Chapter III

Chapter III
As Maria was lying in her bed, thinking angry thoughts and trying to go back to sleep, she heard the front door creak open. Whispered voices drifted through the thin wall separating the two rooms of their house.
“House,” Maria thought to herself. “House, but not home. Never home.”
She quickly collected her thoughts as she heard her name mentioned in the whispered conversation. Pressing her ear to the flimsy wall, she identified her mother’s voice and, startlingly, the voice of her Aunt Gertrude!
“What is she doing here?” Maria asked herself silently. Then, realizing that she could figure this out with the help of more eavesdropping, once again pressed her ear to the wall.
“-Work for me if I’ll feed her and clothe her and treat her well? That’s your deal? No. Give me something else, too. Keeping her will cost me more than her housekeeping is probably worth.”
“We don’t have much to give” Her mother’s voice replied. What deal was she trying to strike with Aunt Gertrude? Maria wondered. Whatever it was, she decided, she hoped fervently that it had nothing whatsoever to do with her.