Excerpt: Racing the End

She found her best friend, Victoria Breads, sitting on the tenement building’s stoop with a small bottle of drink she must have stolen. Tori may not have known how to read or do math, but she knew what put babies in a woman’s stomach, which made her infinitely wise in Mildred’s opinion. As the adults would say while shaking their heads sadly, “The stomach of the Breads girl don’t come from eating food.”
“If you drink that, the baby will come out wrong,” Mildred warned.
“Where’d you get that?” Tori asked. Her voice was slurred. “A book? Well, my ma says it makes a baby strong, an’ I turned out alright so I listen to her.”
“That’s just a myth, Tori,” Mildred said. “There’s no basis in reality.”
Tori threw the bottle on the ground and a vile-smelling liquid poured onto the cracked stones. “If you come here to lecture me on parenting, Mildred Waters, you got a lot of nerve, you hear? And I’m likely to think this is all a mistake, because I know you don’t got no nerves at all.”
“Actually, I came here to ask you for some advice.”
Tori smiled and took a step forward, making Mildred flinch. She’d seen people go mad with drink and hoped Tori was still sane.
“See, Mildred?” Tori gloated. “I’m the brains, and you’re the… um… smelly…”
“Innocent?” Mildred offered.
Tori nodded vigorously, nearly throwing herself off balance. “That’s the one. You’re the innocent one that distracts shopkeepers while I filch stuff."