Maggie & Oliver or a Bone of One's Own

by Valerie Hobbs

  “So much for supper!” said Daniel, when he had gotten his breath back.

  Maggie dug into her pouch. “Here,” she said as she offered Daniel a bit of cheese.

  “Keep it,” he said. “We’ve got work to do.” He looked around. “Where is that stupid dog of yours, anyway? He didn’t even stick around long enough to thank us.”

  “Lucky!” Maggie called.

  Oliver wriggled out from under an automobile, wagging his tail. His nose was covered with grease.

  “Lucky!” Maggie cried. “Come here.”

  Oliver gave the boy a wide berth, but he let the girl hug and kiss him much the way Bertie did, as if she might never stop.

  “The dog can’t come with us,” said Daniel.

  Maggie looked up, dog slobber shining on her cheeks. “Why not?”

  “Because he’s a dog! Dogs make noise.” Daniel shook his head in disgust. “Remember the deal. I call the shots. You keep your mouth shut.”

  Maggie stood. She looked down at Lucky, whose tail sailed back and forth like a conductor’s baton. “He’ll be good,” she said. “Why can’t he come?”

  “I said, no questions! You ask too many questions for a girl.”

  Maggie frowned. Is that why Hannah had stopped her from asking her many questions? Because she was a girl? Were girls not supposed to have questions?

  Her frown deepened. That couldn’t be right. If birds weren’t supposed to sing, they wouldn’t sing. If dogs were not meant to bark, they wouldn’t bark. If girls weren’t supposed to have questions, they wouldn’t have them.

  “And you don’t ask enough questions,” said Maggie. “You do things without thinking. You jump without knowing how deep the water is.”

  “What water? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s a saying,” said Maggie, who wasn’t sure that it was.

  “I make plans,” said Daniel. “How do you think I make plans?” He poked his head. “I use my brain. I think. And I’m thinking this dog can’t come.”

  Oliver—whose one thought was “where’s the food?”—stood waiting for the endless talk to end.

  Maggie gave in. “You can’t come, Lucky,” she said, scratching Oliver’s chin. “Lie down and wait here. I’ll be back for you.” She patted the sidewalk, but Oliver just kept wagging his tail, and when she began to walk away with the boy, he followed.

  The boy turned an angry face. “Get!” he said, stomping his foot. Oliver skipped away and stopped. The boy bent and picked up a rock.

  The girl grabbed his arm. “No!” she cried.

  Oliver ran. When he came to the end of the street, he turned and looked back. He wanted to follow the girl who had saved him, but he was afraid of the boy. Chewing on that dilemma like a bone, Oliver decided to follow the girl at a distance, keeping his eye on the boy.

  He knew a rat when he saw one.

  A Wink of Gold

  “Aw, I wasn’t going to throw it,” said Daniel. “I was just scarin’ him, that’s all. He was going to ruin the plan!”

  Maggie walked with her head down and her hands pushed into her pockets. “I don’t think you have a plan. And I don’t think there’s a real treasure, either.”

  Mist from the harbor reached into the city and settled like snow.

  “There is a treasure,” said Daniel. “And it’s gold.”

  “Then why don’t you have it already?”

  “Because,” said Daniel.

  “Because why?”

  “Because,” he said, “there has to be somebody as small as you. That’s part of the plan.”

  “Then tell me where it is and how you came to know about it.”

  They made their way through the fog, two small figures with hollow stomachs wrapped in threadbare clothes. Daniel’s face was screwed up in thought. “My dad said not to tell anybody,” he said.

  “Your dad? What’s your dad got to do with it?” Just the thought of the big, scary bear made Maggie’s skin crawl.

  “It’s where he used to work. At this rich lady’s house.”

  “Then why didn’t he get it?”

  “I told you!” said Daniel in disgust. “It’s got to be somebody small. Somebody small and quick. And it has to be done at night.”

  Maggie stopped. “You didn’t say we had to steal!” she said. “I’m not a thief.”

  “Did I say steal?” said Daniel. “Did I?”

  “No, but—”

  “Do you want to see it?”

  She planted her feet. “I don’t know.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “I seen it once. It’s the most beeyootiful thing. All made of gold.”

  She crossed her arms. “What’s made of gold? What is it?”

  “You’ll see,” he said. “Come on.”

  Why did Maggie follow Daniel? For one thing, she had nowhere else to go. She was cold and hungry, all alone, and not yet eleven. She stopped asking all the questions that might have made her turn back, back to where Oliver waited.

  A skinny black cat came out of the shadows and threaded through her ankles. “All right,” she said at last. “But just to look.”

  A coach-and-four came clattering through the fog, a black shape drawn by four sleek black horses. A pair of bright blue eyes peered out through gray mist. “It’s the duchess!” cried Maggie. “Look! Daniel! It’s the Duchess of Landsaway’s coach.”

  But Daniel barely glanced up. “I seen it before,” he said.

  At last, they came up out of the fog and entered a place that even Maggie with her bursting imagination could never have dreamed of, a kingdom of stately homes, far grander than any she had ever seen. They were done up like frosted layer cakes, with gatehouses and turrets and long, curving drives. Some sat smugly behind tall iron fences. Some had sweeping lawns and gardens that seemed to invite the passerby in, but their doors, like all the others, were forbidding.

  At last they came to the grandest of all. Surrounded by trees, it sat on a little rise above the other homes, its marble walls gleaming in the moonlight.

  Maggie stared with her mouth open. Was she dreaming? Was it a real home with real people living inside? Did they get lost in there? How did they find their bedrooms?

  “The lights are still on,” said Daniel. “Keep in the trees and don’t say a word.”

  Maggie’s heart was an anxious bird beating its wings in her throat. She crept through the trees behind Daniel, keeping low, her curiosity drawing her along. When a twig broke beneath her boot, she jumped. Daniel turned with his finger to his lips. “Shhh!”

  Daniel stopped where the wood ended and the lawn began. “There!” he said, pointing toward the house.

  “Where?” said Maggie.

  On the lower story, a light went out.

  “It was right there,” Daniel said, jabbing his finger toward a darkened window. “Did you see it?”

  Maggie, who thought she might have gotten the quickest glimpse of something shining, now doubted her eyes. “No,” she said.

  A cracking sound and then another made them turn. Something was bounding toward them through the woods. “Lucky!” cried Maggie as the shaggy, smelly dog leapt against her, licking her face.

  “Not the dog!” said Daniel.

  Maggie hugged and patted Lucky while Daniel watched with a sour look on his face.

  “Look, Lucky!” she said. “Isn’t this the finest house you’ve ever seen?”

  But Oliver only had eyes for Maggie.

  “Come on,” said Daniel. “It’s all ruined now. Let’s get out of here.”

  Maggie and Daniel crept back through the wood while Oliver ran in circles, sniffing every tree, every hole in the ground, every place an animal might have been. He was delirious with freedom.

  But when they reached the street, he stayed a good ways behind. He had taken a chance running up to the girl and been rewarded for it, but now he became cautious again. The boy could not be trusted.

  “Come on, Lucky!” the girl cried, but when he did not go to
her, she gave up and went along with the boy.

  Oliver sniffed the gutters in search of anything edible. Anything except a rat. But the gutters had been swept clean and washed down. This place was the worst sort of place for a dog because it had no smell.

  He loped along, stopping to sniff, then loping some more to catch up with the girl. She and the boy had gone into a very different kind of place, a place of small houses and dark streets and a far better place for Oliver. There were animal droppings and enticing bits of garbage tossed about. He was sniffing along a wooden fence when he smelled something that made him lift his head and sniff the air.

  Smoke.

  He went back to his business until the smoke got in his way again.

  He barked. Up the street toward where a thousand tongues of orange flame stretched and snapped against the dark night sky.

  A Daring Rescue

  “It’s my house!” cried Daniel. He raced toward the fire yelling, “Dad! Dad!” and Maggie stayed with him, Oliver not far behind.

  They stopped at the broken fence, their eyes wide, as fire licked up the side of the house, reaching for the roof.

  Daniel yelled for his father again. “I’ve got to get him out,” he said when no answer came, and he dashed into the weeds.

  “No! Daniel!” cried Maggie. “You can’t go in there!”

  Oliver began to bark, sharp loud barks meant to alert the neighbors. A few people had come out of their houses and were gathering in the street.

  Maggie darted into the weeds, calling Daniel’s name. Oliver bounded after her. When they came to the door, Daniel threw it open. Clouds of black smoke billowed out. He went through it, choking and calling for his father.

  Maggie, more frightened than she had ever been in her life, hung back. But when Lucky went past her into the house, she followed him. If Daniel’s father was in the bedroom where the fire was, they had to save him.

  The kitchen was thick with smoke. Maggie tied her scarf around her nose and mouth, and dropping to her hands and knees where the air was clearer, she crawled across the kitchen floor. The fire cracked and hissed and spat. She could hear Daniel crying, “Dad! Get up, Dad! There’s a fire! Wake up! Dad!”

  In the bedroom, where Maggie could hardly see for all the smoke, Daniel, coughing and crying, was pulling on his father’s arm. But his father, a great lump upon a mattress, wasn’t moving.

  Maggie grabbed the man’s hairy ankle and pulled. Choking on the smoke and pulling as hard as they could, Maggie and Daniel got the big lump to the edge of the mattress. He toppled over and landed with a thump on the floor.

  “Wha…?” he said. Rolling over, he began to snore.

  Fire was snaking its way across the wall. “Get up, Dad!” cried Daniel.

  Oliver didn’t like the looks of this one bit. He latched onto the girl’s coat, but she would not let go of the big man’s leg. She was crying and pulling, and her face was bright red. She and the boy could budge the great weight of the man only a little. So Oliver latched onto the big man’s nightshirt instead of the coat and started yanking.

  The man began to slide across the floor. It was hard going. The boy and girl, each with an arm, grunted and pulled. Oliver yanked, set his feet, and yanked some more. The fire popped and cracked. Across the kitchen floor slid the man, inch by inch, then through the door and down the steps, where he toppled over and landed in the yard.

  “Wha…?” he said, and sat up, rubbing his head. Then he lay back down with a smile on his face and went back to sleep.

  From several blocks away came the clang-clang-clang of a fire bell, pounding hooves, and the hiss of steam. A fire engine was on its way. Daniel knelt by his father’s side while his father slept, and at last the firemen came. Lifting Daniel’s father under the arms, they dragged him out to the street.

  One fireman stayed with Maggie, Daniel, and Oliver, hurrying them along. “How did you manage to pull him out here?” said the fireman when they got to the street. “The man weighs a half ton!”

  “Lucky helped,” said Maggie. Oliver was panting, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. “Lucky’s a hero,” she said.

  “Woof!” said Oliver, which only meant he was ready to get out of there, but they all laughed, even Daniel.

  “You two got somebody to stay with?” asked the fireman.

  Daniel nodded solemnly. “Our sister,” he said.

  “You can visit your father in the hospital in the morning,” said the fireman.

  The two other firemen were holding on to a huge, heavy hose, training water on the burning house, but the fire was quickly claiming it. All they could do was work to save the houses on either side. The three horses whose job it was to haul the big steam engine waited in the street. They were proud horses, chosen out of hundreds of their kind for their strength and patience.

  “There goes my house,” said Daniel. “Now there isn’t even a floor to sleep on.” His face was covered with soot, through which his tears made crooked tracks.

  Where To?

  Maggie and Daniel leaned into the pond, washing the soot from their faces and hands.

  “It’s freezin’ cold!” cried Daniel, wiping his face with a sooty sleeve.

  “It’s not so bad,” said Maggie. “Lucky likes it.”

  Oliver had leapt right into the water and was splashing through the broken ice like a puppy.

  Except for a ragged man sleeping on a bench, the Common was empty of people. Now the creatures of night reigned. An opossum peered out from her den. A raccoon chattered. Moths flitted past. Trees lifted their bare limbs to the night sky and tried to touch the stars.

  Oliver jumped out of the pond and shook himself all over. He was cold. Cold and wet and tired and, more than anything, hungry. It was past time to begin his search for supper, but the girl’s hand lay on his back. Her coat held the memory of fire, but it warmed his side. He wished for another kind of fire, like the fire at Bertie’s, where he and the girl could lie down on the hearth and warm themselves until morning.

  Maggie was remembering all the warm places she had ever been, which were mostly at Madame’s. She had been warm once inside her mother, but she could not remember that. Had she been warm in her basket on Madame’s stoop? Had she been found in winter or in summer when a blanket might not have been needed?

  Why had she not asked Hannah that question when she had asked so many others?

  Did Hannah ever think of her? Did Hannah miss her?

  Daniel sat on the edge of the pond, wrapped in his arms and shivering. “It’s time I stowed away,” he said.

  “To Australia?” said Maggie. “What if it’s just as cold there?”

  Lucky was sniffing at her pocket.

  “Can’t be,” said Daniel. “No place is as cold as Boston.”

  “Maybe I’ll go, too,” said Maggie.

  Daniel scoffed. “A girl can’t be a stowaway.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, because,” said Daniel.

  “Because why?”

  He frowned. “It ain’t right.”

  “That’s no answer,” said Maggie. “What’s a stowaway, anyway?”

  Daniel rolled his eyes. “Don’t you know nuthin’? It’s a person who stows away. He hides on the boat until it’s out to sea and it’s too late to put him off.”

  “I can hide as well as you,” said Maggie.

  “You’re a girl,” said Daniel, as if that were a good answer.

  “I don’t think Lucky would come,” she said.

  Oliver’s nose was almost inside her pocket.

  “I’m hungry,” said Daniel.

  “We can’t go to the place where they captured Lucky,” said Maggie.

  “No,” said Daniel. “We can’t go there.” And Maggie could tell that Daniel had changed his mind about Lucky because Lucky had helped save his father.

  “If we had that clock,” said Daniel, “we could sell it and have a real dinner in a real dinner house.”

  “Clock? What clock?”


  “The gold one. The one in the window.”

  Maggie’s eyebrows went up. “It was a clock? The treasure is only a clock?”

  “Not only a clock,” he said. “It’s the most beeyootiful clock in the whole wide world. There’s a ruby right on the top as big as my fist.” He made a fist to show her. “And angels made of gold flying all around. And diamonds, too, right there in the numbers.”

  The picture Daniel painted set itself in Maggie’s mind. Of all the treasures in Madame’s house, none were as fabulous as the clock Daniel described.

  “Too bad you didn’t see it,” he said. “If you did, you would never, ever forget it.”

  “We could see it in the daytime,” said Maggie.

  “Nah,” he said. “Too risky.”

  “Why? We’re only going to look.”

  Daniel frowned. “I guess we could go real early in the morning.”

  “Let’s!” said Maggie, her curiosity stronger even than hunger.

  Lucky had gotten hold of her pouch and was pulling it out of her pocket.

  “My bun!” Maggie cried. She opened her pouch and tore the bun into three equal pieces.

  “What else you got in there?” said Daniel, grabbing her pouch. He reached inside and pulled out a penny.

  “You’re holding out on me!” he said.

  “I forgot,” said Maggie, surprised that she could forget she had a whole penny left from the nickel she’d been given.

  Daniel pocketed the penny and went back inside the pouch. Out came a shriveled apple core, which he tossed. Last came the locket. “We’re going to have to sell this,” he said, swinging the tiny spark of light.

  “We are not,” said Maggie, snatching back the locket. “And I am not. Not ever!” She put the locket back inside her pouch and pushed the pouch deep into her pocket.

  They left the Common and wandered the streets looking for shelter. At last all three settled in the shadows of a boarded-over doorway set back off the street. One stomach rumbled, then another, then a third, until at last they fell asleep.