RAY VUKCEVICH RUG RATS The three of us decided to bust out of the state orphanage way back in May to go looking for our Moms., Jack's our leader, and Nancy's his girl. I'm what you call the sidekick. Sometimes we can get a dude down on his luck to say he's our old man so we can eat in one of those places where they make you pray before they feed you. Nancy's got the right stuff for that, the way she bows her head and turns her soft brown eyes up to look at him, please mister, won't be no trouble. We split before they can ask too many questions because we're never going back to singing the praises and hooking rugs and listening to crabby old Mr. Sweet bellyache about how much harder the kids in India work, and don't tell me I won't find my Morn. Jack messes up my hair and says sure you will kid, didn't she give you the words? He means my pocket dictionary. He thinks all the words in the world are in the book my Morn pushed into my hands the day they took me away, and I don't tell him any different. We've been ducking and dodging for months now, and it's snowing and it's so cold. We make cartoon bubbles when we breathe, but the bubbles don't say anything. Mostly we huddle in doorways, me in the middle, Jack on the lookout and Nancy all girl snugly soft hugging in close. "Here comes one," Jack says and the two of them open like a flower and I get up robbing my eyes to make them redder, and Nancy whispers, "just be the little dickens," pinches my cheek, and Jack points me at the woman shopper walking fast looking neither left nor right, and I go off like a little boy heat seeking missile come up to her say hey lady you seen Santa Claus? This is the very moment she'll decide. Jack likes to say it depends on how deep down motherly she's feeling and whether she's had her charity fix yet today. No luck this time. She brushes me aside and as she passes she looks back over her shoulder, looks sad, looks bewildered, drills me with those righteous eye-beams, suddenly mad as hell and not ready to take it anymore, hisses, "Get a job." "But hey!" I yell. "I'm only ten years old!" I want to use the B word on her. I glance over at Nancy who would be so disappointed in me if I used the B word, but I really really want to. I'd cry if I thought it would work, but the woman is already banging on down the street like I might run up and catch her and make her look at me again. Besides, these days I don't cry for nothing. I kick at a rock that isn't there. I put my hands in my pants pockets. I will not stand up straight don't even ask me to. I slouch on back and say Sorry to Jack. "Hey! It's not your fault." He straightens my cap, punches my shoulder, makes me feel okay, says, "Stay here, you guys, I'll go check out the Supermarket." What he means is the dumpster behind the grocery store. Sometimes they forget to close the padlock. I settle down in the doorway with Nancy again, and we watch Jack quiet and quick like an alley shadow going going gone. We wait forever, and I'm half asleep with my head on Nancy's shoulder when Jack gets back and squats down beside us. "Look what I found." I struggle to sit up. "What is it?" "A turkey frank," Jack says. "Looks like somebody's weenie," I say, and Nancy makes amazed I can't believe you said that noises, and Jack laughs and Nancy says where do you get such ideas, and I can't stop grinning, feels so good it hurts and maybe it's just too much when everyone is paying attention to you, when it's finally your turn, and maybe I'll just go off like fireworks, light up the sky, be a million sparks down your neck, and Nancy sees that maybe it's time we just let the chuckles settle, and she says over the top of my head to Jack, "So how do you know it's a turkey frank.?" "The label," Jack says. "Last good one in the package." He puts the frank down on a scrap of cardboard, and we all lean in to look at it --so slick and pink and perfect. "Wish we had some cranberry sauce," Jack says. He puts his hand on my am. "Do you think you can find us some cranberry sauce in that book of yours.?" I take out my pocket dictionary and flip through the pages. I find an entry for "cranberry," but there is no cranberry sauce. I glance up at Jack and Nancy and see them waiting. I suck in my breath. I can do this. I move my finger across the page, pretending. I say, listen. I say, don't you remember the way your Mom used to put the can in the refrigerator days and days ahead of time, and when you'd pour yourself a glass of milk or get a carrot stick, you'd see it and touch its rippling sides and silvery top and maybe peel the label back a little and you'd feel it getting colder and colder and then right before the big spread your Morn would open up not just one side but both ends of the can and shake the purple log of berries out so slow and slippery onto a snow white saucer and it would plop and splatter and slide and almost get away and she'd say whoops and you'd want a taste and she'd cut you a little slice and you'd put the spoon in your mouth and the red explosion would be so cold and sweet, and you'd push the jelly against the roof of your mouth and roll the berries with your tongue and feel the soft sticks and you'd shiver and squeeze your eyes shut and your Morn would laugh like music. Nancy leans in and kisses me on the cheek. Jack gives me a big thumbs up and takes out his rusty razor blade. "Turkey time." He cuts off the end of the frank and the smell of our holiday feast fills the air. There is a low rumbling a massive shuffling, and I see children rise from cardboard boxes; I see them slip from their alley hideaways; I see them pop like sudden flowers from the carcasses of toppled cars, so many children, ragged waves of hunger closing in on us. I panic. There will never be enough! And then I feel so ashamed of that mean-spirited thought, but Jack shakes his head at me and I know that he knows I didn't mean it; it's just that I am who I am, and he's Jack who rises and opens his arms to the multitude. And the children gather at his feet, and when they've settled, Jack cuts the turkey frank with his razor blade, paper thin slice after paper thin slice, endlessly, wafers for the tongues of baby birds, and he feeds the children, each and every one.