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lingering a little longer than necessary. Isaiah slid his long brown fingers down the length of the girl’s hand, palming the slip of paper. He waved it at West after he read it. “Sweet!”
    Ten units of energy
, West read before Isaiah slipped it into his pocket and placed another bet. Ten hours of power to one sixty-watt bulb.
    His run lasted two more rolls, and then it was West’s turn. He placed his first bet of the night on the Don’t Pass line because he needed to get out of there. He tossed the dice without Isaiah’s fanfare. They landed on snake eyes. Everyone else at the table had bet the Pass line and grumbled as the dealer handed him a ticket for a pound of potatoes.
    He left his bet and waited while more Pass line bets were placed, then rolled again. The dice tumbled, bounced off the far side of the table, and landed on snake eyes again. The dealer in the center reached for them with his stick, lifting his eyebrows as he slid them back and West took another ticket, for a loaf of bread this time.
    “Sure you don’t want to go for the Pass line?” Isaiah whispered in his ear. “You aren’t going to pull that out again.”
    West ignored him and threw the dice. He nearly came out of his skin when a lighted siren blared and twirled over their heads. Some of the other players had switched their bets to the Don’t Pass line. The man who’d turned in his pound of mutton wasn’t one of them, and he lost his last token.
    “Winner, winner, chicken dinner!” the jester called out, and handed West a card from his breast pocket.
    One live chicken
, it read.
    Isaiah elbowed West in the ribs. “Good eats at your house tonight, right?”
    Not without his rations. West threw the dice again and finally lost his token.
    “Okay,” he said to Isaiah. “It’s been fun, but I really need to get out of here.”
    Isaiah looked back over his shoulder at the dealer who’d been flirting with him. He turned back to West with a grin on his face. “Do me a favor, man?”
    West sighed and held out his hand. Isaiah reached into his pocket and put his grandmother’s stack of ration cards into it.
    “I owe you one.”
    He owed him at least a hundred, but who was counting? “What about her extras?”
    “Oh.” Isaiah tore his eyes from the dealer who looked like she belonged between the pages of one of the magazines they sold in a dimly lit store at the back corner of the sixth floor. “Right.”
    He reached into his other pocket and handed West the energy coupon, one for a length of the homespun cotton cloth made in a factory in Ohio and shipped to the Bazaar by train, and one for a cantaloupe. Great. “Just give her these.”
    And then he was gone, pushing his way back to the craps table.
    He would probably have a chance with the dealer, too, West thought. Girls had always liked Isaiah. He watched his friend bend his dark head toward the woman and saw her smile, ignoring the table until the jester goosed her.
    He walked to the nearest bank of machines and put a token in one. The reels spun, and when they landed on nothing special four times, West went to the elevator. An operator, dressed in a tuxedo complete with top hat, grinned at him when he entered through a set of wide golden doors.
    “What floor?”
    “Produce.” West would go to the second floor, walk from room to room, and gather the fruits and vegetables that were the bulk of their diet, and then the third for the couple of pounds of meat that were supposed to feed them for the next week.
    There should have been plenty. The farm West worked on grew enough cantaloupe to keep the whole city fat and happy. But the Bad Times had ruined the country’s farm belt, and whatever food could be produced in each state was distributed by steam train to help feed the cities that couldn’t support themselves.
    Isaiah thought the live chicken was funny. But a laying hen would add to the two they already had and give him and Clover some extra protein each week. Mrs. Finch