A local woman missing- Mary Kubica

food. But if I tell her that, she’ll be angry ’cause she went to the
trouble of making me food.
“I am hungry, ma’am.”
That lady tells me, “It would be good for you to show some
gratitude from time to time. I ain’t gotta feed you, you know? I could
just leave you here to starve to death.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” I say. My eyes stare hard at the floor so I don’t
have to see her ugly face.
She asks me, “What were you doing down here that it took you so
long to come?” I don’t like the way she’s looking at me, like she
knows something she shouldn’t. My stomach churns, thinking maybe
she knows I’ve been up to no good. I feel myself stiffen there at the
bottom of the steps. But my spoon is tucked away inside the toilet
where she won’t ever find it. My spoon is safe and because of that
so am I, for the time.
I lie and say, “I was sleeping.”
“What’s that you say?” she snaps, suddenly madder than she was
before. Up there at the top of the steps, her face turns beet red.
I realize my mistake too late.
“I was sleeping, ma’am,” I tell her. I ain’t ever supposed to say
anything without saying ma’am at the end. I’m supposed to show
some respect for all that she does for me, otherwise I get punished.
The lady’s quiet for a long while. She’s just looking at me, staring. I
don’t like the quiet because when she’s quiet, she scares me most of
all.
“Looks like someone ain’t gonna eat tonight, after all,” she says,
and then she mutters under her breath, “Ungrateful bitch.”
She turns away from me and takes her slop with her. At the top of
them steps, she slams the door closed and turns the lock. I step
backward and drop down from the wooden step to the concrete floor,
thinking that if that’s the worst she’s got for me—taking away Gus’s
and my dinner—then I got off pretty easy this time.
But I’m no dope. I know that’s too good to be true.