Freedom! Free at last! And she actually did a small impromptu dance in the middle of the kitchen at the sheer pleasure of the concept of two weeks off from school… though the dancing lasted only until her stomach suddenly growled. Freedom and food, Nita said then, and opened the refrigerator and stuck her head into it to see what was there to eat. There was precious little. Half a quart of milk and half a stick of butter; some small, unidentifiable pieces of cheese bundled up in plastic wrap, at least a couple of them turning green or blue because of the presence of other life-forms; way back in a corner, a plastic-bagged head of lettuce that had seen better days, probably several weeks ago; and a last slice of frozen pizza that someone, probably her sister, Dairine, had left in the fridge on a plate without wrapping it, and which was now desiccated enough to curl up at the edges. Make that freedom and starvation, Nita said under her breath, and shut the refrigerator door. It was the end of the week, and in her family, shopping was something that happened after her dad got home on Fridays. Nita went over to the bread box on the counter, thinking that at least she could make a sandwich but inside the bread box was only a crumpled-up bread wrapper, which, she saw when she opened it, contained one rather stale slice of bread between two heel pieces. I hate those, Nita muttered, wrapping up the bread again. She opened a cupboard over the counter, pulled down a peanut butter jar, and saw that the jar had been scraped almost clear inside. She rummaged around among various nondescript canned goods, but there was no soup or ravioli or any of the faster foods she favored just beans and other canned vegetables, things that would need a lot of work to make them edible. Nita glanced at the clock. It was at least half an hour before the time her dad usually shut his florist s shop on Fridays and came home to pick up whoever wanted to go along to help do the shopping.