Free Money Hungry by Sharon Flake

walks over to Zora’s dresser. There’s six bottles of perfume, a whole tray of fingernail polish, and a little dish with gold chains and rings sitting in it. Ja’nae whips out her cotton ball and sprays it with perfume from the red bottle. The room smells like oranges mixed with peppermint. I guess that’s better than the coconut-strawberry perfume Ja’nae’s been wearing all week. It seems like Ja’nae used up half the bottle. That’s how strong it smells in here.
    Zora don’t act like she minds Ja’nae messing with her expensive perfume. She’s in a good mood today because her mom snuck her sixty bucks. Now she got half of the money she needs to buy the sneakers. But Zora’s got her eye on some sixty-dollar jeans now, too. “Daddy already told me I have to contribute forty dollars toward them, and he’ll contribute the rest,” she says, pulling open her closet door. “When I get my sneakers, I’ll have fifteen pairs,” she says. All of Zora’s sneakers are lined up and organized by color, just like her clothes. “I’ll have twenty pairs of jeans when I get my next pair.”
    We’re all eyeballing Zora’s stuff. She’s got so much, she uses part of her dad’s closet and the one in the hallway, too. Two times a year, Dr. Mitchell makes her give some of it away to the Goodwill. But that’s no use. Zora’s mother just keeps giving her more clothes, or sneaking her money so she can buy more herself.
    Mai’s got her eye on a red blouse in Zora’s closet when, all of a sudden, she says that she’s gonna come clean houses with me and Ja’nae. Her dad told her last night that she don’t have to work the food truck until him and her can work out their problems. But since she won’t be contributing to the family, she’ll have to earn her own spending money. “That means lunch money, too,” says Mai, “unless I want to bring food from home.”
    I tell everyone about that cleaning gig Ja’nae’s grandmother got us, working for a lady named Miss Baker. Zora says to count her in—the money will come in handy for clothes. Ja’nae and I look away, though, when Zora says she wants in on the kind of money we made last time at Miss Neeta’s. Shoot, neither one of us ever told her that we had to give most of it back.
    When I say that Miss Baker’s place is on Jade Street, Zora changes her tune and says she ain’t too sure about going.
    “Jade Street’s in a rough neighborhood, even worse than Raspberry’s,” she says.
    I know what Zora means. Lots of drugs get sold around there. People be shooting up—and shooting each other.
    “Yeah, Jade Street is rough,” I say. “But Miss Baker will pick us up and drop us off so we won’t be out in the street. And we gonna make two hundred and fifty dollars for cleaning up. That’s sixty-two dollars apiece. Good money.”
    Ja’nae sprays a cotton ball. “Listen, I need the money,” she says. “Even if it means we gotta work on Jade Street.”
    I look at her, and think I shoulda just kept the fifty dollars I took from her after we cleaned Miss Neeta’s.
    Mai asks why anybody would give all that money for cleaning up. “She could hire a cleaning company for that much cash,” she says.
    I explain that one of them companies ripped Miss Baker off before. Stole some valuables. “Now she wants to hire kids, ’cause she thinks she can trust us.”
    Mai and Zora ask how long it’s gonna take to make that “good” money.
    “It takes as long as it takes,” I say, reminding them that they never made that much money at one time before.
    The next day, Miss Baker picks us up in front of the corner store at 5th and Mallow.
    As soon as we see the car, we know things ain’t right. Miss Baker’s car is a big blue station wagon that looks like somebody burnt half the paint off with a blowtorch. When we get in it, the engine stops cold.
    “All right, Bessy,” Miss Baker says. She got a gap between her teeth big enough to hold a slice of bread. “Now don’t