Runaway by Wendelin Van Draanen

everybody else. The shops all have bars on their windows and security guards posted at the doors. I haven’t been able to lift any food because the few markets I’ve seen are all on high alert.
    So I might as well just tell you: I’ve been eating from trash cans.
    And nothing’s been from above the rim.
    Go ahead and be revolted, see if I care. I can’t fight for my liberty if I’m starving (which I am). I need strength if I’m going to last (which, if Harriet Tubman did, so can I). And if that means eating from the trash, that’s what I’m going to do.
    It’s called survival.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Wednesday, July 28 th (if the newspaper I saw is today’s, anyway…)
    Remember I told you how I lose my sense of direction in this place? Well, today I thought I was walking west, but I was actually walking east. And instead of finding a church with a shelter, I found the Los Angeles River.
    Ah, you say. Refreshing water! Trees! Perhaps fish to catch for supper?
    Guess again.
    Even the
river
here is cement. I’m not kidding. The sign says LOS ANGELES RIVER but it’s a giant canal of cement with no water in it. The “banks” are cement, too, decorated in huge areas with graffiti. All you can see in any direction are power lines and train tracks and cement, cement, cement.
    I decided to walk “downstream.” It was dusk and I was really hungry, but I saw no chance of finding any food around the “river,” so I just wanted to find a safe place to sleep before it got too dark. A place where I could see people coming before they could see me. A place where my back was protected and my body was sheltered.
    I was starting to think that the river was a horrible choice because there were train tracks on either side of it and, beyond them, an endless, barren wasteland of industrial buildings. But then I spotted an overpass, and as I got closer, I saw a shopping cart. It was upright, at the foot of the bank near the overpass.
    I ducked through a large break in the chain-link fence and walked along the cement riverbank toward the cement overpass that crossed above the cement river. I was quiet and careful, and when I got closer, I smelled cigarettes.
    Under the overpass was a small camp of homeless: three women (two of them with little babies) plus about five men. I spied on them from behind the arch of the overpass for a few minutes, then stepped forward with my hands up, saying, “Hello? Is it okay if I come in?”
    There was a lot of quick chattering in Spanish, and finally one of the women said, “You are lost?”
    I nodded, then shook my head, then shrugged.
    The woman laughed.
    â€œTired?” she asked.
    I nodded.
    â€œHungry?”
    I nodded before I could stop and think that they might chase me away if they thought I wanted their food.
    She smiled kindly and patted the ground beside her.
    I stepped into the shade of the overpass, thinking that this had gone way too easy. Maybe they were all going to surround me and pounce. Maybe…
    But the woman smiled again and said, “Is okay. Come.” She patted the ground some more, then chattered in Spanish at the men, waving them off.
    The men backed away, so I took a few more steps toward her and said, “Thank you.”
    â€œDe nada,”
she said. Then she rummaged around a canvas sack and pulled out a can of hash. “You like?”
    I almost broke into tears. She was being so nice. And I was so,
so
hungry.
    â€œFor you,” she said, pushing it on me.
    I sat down and pried open the lid. My hands were shaking. My legs were shaking. My mouth was watering like a dog’s.
    â€œNo eat too fast,” she said, then handed me two sort of dried-out corn tortillas. “Use.” She tore off a piece and pinched it over some hash. “See?”
    So that’s how I ate. A little tortilla wrapped around a bit of hash. I ate every morsel. Every crumb.