Free Money Hungry by Sharon Flake Page B

every one of them.
    Next, Ja’nae yanks off a bedsheet.
    “Man,” Mai says, holding her nose.
    The sheet Ja’nae got in her hand got a big brown stain in the middle.
    “She didn’t say do the beds. Forget it,” I say, trying to grab the sheet from her.
    Ja’nae turns and stares at me. Her voice is really low, and sad. “They need someplace clean to sleep.”
    We all stare at her. There’s maybe twelve beds here. And my fingers are like Mai’s now. Cracked, red, and itching.
    “What if your grandmother lived here?” Ja’nae asks us.
    “The nursing home my grandmother lives in has a golf course,” Zora says, lifting up her foot and looking at her white leather boot. There’s a long brown mark across the toe.
    “Shut up, Zora,” I say.
    Ja’nae got a good heart. She always wants to do the right thing no matter what.
    “Okay, okay,” I say. “Ask Miss Baker where the clean sheets are.”
    Miss Baker bugs us every few minutes, it seems. So before one of us can hunt her down, she comes back to where we are.
    “We got more sheets,” she says. “Only they in the basement. Dirty. The girl we hired to do the washing quit two weeks ago. Things pile up, you know.”
    Before we know anything, Ja’nae’s volunteering us to wash that stuff. I mean, I don’t even wash my own clothes at home. Neither does Zora. But we help Ja’nae peel that stuff off the beds and carry it down to the basement. My whole body smells like pee by the time we done.
    “I wanna go. Now,” Mai says.
    “They don’t have nobody else,” Ja’nae says, making us feel bad.
    I look around. No matter what we do, it’s still gonna be a mess in here. But Ja’nae ain’t never gonna see that. She’s probably thinking about her grandparents. She don’t realize that once we gone, this place is gonna look the way it did when we walked in.
    “Please,” Ja’nae says.
    “Okay,” I say. “Mai, you stay and do the clothes since your hands are so jacked up.
    Zora, you go upstairs and wipe down the furniture and pick up a little. That’s not so bad, is it?”
    Zora gives me this look. “No,” she says. “Ja’nae and me will do the bathrooms.” Everybody’s okay with the plan. Only the plan don’t work out the way I’m thinking.

Ja’nae’s singing and scrubbing out the toilet and tub. Before I’m done washing the windows in the hallway, she’s headed to check on the sheets in the washing machine. I figure I can rest up till she comes back. So I sit down on the floor and stretch my legs. I get up a few minutes later and head for the kitchen at the end of the hall.
    When I push open the door, there’s an old man in there.
    “Who you?” he says, like he might hit me if I say the wrong thing.
    When I tell him that I’m here to clean, he laughs. Says Miss Baker done found herself another sucker.
    “You thirsty?” he asks. I say yes. He leads me to his room, where he points to a refrigerator with a padlock on the front.
    “Help yourself,” he says, handing me the key. “But I’m watching you,” he says, lowering himself onto his bed.
    Inside his refrigerator there’s bottled water, crackers, and plastic knives and forks sitting on the top shelf right next to cucumbers and cottage cheese. But that ain’t what catches my eye. It’s the money that makes me lick my lips and swallow more spit than I should. It’s stuffed tight in a half-empty bread bag, pushed against a head of rotten lettuce. I can’t help but take the bag out to get a better look.
    “Come here, gal,” the man says, wiping the back of his wrinkled lips with his hand.
    He’s kind of scary-looking, so I don’t hurry over to him. I keep my eyes on the bag of money in my hand.
    Soon as I’m close enough, he grabs his money out my hand and says for me to listen up good. “Never spend it. That’s the secret. Never spend a penny, if you don’t have to.”
    I look at all that loot, then I look at the old man again. “Why you put it there?”
    The old guy