One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street (6 page)

hile Edgar was having his afternoon nap, Ali brought some of her dug-up treasures over to Ms. Snoops's house. In her office, Ms. Snoops served orange-raspberry zinger tea and ambrosia, a delicious glop of orange slices mixed with coconut. Ali loved Ms. Snoops's sunny office, with its hundreds of books that lined the walls, the sweet-smelling bowl of potpourri of orange rinds and cloves on her desk and the comfy orange and green striped sofa with its lacy antimacassars to protect the sofa's arms from cat scratches. (Ali had learned
antimacassar
from Ms. Snoops, and so far it was the fanciest word she knew.) Sometimes it felt as if Ms. Snoops's office itself were the inside of an
orange; it felt safe, and she didn't worry about Edgar as much while she was there. If she and Ms. Snoops were the same age, Ali knew they would be the best of friends.

“I had the most wonderful idea yesterday, while I was watering the tree in the empty lot,” Ms. Snoops said.

“Yes! That happens to me all the time! It just happened this morning!” said Ali. “What was your idea?”

Ms. Snoops went to her desk and brought back a sheet of paper marked with a big handwritten “M.” “As soon as I got the idea, I wrote this note to myself, just so I wouldn't forget. I'm embarrassed to tell you I can't remember what the ‘M' is for.”

“‘M' is for mystery,” said Ali, “but that doesn't help you much. How about muffins? Maybe you were thinking of baking your delicious orange muffins. You haven't made those in a while.”

“No,” said Ms. Snoops. “It was more important than that.”

“Money? Medicine?” asked Ali.

“No, it had something to do with you, I believe.”

“Me?”

“That's right, but I'm not sure how. Well, let's not let this spoil our get-together! What treasures have you brought this afternoon?”

From her bag, Ali pulled out the round metal disk, the icy-blue stone shaped like a heart, the iron nails, the woolen sock, and the rusty cookie tin with the head inside of it. She spread everything out on the coffee table.

Ms. Snoops placed the disk, the nails, and the sock in a separate pile. “These are common household items,” she said. She picked up the scratched metal disk. “This is part of a glass preserve jar. Everyone put up fruits and vegetables in the old days. And if they were lucky to have orange trees in their yards, they made marmalade. I maybe the only one around who still puts up her own preserves, however.” She tapped on the iron nail. “A nail is just a nail. And the sock probably fell from an old-fashioned clothesline on a windy day. No particular memories come to mind about these articles. Hmmm . . . But
this
is interesting.”

She held up the icy-blue stone. It twinkled in the sunlight from the window. “I would bet dollars to doughnuts this was one of Pug's stones. He collected unusual ones. That boy's pockets were so full of stones, sometimes his pants dragged. Pug would probably say this one looked like a heart.”

“But it does!” said Ali. “Don't you think so?”

Ms. Snoops peered at the stone. “I guess you could say that,” she said. “Funny little guy. He drew pictures, too, like
his mother. His father didn't approve much of his artistry. He had an older brother who was good in sports, if my memory serves me.”

“How nice that you remember all that,” said Ali. “Sometimes I forget that other families once lived on this street.”

“I used to love the old stories when I was your age,” said Ms. Snoops. “I would pick up bits and pieces, do some digging, and fill in the holes myself, metaphorically speaking.”

“That's just what I like to do!” said Ali.

“That's what all writers do when they create stories. They steal, disguise, and make things up.”

“I'm actually planning on becoming an archeologist, not a writer,” Ali said. Although she had to admit, sometimes making things up was a lot more fun than sticking to the facts.

“No reason you couldn't be both,” said Ms. Snoops. “When I—”

Ms. Snoops stopped in mid-sentence. She reached for the rusty metal cookie tin. “What do we have here? Oh, my goodness! Can it be?” She opened the box slowly, then peered inside. “It is! It is! Shirley! Dear old Shirley! It's so good to see you again!”

She lovingly removed the head from the box and laid it in
her lap. The doll looked up at her with its one good eye, and its smile seemed to say,
Likewise, I'm sure
.

“I knew this doll when I was a young girl,” murmured Ms. Snoops. “Oh, Shirley, the memories I have of you!”

Suddenly Ms. Snoops jumped from the couch, still clutching the doll's head. “That's it!” she cried. “Memories! ‘M' is for memoirs! My wonderful idea was to write my memoirs! All these treasures you've shown me have brought back my memories, and I am so grateful.”

“It's been a lot of fun,” Ali said.

Ms. Snoops had begun to pace the room. “I will write down all my stories about Orange Street, before I forget them. And I'll add a brief history of orange trees, too. Did you know that citrus evolved at least twenty million years ago, near what became China? And then, eons later, the seeds and trees were carried by seamen to India where they called it
naranga
in Sanskrit.
Naranga!
Get it?”

“Orange!” said Ali.

“Right. And then the seeds were carried to Africa and the Mediterranean—” Here Ms. Snoops waved Shirley's head, presumably in that direction. “Where the Greeks thought oranges were golden apples and wrote exquisite poetry about their beauty, and so did the Roman poets and the Muslim
poets and the European poets, you name it. And did you know they didn't even
eat
oranges long ago? They mostly loved the look of the tree and the wonderful smell of its blossoms. Sometimes they extracted oil from the fruit for an orangey perfume, or mixed powdered rind with hot water, a drink to soothe crying children. And they discovered lots of other useful things, for instance, that oranges cured scurvy. But not everyone realized you could just cut an orange into juicy chunks and have yourself a pretty good snack!”

“Really?” said Ali, very impressed. Ms. Snoops knew so much about everything, even an ordinary orange! “I wonder if I could give Edgar some powdered rind mixed with hot water when
he
cries,” she said.

Ms. Snoops stopped her pacing. “Edgar? Who's Edgar?” she asked.

“My brother,” said Ali, frowning. “You remember. He had an operation. He gets so cranky sometimes.”

Ms. Snoops clapped a hand to her forehead. “Edgar, Edgar, of course I remember! How is he?”

Now Ali began to cry, her tears making tiny wet circles on the orange and green stripes of the couch. Ms. Snoops placed Shirley on the coffee table, then quickly sat down beside Ali, putting her arm around her.

“Edgar doesn't talk anymore. And he's so sad all the time,” Ali said, leaning her head on Ms. Snoops's shoulder. “He just doesn't seem to be improving.”

Ms. Snoops pulled a tissue from a box on the coffee table. “Sweetie, in today's modern world, there are much more effective medicines than orange rind,” she said. “And our great friend time is the best medicine of all. If I could bottle it, and sell it, I'd be a billionaire. Ditto for love.”

“I hope you're right,” Ali said, blowing her nose into a citrusy-scented tissue. And then, because Ms. Snoops
was
a good friend (and how silly of her to think that age had anything to do with it!), Ali told her good friend about her own idea, her kind and generous idea, and how Leandra had said cutting their hair off to make wigs was dumb. Then Ms. Snoops told Ali about her old friend Gertrude, who used to live across the street from her at 306 Orange Street, where the empty lot was now. They'd had many, many disagreements over the years, all soon to be recorded in Ms. Snoops's memoirs.

Ms. Snoops held up the poor disfigured doll's head.

“Speaking of whom, Shirley was actually Gertrude's doll. Gertrude and I buried Shirley ourselves, or what was left of her. Because, as you can see, poor Shirley was belimbed.”

“Belimbed?” Ali stared at the doll, whose faint, sweet smile now seemed to say,
I forgive you
.

“Not beheaded. Belimbed,” said Ms. Snoops. “And believe it or not, I was blamed.”

“Not you!” said Ali.

s. Snoops spooned more ambrosia into each of their bowls.

“You know, my dear, you can live on the very same street and not know somebody very well at all. And that's why I want to tell you the story about me, and Gertrude, and poor old Shirley. And also, a backyard mule named Malcolm.

“We have to go way back to 1939, when I was nine years old. I remember so clearly the day I met Gertrude. I was looking out my front window and a dusty old rattletrap of a car with an Oklahoma license plate pulled up across the street. There was Gertrude, bouncing out of the car like a rubber ball, followed by an exhausted-looking man and woman.
Gertrude was carrying a doll.
She's too big to be carrying a doll
, I thought to myself. They all went into the Stott's house (306), which is now the empty lot. Next thing I knew, the exhausted-looking man and woman rushed outside again, got back into the car and drove off. And there was that girl sitting on the front steps, hugging her doll. Of course yours truly had to find out what was what!