One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street (3 page)

She hoped the children would come to the lot that morning. They always cheered her up. She looked out her window. Yes, there was that girl, Ali, the question-asker. How wonderful it felt to answer her questions!

Ali was talking to her little brother in his stroller. Ms. Snoops couldn't remember his name. And there was that young man—the little boy's nanny. And hiding behind the bougainvillea vine, she could see a boy, but could not recall his name (Steven? Charley? Hector?). She knew that pretty soon another girl would show up, the one with the animal name, and also the girl with the big hair. She couldn't remember their names either. So many kids had lived on Orange Street! How could she possibly remember all of their names?

But she used to remember: first names, middle names, last names, nicknames, wished-for names, and fun names-just-for-a-day. She could still remember some of the old ones. Agnes. Cricket. Gertrude. Larry. Pug. It was this new crop of kids whose names seemed to slip away from her, like wisps of smoke.

Now Ms. Snoops noticed the orange cone across the street, as if for the very first time that morning. “Strange,” she said to Mitzi. “Must be repairing a sewer today.”

She also noticed something else. Noises right beneath her front window! A car's engine was purring. A hand break was creaking. She opened her window and looked out.

“Maybe I have a visitor,” she said hopefully to Mitzi, who took the opportunity to crawl out for a nice sunbath on the eave. “Now, wouldn't that just make my morning!”

A shadowy, mysterious figure was in the driver's seat, eating a sandwich. Actually, he was eating a hamburger and fries; Ms. Snoops could see that clearly now, especially with the binoculars she kept by the window for bird-watching. He was an ordinary-looking man (except for his bushy beard) wearing jeans, a floppy shirt, and a vest. She watched him take a bite of the hamburger. Then he put down the food, picked up a notebook, and began to write something.

Ms. Snoops had so many questions! What kind of person ate a hamburger and fries for breakfast? What was he writing? Should she call the police? But there was something else about that mysterious stranger. Ms. Snoops had seen him before. But where? When? Why, oh, why did he look so familiar?

Ms. Snoops sighed. It was time for her daily magic trick. She plopped down onto her yoga mat. Sometimes the trick worked its magic. Most of the time it didn't.

On the mat she placed a perfect orange that had been picked from high up on the south side of the orange tree, where the sweetest oranges grew. She sat cross-legged on the yoga mat in front of the perfect orange.

And then she chanted, over and over:

NOW, NOW
MAGIC
NOW
,
SHOW ME HOW,
MAGIC
NOW
. . .

Ms. Snoops figured if she could just keep noticing the oranginess of the orange and its sharp perfume and its pockmarks and its almost perfect roundness, then she could hold on to her disappearing memory. Remembering the distant past was a cinch—and something she loved to do! Worrying about the future was pretty easy, too. Remembering the recent past was much trickier, and lately she just couldn't seem to wrap her brain around lots of things happening right now.

But her stomach began to growl, and, oh, that orange smelled good! So Ms. Snoops stopped what she was doing to eat it for breakfast, with a nice hunk of Gouda cheese.

ust around the time that car with the mysterious stranger pulled up under Ms. Snoops's window, Ali discovered her name spelled out in nasturtium seeds in the empty lot. Sitting cross-legged in a sunny spot near the fence, she just happened to glance down near her left foot, and there it was.
ALI
.

“Manny, look!” she called out to Edgar's nanny.

Ali examined the seeds again. OK, maybe the “A” was a bit of a stretch, but the “L” and the “I” did seem to be perfectly formed.

Manny was strapping Edgar into the orange tree's swing. “What's up?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing,” said Ali. She sighed. She was being silly. What's the big deal about a bunch of straight lines? Any tidy squirrel or a particularly intelligent rat could have laid out the seeds like that. It was so hard to be a scientist when she kept hoping for miraculous things to happen.

Then again, strange and interesting things did seem to happen in the empty lot. For instance, the amazing ideas. Of course, you could get ideas anywhere, but Ali's best ones seemed to come to her in the empty lot. She had just had an amazing idea that morning, as a matter of fact, just before she discovered the nasturtium seeds. Ali couldn't wait to announce it to her fellow members of the Girls With Long Hair Club. She hoped they would agree that it was a kind and generous idea, the sort of idea that made you feel like a kinder and more generous person just for coming up with it.

But sometimes in the lot, someone would get an amazing idea, and soon after that, there would be an argument. Ali had some theories about why those two things would occur together. At that moment, she was considering two of them:

(1) There was a surplus of invisible, buzzing orangey electrons that inspired ideas and created friction, especially in warmer weather.

(2) Los Angeles was known as the City of Angels, and the
lot was a hangout for a group of bored, invisible angels, who liked to inspire ideas
and
stir up trouble.

The first theory sounded more scientific, but the second theory was more fun.

“Did you ever have a great idea that arrived out of nowhere, as if, say, a little angel whispered something in your ear? Something you'd known all along, but didn't know you knew?” she asked Manny.

“Lucky you,” he said, gently pushing Edgar in his swing. “I have to work hard for my ideas, and they're not always so great.”

Ali smiled at this, because in her opinion, Manny, as well as being politely modest, had very good ideas. His real name was Manuel but it had been so wonderful, so
fitting
when he'd said, “Hey, everybody, call me Manny the
Manny
!” Ali loved words, and she especially loved that words and names, like shoes, could
fit
.

Manny could juggle and do magic tricks. He entertained children in hospitals where he called himself Magic Manny. His torn jeans came from Planet One, the coolest store ever. He knew umpteen unusual things to do with an orange, such as piercing it with his penknife, inserting a straw in the hole, then drinking the juice
on the spot
! Today he had made a little
rabbit for Edgar from a flattened-out orange rind. For all these reasons, Ali loved him.

And recently, about two weeks ago, just around the time Ali began her digging project, Manny had the best idea of all.

One morning during his first week at work as Edgar's nanny, Ali, Manny, and Edgar had gone to Pacific Park. Pacific Park was ten and a half blocks away. It had eight swings and a castle with turrets she could swoop down from with Edgar in her lap. They'd land in a big pile of sparkly sand.

Ten and a half blocks went by quickly when you were starting out and smelling the bacon and morning muffins at the diner, or hopping over a gas line at the pumps, or looking for TV stars sitting outside Starbucks. But it felt like twenty blocks going back home. Somehow the same sights weren't as interesting when you were seeing everything for the second time that day, all tired out. And nobody had looked like a TV star, going home.

But then, as they'd turned the corner onto Orange Street, Manny got his great idea.

“Whoa, now
that's
a tree for a swing,” Manny had said, pointing to the orange tree, its thick branches like strong arms. As if they had a choice of other trees! The sycamore
branches were too high to reach, and who ever heard of a baby swing on a scraggly old tropical palm?

Soon after that, Manny had bought Edgar's plastic swing with his very own earnings, a special, enclosed swing that looked like a little throne. And then Ms. Snoops hung up the wind chimes and that birdhouse from McDonald's, which Ali called the Birdhouse of the Golden Arches. Then Leandra got her own amazing idea for the Girls With Long Hair Club. And . . . presto! They had their very own private park and meeting place. Something happy had come about from something sad, although of course the sadness of Edgar's operation was much bigger than that happiness. But still.

Now, as Manny gently pushed Edgar in the swing, the bells on his dreadlocks tinkled and his skin smelled of patchouli oil. He pretended that the little orange-rind rabbit was pushing Edgar.

Ali stared at Edgar, hoping, hoping for a tiny smile. No dice. And then she remembered her idea, which was just too amazing to wait for the Girls With Long Hair Club.

“Manny, listen to my idea . . .” Ali began. But before she could finish, Leandra strolled into the lot.

“Whee-hoo! It's a scorcher already!” Leandra said.

Leandra flopped down under the big tree, her long hair spread out on the ground like a thick blanket. The goal of the club was to grow hair long enough to sit on. Leandra was almost at that goal, as she so often liked to tell the other club members. But it wasn't so obvious because her curly hair grew up, around, and sideways rather than straight down, like Ali's.

Edgar whimpered. Ali went over to him and put her hand on his warm little head, then kissed his fingers, one by one. Manny lifted Edgar out of the swing and gently bounced him on his knee in the shade of the tree.

“I wish Bunny would hurry up and get here,” Ali said. “I have an idea I want to share.”

“She's saying good-bye, and that will take her forever,” said Leandra. “Her mother is going on a business trip by plane. What a baby.”

“But—” Ali began.

“I know, I know,” said Leandra.

They were silent for a few moments because they both understood. It was so hard for Bunny to say good-bye when her mother had to travel by airplane. Ali began to dig in the dirt with one of her archaeological tools (a garden trowel belonging to her dad). Ruff had already been digging there,
too, and it was the same place she'd found the heart-shaped stone and the rusty nails. A fruitful spot.

“Well, let's discuss this orange cone business while we're waiting,” said Leandra, grumpily.

“Maybe it means a marathon or a parade will be coming by today. That would be fun!” said Ali. “Why do we have to worry about something bad that hasn't even happened?” Especially when something bad already has, thought Ali, looking at silent Edgar on Manny's knee.

“I guess,” said Leandra. “Hey, let's not even wait for Bunny. I have an idea I want to share, too!”

“You share yours, then I'll share mine.” Ali felt that her own idea was so amazing it needed to go last.

But just then, as if out of nowhere, Robert appeared in the lot, from the direction of the bougainvillea vine. He was carrying a giant shoebox (nike, blk+rd, 14w), which had once contained his father's sneakers.

“Hey, Rob-o!” said Manny. “How're you doing?”

Robert smiled broadly. He loved when Manny called him Rob-o! He wished other people would pick up on the nickname, but so far, no one had.

Leandra lifted up her head. “Do you mind? We're having a club meeting here!”

“So what?” said Robert, feeling his face flushing pink, like a grapefruit (Embarrassment Level One). “It's public property. Well, it's not public property, but
you
guys don't own it. And it's a free country, isn't it?”

Boy, did he sound like a jerk.
It's a free country?
, for halibut's sake! But he could remember a time, a few short years ago, when they'd all hung out in the lot together: selling orange juice to people walking by, putting on carnivals, launching imaginary rockets, or just doing nothing. Even doing nothing used to be fun! When exactly had things changed? He himself felt like the same person inside.

“Robert, how about giving us an hour or so?” Ali asked kindly. “Then the lot is all yours.”

“Thanks,” said Robert, “but I'd actually like to ask Manny a question.”