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of the street,” I said. “It wasn’t anybody’s money. Did you at least get a reward?”
    Dad slowly pulled a fifty from his pocket.
    â€œOh, that’s sweet. That won’t even buy groceries,” I said. “I’m going back to bed.”
    Dad wasn’t home when I got up in the morning. The Les Paul was there, but the other guitar was gone. I had the last of the cornflakes—dry because there wasn’t any milk—and half the orange juice. Then I put some cheese slices in my pocket—the kind wrapped in plastic—and went outside to sit on the steps. In a few minutes Penelope peeked around the side of the Jensens’ place. As soon as she was sure the coast was clear, she bolted across the grass strip between the two trailers, scampered up the steps and hopped onto my lap. She tapped the pocket of my jeans with a front paw.
    â€œHang on, you little mooch,” I said. She started to purr. I pulled out a cheese slice, peeled off the plastic and fed her little bits while I stroked her black fur. She might have looked like a sleek black panther, but Penelope was about as menacing as a teddy bear. Suddenly her head came up and her ears started twitching. She bolted down the stairs and across the space between the two trailers in a flash.
    George was on the way. Somehow Penelope always knew. A couple of minutes later he came strolling down the middle of the chip-sealed road like a lion crossing a dusty African plain. He climbed the steps and sat down beside me. After a moment he butted my arm with his head. I unwrapped the other two cheese slices and fed them to him while I scratched behind his one ear. Then we sat there in the sun for a while, watching the world go by.
    George was Charlie Hetherington’s cat. Charlie and my dad were friends. Charlie was sort of the trailer park caretaker. That meant when there was trouble, Charliewould stop by your place and pretty soon you’d be wishing you’d kept your mouth shut, your pants zipped or your hands to yourself.
    Dad claimed Charlie had won George in a poker game along with a 1972 El Camino and a case of beer with one bottle missing. Dad also said George and Charlie were a lot alike. I suppose they were, as much as a big ginger cat with one ear and a big bald dude with half a middle finger on his right hand could be.
    After a while George decided he had things to do. He gave me another head butt and wandered away. I thought I’d go for a walk. I locked the trailer, cut around the back of the park and got on the trail. Charlie said that years ago there had been railroad tracks all over, but there hadn’t been trains around for years. Most of the tracks had been dug up and replaced with gravel walking trails—the “green” solution.
    I wandered up behind Sloppy Joe’s Takeout. I checked the pockets of my jeanjacket. Nothing. I didn’t even have enough for an order of small onion rings.
    There were a few benches, a couple of garbage cans and a beat-up picnic table on the strip of grass behind Sloppy Joe’s. Oliver, the twerpy grade nine kid who had started hanging out with Nick and the others, was sitting by himself on top of the table, eating a burger. I walked over to him. “Hey,” I said.
    â€œHey, Kevin,” he said with a mouth full of cheese and meat. He really was a twerp.
    There was a small plate of onion rings beside him on the table, the grease already soaking into the cardboard. I took one without asking. They were just the way I liked them—hot and greasy.
    â€œI thought you’d be getting ready,” Oliver said. “You know, for later.” He reminded me of a puppy, all eager and twitchy.
    I grabbed another onion ring. “What do you mean?”
    He looked all around—not that therewas anyone else there but us. “I know what you guys are going to do tonight,” he said, and I swear to God his tongue was hanging out just a little