“Guess what? The Baggotts got a letter. It’s going to be M and M dough rain around here.”
The back of Mo’s neck prickled as if icy fingers had reached out and stroked it.
“Make sense,” she hissed.
“M and M’s!” Dottie giggled at her sister’s stupidity. “I hope it’s not peanut. I hope it’s regular. And I hope the dough’s quarters, not pennies.”
Mrs. Steinbott cracked her door at last. Mo watched her take Bernard’s pen and sign. The mailman clattered down the porch steps, climbed in his truck, and drove away.
“You’re seriously grounded,” Mo informed Dottie.
Dottie made a sound like a sick moose. “But it’s going to rain candy! Candy and money!”
“Inside! Before I pulverize you!”
Dottie walked backward up the driveway, her tongue stuck out. Mo pressed her fingers to her temples. The sparrows were acting oddly, fizzing up like feathery bubbles. Not a single bee hovered over Mrs. Steinbott’s roses. Mo took her neighbor’s porch steps two at a time. In all her years on Fox Street, she’d never done this without permission.
“Good morning, Mrs. Steinbott.”
Her porch gleamed. The leaves of her roses shone. Every speck of dirt and dust had been boiled or scrubbed away. Every beetle and blight had been obliterated. On this sterilized porch, the world was in precise, predictable order. Mo looked around longingly. If only she could stay here, safe and solid!
What was she thinking? Had she really just wished she could stay with Starchbutt?
Who held a piece of white paper, neatly folded and creased.
“I see you got a letter,” Mo said.
“Everyone did.” She peered at Mo. “What’s wrong with you? You don’t look right. Oh, no.” Her gaze darted across the windswept street. “Did something happen to her? Are they all right?”
“They’re fine. They’re inside getting ready for some important company. Do you mind if I read your letter?”
“Company?” Without tearing her eyes from Da’s porch, Mrs. Steinbott passed Mo the paper.
Mo recognized the stationery at once. The same opening paragraph, introducing himself, blah blah blah. She scanned the page. Here. Right in the center, like the worm in the apple.
“Every indication is that the city is considering tax abatement…. Other residents have already accepted this timely offer…. Act now to avoid the possibility of the jurisdiction of eminent domain. Avoid legal tangles!”
The words wriggled, wormlike, as she tried to reread them.
“Could it be?” Mrs. Starchbutt’s voice was so low, she must be talking to herself. “Could it be?”
One line squirmed worse than all the rest. Mo told herself she couldn’t have read it right.
Other residents have already accepted this timely offer.
Yes, that’s what it said. Her heart plummeted. It was too late. He’d made up his mind.
“You gave her the purse, didn’t you?”
“What?” Mo rubbed her eyes. “Um, sure.” So what if she hadn’t exactly given it to Mercedes? Why quibble over small details at a time like this?
“That’s good. You’re a very good girl.”
“Do you mind if I keep this letter?”
Mrs. Steinbott had already turned away and opened her front door. “He was sweet as a climbing rose,” she said. “Without the thorns.” The door shut quietly behind her.
Mo tried to put the letter in her pocket but realized she was wearing her one and only pair of pocketless shorts. All her others were in the wash.
The wash. She’d left the fur on the shelf beside the machine, where she’d set it when she emptied pockets. In her grogginess, she’d forgotten to take it upstairs and put it in her drawer for safekeeping. As she hurried down the front walk, Pi Baggott coasted by on his skateboard. He flipped up the board, blocking her path.
“What’s wrong?”
Mo clenched the letter in her fist. Why did people keep asking what was wrong with her? Nothing was wrong with her—it was the whole entire rest of the world that was wrong.
“Your mother,” she accused. “She got a letter about selling your house.”
A bee so big and fat it could barely keep aloft bumbled between them, landed on a purple rose, and burrowed in.
“Right—everybody did,” said Pi. “Didn’t your dad?”
Lies danced on the tip of her tongue—how easy deception had become in the last few weeks. But why should she protect her father? Why pretend he was innocent? He’d taken that crook’s offer. He was ready to trade away everything for what he wanted. He was the true traitor.
“My father’s been getting letters for weeks.”
Pi set his board down and pushed it back and forth with the toe of his shoe. Mo could see him adding up two plus two. The purple rose nodded up and down. “So he knew. Is he the one who already sold?”
How she longed to pour out every last thing to him. What a relief that would be! Instead she stared at the sidewalk.
“My mom says we gotta sell,” he went on. “If we don’t, the city takes the house anyway and hardly pays us jack.”
Pi was a patient person. You could almost hear the steady beat beat beat of his heart as he waited for her to say something. But Mo, it seemed, was only capable of staring at the sidewalk. Mo Wren, moron.
“I think she’s wrong, though,” Pi said at last. “If you read the letter real careful, it just threatens. Like a punk saying, ‘I will freakin’ bust your head if you don’t give me your jacket.’ Like that.”
He waited some more and, when Mo still didn’t speak, pushed off. Just as quickly he wheeled around. He coasted back, arms at his sides, as if he’d forgotten something. Something of great importance, judging from the serious look he bent on Mo.
“If we have to move,” he began. He touched a finger to the purple rose, and the bee shot up and away with an angry hum. “We wouldn’t live on the same street anymore.”
“You just figured that out? You’re really a genius.”
If Pi’s lips had been about to release a secret, instead they closed around it. Mo watched him zoom up the street, crouch, and leap. Beneath his feet, the board twirled in a perfect 180. In the hazy air Pi hovered as if gravity were a myth. Landing perfectly, he raced away, leaving her in the dust.
The Magic Runs Out
BY NOW THE BREEZE had worked itself into a wind, the mischief-making sort that conjures up mini-tornadoes, grabbing bits of trash and grit and whirling them high in the air. Head down, Mo trudged toward her back door. She trailed her fingers along the side of Starchbutt’s house, then tossed the wadded-up letter over the fence. But just as she was about to go inside, her ears pricked up. What was that sound, mingling with the wind? A little bark, a musical howl, coming from her own, her very own backyard.
I knew it.
Holding her breath, pressing flat against the house, Mo crept around the corner. There beneath the plum tree, down on all fours, rusty headed and wild, crouched Dottie, emitting sounds that were a cross between a human’s oh no no no and an animal’s pitiful, wordless wail.
Mo smooshed her forehead against the side of the house. She’d expressly told Dottie she was grounded. The little monster was deliberately disobeying. If there was ever a time Mo was justified in completely and totally letting her sister have it, kaboom, now was that time.
But to her own confusion, Mo discovered she had no anger left. She’d used it up, on her father, on Mercedes, on Pi, on the whole world. As enormous as her supply of anger had been, a supply big enough to last a lifetime, it was all gone. Where it had raged and burned was only a hollow tender place, empty as could be.
“What’s the matter?” The trickster wind snatched Mo’s words away. She crossed the grass to stand over her sister and asked again. Dottie lurched over sideways. Bits of grass stuck to her hands and knees. Around her neck hung a string of plastic pearls Mo had once found tossed down the hill. Dottie claimed they were magic—wearing them gav
e her X-ray vision.
Oh, if only Mo still believed in magic! If only she could be as little and ignorant as Dottie, whose world was so simple that just wanting something bad enough might make it happen.
Dottie’s hair streamed across her face. When Mo pushed it back, Dottie’s cheeks were streaked with tears. All Mo’s envy of her little sister vanished. Dottie, who never cried, was crying her head off.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you.” Mo tried to pull her sister to her feet. “Let’s go inside. You need a bath. I’ll let you have bubbles.”
But Dottie grabbed her sister’s ankle in a death grip. “I didn’t mean it,” she blubbered.
A strange calm took hold of Mo. She became a smooth rock in a rushing river.
“What? What didn’t you mean?”
Dottie looked frightened, like a child who’s woken up a guard dog. Mo waited. Calmly. Like a rock.
“How come you never tolded me?” Fat tears rolled down Dottie’s cheeks.
“Told you what?”
“Mrs. Petrone gave it to you, right?”
“Gave me what?’
“It was just the same like mine,” Dottie bawled. “Everybody says that. You keep saying I don’t remember, but I do. I do!”
“Remember what?” The river rushing, rising.
Dottie dove forward and buried her head in Mo’s lap. “I didn’t mean it! I just wanted to look at it for one single tiny minute, and I came out here so you wouldn’t know, and I didn’t know it was so windy, I didn’t know. I didn’t mean it!”
Mo dug her fingers into Dottie’s hair and yanked her head up. “Where is it? Where is it?”
Dottie’s eyes tilted upward in Mo’s iron grip. She pointed toward the plum tree, then the house, then the sky, her arm wheeling around like a compass gone loco.
Mo raced around the yard, directionless as the leaves and scraps flying at the mercy of this wind. At the base of the plum tree lay a bit of blue tissue paper, flimsy as a torn moth wing. That was all. By now the weightless fur would have blown everywhere, and nowhere.
“I’ll get you some more,” Dottie promised. “I’ll go ask Mrs. P right now.”
“Forget it! You can’t!”
“Oh, yeah? Well, she was my mama too!”
Mo spun around. Dottie had her fists up, ready to duke it out.
“Not just yours! Mine too!”
“What are you talking about? That wasn’t her hair.”
Dottie landed a punch in Mo’s belly. “You big fat liar! She wasn’t just yours. I remember too!”
Mo caught her arm, but Dottie bared her fangs and bit down on Mo’s hand. Hard.
“Yeow!”
Above their heads the branches of the plum tree creaked. Mo, with Dottie still attached, stepped back just as a sudden, sharp crack split the air. A branch swung down and hung there, like a broken arm. A tiny nest spilled onto the grass, then tumbleweeded away.
Dottie’s jaw fell open. Mo pressed the back of her hand against her own mouth.
“You bit me.”
Instead of apologizing, Dottie put her dukes back up, ready for round two.
“She had a sweater with buttons like Life Savers. She made me dandelion necklaces. I put an ant in my mouth and she took it out and it didn’t even die.”
“That was fox fur,” Mo said. “I found it down in the ravine.”
Dottie lowered her fists. How easy it was to read her face—her feelings scrolled across it like closed-captioned TV. Distrust, disappointment, sorrow, guilt.
“Cross your heart?”
Mo longed to say, “I never lie.” But that would be a lie.
“I’ve been looking for signs for a long time,” Mo told her. “Every time I go down there, I’m looking.”
Lonesomeness flashed across the little face. After all Mo’s work to keep her safe, Dottie carried lonesomeness and sorrow around, too. All this time, like a scar in a place no one else ever saw.
“You shoulda showed me, Mo.”
“Maybe.”
“I’ll get you more!”
Laughing and crying—who knew how closely the two were twined inside you?
Mo turned away from her sister and fitted her spine to the trunk of the plum tree—there it was, the groove that had shaped itself, year by year, to cushion and hold her just right. The back of her hand throbbed, and her eyes felt rubbed with sand. The broken branch swung in the wind.
“Don’t sit there,” Dottie begged. “It’s danger out here.”
“Just go inside. I’ll come in a minute.”
“I’m sorry I bited you!”
“Yeah, right.”
Dottie looked heartbroken. But what could Mo do? It was no use. The fur was gone, and with it any power she’d had. Any hope. The fur was scattered on the evil wind, and her father had sold the house, the yard, everything, out from under Mo’s feet. All this time she’d believed that if she tried her hardest, and did her best, she could fix things—if one thing didn’t work, then something else would, and if not that, then something else. But Mo had run out of things. There was nothing left for her to do.
“Never mind,” she said. She longed to make her voice comforting and kind, but Dottie only looked more wretched. What could Mo do? It was no use. The time had come for Dottie to stop believing in magic, stop believing in Mo.
Everything Changes
WHEN MO WOKE, the sky had grown dark, and the very air had changed. She no longer inhabited summer, maybe not even Earth. For one thing, a mangy doll blanket covered her goose-bumpy knees, and for another, her body was experiencing an alien sensation.
The plum leaves shivered, and now Mo did too, as if she’d been paddling along in a warm pond and suddenly found herself in a cold spot. Pond. Swim. Water. That was what Mo was feeling, the long-lost sensation she couldn’t put a name to. She was wet. It was raining.
Raining! The wind’s rough fingers had planted the air with rain seeds and they were blooming, silver blossoms falling on Fox Street. She watched the rain darken the roofs and the hard, parched ground. As if she herself were a thing with roots, she sensed the plum tree sigh and drink. Up on Paradise, the passing cars made swishing sounds. Mo tilted her head and stuck out her tongue.
Then she remembered. As the rain washed away the world’s weary dust, it all came back to her, all the things that had happened and couldn’t unhappen. When it arrived at Dottie’s secret sadness, Mo’s mind snagged and caught.
Yes. There was one thing she might still undo. Wadding up the little doll blanket, she went into the house.
“Dottie! Put on your swimsuit!” Mo shook her head, and drops flew. Glancing at the kitchen clock, she was startled to see how late it was. How long had she slept, after all?
“Dottie! Come on—let’s run in the rain together!” She climbed the stairs. “Don’t hide. I won’t bite you back.”
It wasn’t as if the Wild Child had never disappeared before. But Mo was surprised she would today, after their big fight, and in this rain. This rain, which was coming down harder and harder, slanting in the windows, wetting the floor and her bed, her bed on which lay a soggy sheet of paper with a strange four-legged creature drawn in orange crayon. The animal wore a big smile, happy as could be in a sea of grass blooming with crooked hearts.
Mo hurried from room to room, shutting windows. In her father’s, his Tortilla Feliz softball shirt lay on the bed, and that was when she realized that he hadn’t come home in time for his game. It would have started hours ago, before the rain, and when had he ever, ever missed a game? Only one thing she could think of possessed the power to keep him away.
He’d closed the deal. He was buying Corky’s, signing away their life once and for all.
The little door inside her opened and banged shut, as if she were a haunted house.
Mo flew back down the stairs. Unable to think straight—would she ever be able to think straight again?—she raced outside. By now the rain was pouring down so hard, she could barely see Mercedes’s house. Ev
en Dottie wouldn’t stay out in this! She must have ducked inside someone’s house. Grabbing an umbrella, Mo dashed down the steps.
None of the Baggotts had seen her since morning. As Mo thanked them and headed back into the rain, Pi raced after her. He threw a yellow poncho over her head. It stunk, but the rain rolled off it like a duck’s back.
“Thanks.”
Pi had already forgotten how mean she’d been to him. Or else he was as good at forgiveness as he was at kick flips. He headed toward Paradise, shouting over his shoulder, “I’ll check out Abdul’s and E-Z Dollar!”
Mr. Duong, glasses misting over, interrogated Mo. Did Dottie know not to cross Paradise on her own? Not to talk to strangers? She wouldn’t go down the ravine when it was storming like this, would she? That stream could flash flood. How long had she been missing?
“She’s not missing. She’s just…not here.”
Mr. Duong patted her rubbery shoulder. “Right. Don’t worry now,” he said, looking exceedingly worried. “I’ll notify the authorities.”
Mrs. Petrone leaned over the railing of her porch, calling Mo up.
“You think you’re a duck?” She produced a slightly hairy towel and rubbed Mo’s head.
“I’m looking for Dottie.” Mo swallowed down her rising fear. “I don’t guess she’s here?”
“I saw her run by a while ago, but I didn’t pay attention. That letter has me so distracted!” Mrs. Petrone shook out the towel. “Somebody already struck a deal—it must be those shady people in the old Kowalski house, don’t you think?” Mrs. Petrone broke off, noticing Mo’s face. “Bella, what am I doing? Here you are worried to death about your baby sister while I go on and on about money! What does that matter, compared to that girl?”
“I’m not worried, I’m just…Yes, I am, Mrs. P. I’m really, really worried!”
“Calm down, catch your breath, that’s it. Now tell me, where’s that handsome father of yours?”
“I don’t know!”
Mrs. Petrone frowned, then crushed Mo to her coconut-scented chest.
“Poor dear man! He has so much to worry about, it’s not right!”
What Happened on Fox Street Page 10