Midge Jorbyn is eleven years old, living with her evil foster dad Joffrey. Everything seems fine from the outside, but she walks to school with the lunch she packed. Nobody knows what she's holdin' back. Wearin' the same dress she wore yesterday,
sh...
We are shuffling back to the theater and New York licks my chops. Thousands. Millions of people, all different.
I am hungry.
I stretch my belly button into a stiff rubbery string, then snap it against my stomach. "Mm-mm," I say. Lin knows what I mean. There's a food truck in the distance. It sells Greek food. Lin scoops me up one his shoulders and we parade over. Grofflita holds onto my middle toe, like the most tender Shepard.
Lin wants a gyro. We get to the window and he deciphers the web of thorns that is our hungry hungry tummies. Santa Anna, Grofftron, Lin, and Begonia titter amongst themselves. I pay attention to the writing on the truck, the hieroglyphs under the Greek Delicatessen.
And that's when I hear it.
The soft tinkling behind us in the road that can only mean one thing.
I can see it all crash before me like waves, the Joffrey the ice cream the cult the winklepickers, Santa Anna turning his pimpled back to me, scooping scooping, scooping ice cream with no one there to eat it--
The ice cream truck rumbles toward me.
Baskin Robbins.
I need to get out. A sound explodes from me.
"NNOOO!!!"
My hands find Lin's waist, my security blanket. His tummy glops when I slam him into me. Save me, Lin. The truck rattles
crushing
my
heart
collapsing
my
veins
And something cracks. Lin's face contorts. The lump in his pants snaps into a right angle. Begonia is screaming. Grofftwi dials
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