Chapter 4

Dear Diary,

Hi again. It’s the same day. I just thought you’d like to know what’s up.

Marisa’s taking me to a ball game today. Usually she would have said this is too “risky” and “we might get caught” but this time, she said it’s our only chance to make enough money.

“Enough money for what, Dany?” you might ask, and I’ll say “Enough money to leave the country!” I don’t know how that works. We might be buying fake passports (!) or maybe even bribing someone (!!!). Usually we make money by picking pockets. Sometimes we raid vending machines. We take all the change too, even though Marisa hates doing that because coins are heavy. But I like it because sometimes I find special coins. I get to keep those.

Anyway, they’re both super slow ways of making money. I told Marisa we could rob a bank, or at least an ATM, but she said no. It’s a surefire way to attract Them.

The tickets for the game aren’t cheap. We don’t have that much money to begin with. But Marisa said it’s called an investment and we just have to hope that we’ll win more money than we paid. Except we don’t have to ~hope~ because our team is 100% winning. I’ve been practicing.

That makes it sound like I’m playing in the game, huh. I’m not. I wish I was. But hey! Once we get the money, we can leave the country, and I can finally go to school for real again and I can join the basketball team and ONE DAY…I’ll try out for Real Basketball.

We just found a parking spot. I’ll tell you about the game later.

{ Halftime break }

So anyway, the reason we’re at the basketball game is because we’re betting. Before the game, Marisa took me to a casino and did...something. I’m not sure what. I guess this is where you place bets. And THEN we went to the stadium and she got us tickets. Our seats are in the middle and farther from the court than I was imagining, but it’s good enough. Except it’s pretty crowded, and the guy beside me kept squeezing me. The best thing happened when I finally elbowed him back and he tried to tattle to Marisa, but she just Looked at him. You don’t want her to look at you like that. It’s not good for your health.