4. Bland Chicken

BLAND CHICKEN

That night, as the boy was eating dinner, the doorbell rang.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the flashing lights of a police car coming for him, as one had the day of the Incident. But then he blinked again and saw they were regular car headlights.

Grumbling about rude people interrupting dinner, his aunt went to the door. "What'd he do now?" she asked the social worker.

The boy waited for the social worker to tell her that he had blown his second chance and then his aunt would kick him out and the judge would send him to juvie tonight, instead of waiting for the hearing at the end of the summer.

"Can I just have a word with him?" the social worker asked.

The chicken stuck in the boy's throat. He couldn't swallow.

"Go on, then," his uncle said, pointing to the door.

He tried to chew and finish the chicken as he walked to the door, but it refused to go down, so he spat the wadded-up food in his hand and hid it in his pocket.

The social worker's face was as bland as the chicken, giving nothing away. He gestured for the boy to step onto the porch and then closed the door behind him. His car was in the driveway, headlights on, insects dancing in the beam. Through the open back-seat window, two kids sang along to a Taylor Swift song that his mom used to love.

The social worker was unsmiling as he said, "I thought I would give you the chance to tell me what happened today."

The smell of something delicious floated through the air: the mouthwatering aroma of hamburgers. Hunger opened up in the boy like a chasm, in spite of the bland chicken breast he'd just consumed. Or maybe because of it.

"She told me to leave," the boy said.

"No. Mrs. Winston was as surprised as anyone when I went to pick you up and you weren't there."

"Not Mrs. Winston. That bossy girl. Maya-Jade."

"Who's Maya-Jade?"

"Mrs. Winston told me to find Mrs. Sandler and I had to look everywhere for ages because no one knew who she was because there is no Mrs. Sandler, only Maya-Jade, and…" He had to stop talking then to make room for the lump that had taken up residence in his throat. He wasn't going to cry. He hadn't cried in all of this and he certainly wasn't going to do it because of some dumb girl with a dumb name!

"Back up and slow down," the social worker said.

So he did, explaining how he'd had to search for ages and then Maya-Jade was mean to him and she ordered him to leave. If it wasn't completely true, it felt like the truth.

The social worker softened. "You can't leave like that. Court order aside, we thought something bad might've happened to you."

"You mean worse than being forced to work at that place? Worse than maybe going to juvie?"

"All of those are temporary and theoretical," the social worker replied. "I was worried something permanently bad had happened."

This very nearly made the boy laugh. He lived on a lumpy couch with an aunt and uncle who did not want him. He had a judge who had warned him of last chances. He might go to juvie. And his mom… He hadn't seen her in almost a year. He didn't know if or when he would ever see her again. How could it get more permanently bad than this?

From the car one of the kids yelled, "Dad, hurry up. The fries are getting soggy!"

Hamburgers and fries! After all the indignities of the day, it was the mention of fried potatoes that threatened to undo him. Burgers and fries, when he had to eat bland chicken every night. They probably had milkshakes with their burgers too. Like the kind he and his mom used to splurge on when they had enough money, so thick you had to suck your cheeks in hard to get the ice cream through the straw.

He'd asked his aunt once if they could get burgers, but she said that paying for takeout was wasteful, and that she had spent enough money "cleaning up my little sister's problems."

The social worker turned toward the car and held up an index finger before turning back to the boy. "Let's chalk today up to rookie error. Tomorrow morning you'll be at work at ten and you'll stay until six, unless one of the staff—the actual adult staff—tells you otherwise."

And with that he got in his car and left, taking the sound of Taylor Swift and the smell of burgers and fries and happiness with him.