The girl told me again that her name was Kayla. She asked me not to believe the nasty things John might tell me about her. “He hates me. I don’t know why he hates me, but he does. Ask anyone.” I assured her that I didn’t think anything bad of her. It seemed important to her. I couldn’t imagine what the slight girl with the pretty sunbeam hair could have done to make the towering giant hate her, but it actually put her in my good books. I was fearful of crossing John but Kayla had such a way about her that I felt rebellious. Maybe that’s part of why he hated her. We got to the room I would share with her, and she opened the door. The room had two twin beds with sweet pink canopies on them. It looked like something out of a teen magazine. There were vanities on either side of beds. Kayla’s was decorated and looked sweet. Cutouts of movie stars, scraps of paper with doodles on them, and pictures of her with other girls were tucked into the sides of the mirror. There was a small chest of drawers, one that come up to about my waist, between the beds and on that sat an enormous bowl of Andes Mints. At that sight, my stomach gave a lurch and reminded just how long it had been since I had eaten. Once again, I started to cry. “Shhh!” Kayla whispered and hurried to shut the door.
