOoh, hip hop, now that really makes you street!”
    â€œGive her a break, Ash,” Brent said.
    â€œThat’s okay,” I said. “I guess she’s right.”
    â€œOf course I’m right. And that’s why the two of us have to take care of you.”
    â€œAnd besides,” Brent said, “we didn’t steal those papers, we liberated them . . . weren’t you listening? When we opened the door all those poor newspapers just jumped out into our arms. Isn’t that how it happened?” he asked Ashley.
    â€œThat’s how I remember it. Can you take some of these?” she asked.
    I took a dozen or so off the top of the pile in her arms. “So what do we do now?”
    â€œWe find a place to sell them. Forty papers at