Cecelia and I walk home from school, her hand wrapped tightly around mine. I stop us every time we pass one of the trees lining the four blocks home, so I can walk along the low fence surrounding it, leaning on her arm. She doesn't mind. Neither of us particularly want to get home.
She carries my backpack over one shoulder; her own on the other.
        "This is too heavy for third grade,” she says emphatically, her bangs falling into her eyes as she shakes her head. We get to the corner store, and I'm surprised when she lets go of my hand to open the smudged glass door.
        "We're going in?" I gasp, envisioning the long freezer cases stacked with ice cream sandwiches, the wire racks overflowing with peppermints you can buy ten for a dollar, the glass shelves full of marked down cupcakes and rock hard slabs of cornbread.
        "Yes," she beams, "I have money today." I reach up to squeeze her arm, bouncing on my toes with excitement.
        "I love you Cely," I whisper. "I love you so much."
        "Pick something out," she says dramatically, "Anything. But maybe under a dollar fifty."  

        I walk slowly down the narrow aisles, filled with the luxury of being able to pick practically anything in the store. My ecstasy comes from more than that though. My sister didn't say how much money she had, and maybe it's enough to for her run away. To leave our tiny apartment with a mother that won't get out of bed and a father who's there just long enough every night to fly into a rage so big it sends Cecelia crouching in the bottom of the bathtub. And if I'm lucky, and if I'm really nice to her, then she might take me with her.

        Cecelia glances outside, where, at 4:30, the winter sun's already started to set. I know she's worried that dad will be mad; he doesn't want either of us out after dark until Cecelia turns twelve. My sister hates rules, but she hates breaking them more.
        I settle, finally, on a pack of Oreos near the counter. Four cookies in a crinkly blue package that I give to my sister. She looks them over, then drops her purple backpack onto the linoleum floor, sits down next to it, and starts scavenging through, counting the tarnished dimes and single crumpled dollar at the bottom of her bag. She looks worried.
        “Go wait outside for me, Ella, okay? I'll be right out.”
        Obediently, I walk outside and wait against the brick wall with a tight knot of old men smoking cigarettes.  I take out my book and pick up where I left off in silent reading. Cecelia comes out a few minutes later, speed walking like I do with my friends in gym when we don’t want to run. She grabs my hand.
        “Come on.”
        We’ve walked for a block in silence before she stops, reaches into her bag, and takes out the Oreos. She open them and passes them to me. I hand one up to her before taking one myself, biting through all three layers triumphantly. The dark crispness of the cookies pairs with the sweet cement of the cream holding them together, the soft sugar overriding my sense of taste, the chocolatey biscuits leaving black crumbles in every crevice between my teeth. It more than makes up for not having lunch today.
        Cecelia twists her cookie expertly in half, gingerly licking off the cream from one side before nibbling at the other. I eat another, and then the last one since I don’t know how much dinner there’ll be tonight. We settle into the total silence of kids eating sweets, until Cecelia shatters it.
        “I stole the cookies.”
        “What?”
        “I didn’t have enough money so I took them. I put them in my bag and left.”
        “What?” She walks faster, reaching up a hand to swipe under her plastic framed glasses.
        “I shouldn’t have taken them,” she says, her voice cracking. “I just- wanted you to have the cookies. But I shouldn’t have taken them.”
        I look up at her, at the tears trickling down to my perfect sister’s chin and dropping onto her tee-shirt. I feel the stolen cookies in my throat, weighing heavy and tasting foul. I don’t know what Dad will do when he gets home but I know it won’t be good. And I know it won’t be fair. But I know that my sister risked it to get me four Oreos. I reach out and take her hand again.
        “I love you Cely,” I whisper. “I love you so much.”