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plate away. It may taste like dirt, but evidently it’s not disgusting enough for a boy in the middle of a growth spurt to pass up. He’s barely started growing and he’s already almost eclipsed all 5’8” of me.
    “Put your dishes in the sink, please,” I remind him gently.
    With a derisive look, Mica picks up his plate and cup, walks over to the sink, and places them squarely on the counter next to it before storming off to the living room.
    I sigh. He just doesn’t understand. If moochers were the only threat, that would be one thing. Unfortunately, I imagine the Traders are also aware of our good fortune. It’s been a few months since the last credit theft, which means it’s only a matter of time until there’s another. And there are only two ways to obtain someone else’s steel: it is either gifted or… it is taken. The thought makes me run cold. It feels like targets have been painted on our backs now that we’ve become the richest orphans ever to grace the West Quadrant. If Mica didn’t have school, I doubt I’d want either of us to leave the apartment ever again.
    Funny how quickly things change, I think humorlessly, as the wind whistles outside.

Chapter 4
    I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of nothing. The rain, after three days of unceasing pounding, seems to finally have stopped. A couple more hours and the ground will be dry enough to walk on without eating through the soles of my boots. The silence is disconcerting, though, and I know I won’t be able to fall back asleep. As I wipe the sleep from my eyes and roll over onto my back, my mind begins to race.
    What did I find? Why won’t the officials speak to me? And what do I do with all this steel now that I have it? In my solitude, I am forced to acknowledge the fact that I’ve been using Mica, mooching neighbors, and fear of the Black Traders as excuses not to take action.
    What is wrong with me? I shut my eyes, squeezing them tightly for a moment before I open them again. I am avoiding instead of confronting again, ignoring instead of planning. Receiving a large sum of money, no matter how suspicious, is nothing like inheriting the sudden responsibility of caring for your kid brother on your own, so what am I afraid of? Aren’t I supposed to be both older and wiser than when I was fifteen?
    Mica is right. There’s no use just sitting on this fortune. I need to start considering how we’re going to spend it. And I need to be smart about it, too.
    Mica will have all the supplies he’ll ever need for school. We can even start shopping in North Quadrant shops instead of bargaining over every pair of socks purchased from the Marketplace. Maybe we can even afford a transport of some kind. We’d be the first West Q’ers in a long time to have one. Four-wheelers are still too expensive, of course, but maybe a scooter or refurbished minicycle…
    I force myself to take a breath. Food, supplies, new clothes, and a transport vehicle? I’m getting ahead of myself. 3,000 credits may seem like an insane amount now, but spread between both Mica and me, it won’t last forever. Steel only lasts as long as you can go without spending it. What happens when we start to run out? And am I supposed to just sit around and do nothing until then?
    My relationship with the other scavs has always been tenuous at best. I can only imagine the endless stream of remarks I’ll have to endure if I try to return to the fields:
    “Spent your fortune already, have you?”
    “What, you need more steel to spruce up your wardrobe?”
    “Here she is, fellas, ready to show us up again. You just can’t leave any for the rest of us, can you?”
    No, the other scavs definitely won’t tolerate me after this, not when their own credit accounts have always been so much emptier. And a job in town is pretty much out of the question for me; I have neither the skill set nor the desire to work down at the docks or in the recycling center. And I suspect that my sunny