There is no convenient tree by my window to shimmy down, so I slip a ten-dollar bill into my jeggings and ask Mom to drive me to Emma’s house. The sky is heavy and dark.

Emma’s doorbell rings, once, twice. Mom is already gone. I knock on the white-painted wood and Emma opens the door breathlessly. She can’t go, she says, because she needs to babysit her little brother, Ben. Ben is at Boy Scouts until 7:00, but I say, That’s okay. I collect my cardboard sign and leave.

The bus driver accepts my fare wordlessly, cap tipped over his face. I sit down in the front seat. I don’t have any earbuds.

A teenager enters at the next stop and stares at me. He’s looking at my sign, I realize. I shift toward the window, expecting him to sit. He continues down the aisle. I stay by the window in case someone else wants to share a seat and ask me about the words. No one does.

I get off the bus by a tall brick building. There are no crowds. I wonder if I’ve come to the right place, but then I see two people, each holding a large, brightly-painted board. Is my hand-lettered sign not enough?

One of them smiles and greets me, and we stand by the side of the road under the cold, gray sky, breathing in the exhaust of cars that fly by.

Someone else arrives and then there are four of us. The newcomer yells to the cars as they rush past. She has pamphlets for the passersby too, but not many people are walking around.

A man in a red jacket jogging with his girlfriend throws an empty plastic soda bottle at our feet. It doesn’t even hit us, just rolls across the sidewalk until I scoop it up silently and walk it to a recycling bin. No one asks us about our signs. A middle-aged woman accepts a pamphlet, but I see her throw it in the big, green dumpster.

It starts to rain and the pamphlets get drenched. The marker on my cardboard sign runs. I can’t read the words. Can I borrow a Sharpie? Pamphlet Girl has one. Keep it, she says.

The others make their apologies and leave until I am standing alone. The black marker bleeds into the stained cardboard like crushed capillaries.

Rain soaks my hair, my clothes, my thoughts. Someone walks by under an umbrella. I have no pamphlets, but I call out to them. They hurry past.

I check my watch. It’s 6:33. I walk down the street to the bus station and pay with a damp five-dollar bill, which the driver accepts wordlessly. I can’t tell if his face, shadowed by a cap, is the same.

I sit in the front seat, which squelches underneath me, and wish I had earbuds. Someone boards the bus. I don’t bother to move to the window.

The footsteps stop. It’s the same teenager as earlier. May I? he asks. I shrug. He sits, folding an umbrella, and I tuck my cardboard bruise underneath the seat.

The doors close, not quite shutting out the patter of the rain. With a start, the bus jolts forward, cardboard sliding into my seatmate’s ratty sneakers.

He looks down. My cheeks color red. He asks about my sign.

When we reach my stop, he scrawls his phone number on a scrap of notebook paper and asks me to call him when there’s another protest. I knock on Emma’s door. Ben still isn’t home. I’m really sorry, she says. I nod. Mom picks me up and we drive home in the rain.

A week later, I go to Emma’s house again. She’s got a huge chemistry test the next day. I say, That’s okay. I collect my new cardboard sign and leave.

I take the bus. No one sits next to me, and disappointment drags at my chest. I walk to a tall brick building. Pamphlet Girl is there early this time, along with the two others.

Cars rush past us, spewing diesel fumes. I keep glancing back at the bus stop. You lookin’ for someone? No, nobody.

Half an hour in, the boy from the bus rushes toward us. His sign is also cardboard, with little cartoon drawings in between the words.

This time, I yell out to the cars. Pamphlet Girl foists some of her load off onto a family. The adults and teenager toss theirs in the garbage, but I think the little kid holding her parents’ hands slips one into a pocket of her pink hoodie.

It doesn’t rain.