Chapter 2

The next day, the new woman was still there.

Her name was Sarah, I heard one of the other staff say.

She didn' t talk much, just worked.

The office printer jammed. She fixed it in under a minute, not even looking at the manual.

I had a donut from breakfast. It was the dry kind, the kind nobody else wanted. I saved it in my pocket.

During a quiet moment, I walked over to her desk.

"Hi," I said. My voice was small.

She looked up. Her eyes made me want to step back.

"You want this?" I held out the donut. It was a bit squashed.

She just stared at it.

Then at me.

"No," she said. Her voice was flat.

I pulled the donut back, my face feeling hot. "Okay."

I went back to the couch.

Later, Mrs. Diaz, who ran the after-school art class, called out, "Anyone hungry? We have extra sandwiches from the staff meeting!"

I knew there wasn't any staff meeting.

Sarah was standing near the kitchen doorway.

She caught my eye.

Then she looked away quick and said to Mrs. Diaz, "That boy looks like he could eat." She nodded towards me.

Mrs. Diaz brought me a sandwich. It was good. Chicken salad, not the cheap stuff.

And a small carton of apple juice.

I ate it slowly, watching Sarah.

She was back at her computer, typing.

But I saw her glance at me when she thought I wasn't looking.

A few days later, some older kids from the high school started hanging around the center.

They were loud, always looking for trouble.

One of them, a big guy named Marcus, cornered me by the water fountain.

He wanted the five dollars I got for my birthday from a charity group.

I clutched the bill in my pocket.

"Hand it over, shrimp," Marcus sneered.

Suddenly, Sarah was there.

She didn' t say anything.

She just stood between me and Marcus.

She was smaller than him, but she didn't look scared. She looked... dangerous.

Marcus laughed. "What are you gonna do, lady?"

Sarah moved so fast I almost didn't see it.

Her hand shot out, grabbed Marcus's wrist.

His eyes went wide. He tried to pull away, but he couldn't.

"Leave him alone," Sarah said. Her voice was low, but it cut through the noise.

Marcus grunted, then yanked his arm free when she loosened her grip slightly.

He rubbed his wrist, looking at her with a new kind of expression. Not so tough now.

"Whatever," he mumbled, and he and his friends backed off.

Sarah turned and walked away without a word to me.

But after that, Marcus didn't bother me again.

I started to realize Sarah wasn't just another adult passing through.

She was different.

She watched Ethan all the time. It was her main thing.

When he laughed with Isabelle, a fancy lawyer who sometimes visited from a foundation, Sarah' s face would get tight.

Isabelle was pretty, always dressed in nice clothes. She smiled a lot at Ethan.

He smiled back.

Sarah would then type harder, or organize files with a kind of quiet fury.

I was just a kid from the system. I knew about watching people.

And Sarah was watching Ethan like he was the only thing holding the world together.