She awoke the next morning with her body nagging at her nonstop. Lisette realized two rather imminent things at once: a, she had to go to the bathroom, and b, she had to eat something now. Both were things that she had neglected the day before, and both were things that she rather wished she didn't have to attend to.

Surreptitiously she put away the makeshift bedding she had used the night before, looked about the empty, dawn-cold park, and exited courtesy of the bumpy back road that circled the playground. Rather glad that she had not been robbed in the night – in this way she was rather naïve, never having been lectured upon the dangers of the streets by her mother as other children usually were – she crept silently down the way, eyes wide, ears alert. She fancied herself a Canada Mounted Police officer, only that her horse had been lost or killed or taken by the enemy. Fingering an imaginary mustachio, the adolescent officer stealthily sneaked down the empty Tennessee road that had suddenly turned ten times blacker and more sinister.

She burst into the closest McDonald's alert, watching, and waiting. Narrowed brown eyes scanned the drowsy, witless cashier, decided that the risk was not too great, and bore witness as their carrier snuck into the bathroom, deemed it safe, and proceeded to use the facilities.

Lisette washed her hands and splashed water on her face; and it was only by chance that she happened to look at the wide mirror as she turned away to use the weak air dryer. She stopped, stared, and absently wiped her dripping pants on the seat of her shorts.

She looked like a rat. Her face was smudged and dirty; her eyebrows a mess of fluffy bristles, and her hair looked as though it had been mistaken for a witch's mop. Rather stunned, Lisette gaped at her reflection. The rat in the mirror gaped back, looking more like a fish than anything else. Horrified, she dashed to the sink and almost scoured her face off attacking it with water and the general ferocity of her hands. Five minutes later, she looked up, wondered if her face was always that red, produced a bit of paper towel to dry herself off, and left just as a very startled-looking elderly lady walked in, shrugged, and leaned over to begin plucking her eyebrows

There was a gas station across the road, but it was closed. Lisette whirled on her heel, brushed a few strands of rat toupee out of her eyes, and marched down in the opposite direction for five blocks until she encountered a 24-hour drugstore. One minute later she had purchased a pair of scissors and had successfully locked herself in the women's bathroom – and now, Lisette thought as she leaned over a dirty service sink for the second time in so many moments, the rat's nest would have to go.

Seven and a half minutes had gone by when Lisette finally straightened, surveyed her reflection in the mirror, and smiled for the first time in many months. The sorry excuse for a witch's toupee had gone, replaced instead by a rather fashionable dark brown bob (with a side of bangs) that took kindly to brushing and barrettes and kissed the back of Lisette's neck. She modeled for herself, grinned, and decided that she looked nice. Not good, not beautiful, but almost pretty in an old-fashioned sort of way. On a whim she changed into one of her sundresses, the golden-yellow one with short sleeves and a bell skirt. There: much better than yesterday. And there was something else too, something else that she had never felt like before when she had lived with her mother. What was it again?

Oh yes, that was it. She was happy.