Free Mockingbird by Sean Stewart Page A

in about a day or maybe two. We’re gonna have to find us a friend.”
    (Just here Momma stops and looks at me to make sure I’m paying close attention, which I am.)
    So Sugar wipes the tears off that Little Lost Girl, and brushes her hair, and rubs the spots out of her dress. Then she puts her lipstick on, and her earrings, and smooths out her little red dress, and bites her lips a few times until the pink comes up, and then they set out together to find a friend who might give them something to eat. The first person they meet is Pierrot, standing on a corner juggling apples. Sugar gives him her prettiest laugh. “You must be the most talented fellow alive, I do declare.”
    â€œHey, sweet thing! Do you want to have some—oh. Too bad about the kid,” he says, with a wink. “We might have had a little fun together, you and me.”
    â€œMaybe I could come back later?” Sugar asks, a little desperate.
    â€œOh, well. Sure. Try around about lunchtime,” Pierrot says, and he saunters off. But when lunchtime comes and they go back to Pierrot’s corner, he isn’t there anymore. A shopkeeper says he went off with a real cute young lady not so long ago, and he hasn’t been back since.
    â€œThank you,” Sugar tells him, and gives him her pretty smile. She stands outside a minute, fussing at her reflection in the shop window. It’s been a while now since she’s eaten, and it’s hard to get the color into her lips and face the way she likes it.
    â€œSorry,” the Little Lost Girl says.
    â€œDon’t you worry, honey,” Sugar says. “We’ll get us a bite here sometime soon.”
    But they didn’t. They walked all afternoon and by quitting time they still hadn’t found Pierrot, and Sugar was beginning to look a little shaky.
    They’re just walking down the boulevard when the Little Lost Girl smells this smell of hot dust and gasoline, and Mr. Copper’s car rolls up beside them. “Sugar,” says a voice from inside. It’s so dark inside that car, the little girl can’t even see Mr. Copper, but she can hear his dry, smooth voice. “Sugar,” says the voice again.
    Sugar pretends not to hear.
    â€œYou look a mite hungry,” says the dry, smooth voice. Still Sugar doesn’t turn around. “I have food for you.” The car keeps creeping along beside them. “I have food for the little girl too.”
    Without turning Sugar says, “What do you want for it?”
    â€œCome here and I will tell you.” The car rolls to a stop. Sugar looks down at the little girl, and then slowly walks to the curb and leans into the open window.
    A minute later she stands straight again, and Mr. Copper’s car drives off into the night. “No food?” says the Little Lost Girl.
    â€œNot from him. Not yet,” Sugar says.
    â€œWhat did he want for it?”
    â€œI reckon that’s none of your business,” Sugar says. The Little Lost Girl doesn’t ask again.
    Well, they keep on, walking into some pretty sorry neighborhoods, until about sunset they find themselves at the Preacher’s mission, a little white church with a cross on top that stands out among the shacks and tenements like a bleached skull with a hundred candles burning inside. The church is crowded with a long line of women waiting. At the back there’s tables covered with every kind of delicious food, brisket and sausage and fried chicken and mashed potatoes and fresh green beans and yellow squash and on and on. Standing before the pulpit is the Preacher, with his long black coat over his long white bones, and his two eyes burning in his head like train lamps far down a tunnel. As each woman comes forward he says, “Daughter, have you climbed into Mr. Copper’s car?”
    Mostly the women say yes when he asks them this question. Some do it real quick and soft, but he makes them say it right out loud,