“Really? Cool.” Pearl sifted through the pile and selected two blue-gray dolphins. She looked up to check again with Francine and said, “Thanks.”
“So you’re the big expert on this neighborhood, right?” Francine asked.
Pearl shrugged. Was she about to get made fun of for knowing something?
“So, tell me about it,” Francine said.
“Well,” said Pearl, relieved. “Since you ask: I’ve got a theory about Gully.” And she told Francine her suspicion of Gully’s garden invasion in the dark of night.
But Francine’s face fell, empty of excitement about the mystery. “He better not want Granny and me to move,” she said. “I just got here!”
Pearl got mad at herself. Why hadn’t she given a second’s consideration to how Francine might feel about that idea? She said, “Well, we’re not going to let it happen, are we?”
“How are we going to stop it?” Francine was at the window, staring down into the street, motionless for once.
“We’ll think of something.” Pearl walked over and found herself staring right into the second floor of the Lancaster Avenue branch library. “Oh! Wow! Weird,” she said. It was like opening the newspaper and seeing a photograph of someone you knew. “There’s Simon!” He was neatening shelves.
Francine went back to her little craft spot and said, “OK, give me your shoes.” Pearl kicked off her flip-flops and set them on Francine’s tiny table. Francine used the glue gun to squeeze a clear blob of glue onto the center of the V of one flip-flop, then pressed one of the dolphins onto it. “Yow!” she said. “Hot.”
Pearl laughed. “Let me do the other dolphin?” she asked, picking up the glue gun.
Francine stuck her bare toes into her flip-flops and did a little getting-back-at-Gully dance, dainty and precise, her soft braids swooshing. “We’re not. Gonna. Let it. Happen,” she chanted over the rhythmic slapping of her dancing feet.
Pearl knew Gully could hear her through his ceiling, and smiled. She pulled the trigger on the glue gun and shot a blob of glue onto her flip-flop. She stuck the dolphin on the blob and didn’t burn herself, and later, on her walk back home, she could still feel the warmth.
Pearl figured if she wanted her mother to be honest, she herself was going to have to start acting more practical and less emotional. She needed information, straight. So at dinner she asked, “What were those two contractor men doing back today?”
“Funny you should ask.” Mom laughed a bitter laugh, and pulled out a business card. “Mr. Dozer suggested we go on a little tour, and he wrote down these sights we should see.”
“Who’s ‘we’? Me?” Mr. Dozer wanted her to go on a tour with Mom?
“Well, Bruce refuses. I thought you might want to,” said Mom. “One building that used to be a school, now it’s apartments. The other was a bathhouse, now it’s a restaurant downstairs with a gym upstairs.”
“That sounds weird,” said Pearl. “I don’t even know what a bathhouse is.”
“Exactly,” said Mom. “Do you want to find out?”
“Do I have to?”
“Of course not. I think we can assume these men are good at repurposing. They’re just trying to get us to feel better about letting go of our ‘real estate.’” And Mom crumpled the business card and tossed it in the trash.
After dinner, the buzzer sounded. Pearl dashed to the door to push the button. “Who is it?”
“It’s Francine. Can you walk and get ice cream?”
“Go,” said Mom right away. “I’ll give you money for both of you.”
“Sure, okay.” Did Pearl seem that desperate for Francine’s friendship? Did Mom feel sorry for Francine? Or did Mom want time alone?
“Where do you like to go for ice cream?” she asked Francine, down on the street. “Do you have a favorite place yet?”
“Whatever,” Francine cut her off. “Just come on.” She hurried Pearl along in silence, and when they’d turned the corner, she grabbed Pearl’s elbow and pulled her across the street and along one of the darkening streets of food factories and warehouses.
A Sidebar About Homelessness
Reasons Why People Become Homeless (a partial list):
1. “The rent is too damn high.” (You’ve heard of the Democratic, Republican, and Independent parties? Well, there’s a political party in New York named this: The Rent Is Too Damn High.)
2. The salary is too low, or nonexistent. (You don’t think every human with a job can afford a place to live in New York City, do you?)
3. The urge to roam.
4. Can’t deal with life very well. I refer to addiction or mental illness or just a lack of coping ability.
Maybe you can think of some others.
Reasons Why Animals Become Homeless in New York
1. Pets get abandoned. This is why not everybody thinks dependence on humans is a good idea for animals.
That’s it. Only pets become homeless. Wild animals, on the other hand, can always make a home. They know where to look, and they know how to cope. That’s just one reason why they deserve respect from people who are always calling them vermin and calling in the exterminators.
—M.A.M.
“I don’t know any ice cream place this way,” said Pearl. The buildings on this block were empty of people, the businesses inside them closed at night. “Where are we going?”
Francine said, hushed as if she thought someone might hear them, “I followed Mr. Nichols. I found where he sleeps.”
Pearl halted. “Where?” She knew, she absolutely knew that Nichols wouldn’t want them to know where he slept, and would be appalled if they actually saw him sleeping somewhere.
“It’s okay,” Francine said. “He won’t see us. We’ll stay at a distance. I just want to show you.” Pearl was still frozen, so Francine tugged at her. “I know you worry about him.” She dragged Pearl along and then stopped abruptly on a darkening north-south avenue that the setting sun didn’t even sneak around the corner of. They were so far west that the river couldn’t have been far off. “All right, just spy around the corner,” said Francine. “You’ll see a loading dock.”
Pearl peeked and saw a blocky platform like a stage. On it, all she could see were lumpy forms. This was a place where homeless people slept, shielding themselves from the eyes of passersby with cardboard or shopping carts or, rarely, a tent. There was even someone lying down behind a big black umbrella that was tilted on its side like a wheel.
“He’s the one with the umbrella,” said Francine.
“How do you know?” With a sinking feeling, Pearl recognized the umbrella as Alice’s.
“I told you. I followed him. Followed him by going ahead of him.” She told Pearl how she had walked half a block ahead of Nichols, keeping the distance just long enough for him to not notice her.
Smart.
“When he stopped, I hid down the block behind some stairs, and I saw him open up that big umbrella and settle down.”
“Did he have any dinner?” Pearl asked.
Francine just looked at her. “I couldn’t see what he did behind the umbrella.”
Pearl thought about the banana and granola bar she’d put in the shed-shaped box—it was for him, she admitted to herself now, since she was pretty sure she recognized the flannel shirt she had found in the box. But what could a banana or a granola bar do, really? She felt helpless, useless. She didn’t know what to say.
But neither girl knew what to do for Nichols. Pearl didn’t want to look at his sleeping place anymore. They leaned on the wall of the corner building in silence.
Finally Francine said, “They have the best pistachio at BGI on Sixth.”
Pearl said, “My mom gave me money.”
“Then come on.”
“Oh!” Pearl stopped. “But we could give the ice cream money to Mr. Nichols.”
Francine said, “But then he’d know we know where he is.”
“Oh.”
They were mostly silent as they walked, except for little comme
nts like “Let’s go, we can still make it” as the crossing light gave its countdown, or “This way.” Francine got strawberry cookie dough with rainbow sprinkles in a cake cone, and Pearl got pistachio in a sugar cone with crushed peanuts, and when they were finished, the last best triangle bites of cone consumed, “I’ll walk you back,” said Pearl. “You already came and got me.”
“Okay,” Francine said. “Thanks.” Then, seeming nervous for the first time Pearl had ever seen, she asked, “Are you glad or mad I showed you Mr. Nichols?”
“Glad,” said Pearl. “I guess we might as well know.”
17: A MESSAGE TO MRS. MALLOMAR
SEP 25
Pearl told Simon how she had gotten in a fight with Gully, and asked, “Why do you think Gully wants the library gone?”
Simon had a look on his face like he smelled a rat, and the rat was Gully. “Look, it’s a question of money,” he said. “Your mom explained it to me.”
“My mom?”
“Gully’s not just a storekeeper; he’s a landlord. He lives there and works there, but he also owns that building. So it’s not just that he thinks he’ll have more customers if the library turns into apartments; he thinks the value of the street will go up, which would mean he can charge more rent. Don’t you think he’d love to kick all the grannies out and get some fancy young professional couple in there to pay big rent?” Simon had a way of flinging his hands around when he got irritated; he was doing it now.
“Well, what fancy professional couple wants to live above a lousy, junky store?” sputtered furious Pearl. That apartment was Francine’s!
“No problem,” said Simon. “If the tone of the neighborhood got raised, he’d rent the store out to some chain furniture store and retire to rake in the bucks.”
This only helped confirm Pearl’s theory. “Do you think Gully took the statue?”
“With those little bandy arms?” said Simon. “No muscles on him!”
Pearl giggled. “Maybe he paid someone else to do it.”
Simon looked into her face with sympathy and shrugged. “I don’t think he needed to have the head stolen. The real-estate vultures were already circling, as your mom said. If it wasn’t Mr. Bull and Mr. Dozer, it was bound to be somebody else. It’s a beautiful property.”
“It’s not a beautiful property!” Pearl exclaimed. “It’s a beautiful library!”
“It is,” said Simon, in a way that told her he didn’t know if the library would always be beautiful, or would always be a library. He put his hand on her head as if to wiggle it around, but then went back to work.
“If I could just find the head . . . ,” Pearl said.
“Your mom thinks Oleg’s new head will get us another story in the paper—a hopeful one.”
“Sure, well, wouldn’t finding the old head do the same thing?”
“If only the raccoons could talk,” said Simon.
Pearl laughed. “Then we could charge admission.”
She got into the book elevator and sat there alone so she could think in the dark, cool peace. Was she crazy, thinking Gully might have taken Vincent’s head? Was she crazy, thinking a raccoon had left her a note? In a situation like this, she’d heard Mom tell Bruce enough times, it was vital to think creatively, outside the box.
Speaking of boxes . . . hmm. Pearl thought of the shed-shaped box in the yew hedge—and of who came and got the stuff out and when. She knew now that it was Mr. Nichols, and she guessed he came at night. So maybe he’d seen Gully take the head, and that was why Gully distrusted him.
Or maybe he’d taken the head himself, and that was why Gully distrusted him?
And as for the raccoons writing notes, she figured she’d just heard too many of Mom’s stories, so her imagination was overactive. It was Mom herself who had told Pearl she needed to face reality.
Reality was—what, exactly?
Reality was raccoons not writing.
Reality was granola bars not making up for not having your own kitchen.
Reality was an umbrella keeping people’s eyes off you, but not keeping out the cold.
Reality was the real-estate market.
Reality was not enough books circulating, because of not enough library patrons coming in the door, because not enough people were readers.
“Pearl!” Simon yanked open the book elevator door. “Quit”—he peered in, stared at her face—“moping or hiding or whatever you’re doing.”
“I’m facing reality,” said Pearl.
“Do you have to do it in the book elevator?” He gave her his hand and pulled her out. “It’s your day to do the coffee run. Better get going.”
Pearl trudged off to Cozy Soup and Burger, pausing at the newsstand on the way back for the evening Moon. Tallulah seemed even more grumbly and sleepy than usual. “Yes, the delivery’s late! One second, one second!”
Pearl hitched her cardboard coffee tray onto the ledge, thinking she should just come back later if the paper wasn’t even there.
But then Tallulah turned and smiled as though it was a relief to see her. “Pearl, you live on Beep Street, don’t you? Think you could carry a message for me?”
She pulled a sheet of paper from her order book and wrote on it in pencil. Pearl heard her mumble as she wrote: “What I’m supposed to do about night staff being late, I’d like to know.” Tallulah folded the sheet and tucked it and a newspaper between Pearl’s thumb and the side of the coffee tray. “Twenty-two-and-a-half Beep Street,” she said. “Don’t buzz—you’ll wake up the resident. Just put it in the lower mail slot. That’s all.”
So instead of heading back to the library, Pearl made an overburdened dash for Beep Street. Hmm, which one was 221/2? Her own house was number 8. How had she lived her whole life without realizing there were half numbers on their street?
Number 22 was a metal-gated door with a stoop like most on their street, this one festooned with twisted wisteria branches and veiled in ivy, with one mail slot that just said 22.
Where was 221/2? She didn’t see a door that went with that number, only a tiny slot on Number 22’s front wall, the length of Pearl’s little finger, with a small full moon above it. You’d have to roll the Moon to fit it into this mail slot, and letters could only be a quarter of the size of a postcard.
Tallulah’s note was folded absurdly small and tight, but Pearl couldn’t resist peeking at it.
This collection of names set Pearl’s heart racing.
This note represented two possibilities.
One, Mom had been telling stories about raccoons that she’d named after a bunch of people who also knew Tallulah and to whom Tallulah was sending this note. I don’t think so, thought Pearl. As far as she knew, Mom didn’t know any other Matildas.
Two, Tallulah’s note was for the same raccoons Mom’s stories were about. Yeah, sure, uh-huh, thought Pearl. Why would Tallulah write a note to any raccoons, never mind Mom’s?
Mrs. M. Mrs. M., who lived at 221/2 Beep Street. She was the big lumbering raccoon who’d walked by Mom and Pearl, and she was due at the newsstand at twelve. Twelve midnight.
And Matilda? Pearl knew that one, all right: Mrs. Mallomar’s daughter, whose name was another word for the moon.
Mary Ann? She must have been the bigger raccoon of the two that had been in the alley, the one screeching at Pearl to put the little one down, because Arak? That name she’d seen in the raccoon book, needing to be kept out of trouble like that little raccoon she’d saved, when Mary Ann couldn’t keep him off the street?
Pearl knew she was supposed to think that Mom’s stories were just stories. Not real. Despite all those stories about the editor in chief of the midnight Moon and her daughter, it was Mom who’d told Pearl to face reality.
And yet, as Pearl stood there facing it, she realized she knew more than Mom, because she knew Mary Ann and Arak. They were part of the neighborhood’s reality. Which was: raccoons.
For the rest of the afternoon and evening, Pearl was unusually quiet, so quiet t
hat by the time they’d gotten through the four o’clock staff meeting, closing, homework, supper, and bath time, Mom asked Pearl if she was feeling all right.
“Yeah, why?” said Pearl, blankly-on-purpose.
Mom felt her forehead and shrugged. “No reason,” she said, looking into Pearl’s eyes. Pearl shrugged back.
She went to bed at her normal time, and told herself to go to sleep, but she lay there looking up at her In the Night Kitchen poster until Mom finished in the bathroom and got into bed herself. When Pearl was a little kid, she had been intrigued by what happened at night while she was sleeping. She knew, of course, that adults stayed up later, their lights on, doing things. You couldn’t live in New York City without developing an awareness that someone, somewhere was always up and about.
And yet she was also familiar with the sleeping faces of buildings and businesses: shades down, metal gates unrolled, shutters shut, and, at Tallulah’s newsstand, the absence of Tallulah. The only time Pearl went to the newsstand after dark was Saturday night, when you could get the Sunday paper early, so then you could just stay in your pajamas and be cozy on Sunday. Every other night the rest of the week, Tallulah closed up and turned off the lights by nine.
So what about the midnight Moon?
Pearl jerked awake. The kitchen clock showed 11:51. Almost 12!
Was anyone in the newsstand now?
Pearl had to see for herself. She padded across to the apartment door. Mom was snoring in her bedroom. Pearl could join a band of robbers herself, she was so sneaky. She pulled on Mom’s black hoodie and stuck one flip-flop in the apartment door, tiptoed down the stairs, and wedged the other in the building door. Then she was fast, so fast. She ran barefoot on a New York City sidewalk! She headed along Beep Street, across Lancaster Avenue to Seventh Avenue, and stopped just short of the corner. Around that corner was the subway entrance, with the newsstand beside it.
A glow of light showed it was open, but not at the normal window that even Mom had to reach up to. This was a door with a window cut in it, right at Pearl’s knees. The perfect height for a raccoon, she realized.
A Girl, a Raccoon, and the Midnight Moon Page 11