Chapter 15

When she finally returned down the stairs, Scotty had lowered the screen and window and had shut the door. She saw her books on the side table. He was looking around her living room and she was suddenly proud of how fine their house was when she saw the look of admiration in his eyes.

"This is nice."

Mama had gotten a cool living room set, which was made of soft tan fur. The cocktail and side tables were wooden and surrounded by the same fur. A huge plush white rug was in the middle of the floor and an oversized painting of a half nude African warrior woman took up most of one wall. The wall next to it had a huge mirror that made the already large room look twice as big.

"You want some Kool-Aid?" She asked.

He looked at the door and shook his head. "No. I better go before your mother gets home. Don't let anyone see you breaking into your house that way. You'll get in trouble."

"Why? Its my house."

"Because little kids aren't supposed to know how to break into houses."

"I'm twelve, I'm not little."

He chuckled. "Okay. Well twelve year olds aren't supposed to know anything about breaking and entering."

His words caused her to wonder how much he knew about breaking and entering. "You sure you don't want some Kool-Aid. You can always go out the back patio if my mama comes home."

When he hesitated she led the way through to the neat kitchen.

Scotty noted that Vanessa's house was spotless. It didn't even seem real that a kitchen wouldn't have dirty dishes piled into the sink or grease stains all over the stove and dirt and trash on the floor. G's house was nice compared to his own but even his friend had dirty dishes in the sink and a few roaches running around the kitchen.

He watched Vanessa open a cabinet and retrieve two matching glasses and thought that if his house had glasses like that, the smaller kids would have smashed them just for fun.

She opened the refrigerator and he peeked over her shoulder and saw food, fresh vegetables, and neat plastic containers that held some food, which had been cooked instead of spread across bread.

She grabbed a container and then poured red Kool-Aid into the glasses. She watched him gulp down half of it in one swallow. "You want a peanut butter sandwich?"

He shook his head and placed the empty glass in the sink. "Nah. Catch you later." He went out the back and after sliding the patio door closed behind him he saw her watching him and winked at her before disappearing.

Vanessa squealed as soon as he was out of sight and then jumped up and down in excitement. She hurried to the phone to call Jalissa to tell her what had happened.

"You are such a liar!" Jalissa kept saying, but the way she said it let Vanessa know that her cousin believed every word. "I can't believe you let that thief into your house and then you left him alone?! Girl, you better go check to make sure nobody stole Aunt Leelah's jewelry!"

"What? No! He was just standing there looking around."

"Hmph," Jalissa sucked air through her teeth. "Don't cry when your mama finds out that some of her stuff is missing."

"I know that he is Tino's brother but that doesn't mean that he's bad." Being related to a bad person didn't make you a bad person. Look at Jalissa and Jalissa's mother. Aunt Callista was…a bitch. She could think the word even if she couldn't say it out loud.

She heard keys in the front door. "I gotta go," and then she quickly hung up the phone. "Hi mama."

Leelah White dropped her purse on the side table in relief. "Oh my God, baby. I was so scared when I didn't see you out front." She hugged her daughter in relief. "I am so sorry that I'm late." She took hold of her daughter's shoulders and looked at her closely. "But how did you get inside?"

She thought about Scotty's words but more importantly she thought about how pissed her mama would be if she knew that Scotty knew how to break into their house. "I opened the window from the outside and climbed through."

Leelah gave her a surprised look and then went over to the window and examined it. Vanessa joined her and pointed out how she had done it—or rather how Scotty had done it.

"Well I'll be … " she gave Vanessa a worried look. "How did you learn how to do that?"

Vanessa raised her eyebrows. "I … heard kids at school talking about it."

Instead of looking happy that she had gotten into the house safely, Mama seemed more concerned that someone knew how to break into the house. She immediately locked and secured the window and then did the same for all of the windows on the lower level.

For some reason this made Vanessa mad because what if mama left her outside alone again. She'd been over an hour late this time. Vanessa decided that she would just demand that her mother trust her with a key to the house. She wouldn't lose it and nobody would steal it from her if she kept it on a chain around her neck.

"Mama, I don't like being locked out the house. I think I should have a key." She opened her mouth to support her case by proclaiming that she was old enough and responsible when her mother interrupted.

"Yes baby, I know. Come here baby, I want to talk to you about something." She led Vanessa to the couch and they sat down with mama's arms around her. Vanessa waited with anticipation and a little nervousness because mama seemed like she was about to say something unpleasant.

"Vanessa, I can't keep leaving you alone in the evenings like I've been doing. It's wrong and I spend most of the night worrying about you."

"But, you call me before I go to bed-"

"But that's not enough. You need an adult with you. So I talked to your aunt Callista and starting tomorrow you're going to go home with Jalissa everyday after school."