"You're not eating tonight," Mrs. Barker said without looking at him. She set a full bowl in front of June's chair and then one for herself, moving like a woman who had done this before. "That was a good glass, Danny. I counted the set. I am not buying more."
"I didn't mean to break it," Danny said. "It slipped when I was washing."
"Things slip when you're careless," Mrs. Barker said. She sat down and unfolded her napkin, neat and square. "Careless children lose privileges. Dinner is a privilege."
June, twelve and thin like Danny, stared at her bowl. Nobody argued with Mrs. Barker.
"Where's Mr. Barker?" June asked.
"Night shift," Mrs. Barker said. "Double pay. Some of us work for what we get." She glanced at Danny.
Danny nodded at his hands; nodding made things end faster. His stomach made a sound he tried to cover by shifting his chair. He thought about the diner, about the grill hissing and Hank saying "Eat," and he held that thought like a warm coin in a pocket.
Mrs. Barker ate with small, quick bites, reading the mail between them. June ate slower. Halfway through she tore her dinner roll in half and set the second half on the edge of her plate.
"June," Mrs. Barker said. "Don't play with your food."
"I'm saving it," June said.
"Saving it for what?"
"Later," June said.
Mrs. Barker made a small sound in her throat and went back to the mail. When the news came on in the living room, loud from the set Mr. Barker had left on, she carried her bowl to the couch to watch the weather.
June waited until the footsteps were gone, then tilted her head toward the floor.
Danny slid half under the table, the tablecloth hiding him from the living room door. June dropped her hand below the edge of the table, the roll half tucked in her palm.
"Quick," she whispered.
Danny took it. The bread was still warm from her plate. He ate it in four bites, chewing slowly so it would last, while June kicked him very lightly under the table with the toe of her shoe.
"Did you go again?" she whispered.
Danny nodded, then remembered she could barely see him. "Last night," he whispered back.
"The diner?"
"The Blue Plate. Back door."
"What did you get this time?" June asked, her voice so quiet it was almost just the shape of words.
"Pancakes. And bacon. Pete puts extra on when Hank isn't looking, but Hank is always looking. Hank knows."
June stifled a giggle and checked the living room door. "Is Hank the big one?" she asked.
"The big one with the apron. Marge is the lady with the red hair. She calls everybody sugar."
"Even you?"
"Even me," Danny said, and finished the last bite. "Marge says Hank's got a soft heart and a hard head. Hank says mind the register."
June smiled, the real kind. "I wish I could come."
"You can't," Danny said. "She'd notice."
"Being you isn't great, Danny."
"Being me is fine," he said. "I've got the diner."
Under the table, her shoe pressed against his. "Does he know?" she whispered. "About the no dinner thing?"
Danny hesitated. Hank knew he was a foster kid. Hank knew about the nights before the Barkers, when he had gone two days without food. Hank had gone very still when Danny told him that, in the way grown men go still before they break something.
"He knows enough," Danny said.
"Is he mad? At her?"
"He doesn't get mad the way you think," Danny said. "He just says eat, and he watches you do it, like he's making sure." Danny thought about it. "It's like the diner is his house and everybody gets to come in."
"You talk funny about it," June whispered.
"I think about it a lot," Danny said. "It's the first place that's felt like home."
"Home?" June whispered.
"Yeah," he said. "Like that."
She nodded like she understood, and her shoe nudged his once more, a small promise.
"Danny!" Mrs. Barker called from the living room. "Come clear this table."
Danny slid out and stood. June handed him her empty bowl like nothing had happened.
Mrs. Barker didn't look up from the news. "And wipe the stove," she said. "The burner splattered."
"Yes, ma'am," Danny said.
He wiped the stove and washed the pot. When he was done, he stood at the sink a moment, looking out the window at the alley behind the house, where the dark was coming down early the way it did in October.
June came up beside him with her schoolbooks and bumped his shoulder with hers. "Tomorrow," she whispered. "If she takes dinner again, I'll save you the whole roll."
"You don't have to," Danny whispered back.
"I want to," she said, and went upstairs.
Danny stood alone in the kitchen. His stomach was still mostly empty, but it didn't hurt the way it used to, because he could feel the bread June had given him and the pancakes from the night before, and underneath all of it, the solid fact of the Blue Plate, three blocks down and around the corner, with its lights on and its back door in the alley.
Mrs. Barker could take dinner. She could take the glass and the privilege and whatever else she wanted. She couldn't take the door.
As long as the Blue Plate's back door opened for him, he was all right. He decided it, standing at a sink in a kitchen that was not his home.
He was all right, and he knew it.
Chapter 4: Ellen's Apron
The last customer paid out at eight forty, and Pete hung up his apron without a word and slipped out through the alley. Marge flipped the sign to CLOSED and locked the front door, and the bell above it gave one tired little ring and went still.