WILCUM WRENS!!!!
And it was no use informing her other people were supposed to do the welcoming. You were out on the busy morning street, in the Land of Opportunity, where everybody had somewhere to go, and nobody paid a bit of attention to you, never mind stopped to say welcome.
The Curse
“Guess what time it is in Beijing,” said a voice at Mo’s elbow.
It was recess, and she hovered on the edge of the school playground. Across the street, Eastside Park sparkled like a snowy oasis. The morning had lasted a century or two, what with the new rules she had to learn, and being too slow to complete her timed diagnostic math test, and a girl at the lunch table who took one look at Mo’s can of Tahitian Treat and said how terrible sugary drinks were for you. Mo had been looking forward to recess, but now she stood here all alone and freezing. Well, not alone.
“Guess!”
Mo turned around. A bony wrist wearing a watch with all kinds of complicated dials was inches from her face. The wrist belonged to Shawn, her classmate. All morning, she’d watched him drive teachers cuckoo.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Guess!” Short and wiry, with skin the color of walnut shells, Shawn was one of those boys who had to be in motion at all times. Even when he was supposedly being quiet, he gave off a little hum. Now he jittered his wrist at her.
“I don’t like guessing,” said Mo.
“Midnight.”
He grabbed the fence and rattled it, something Mo had resisted doing.
“It’s tomorrow in Australia,” he said.
“Does that watch also tell you how much longer we have to stay out here?” she asked. “Because I’m turning into a Popsicle.”
“Are you from Florida or something? Sometimes it gets so cold here, ice cubes come out of your mouth instead of words. People have to take the ice cubes home and melt them to have a conversation.”
“Ha ha. For your information, I moved from the other side of town.”
Shawn grinned, his braces glinting. He gave the fence a halfhearted kick. “Well, welcome to prison. Want to know a secret?”
“Like what?”
“Like Mr. Grimm asked me to be your bud.”
Mr. Grimm was their math and science teacher. Mo already had doubts about the man, and this confirmed them. First of all, didn’t he notice that Shawn was a boy and Mo wasn’t? Second, didn’t he know that all that stuff about opposites attracting was wrong?
Of course, it was possible Shawn was making this buddy business up. So far, Mo didn’t have much reason to trust him, either.
“So,” he said, “if you have any questions, just ask. I’m here to help. By the way, where do you live?”
“We bought this place called Corky’s.”
“Corky’s?” Shawn’s eyes went round “You moved into Corky’s?”
“Why? What’s wrong with that?”
“Sorry to break it to you,” said Shawn, “but that place is under a curse.”
Mo felt a prickle at the nape of her neck. The recess bell rang, and all the frozen-toed, teeth-chattering kids ran to line up. But Mo caught the sleeve of Shawn’s jacket.
“What are you talking about?”
“Bad stuff happens to anyone who lives there. Nobody, repeat nobody, lasts for long.”
“You tell whoppers,” she said. “I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to. Just ask around.”
When school let out, Mo hurried to Dottie’s classroom to pick her up. Crowds of kids passed by, ignoring her, making her feel like a rock in a rushing stream. She pretended to examine the zipper on her backpack, and to be extremely interested in the cutout snowflakes on the bulletin board. At last Dottie appeared, holding hands with a girl barely bigger than a fire hydrant.
“Bye, Diamond,” she said. “Make sure you look both ways when you cross the street.”
“That was Diamond,” she told Mo as they stood beside the crossing guard. “She’s in kindergarten and I’m her first-grade buddy and also I’m the E.S.P. That stands for Extra Special Person because Ms. Thomas said that’s the best way for everyone to get to know me, so I got to feed the hamster and I gave him a teensy bit too much, but Ms. Thomas said that was an honest mistake and . . .”
“Wait.” Mo came to a halt. “You like school? Is that what I am hearing?”
“Like!” said Dottie. “It’s the best school I ever been to. This cute girl named K.C. says she always wanted red hair just like mine. And at lunch we have this club called the Cone of Silence with these secret signals, like if you wink two times that means do you want to trade sandwiches. And . . .”
By now they were walking across the park. On a bench, two old men huddled deep in their jackets, throwing popcorn to the pigeons. The swings cradled nothing but mounds of snow. High in a tree, the tail of a stuck kite rippled in the wind.
On the edge of the park stood a little bus shelter. Two of its three sides were see-through, but the back wall was solid white. Or it had been, before a million people scribbled on it. Some of the writing was impossible to read, and some was words Mo didn’t like Dottie seeing. But a lot of it was who loved who. Alejandro loved Baby, and Louisa loved Mikey. Chris loved Kelly. Also Jess and Olivia.
The shelter was empty, and a bus rolled by without stopping. All of a sudden, Mo got that lump in her throat. Poor shelter, standing on the corner so faithfully, doing its duty day in and day out. People just passed through or used it for autographs. They never gave it a second thought.
“Mo?” Dottie tugged on her hand. “What’s the matter?”
I’m feeling sorry for a bus shelter. Mo swallowed around that stupid throat lump.
“I . . . I didn’t have such a good first day as you, that’s all.”
No sooner had they turned onto East 213th than Dottie began to run. A narrow alleyway, inhabited by big trash cans, separated Corky’s from the building next door. Al’s Shoe Repair belonged to a short man with big, hair-spurting ears. He was behind the counter, examining a red high heel. The shop’s shelves held flat tins of polish, loops of shoelace, pairs of shoes wrapped up and tagged. Mo had always liked the idea of fixing a thing rather than throwing it out. She waved to their new neighbor. In return, he gave her a curt nod, then turned away.
Did he know about the Corky curse? Was he afraid it was contagious?
Dottie was already in their house, perched on a stool, watching herself munch chips in the big mirror behind the bar. Mr. Wren was taping something to the dingy green wall. As Mo slid off her backpack, her hunched-up shoulders eased down for the first time all day.
“The Dot rocked her day,” Mr. Wren said. “How about you?”
“It was okay.” Mo slipped off her jacket. “What are you doing, Daddy?”
“What color should we paint?” He pointed to the rainbow-colored strips he’d stuck to the wall. “Meadow Sweet? Lively Lime? How about, geesh, Serious Violet?”
Dottie spun her stool. “Yellow,” she said. “That was Mommy’s favorite color.”
Mr. Wren turned around. He pinched the bridge of his nose.
“The way I remember,” he said slowly, “she was an equal opportunity color person. She loved them all.”
“Silly Daddy.” Dottie spun harder. “Just ask Mo.”
“Hey, Dizzy Dean.” He stopped the stool and lifted Dottie off it.
All of a sudden Mo had to sit down, ambushed by a memory.
The yellow sweater.
The Yellow Sweater
When Mo was small, her mother came home from the store with a new sweater. It was pale yellow, the color of the moon when it first peeks over the rooftops. Its buttons made Mo think of the moon, too—round and pearly. Her mother bought it on discount, the way she did most of her clothes, and afterward laughed at herself for buying something much too big.
But one day when Mo climbed onto her mother’s lap, the two of them had made a great discovery: The sweater was so roomy, it could wrap around them both. Tuc
ked inside, Mo and her mother had their own private moonbeam house.
“Now I know why I bought it,” her mother said.
When her mother died, Mo never thought to ask her father to save that yellow sweater. Back then, she just assumed it would always be there for her, like the stars in the sky, or the plum tree.
By the time she got around to asking him where it was, Mr. Wren had looked startled.
“Oh,” he’d said. “I gave all her clothes away, right off. Looking at them made me want to die myself.” He’d touched Mo’s cheek. “I thought you knew that.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“I took it all to a nice charity. The ladies there promised me her things would go to people who’d really appreciate it.”
For weeks after that, Mo was on the lookout out for an appreciative woman in a baggy yellow sweater. It was like being a detective, on the watch for stolen property. Not that Mr. Wren had stolen her mother’s things, exactly.
Still, Mo had been sure that if she spied someone wearing the sweater, and explained, that other woman would whip it right off and return it to Mo, who was, anyone would agree, its rightful owner.
Little by little she’d given up looking. She hadn’t even thought about that sweater in a while. Not till now, when her father held out the fistful of paint strips, like a papery bouquet. Mo spread them on the bar, considering. One, Buttercup Morning, looked very close to the color of their Fox Street kitchen. But something tugged her hand toward a paler shade, one shot through with silvery light.
Holding it up, she remembered all the times she’d climbed inside that sweater. Sometimes because she was sad, sometimes because she was happy, sometimes just because. Her mother let her sit inside as long as she wanted, till at last she was ready to ease herself back out. Then her mother would bend down and kiss the top of her head.
And the magical thing was, all the rest of the day Mo still felt that sweater wrapped around her. Like the moon, following her wherever she went.
Now Mo turned the paint swatch over to see what it was called.
Moonglow.
“This one,” she told her father.
“You got it.” He kissed the top of her head.
For the first time since they’d moved here, Mo felt truly happy.
That didn’t last long.
Uh-Oh
They kept running out of Band-Aids, even though they bought the giant economy-size packs. Every day Mr. Wren got nicked or burned, bruised or scraped. Back on Fox Street, he hadn’t been much for handyman work. Their back door had been broken since forever, and Mo, in her heart of hearts, had thought it was because her father was lazy. But now she had to wonder if he really was just bad at fixing things.
“Maybe you should hire a helper,” she said, the afternoon she came home from school to find him missing part of his left eyebrow. He wouldn’t talk about how that happened.
“I’m doing just fine.” He stepped to the big front window and frowned at the falling sleet. “There’s no rush. The dead of winter isn’t a good time to open anyway.”
They’d bought the Moonglow paint. But no sooner did they start preparing the walls than chunks of plaster fell out. That meant spackling, waiting for it to dry, then sanding. Now the walls were an atlas of dingy green seas spotted with bright white islands. And the floor was grimier than ever.
“I’m just saying.” Mo did a little jig. The furnace had something wrong with it, too, and she could never get warm enough. “Some of these jobs might go quicker if we used a . . . you know. An expert.”
“We’re doing fine, Mo.” Still he kept his back to her. Mo could see his bald spot, a little clearing in that forest of black curls. “Just leave it to me. The two steps forward and one step back—that’s the dance we’re doing.”
His voice was edging toward “that’s the end of this discussion.” Just then a can of creamed corn slowly rolled out from behind the bar. The dining room floor sloped, and little by little the can picked up momentum till whomp. It hit Mr. Wren’s foot.
“Score!” Dottie poked her head out from behind the bar. She was barefoot, in short sleeves. As usual, her personal thermostat was set on high.
“Very funny,” said Mo. Her sister’s happiness was getting on her nerves. Dottie hadn’t even unpacked her beer bottles yet. The box, labeled TREJER, sat on the floor of her room, forgotten. She was like a little train that had switched tracks and chugged right on.
Mr. Wren picked up the can of corn and tossed it from hand to hand. Mo knew he considered the conversation over, but something made her press on.
“I mean, it’s good to be thrifty and everything. But we got buckets of money from selling the house, so . . .”
“Let’s get something straight.” Mr. Wren set the can down with a thump. “This isn’t our old life.”
“I know that.”
“Your job is to make new friends, and work hard in school, and look out for each other.” He folded his arms and rocked back on his heels. “In other words, to be normal, growing girls.” He came down flat on his feet. “The rest you leave to me.”
“I’m just trying to help!” Her father’s words stung Mo. “You always say what good ideas I have! I thought we were going to be partners!”
Another can rolled across the floor. This time, when Mr. Wren stooped to pick it up, Mo saw him wince. His hand flew to the small of his back.
“This is your chance, too, Mo. You should be having a life of your own, not just hanging around here. Leave the worrying to me. Not,” he added, “that I’m worried.”
“But . . .”
“I applied for a small-business loan, and once that comes in, we’re set. Nothing but blue skies.”
“Then I can get a pet,” said Dottie. She jumped up, bent her knees, and pretended to stir a giant pot. “The dance of joy! Wait till I tell K.C.!”
“K.C., K.C! That’s all you care about!” Mo grabbed Dottie’s arm and dug her fingers into it. “Can’t you stop being so selfish for one minute?”
“Ow! Owie ow ow!”
“Don’t you pick on your sister!” Mr. Wren thundered. “She’s making a good adjustment. You could learn a thing or two from her.”
Mo drew back her hand as if she’d gotten bitten. Her father hardly ever yelled at her, and he never compared her to her little sister. Dottie stuck out her tongue, then ran out of the room. Frowning, Mr. Wren turned back to the window. The sleet fell at a sharp slant, making all the world look as off-kilter as the floor beneath their feet. Al the shoe-repair man hurried by. He kept his eyes straight ahead, as if the Wren House was invisible.
“I repeat,” Mr. Wren said. “From now on, nothing but blue skies for the Wrens.”
Icy sleet walloped the window.
The Soap Opera
“What are you looking for, Mo?” Dottie asked.
“My red sweatshirt. The nice faded one, my favorite? I haven’t seen it since we moved.”
By now they’d run out of clean clothes. There was a washer in the basement, but when Mo turned the switch, it growled like a giant with a bone stuck in his throat. A stink of burning rubber poured out.
“There’s a Laundromat on 215th,” Mr. Wren said. “I’ll drop you off and swing back around after my errands.”
“Where you going, Daddy?”
“The hardware store, where else? That chick who runs it says I’m financing her vacation to Mexico. Then the bank, to see what’s holding up that loan.” He settled his baseball cap on his head, dark curls sproinging out around the edges. “And then if I’ve got time, a restaurant supply place, to price glasses.”
The windows of the Soap Opera Laundromat were all steamed up. Inside, the place was packed, as if everyone in the neighborhood had run out of towels at once. Washers chugged and driers thumped. An old couple folded sheets together, stepping close and then apart as if doing a dance they knew by heart. The big plush bench, once the backseat of a van, and all the plastic lawn chairs were occupied. A girl in a college swe
atshirt worked on a laptop. A woman with platinum blond hair and earrings like crystal chandeliers cradled a pile of paper, talking to herself. By the door, a man who looked as if he hadn’t used the Soap Opera’s services in quite some time moved his lips while reading the newspaper.
Only one washer stood empty. As Mo and Dottie stuffed everything into it, a hand came to rest on Mo’s shoulder.
“That will never do,” said a deep, throaty voice. “Even on heavy soil, you’ll never get all that clean.”
She’d have been the queen, if Laundromats had them. Small and dark skinned, she had hair that fell in luxurious dreads, and her hollow cheeks were dusted with something that glinted in the overhead lights.
“But there aren’t any other washers,” said Mo.
“Number Four only has three more minutes on it.” She extended a royal hand. “Carmella.”
“Mo.”
Her wide smile showed crooked, unqueenly teeth. She helped Mo buy a swipe card and showed Dottie how to set for presoak. Then, carrying the rest of their clothes, she led the way to Number Four.
“Yo, Mo!”
It was Shawn, waving an enormous pair of men’s boxer shorts like a flag.
“There’s someone tickled to see you,” said Carmella.
“He’s in my class,” she said. “His name is—”
“Oh, I know Shawn. His mama and I are old friends. He comes here most afternoons, and now and then he helps with fluff ’n’ fold.” She turned and called to the woman with the chandelier earrings, “Gilda! Your clothes are ready, girl! Oh, Homer, you leaving us? Hold on.”
Mo Wren, Lost and Found Page 3