Free Fostering Death by KM Rockwood

be in school?”
    “I guess,” he said. “But Brianna won’t get dressed, and I can’t leave her alone.”
    “Alone?” I was alarmed. “Where’s your mom? And the babysitter?”
    He shrugged. “The babysitter couldn’t make it last night. Mom stayed home.”
    “Where is she now?”
    “Upstairs. Asleep.”
    “You mean she didn’t get up to help you and Brianna get ready for school?”
    He shrugged again. “Nope. I mean, I can fix us breakfast and stuff, but I can’t make Brianna get ready for school. She’s only in first grade, you know. And she hates school. She says she’s never going again.”
    First graders shouldn’t hate school. Something was wrong. From what I had seen of her, I suspected poor Brianna had some kind of learning disability. Kelly didn’t want to hear that, though, especially from me. When I’d brought it up, she told me they were her kids, not mine, and I should mind my own business. She was right—they were her kids.
    “Can you see if you can get Mom up?” Chris asked, opening the door wider.
    “I guess I can try,” I said, hoping an invitation from an eight year old would count if someone did call the police.
    The house was chilly. I knew Kelly kept the heat down to try to save money.
    Brianna sat in her pajamas on the living room floor, a half-empty bowl of cereal next to her. A small spill of milk puddled on the hardwood floor.
    “Why don’t you two finish getting ready for school?” I said, heading to the kitchen to get a paper towel to wipe up the milk before it ruined the finish on the floor.
    “I’m supposed to bring in a permission slip for a trip,” Brianna said, not moving. “Today’s the last day. If I don’t bring it in signed, today, I’ll have to stay back with the kindergarten kids when everybody else goes. And it costs money.” She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand.
    “Where is it?” I asked.
    “On the dining room table. Where I left it for Mom.”
    A small mountain of papers and mail, opened and unopened, sat on the dining room table. I started to sift through it.
    Brianna appeared beside me, her feet bare on the cold floor. “The paper’s blue,” she said, reaching into the stack and pulling out a paper.
    A field trip to a children’s museum next week. Sure enough, the last day for the permission slip to be in was today. It cost five dollars.
    I pulled out my wallet. I hadn’t stopped at the bank with my paycheck, and I didn’t have a whole lot of ready cash, but I suspected that Kelly, after not working last night, would have even less. I took out a five and paper clipped it to the permission slip.
    Chris came in, holding a long stick with some round balls hanging from it. “This is my science project,” he said. “We were supposed to write a report on the solar system or make a project. We could make a poster or a model and bring it in. I made a model, but it doesn’t have a sun. I made that in school. The rough draft was supposed to be turned in yesterday, but the teacher said I could bring it today.”
    “Rough draft?”
    “Yeah. You know, the trial version. Then we make a good one.”
    The project was flimsy and misshapen. It was pretty obvious he hadn’t had much adult help with it. But he’d done it, and the next version might be better. “You got something to wrap that in?” I asked. “If we take it outside, I wouldn’t want it to get wet or broken.”
    “We could use a beach towel,” he suggested.
    “You go get a beach towel. Then get dressed.”
    He looked at Brianna’s permission slip with the money clipped to it. “Do you think I could get ice cream at lunch today?” he asked.
    “How much?”
    “Seventy-five cents.”
    I pulled out my meager supply of pocket change and counted out six dimes and three nickels.
    Brianna was sifting through the remaining papers on the dining room table. “What’s this?” she asked, holding one up. “It looks important, and when it came, Mom got mad.”
    I