Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh

up for no reason.
    “Charlie Kimble, what has come over you? Was it something you ate?” She bent down and untied his shoes. “You get right to bed. Later on we’ll give you another bath.”
    She tucked Charlie in and went into the kitchen. The heat was oppressive; the empty wine bottle stood alone on the table. An engine rumbled in the distance, growing closer: the garbage truck.Finally, Birdie thought. She peered out the window just in time to see it cruise past her house and stop in front of the Gleasons’. “For heaven’s sake,” she said aloud. She ran out to the front porch and hurried down the street. A colored man reached for the Gleasons’ trash and tossed it into the back of the truck.
    “Excuse me,” she called. “I think you forgot my house.”
    The man turned to her, shading his eyes from the sun.
    “I live at 507.” She pointed to the house. “No one has picked up my garbage in weeks.”
    He squinted at her. “You paid the bill?”
    Birdie thought of the basket on top of the refrigerator. “Of course.”
    The truck began to move. The man shrugged apologetically and broke into a slow trot behind it. Birdie followed him, her heels sharp on the pavement.
    “I can pay you now,” she called, though she couldn’t. “If I pay you now, can you go back for it?”
    “Sorry, ma’am. You’ll have to wait until next week.” He hopped onto the back of the truck. His uniform was the same dark green as the trash bags. The truck accelerated and turned at the bottom of the street.
    Birdie glanced back at the house, the mammoth pile of trash advertising to the neighbors that she hadn’t paid her bill. A curtain moved in the Semples’ window. Birdie walked quickly back to the house, sure that Miss Semple had seen her running behind the garbage truck. Now what? she thought. Now what will I do?

C harlie made a slow tour of the neighborhood, cutting through backyards, looking for signs of dogs. The Gleasons had two terriers, the Raskins a toy poodle that stood in the window and yapped whenever Charlie crossed their yard, its jaws snapping soundlessly behind the glass. These dogs were no good to him; they were fed indoors. Other dogs—the Fleurys’ German shepherd, the hounds Mr. Pitt kept for hunting—lived outside, chained to doghouses; but they were big and mean.
    He scouted every backyard on his own street, and on the street below. He avoided the Hogans’ yard, afraid Mrs. Hogan would see him through the kitchen window. Finally he approached the Fleurys’ house.
    The yard was strangely silent, the German shepherd nowhere to be seen. Charlie crossed the bare patch of dirt to the doghouse, near it a shiny metal bowl. His heart raced. The bowl was full of kibble.
    Charlie was bending to fill his pockets when he heard a lowgrowl, a deep bark. The German shepherd was inside the doghouse, its large head and shoulders filling the small doorway.
    He ran.
     
    T HERE WAS NOTHING in the refrigerator except a jar of olives; in the freezer, a chicken wrapped in plastic, hard and heavy as a bowling ball. Charlie was near tears. He hadn’t fed the puppies in two days.
    His mother came into the kitchen. “What on earth is that smell?”
    Charlie looked down at his shoes. He had stepped in something as he ran from the Fleurys’ dog.
    His mother looked too. “Go outside and take off those shoes.”
    Charlie went out the back door and sat on the steps. He was sitting there when Mrs. Gleason came out of her house holding a pie tin.
    “Hi, Charlie,” she called across the fence. “Have you seen the cat?” A striped tomcat had been hanging around the neighborhood; every once in a while someone would give it milk.
    “No’m,” said Charlie.
    Mrs. Gleason set the pie tin on her patio and went back inside.
    Charlie waited. When he could wait no longer, he shimmied through the slats in the fence, into the Gleasons’ backyard. Carefully he picked up the pie tin. It was full of milk. He crossed into the Raskins’