The driver swung up into his cab. He rubbed the space between his kindly eyes. “I’m not very good at names.” He smiled down at her. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head, missy. These are grown-up matters! Whatever happens, your mama will take good care of you!” He shifted the truck’s gears and backed toward the growing pile of rubble.
Mr. Duong pushed his glasses back up his nose. Ms. Hugg murmured some inappropriate language. Mrs. Baggott ground out her cigarette with her flip-flop. Mr. and Mrs. Hernandez clasped each other’s hands. Mrs. Petrone voiced the question in everyone’s head.
“How come we haven’t heard a single word about this?” Her pillowy chest rose and fell. “Some big kahunas are after our property. Big-time! How can they have kept this a secret from every last one of us?” She looked from face to face and settled on Mr. Duong. Her eyes narrowed. “What was that you said about capitalism?”
Mr. Duong looked alarmed. “I was speculating, that’s all. I don’t know any more than any of you.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. Steinbott had her finger in this.” Mrs. Baggott flicked a bit of tobacco from her tongue. “She’s rich. And the rich only get richer.”
Mrs. Petrone peered at Mo. “
Everyone stared at Mo the way they’d stared at the truck driver. The knowledge of her father’s two letters, and the meeting he’d had with B and B, surged up inside her and tried to blurt itself out. He thinks you’re dominoes! she wanted to say. If we don’t band together, he’ll knock us all down!
But they’d demand to know where she got that information, and she’d have to tell them her father was already dealing with Buckman. And how could she betray her father?
Mercedes clamped her lips together, as if she, too, had words trying to jump out of her mouth. But she didn’t speak. Instead she waited, watching Mo.
“How…how would I know about it?” Mo heard herself say.
And One More Gift
WITHIN DAYS THE A.O.L. HOUSE had vanished.
Mo squinted at the spot where the house had stood, almost seeing it, the way when the moon’s a crescent, you can still perceive the whole. She picked a bouquet of daisies and laid it where the front door once stood.
But what she couldn’t do, no matter how fiercely she tried, was think two thoughts in a row.
Single solitary thoughts Mo was capable of:
1. He’s a good dad. Unlike Mercedes’s real dad, whoever that is. Not to mention her bonehead stepdad.
2. If you allow there’s such a thing as necessary evil, and it seems as if most people do, where do you draw the line? Does that include necessary stealing? Necessary lying and cheating? Necessary betraying your neighbors on the street where you’ve lived all your life and everyone has watched out for you, not to mention your little sister?
3. Even though people have seen skunks and raccoons and even hawks, no one on Fox Street has seen a fox. Those other animals hardly even seem wild anymore. But my fox is different. My shy, beautiful fox.
4. One of the rocks I found that day was shaped exactly like a heart.
But no matter how Mo tried to link these thoughts together, they stayed separate, rolling around her mind like the beads of a broken necklace. She could not coax them onto a string.
Back up the street, Pi was busy waxing a curb with the end of a fat candle. How did he always manage to be around when she was feeling lonesome?
“Hey.” He stood up. An angry red scrape just above his cheekbone made her wince. He touched his fingers to it and shrugged.
“Road rash.”
“You ought to be more careful.”
A smile bloomed in his beat-up face. He shrugged. “The way I figure it is, if you don’t fall, you’re not trying hard enough.”
“That’s stupid,” Mo said.
Pi’s smile slid off into the dirt. Right away she wished she could take it back. What was stupid about trying hard, about taking a risk, about wishing to fly? Everything, that’s what! It was worse than stupid to gamble with gravity. Stay put, stay on the ground, stay safe!
Pi turned away, resuming his waxing.
“Strange,” he said to the curb. “Some people think they know everything.”
But Pi kept his back to her, and on she trudged.
Mrs. Petrone was stepping out her front door, wearing her black pantsuit, which meant she was headed for the funeral home. When Mo waved, she merely nodded and hurried down the driveway to climb into the hearse. Mr. Duong, sitting on his porch reading a repair manual, didn’t seem to hear her when she called hello. This was how it had been on the street, ever since they flattened the A.O.L. House. Suspicion and distrust wheeled over the street like a flock of pigeons, settling first on this house, then on that one.
The little tissue-paper square that she carried in her pocket at all times had begun to fray, so now she kept it inside a Ziploc bag. Yesterday she’d hauled a jug down to the stream, which had dried up even more, and poured water out into a couple of pie pans. If the foxes couldn’t find enough to drink, they’d be forced out into the open. They’d have to make their way closer to the park’s picnic areas, against all their instincts. Mo couldn’t bear to think of the fox mother leading her kits into possible danger. What if they were crossing the parking lot in the dark, and some car came swerving out of nowhere, and…
She closed her fingers tight around the little bag. Forget the ban. She’d bring more water down there this afternoon. And every afternoon until it finally rained. If it ever rained again. Of course it would rain again. Things had to get better. Unless they didn’t. But they had to. Mo drew the Ziploc bag out of her pocket.
“Lemme see!” Dottie materialized, waving her sticky hands. The one treasure Mo owned, the one and only thing she tried to keep private and hers alone, and Dottie was after it night and day. Not that she had any idea that fox fur was what the little parcel contained. Not that Mo would ever share it with her, or anyone. “Just once lemme see lemme see lemme see lemme-”
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Mo pushed her, harder than she meant to. “This. Is. Not. For. You!”
“Queen of Mean!”
And Dottie was the Princess of Mess. Only far, far worse than usual. The snarls in her hair had become permanent-nothing but scissors would cure them. And that T-shirt-when was the last time she’d changed it? So extensive was her grubbiness, she appeared to be wearing dirt-colored pads on her knees and elbows. Mo had been neglecting things, all right. The realization made her even angrier.
“I’ve got enough to worry about!” Mo jammed the bag back into her pocket. “I’m sick of always looking out for you. Sick and tired, you hear me? Go away. Vanish.”
Dottie pulled her thumb out of her mouth. She was sucking her thumb all the time now. “You’re a boa conflicter!”
In disgust, Mo turned her back and stomped away, back up the street toward home. A leech! A suckerfish, forever glued to Mo’s side! Mo stomped past Mrs. Steinbott, who was sitting on her porch, of course. All Mo needed now was for her to yell “You!” and deliver another one of her wacko witch prophecies. The sky is falling! The end is near! The big ugly purse was still under Mo’s bed, where she’d tossed it along with the jar of bubble bath, rather than upset Mercedes with another so-called present. Sure enough, Mrs. Steinbott leaned over her porch railing.
“The little dickens!” She jabbed her knitting needle in the direction of the Wrens’ front yard.
