What Happened on Fox Street

“It’ll kill me to let that money go,” he told her.

“I know.”

“But it’d kill me even worse to do business with that bush leaguer. Give me a dozen busted mains before I turn over the most valuable thing we own to a guy like him.”

Mo sat back, dazzled and confused as if he’d just shone a bright light in her face.

“You.” He pointed at her. “You’re the one. You had to go and put second thoughts in my thick head. If it wasn’t for you, that house would be signed, sealed, and delivered, and I’d be one happy if ignorant man.”

His fingernails were caked with dirt. At the back of his head shone a round bald spot the size of a penny. Where had that come from?

“But Daddy, the letter said somebody did sell to him.”

“Trust me. The only house he’s bought so far is the one they tore down.”

“But what about eminent domain?”

“Is that in the letter, too? Forget about it. He doesn’t have a prayer of getting the city to declare it. Apparently there’s nothing that greedy lard butt won’t stoop to, including twisting the truth.”

Suddenly he grinned, his eyes gleaming like dark stars. Oh, he was handsome. The handsomest man on Fox Street, probably in the entire city.

“Easy come, easy go. Did Shakespeare say that?” He sighed. Little by little, the light faded from his eyes.

He wasn’t selling. They were staying. All because of her.

“Hey.” Mr. Wren poked her knee. “You don’t exactly look like a girl who just got what she wanted.”

“I…I’m happy. I’m sad, too.”

“What’d I tell you? You think too much.”

“I want us all to be happy, Daddy. Together.”

“That’s a bigger order than we thought, isn’t it?”

Mo nodded.

Mr. Wren sat up, resting his elbows on his knees. “I won’t lie. I’m not giving up on the Wren House. I mean, the Wren House number two. I’m going to have it, sooner or later.” He looked at Mo for a long moment. “What would you say to sooner?”

Outside the Den, the honeyed sunlight drizzled down, coating the branches of the trees and spilling over the gray rocks.

“We can put the house up for sale ourselves. It’s ours. We’ll do it on our terms, and make sure we get a good price, and good people.” He touched her cheek. “It’s time, Mojo. Good things are ahead, I feel it.”

Mo didn’t trust her voice.

“What do you say?” her father asked. “Can I still count on you for my manager?”

But her heart. She did trust that, and she heard what it was telling her now. Mo drew a breath. She nodded.

Mr. Wren tried for a fist bump but instead grabbed Mo’s hand.

“Hey! What bit you?”

“Grrr,” growled Dottie, attacking him from behind. She threw her arms around his neck. “I’m a fox. Grrr.”

Mr. Wren wrestled her over his shoulder.

“You know how I always say the only thing that could make me happy was being my own boss? I was wrong. Hard as that is to believe.” He tickled Dottie’s bare foot. “There’s one other thing, and that’s being the best dad you two ever had.”

Mo’s unbalanced heart tipped her sideways, into the jumble of arms and mud and Wren-ness. The three of them fit just right in this den. We could live here, she thought. We could rig up a real roof, and come winter we’d build a thick wall from logs, and chink it up with mud and leaves. We’d cook on a fire, and wash clothes in the stream. I’d gather us berries. We could live here. We could live any-

Mercedes’s voice called in the distance. All three of them shouted back, a deafening chorus.

And One More Gift, Part 2

THE STREET SHONE like a black mirror. The dust was gone, and the neighborhood was drenched in color, a page in the coloring book of someone who pressed down hard on her crayons. Headed for the horizon, the sun gleamed like a polished coin.

“Still not here,” Mercedes said, pointing toward Da’s empty driveway.

Monette and Three-C. Mo had forgotten all about them.

“Don’t worry,” she promised Mercedes. “When they get here, I’ll be right beside you. Two against two!”

But even as she said them, the words sounded wrong. In families it couldn’t ever truly be against. Maybe beside, or among, or in between. Maybe even without. But against, that wouldn’t work, not for long.

Mercedes’s long, muddy legs took Da’s front steps two at a time. She disappeared inside. Except for the rainwater gurgling into the drains, the street was quiet as a stage after the play has ended. Or just before it begins.

“You know what?” Mr. Wren hoisted Dottie onto his shoulders. “I could eat a horse.”

Pi was the first to spot them. He Paul Revered down the street on his board, calling out, “She’s saved! The Wild Child is back!” Dottie waved and blew kisses as people spilled out onto their porches.

“You found her,” Pi told Mo. He flipped up his board to hold it by an axle. “Why am I not surprised?”

His hair was soaking wet. He must have been searching this whole time.

“I forgot your poncho down the hill,” she said.

He shrugged. “Keep it.”

Mo lowered her eyes, focusing on his reconstituted board, now painted a deep, dark blue. “You know this morning, when you asked me if we were moving…”

Pi set the board down and hopped back on, fingers tucked in his armpits. “Wait a minute. That was this morning?”

It did seem like days ago.

“Well. Guess what.” Mo drew a breath. “We are.”

She felt as if she’d been holding a heavy box all by herself and could at last put it down. Her arms ached with emptiness, but there was relief, too.

“When?”

“Not yet. But we will.”

“Not yet is cool.”

“You think?”

From the Baggotts’ yard came the pop of leftover Fourth of July firecrackers.

“Gives you time to learn how to skateboard. Right?”

Before she could answer, Pi turned toward his house.

“Okay!” she yelled after him. “It’s a deal!”

“Mojo!” Mr. Wren swooped Dottie down off his shoulders. “I’m going to Abdul’s! Be right back!”

With the rain over, and Dottie safe and sound, people seemed reluctant to go back inside. Ms. Hugg brought her keyboard out onto her porch and began to noodle out some music. Baby Baggott took off down the sidewalk butt naked, and somehow Mrs. Baggott, flip-flopping behind him, wound up on Mrs. Petrone’s porch getting a hair consult. Mo watched Mr. Duong roll his grill into his driveway and get a fire going.

The couple from the Kowalskis’ old house, who worked the night shift, must have had the day off. They came outside and stood blinking like bewildered night creatures. Mrs. Hernandez, hand extended, crossed the street to them.

“Hey, where’s the party?” A couple of guys from the Tip Top, red cheeked and way too happy, wandered down to lean against a parked car.