Five is safe. Five is good. But there's only four ugly brown spots spreading across the white ceiling like dirty fingerprints.
"It's just temporary, baby," Mom says from the doorway, her voice shaky like it gets when she's trying not to cry. She takes another puff from her cigarette, the smoke curling around her face. "We'll find somewhere better soon."
I want to believe her.
The new house smells like old grease and something sour. The carpet has stains that match the ceiling, and when I walked across it earlier, it made gross squishy sounds under my feet. Our old apartment wasn't big or fancy, but it smelled like Mom's vanilla candles and it had clean white walls. I even had a canopy over my bed and a big window looking out at the park.
This house is in a park, too. A trailer park, Mom says. But I've never been to a scary park like this before, with angry dogs and angrier looking people.
"Why can't we go home?" I ask, regretting it as soon as I do because I already know the answer will make Mom's eyes get that sad, scared look.
Mom's face crumples a little before she catches herself. "Because Daddy's real wife found out about us, sweetheart. She... she wasn't very happy."
Realwife.
I don't understand how we can be fake. Mom's real. I'm real. We love Daddy and he loves us, doesn't he? But when I asked Mom about it yesterday, she started crying so hard I thought she might throw up. So I don't ask anymore.
The phone rings from the kitchen, making Mom jump. She hurries away, leaving me alone with the four water stains and the smell of old cigarettes.
I press my face into my unicorn's soft pink mane. Her name is Sparkles, and she's been with me since I was little-little, not just regular little like I am now. Mom says I'm getting too old for stuffed animals, but Sparkles makes me feel safe when everything else feels wrong.
And the best part is, she has five pink stars on her side.
Mom's voice sounds muffled but I can hear it all the way from the kitchen. "No, I told you, we can't... Please, just give us a few more days... I know, I know..."
I slide off my new bed and tiptoe to the front door. Mom's pacing in the tiny kitchen, the phone cord stretched tight, her free hand pulling at her hair the way she does when she's really scared.
I slip outside, the screen door creaking behind me. The sun feels too hot on my face and the air tastes bad. This place is nothing like our old neighborhood with its neat sidewalks and flower boxes.
But Mom needs me to be brave. She needs me to try to like it here so she won't feel so bad about everything being messed up. So I take a deep breath and walk toward the sound of kids laughing somewhere beyond the trailers.
The trailer park looks like my maze toy, only instead of clean white boxes and walls, it's made up of big metal ones and rusty dumpsters, and I'm the tiny little ball inside, trying to get into the right slot. Rusty cars sit on blocks in driveways, the hoods popped up like hungry mouths. I try not to walk too close to any of them, but the pavement has too many holes. Holes big enoughto swim in. Weeds grow so tall between the trailers, I can't see over them, and somewhere a big dog that sounds like it eats kids for breakfast barks over and over.
Bark bark bark.
Bark bark bark.
Always three.
I follow a dirt path between two rows of houses, stepping carefully around broken glass and rusty bottle caps and cigarettes. The laughter gets louder, mixed with the squeak of old metal. There's a playground, but it looks like the kind of playground I've only ever seen in Halloween cartoons.
The swing set tilts to one side with rusty chains Mom probably wouldn't want me to touch. The slide has a big dent in the middle, and the merry-go-round is missing half its seats. But kids are playing anyway. There's a girl with bright red curly hair and another girl with blonde hair like me, plus two boys I can't see clearly from here.
I hang back, nervous all of a sudden. At my old school, making friends was easy. But these kids are new. Different. And they walk like they own this broken playground.
But I need to make friends. I take a deep breath and walk toward the swings, Sparkles tucked under my arm to keep me safe.
The red-haired girl walks up to me right away, smiling, but it isn't a nice smile at all. It's a smile like she's baring her teeth. "Look what we have here," the she says, her voice sing-song mean. She's older than me, maybe ten or even eleven, and her eyes are cold gray. "The new girl."
"Must be the one who bought that shitty trailer," one of the boys says with a twisted smile that makes him look like a grinning hyena.
The other kids stop playing and turn to stare at me. My cheeks get hot, but I make myself step forward anyway. I rehearsed this in the mirror. I'm not afraid of them.
"Hi. I'm Ellie. I'm new. I just moved here with my Mom."
"No shit," the other boy says. He's got dirty blond hair and an even nastier smile, somehow. "What's with the baby toy?"
I hold Sparkles closer. "She's not a baby toy. She's my friend."
