Fortunately, the landladies were arguing over cooking temperature so they didn’t hear the thud. What luck! Isabelle scooped up the apple and made her escape.
Isabelle loved the fourth-floor bedroom that she shared with Grandma Maxine. Certainly the room had a few problems. The old shake roof hadn’t been patched since Papa Lu’s death five years ago and the walls had been built without insulation. The climb up the three flights was steep, requiring strong legs. And the climb back down to the second-floor bathroom could be treacherous, especially if Isabelle or her grandmother needed to use the bathroom during the night.
But Isabelle and her grandmother had endured all of those hardships because the uppermost room in Mama Lu’s Boardinghouse came with an extra special bonus feature—for as long as Isabelle could remember, Mama Lu hadn’t been able to heave herself all the way to the fourth floor. On three occasions she had almost made it. “I’m having a heart attack,” she had cried, sweat pouring from her as if she had sprung leaks. “Lord have mercy, my heart can’t take it.” It seemed the only climbing she could manage was the ladder to her observation chair. Much to Isabelle and Grandma Maxine’s delight, the fourth floor remained Mama Lu–free.
Isabelle hid her apple beneath a ratty napkin before she stepped onto the second-floor landing. The Wormbottoms and the twins stood in line outside the bathroom.
“Hurry up, Limewig, and do your business,” Mr. Wormbottom said, pounding on the door. “It’s cold out here and you’re keeping me from my bed.”
“Can’t rush these things,” Mr. Limewig replied from behind the door.
“You want me to help you with that tray?” Bert asked.
“I can manage,” Isabelle said. She wanted to share the apple with Grandma Maxine before anyone else saw it. It would be the first time she had ever been able to give her grandmother a special treat.
Boris pulled half a dinner roll from his pocket and placed it on Isabelle’s tray. “Saved that for Maxine,” he said with a shy smile.
“That’s so sweet.” Isabelle stood on tiptoe and gave him a quick kiss on his pale, wrinkled cheek. Small acts of kindness were all the tenants had. Kindness kept their hearts from turning stone cold like Mama Lu’s and kept their spirits from washing down the storm drain. Isabelle vowed to save an apple slice for Boris and Bert.
Up the stairs Isabelle went. Grandma Maxine used to climb the stairs with her but over the last few months the old woman’s cough had steadily worsened. First, the trek to the factory had become too difficult. Then the trek up and down the stairs. Then she hadn’t been able to get out of bed. As the weeks had passed, Grandma Maxine ate less and slept longer. Isabelle had taken extra shifts at the factory to cover the lost wages and she had cared for her grandmother as best she could. She loved Grandma Maxine with her entire heart and she couldn’t bear the thought that one day the old woman would die.
She just needs more time, Isabelle told herself. Old people need more time to heal. That’s all.
Isabelle reached the fourth floor and hurried into the bedroom. Grandma Maxine lay beneath a thin, striped quilt, made from old socks. Her chest rose and fell in steady snoring. Isabelle quietly placed the tray on the bedside table. She held the apple up to the room’s single bulb. The light reflected gloriously on the shiny skin. Did it come from far away? she wondered. Do apples grow in Nowhere?
“Hello, Isabelle,” Grandma Maxine said, startling her.
Isabelle tucked the apple under the napkin. “Hello, Grandma. Are you feeling any better?”
“Not really. But at least it’s nice and toasty in here.” The bedroom didn’t have a fireplace or a heater but over the last few weeks the temperature had begun to rise. “I think it’s the moss carpet that’s keeping it so warm.”
The moss carpet was a recent addition to the room on the fourth floor. It had started with a simple clump of dark green moss that Isabelle had found on her factory locker. For some odd reason, hers was the only locker that grew moss. “Clean that locker!” Mr. Supreme’s assistants always yelled. But the moss always came back. Isabelle loved the way it felt when she brushed it across her cheek, so she had carried a clump to the boardinghouse where she had placed it on her windowsill, beneath a steady drip of water. The next morning the moss had doubled in size, and after a week it had grown down the wall. In two weeks’ time it had covered the entire floor. Amazingly, the moss absorbed all the nasty roof leaks yet it never felt wet.
Isabelle peeled off her damp socks and buried her aching feet in the living carpet. “It’s so nice to walk on. I wish you could walk on it, Grandma.”
“I wish I could too.” Grandma Maxine brushed aside a vine that dangled in her face. “I think these vines are also making the room warm.”
A few weeks back, Isabelle had found a tiny uprooted plant stuck to the bottom of her boot. Strange that the slugs hadn’t eaten it. She had taken the plant up to her room and had tucked its roots into the moss. In a few days’ time it had grown like Jack’s Beanstalk, with a stem as thick as her arm and leaves that sparkled like wet sand. The vines covered the ugly plank walls, blocking all the nasty breezes.
“The vines are beautiful but they worry me,” Grandma Maxine said. Her cheeks and eyes looked sunken and her skin, which was usually as translucent as Isabelle’s, had taken on a grayish shade. “If Mama Lu comes up here, she’ll get real mad. She’ll say that you don’t have permission to grow things in her
