What Happened on Fox Street (10 page)

I
T WAS A CHALLENGE,
living in a house as small as the Wrens' and refusing to speak to someone else who lived there, but Mo was determined. For the next three days, she wouldn't even meet her father's eyes, much less answer his questions or acknowledge his lame jokes. If she absolutely had to communicate with him, she put it in writing.

Messages and replies written in fury:

Meanwhile, Mercedes's father troubles were thickening, too.

“It's like a surprise attack! Except he warned us!” Her eyes were wide. “He's coming! Tomorrow!”

“She's the one who should come.”

Mercedes drew a deep breath. Her next words fell one by one, like medicine from a dropper. “She is. She's coming.”

“Your mom's coming to Fox Street?”

Here it was, something Mo and Merce had wished for so many years: Monette coming home. Only now, it was far from the happy occasion they'd always dreamed about. Now it was a water-main break. A summer-long drought. A disaster.

“She says she has something to tell me.” Mercedes's
golden eyes were wide. “Something big.”

Mo grabbed a broom. “We've got twenty-four hours to get this house looking beautiful.”

She took the kitchen, which was in the worst shape, while Mercedes started in on the dining room. Someone from church had taken Da grocery shopping, so she couldn't protest or get insulted as they scoured her house. Mo pulled the vegetable drawer out of the refrigerator and filled it with hot, soapy water.

“We'll show him,” she reassured Mercedes, who was dusting the dining room. “We'll whip the place into shape, and he'll see it's perfectly fine for Da to stay here.”

A rainbow-kissed bubble drifted up from the sink. Watching it rise made Mo feel strangely off balance, as if one leg had grown shorter than the other. All at once she saw herself in the kitchen of Corky's Tavern, loading the dishwasher, Dad flipping an omelet, the two of them attempting harmony—
pop!
The bubble broke. Mo blinked.

“What did you say?” called Mercedes from the other room.

“All Da needs is someone to come in and clean once in a while.” Taking a deep breath, she recommenced scrubbing with all her might. “And I bet her
church would help with meals if she let them. Don't you think?”

Mercedes appeared in the kitchen doorway, dust rag in hand. Her nose wrinkled and her eyes shut and she pulled her head back against her neck as if someone were trying to kiss her, but the sneeze changed its mind.

“I can't…”

The sneeze changed its mind again.

“Aa…aa…aaaa!”

Mercedes collapsed into a sneezing fit. She yanked open the door and flung the dusty cloth out. “This is bonkerdom! I'm allergic to this whole house. Aaaa-
choo
!”

Another soap bubble rose in the sunlight. Mo wheeled away from the sink. “Come on, rock paper scissors—loser gets the bathroom.”

In reply, Mercedes draped her lengthy self over a chair. She looked worn out, though they'd barely gotten started.

“We have a stellar cleaning lady. Monette and Corny and me.”

“For real?”

“She cleans my room. I never have to do anything except put my clothes in the wash.”

“Wow.” Mo peeled away her sticky T-shirt and blew down her sweaty front. “I could get used to that.”

Mercedes sat up, looking encouraged. “You know what I'm thinking? Next summer you'll come stay with
me
. I've got an extra bed in my room, just for sleepovers. With a lame pink princess canopy, but still. I'll take you to a park you'll love. It's colossal, acres and acres, with a pond and cool little paddle-boats.”

“Wow. It sounds like a plan. I visit down there for a few days, then we come up here for the rest of the summer. I like it!”

Mercedes leaned back, legs and arms flopping as if she'd been deboned.

“Did I mention the juicer? Three-C makes these concoctions from fresh mango and pineapple, and I have to admit they're almost supernatural. Oh, yeah, and the TV's down in the family room, about half a mile from their bedroom. We can stay up all night, no problem.”

“Wow,” said Mo, stuck on
REPLAY
. “You make it sound like paradise. I mean, real paradise, not Paradise Avenue.”

“It's different from here, Mo.”

“Rock scissors paper.” Mo tucked her fingers
behind her back. “We don't want His Royal Pain in the Butt to have a nervous breakdown when he sees this place.”

Mercedes's spine melted. “Mo, I've got something to say.”

“Okay.”

“We've been friends for all of our formative years. We are sisters in some parallel universe. No one else knows that I used to be terrified of bridges.”

“You still are.”

“See? And I know you secretly like Pi Baggott, even though you'd never admit it even to me.”

“I need someone for a friend when you're not around.” Mo's cheeks grew toasty. “That's all.”

“So that's why I'm going to tell you this. I've been trying to tell you all summer, but you haven't exactly been receptive.”

Mo braced herself against the sink. It was so quiet in the kitchen, she could hear the soap bubbles popping one by one.

“Suppose—” Mercedes poked her finger at her bottom lip. “Suppose the planet stops spinning, and Da's brain gets taken over by aliens, or more likely by my mother and stepfather. Suppose she agrees to move downstate with us—wait! Don't say anything
yet! Let me finish.”

Pop pop pop
. It was amazing, how deafening the sound of a bubble popping could be.

“That might not be the complete and utter disaster you think.” Mercedes began to lift her chin, but an invisible weight tugged it back down. “Because…because I might really need her. As my ally. In case. They decide to, you know. Procreate.”

Mo was stunned. Never once in all her extensive thinking had she considered this possibility.

“They haven't said it, not in actual words! But a blind man could see. They're in love, Mo! They dance in the kitchen. They kiss any time, any place. She'll be sitting at the computer and he—”

“Okay, okay, I get the idea.”

“It's just a matter of time! That might even be what Monette's coming here to tell me. Oh, they'll pretend I'm part of the big decision, but it won't really matter what I say or feel. Irrationality's going to win out. And then?” Mercedes flung her hands over her eyes. “Life as I know it will come to an end.”

“You might be exaggerating. Being a big sister isn't all that bad.”

Mercedes lowered her hands and stared. “I've witnessed with my own eyes what you go through. The
torture, the unrelenting hardship! Dottie gets away with everything, while you're expected to be responsible and mature no matter what. Fairness is a meaningless word, once you have a little brother or sister. Not to mention you have to share, and I hate to share.”

Mercedes's arms and legs wove themselves into a knot. She pressed her forehead to her knee. When she spoke again, it was to the very center of her golden self.

“Not to mention. It'll have a father.”

Mo racked her brain but could think of no way to deny that.

“That won't be fair,” Mercedes said. “Right from the start, things won't be fair.”

Mo turned back to the sink, where the water had gone cold and murky and every last bubble had popped.

“If I had Da living with me, it'd be different. Da's
mine
, you know? And we'd be together, twenty-four seven. We wouldn't have to be separated half the year, the way we are now. Families are supposed to stick together—let me see, what famous person said that? Shakespeare?” Mercedes raised her head. She cocked it in that infuriating way of hers. “Oh, wait, I know: Maureen Jewel Wren!”

Mo ran a finger around the vegetable drawer, so clean now it squeaked. She dried it with a towel, then slid it back inside the refrigerator.

“Why aren't you saying anything?” Mercedes demanded.

“What can I say? You already have it all figured out.”

“You're mad at me.” Mercedes undid her body knot and sat up very straight. “I knew you'd be mad.”

“Please don't tell me what I am, thank you very much.”

“I knew it,” repeated Mo's once-best friend. “You can't stand things changing! You know what that makes you? It makes you a…a dictator! You want to be in charge of the whole world! Bossing every last person around, telling them how things are supposed to be, thank
you
very much. No one else's opinions or needs will be taken into account, sorry about that.”

“Oh, yeah? That's what you think. You don't know everything about me, Mercedes Jasmine Walcott! Just because you wear better clothes than me and have a maid and all of a sudden you think Fox Street is the armpit of the world—”

“I never said that and you know it!”

“You've been faking all summer, pretending you were on my side!”

“I wasn't faking! I am on your side! It's…it's complicated, that's all. It's not black and white! Why can't you see that? What's the matter with you?”

“Me? I'm not the one who changed! I'm no traitor!”

“Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds!”

“Who you calling a hobgoblin, you Benedict Arnold?”

A stricken look stole over Mercedes's face. Mo followed her gaze upward, along the length of her own arm, all the way to her hand, which clutched one of Da's good glasses. Which, it appeared, she was preparing to hurl across the room.

Mo lowered her arm. Even as she set the glass back on the counter, she could hear the sound it would make when it smashed. She could feel the thrilling, sickening electric jolt of it.

“I'm leaving,” she said.

“Good idea.”

“Better call your cleaning lady to finish up here.”

Mercedes didn't say another word as Mo swept out the door.

 

That night she lay awake brooding, face toward her window. The sky shuddered with heat lightning. Even the sky was making false promises now. Heat
lightning was nothing but bluster and brag, never delivering the sweet gift every blade of grass longed for, every dusty bird dreamed of.

At last, when all the lights in Da's house were out, Mo crept across the street and hooked the hideous purse on the doorknob. She'd considered throwing the thing in the trash, or down the ravine, but at the last minute she couldn't stand to betray old Starchbutt that way. But this was it. No more favors. No more running interference. From now on, Mercedes could fend for her own high-and-mighty self.

Standing there on that heaving sea of a front porch, Mo heard a faint rustle beneath her feet. A field mouse, probably. Yet for an instant it seemed as if all those bits of toys that had fallen through the porch cracks over the long years of friendship were stirring, coming to life just long enough to whisper
Good-bye.

Creeping back home, she saw fireflies drifting up from the grass like the last sparks of a dying fire. She tiptoed into her room, locking the door behind her. Moments later, another creature of the night began to scratch at it.

“Mo! Mo, it's me!”

How could Mo have gone two whole years without
realizing all she had to do was lock her bedroom door? That was how simple it had been all along!
Click
. The turn of a lock, and she had her whole bed to herself. No leech taking up nine-tenths of the mattress. No suckerfish sucking the life out of her. How could Mo have been so stupid not to think of it before?

“Mo! Mo? Are you in there?”

Scritch, scratch
, the little rat. Mo pulled the pillow over her ears, yet still she heard the sound, as if it came from inside her own head. Turning toward the window, she watched the jagged yellow streaks electrify Mrs. Steinbott's roses. A light burned upstairs, in the window just across from Mo's. Did that mental case stay up knitting all night long?

Or could it be that, all alone, she sometimes got scared of the dark?

The middle of the bed was so uncomfortable. Mo huddled on the edge, the way she usually did. One last feeble
scritch
and
scratch
, then silence.

A siren
whoop-whoop
ed up on Paradise. Mo kept her eyes on Mrs. Steinbott's light—the night-light of Fox Street—till at long last she fell asleep.

O
PENING HER BEDROOM DOOR
the next morning, she stepped into an ambush of tangled sheets and candy wrappers. Mo kicked them aside. Her eyes felt hot and grainy, as if she hadn't slept a single wink.

Downstairs, Dottie's cereal bowl, swimming with blue milk, sat on the floor in front of the TV. It was Saturday, and Dottie should have been deep into her lineup of favorite cartoons. Mr. Wren should have been trying to start the lawn mower, cursing, trying again, giving up, and borrowing Mr. Duong's.

Instead, ghost house.

At least he could have left a note. Just because she
wasn't speaking to him didn't mean he had no obligation to let her know where he was.

Unless he didn't want her to know where he was.

Mo rushed out the side door. The morning air smelled strangely burned, as if an angry giant had lit and blown out a forest's worth of matches. The sky hung low and heavy. On Mrs. Steinbott's clothesline, the boiled sponges should have been swaying in the kicking-up breeze, except her line was empty.

No sponges.

No cartoons.

No car.

No father.

She went back inside and did the dishes, but her hands were clumsy and she broke a glass. Cleaning up the pieces, she nicked her finger and stuck the Band-Aid on crooked, and later, when she put the laundry in, she dripped drops of blood on her father's T-shirt and had to rinse it in cold water and treat it with stain remover.

Wait'll I tell Mercedes.

Oh.

No best friend.

As the washer churned, Mo dragged herself up the basement steps. Her father had forgotten his
cell phone, there on the counter. Mo looked out the front window. Da's front porch was empty. The handbag was gone from the knob. What time was Three-C due? Mo didn't know. The way things stood, she wouldn't even get to meet him. She'd be reduced to spying from across the street, just like Mrs. Steinbott.

Outside, the heat wrapped itself around her like a wool coat. The air smelled as if the sky were paper and the heat lightning had singed it all along the edges. Bag on his shoulder, Bernard the mailman strode up the sidewalk.

“Nothing but junk for the Wrens today. Sorry!” He handed Mo a bundle of circulars. “Instead it's other folks' turn to finally get their registered mail.”

Mrs. Petrone stood on her lawn, refolding a sheet of paper, her lips pressed as straight as if they held a row of bobby pins. A few doors up, Mrs. Baggott paced her front porch, a sheet of paper in her hand, too. She was gabbing into her cell phone, her voice excited. Her shoes were actually going
flip
as well as
flop
.

Bernard knocked on Mrs. Steinbott's door. And knocked. Watching him shift the heavy bag on his shoulder, Mo's brain served up another one of Da's quotations. “Love is patient.” She was sure there was
more to it—love was gentle, maybe? Or was it strong? Or both? Her mind was fog. A cry cut through its swirling mist.

“Mo! Guess what?” The Wild Child tore across the street.

“Stop! Halt! What'd I tell you about looking both ways?”

Dottie jerked her head from side to side, though she was already on the sidewalk.

Mo grabbed her shoulder. “I thought you went with Daddy.”

“Daddy?” Dottie wriggled free.

“The man who lives in our house? Where is he?”

But Dottie couldn't be bothered with boring questions.

“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.