“What kind of situations?”
“If it’s for the good of all.”
“That’s bogus!” Mo jumped to her feet.
“Is that legal?” Mercedes demanded. “It doesn’t sound legal to me.”
“Lots of bad stuff is legal!” The secretary swept her hand through the air, knocking over the papers she’d just straightened. “Shoot! The world is full of necessary e-”
“That’s not true!” Mo said
“That’s not true!” echoed Dottie, slipping a few more patties into her pocket.
The door behind the desk swung open, making the woman jump half out of her skin. Mr. Wren, his tie crooked, came out first, Buckman’s big belly following close behind.
“I’ll shoot you those figures pronto,” he said, clapping Mr. Wren on the shoulder. He beamed at the three girls. “I trust my gal here kept you out of trouble?”
The Thinker, Part 2
“IT’S COMPLICATED,” Mr. Wren replied to every question Mo asked. He turned on the radio and hummed along, not saying anything more till he’d edged the car up the driveway, which was so narrow you could touch Mrs. Steinbott’s house as you went by, if you were Dottie and dumb enough to want to. He shut off the car but didn’t get out. He sat gripping the wheel for a long moment and at last turned around to face the backseat.
“You girls only need to know one thing. Whatever I do is for the good of us all.”
This sounded alarmingly familiar. “Like eminent domain?”
“What?” He gave Mo a distracted look, then climbed out of the car. “I need to think.”
But instead of thinking, he changed his clothes and went to softball practice. Mercedes had to go help Da, and Dottie threw herself down in front of a hospital-emergency show with the fan blasting directly on her.
That left Mo to do the thinking.
She tried, while sprinkling the plum tree with water she’d saved from Dottie’s bath, but all her brain got was static. When she told Dottie she was going out for a little while, her sister didn’t take her eyes from the TV screen.
“Give me strength. Ashley’s in the hospital. She crashed her car and fell into a compost.”
“Do you mean coma, and are you allowed to watch those shows? Don’t bother to answer and do not move. I’ll be back in a few minutes-I have to check something.”
The air was a sponge begging to be wrung out, but the sidewalks and grass were dry as ever. It was late afternoon by now, the day paused between day and evening, Mo’s favorite time. She loved to feel the world simmering down, breathing slower. As she slid down the hill into the Green Kingdom, a blue plastic bag fluttered gently, high in a tree. Mo tried, as always, not to make a sound.
She walked up one side of the stream, jumped across, and patrolled the other as far as she could before the brush got too dense, all the while peering at the slick mud. Fox tracks were hard to distinguish from a dog’s. Four ovals and a little pad, with sharp, pointy claws. Foxes moved like dancers, so their tracks didn’t go as deep as most dogs’, but still. Unless you were a real expert, it was hard to tell.
A group of dogs was a pack, of geese a gaggle, of lions a pride. A group of foxes was called an earth. That was perfect, if you asked Mo.
Just before the nettles and weeds grew too thick to penetrate, the stream curved and widened out a bit. Mo squatted to look more closely. The mud was a mishmash of indentations-fat and needle thin, deep or barely a thumbprint, crescents and rays, ovals and lines. A group of something had been here and left behind this record, like a secret language. Another secret language, alongside the one imprinted on the Wren kitchen table.
By this time in summer, kits would be big enough to come out of the den and play. Their mother would still catch all their food, but when she was sure the coast was clear, she’d lead them to water for a drink.
Mo’s eyes searched the hillside, looking for a hole. Oh, they were so smart-so foxy! If a den was nearby, it was perfectly camouflaged. Though a fly landed on her knee and a mosquito buzzed in her ear, Mo didn’t move. The mother would be watching. She’d be sizing Mo up, deciding whether to trust her or not.
She kept her eyes shut as long as she could, then slowly opened them.
Nothing. The hillside stared back at her, empty as far as she could see.
A gulping sound shook out of her. Mo bit the inside of her cheeks but couldn’t stop the tears. How dare that secretary pity them! The thought made Mo furious, which was why she was crying, no other reason. If that secretary felt so sorry for them, why didn’t she do something to help? Not that Mo needed any help!
Wait. She swallowed salt, choking back her tears. She’d heard something in the distance. A quick barkish sound, but musical, singing a high-pitched harmony with her crying. There-again! As if trying to tell her something important.
And now, wiping her eyes, she saw-what did she see? And how could she have not seen it before?
Just beyond her nose, caught in the thicket, a red-gold tuft glinted in the sun’s spotlight. It weighed no more than a snippet lying on Mrs. Petrone’s kitchen floor after a haircut. Mo laid it in her palm. The strands of fur were like rough silk, shading from red to creamy white. They were lush and electric at the same time. They felt alive. Like one of Mrs. Steinbott’s roses, only more beautiful. Mo closed her fingers around the fur.
The sign she’d been waiting for.
Back home, holding her breath, she set the fur on a bit of dark blue tissue, which she carefully folded into a square.
“Is that a present?” Dottie appeared out of nowhere, and Mo quickly slipped the dark blue square into her pocket. “Who’s it for?”
“That’s for me to know and you to never find out as long as you live.”
Dottie slid her thumb sideways into her mouth, something she did only when she was really tired, or confused, or hurt. What a long day this had been!
“Ashley never got out of the compost. She’s dead and gone.” Dottie chewed her thumb. “Why’d she do that?” She looked at Mo as if Mo would have an answer.
“She…she couldn’t help it.”
“That’s no excuse.” It was what Mo always told her, when Dottie claimed she couldn’t help eating cookies before dinner, or running through the Baggotts’ sprinkler with her good shoes on. “Right?”
“Hey, come on,” Mo answered. “Let’s go get Daddy.”
At the corner, a passing bus belched a black cloud. Dottie slipped her hand into Mo’s without being told. They crossed the street and walked past the Tip Top Club, which breathed its sweet smoky breath out onto the sidewalk, past Abdul’s Market, where the sidewalk was peppered with scratched-off lottery tickets, past the drawn pink curtains of Madame Rosa’s Fortunes Told Closed for Vacation, past the empty lot where they’d once found a dead dog, which still made Dottie hum loudly every time they passed it, all the way to the middle school, where practice was winding down. Mo and Dottie climbed up in the bleachers just as Mr. Wren stepped up to the plate. When Dottie shouted, he swept off his cap and bowed to them, then gave their private signal-two fingers touching his brow, then pointing to right field. That meant this hit was just for them.
“Yaaaay, Daddy!” screamed the Wild Child. “You the man!”
He hit another, and another, the ball arcing straight and true from the edge of his bat. His teammates high- fived him, and grinning, he clapped them on the back.
Look how happy he was. From head to toe. One big human happiness. A completely different person from the
