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I got to get home. Mom has to work late because Mr. Kostas forgot to take his medicine again and Dad’s been doing double shifts at Top Hat, which means that Mindy and Dee Dee are going to be home alone until I get there. They’re okay on their own for a little while, except Dee Dee gets scared when the neighbors’ dog barks and Mindy don’t know how to calm her down.
	My knees hurt pretty bad but I’m walking as fast as I can. I don’t want to get back there and have to deal with a couple dumb, scared little kids. It sure is hot out though, one of them muggy summer nights you get around here, with the smell of sugar sweet flowers so thick it makes you gag sometimes.
	I’m not sure what street this is. I thought I was on Ashland but the houses are different, some look similar but not quite right. Probably means I’m on one of them streets that go the same direction a block over, like maybe Bosworth or Greenview. Whatever one it is, it’s got more apartment buildings than Ashland.
	I walk by an old man who gives a nod of his head at me. So I try to stand as tall as I can. Don’t want him to know I’m out after curfew.
	The intersection up here has a little round island in the middle, which means I must be on Greenview. I always thought those were funny, like a little version of this place in Paris I seen in a movie once. When I was little, me and this girl Chris from down the block used to pretend we was in Paris at one of them intersections near where I live.
	Anyway, I take a left to try to get back to Ashland.
	A couple blocks up I cross a busy street, then down a little slope to where the streets have trees and the houses have yards. The thick sweet smell of flowers is even stronger over here and the streets are pretty dark. I see shadows on the sidewalk up ahead and can hear it’s a bunch of older kids. I don’t know them so I cross the street before they see me. I’m not scared or nothing, I just got to hurry back home and don’t have no time to deal with people. I zigzag down a couple more streets to get away from those guys.
	I’m on some street—maybe Farwell, I can’t see the houses through the trees real good—when I get this weird feeling someone’s following me. I been jumped by kids around here before and don’t want to deal with that again. Not tonight especially. I look around but I don’t see nothing. I whistle some song for a minute then realize I shouldn’t draw attention to myself. I don’t want some adult yelling at me for being out so late, or even worse, to have cops following me around. So I stop for a minute, and make like I got to tie my shoe or something, then take a look around.
	The street is empty. Quiet. There ain’t even much cars parked here because most people got driveways. Some of the houses are lit up and I can see some families moving around inside of them, and like I always do when I walk around the neighborhood at night, I wonder what it would be like to live in one of them other houses instead of mine. I know none of them have perfect lives or nothing but I just wonder still. What’s dinner like there? Do their moms make pierogies on Thursdays like my mom does? What’s Sunday morning like there?  Do they go to church or do they sit around and read the newspaper?
	Behind me, I hear a little noise, like a shoe scuffing on the sidewalk, and I tense up. I can’t turn around because if it’s a cop they’re going to start asking me questions about why I’m out this late. On the other hand, if it’s some kid who wants to start something, keeping my back to him probably ain’t a good idea. The only thing I can think to do is keep going and tell myself that sound I heard was just somebody down the block dragging their trash out to the curb.
	I keep walking along but just can’t shake the feeling I’m being followed. I keep thinking I see something moving out of the corner of my eye. I keep hearing little noises that make my heart pound in my neck. Sometimes I see a shadow like someone’s right behind me, right about to grab me, but it always turns out to just be my own shadow falling in two directions because I’m between streetlights.
	A couple times cars pass me and I try to keep my head down and shoulders straight, so they’ll think I’m an adult. One time I even think I hear a car slowly creeping along behind me but eventually it just rolls past.
	It’s right then that I realize I’m home. Lights are shining behind the curtains and I walk up the steps to the porch carefully, worried I’m going to scare Dee Dee if she hears them creak. I reach out for the doorknob and twist, but it don’t move. My stupid sisters have locked me out. They know I don’t have no key, I can’t believe they done that.
	I pat my pockets like a dummy, thinking somehow a key’s going to show up where there ain’t been one before. Then I jiggle the doorknob like that’s going to do anything. Feeling kind of mad, I bang on the door a couple times then I bend down and start looking under the doormat. Mom’s never put the key there but I got no other ideas at the moment.
	As I’m bending down, feeling around under the mat, the door opens. I look up, expecting to see Mindy standing there in her pajamas, but instead there’s some lady standing over me that I never seen before in my life.
	“Can I help you?” she says. She’s probably about Mom’s age, but weird looking—fat, wearing pants, and with her hair cut short like a boy.
	I stand back up slowly and answer, “I’m Jake.”
	She looks at me like she’s confused.
	“Mrs. Waller’s son,” I say. “Did my mom ask you to come over?”
	She looks me up and down for a good while. Then finally she says, “Why don’t you come in?”
	She holds the door open and I walk past her into the house. I feel like I been spun around too many times on a merry-go-round and must really look like it because she grabs me by the hand and leads me over to the couch. “Here, have a seat. I’ll go get you a glass of water.”
	“Where’s Mindy and Dee Dee?” I ask as she walks away, but my throat’s pretty dry and the words come out soft and squeaky. I don’t think she even hears me.
	I sit there for a while, feeling confused, staring at the shiny stripes in the wallpaper, noticing my eyelids starting to droop. It seems like she’s been gone a while when she finally comes back holding a glass.
	“It’s really hot out. Drink this up before you get dehydrated.”
	I take the water from her hand and drink it down. It really does feel good. It’s awful hot out tonight and I can feel that I been sweating like a pig. I ask her where Mindy and Dee Dee are, but she’s busy staring at the window and she don’t seem to hear me.
	We just sit like that for a while. The room is silent except for the ticking of a clock, and I feel like every little movement I make is really loud. Even my breath is like that. I try not to breathe too heavy but then I wind up not breathing enough. So every so often I end up having to take a really deep breath and I feel like she’s watching me every time I do that. I’m about to ask where my sisters are, when there’s a knock on the door.
	“Just one minute,” she mouths to me, raising her pointer finger like a teacher. Then she opens the door and steps out onto the porch.
	She’s gone a minute then comes back in with two cops—one man, one lady—following her. The man looks right at me as he steps into the living room and says, “Hey buddy, you doing okay?”
	“Where’s my mom?” I ask. “Is she okay? Where’s Mindy and Dee Dee?”
	“They’re fine, Jake,” he says. “Don’t worry about it.”
	“We need you to come with us,” the lady cop says.
	I feel my stomach twist into knots and water starts to well up in my eyes. Voice cracking, I ask, “What do you mean? My mom told me I need to be here! I got to wait for Dee Dee and Mindy!”
	The guy cop looks at the lady cop then crouches down in front of me. “Jake, listen to me. They’re okay. You probably don’t remember me but I’m… an old family friend. My name’s Roberto.”
	“Roberto,” I repeat.
	“Look, you got to trust me here, Jake. I need you to come with us.”
	“My mom?”
	“She told us to come get you.”
	I stare at him for a minute. It’s true. He does seem familiar.
He reaches his arm under my armpit and lifts me to my feet in a kind of half bear hug, asking, “You ready to go buddy?”
	Head swirling, I nod yes.
	The lady who dresses like a boy holds the door for us, giving me a strange sad look as we pass her. Then we go down the front steps and out to the police car that’s parked in the driveway.
	They put me in the back and drive along down a couple dark blocks, across a busy street and then left around a corner. Before I know it, we’re pulling into the parking lot of a wide three-story brick building. We park near the entrance, next to a van. Then they help me out of the back seat and bring me in through the front doors.
	The lobby is quiet and small, with three elevators in a row off to the left, and some flowers and big fern-looking plants against the back wall. To the right, at the reception desk, is a smiling African lady in one of them head wraps. Behind her is a big yellow and blue sign that says “North Side Assisted Living”.
	“Mr. Waller,” she says chuckling warmly, “You been out carousing again? What we going to do with you? Don’t you know you are too old to be out wandering around like that?”
	I look around me for a couple minutes, unsure of where I am. Then an elevator dings and a nurse comes walking out pushing a wheelchair. She walks over to me and pats the seat. “Come now Mr. Waller,” she says, “I’ll take you up to your room.”
	She’s really pretty and it gives me goose bumps when she talks to me, so I just sit down without saying a word. As she starts wheeling me over to the elevators I hear the African lady talking to the guy cop. “Once again you are his guardian angel, Roberto.”
	“Well,” he says with a laugh, “He seems to really like wandering my beat. I’m always surprised by how far he can walk for a ninety year old.”