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“You want to talk about the Civil War while we’re eating? It’s pizza day.”

“No. I want to talk about a squirrel circus.”

Marcus stood up and grabbed the back of Jorge’s shirt as he passed by. “Have you ever noticed how hard it is to follow a girl’s brain in motion?”

“Mr. Fox. When we write up our report, we’re going to title it ‘The Case of the Missing Peanut Barrel.’ ” Grandma sat back in her chair across from Mr. Fox’s desk and crossed her arms, a satisfied look on her face.

“Is that so?” Mr. Fox was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—and talking—without offering Keisha or Grandma anything to eat. It was four-thirty and Keisha’s tummy was grumbling. Again.

He must have heard the growly noises. “Sorry. I never got to eat lunch today.”

“Yes, well … there’s a peanut theme running through this whole case. And where there are peanuts … there are certain to be squirrels. Keisha?”

Keisha pulled a clear plastic bag out of her backpack.

“A bag full of snow?” Mr. Fox asked.

“It wasn’t easy, I can assure you … but here’s the evidence.” Grandma took the bag and picked through the
snow to find a soggy peanut shell. “These are all around the base of the administration building, Mr. Fox.”

Mr. Fox removed his glasses and examined the shell up close. “So you think students are eating these around the building? And attracting the squirrels?”

“No. I do not. Keisha, show Mr. Fox what you found the other day.”

Keisha pulled the piece of tar paper out of her pocket and handed it to Mr. Fox.

“This looks like roofing paper,” Mr. Fox said, “that’s been torn off the roof.”

“Keisha found it when we swept up the debris in the president’s office.”

“I don’t know why it would be in his office,” Keisha said. “Unless an animal brought it in through the ductwork. And I don’t think it was torn, either. Look close. Those are nibble marks.”

Mr. Fox set down his sandwich and wiped the corners of his mouth with his thumb. “You don’t mean to suggest that squirrels are nibbling our roof? This can’t taste good!”

“A young squirrel will try anything when it’s hungry in wintertime,” Grandma replied.

“Let’s go back to the peanuts. If students aren’t eating them … and we know no one is feeding them—president’s orders …” Mr. Fox slapped his hands on the
desk. “You’re not suggesting that it’s raining peanuts, are you?”

“Yes, I am.” Not to be outdone by Mr. Fox, Grandma slapped her hands on her thighs. “In fact—”

“It rained some peanuts just now, Mr. Fox.” Keisha pointed out the window over Mr. Fox’s head.

“You’re having me on, Miss Carter.”

“We’re not, Mr. Fox,” said Grandma. “Your back is always to the window, but we think it’s been raining peanuts on a regular basis around here. You don’t have to believe us. Check the evidence yourself. There’s a peanut on the ledge outside your window right now.”

Mr. Fox twirled around and bounced out of his chair, just in time to meet a squirrel landing on the ledge and nabbing the peanut. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” he declared as the squirrel chattered at him before leaping to the safety of an oak tree. Returning to his chair, Mr. Fox rubbed his bald head, thinking.

“It’s raining peanuts. But why? And how?” He rubbed so hard he made the skin turn pink. Keisha watched Mr. Fox’s expression go from confused to angry. “And
who
would do such a thing? Surely not Sister Mary-Lee?”

“No …” Grandma stroked her chin in a very wise way. “I don’t believe so. Sister Mary-Lee stopped feeding the squirrels when the president asked her to.”

Keisha’s tummy grumbled in a very not-wise way.
She had a fleeting thought about leaping on Mr. Fox’s desk, grabbing the uneaten half of his sandwich and rushing off with it like the squirrel.

“Sometimes when people are lonely, Mr. Fox, they try to make friends with animals,” Keisha told him. “That’s what happened at the veterans’ hospital. It could be happening here, too.”

As Mr. Fox turned to gaze out the window again, Grandma winked at Keisha. They both had a suspect in mind, but decided it was better for Mr. Fox to come to his own conclusions.

Razi Carter was about to make CFH, or Carter Family History. Daddy had sung in the musical
Oliver!
at the Civic Theater, Grandma had had a walk-on part in
MAMMA MIA!,
even Keisha had taken a turn as “excess waste” in their school play about the environment—though she had a garbage bag over her head at the time. This was the first time a member of the Carter family had a lead role in a public performance. As with all recipients of a CFH Award, Razi got to choose the sweet. He’d been thinking about it since Mama had “remembered it” to him.

“Let’s go to Sweetland and buy M&M’s in designer colors,” he suggested as the Carter family finished an
early dinner so that Razi wouldn’t be too full during his dance routine. “No, wait.” He shook his head. “That lady wasn’t nice to me.”

“You can’t blame her for enforcing the rules. You stuck your hand in the bin.” As soon as she’d cleared her place, Grandma had begun filing her nails. She planned to wear her green velvet coat and her favorite emerald ring, which Big Bob had given her. In honor of the emerald theme, she was painting her nails “ruby red,” just like the color of Dorothy’s shoes in the
Wizard of Oz
movie.

“Ummmm …” As Razi thought, he tried to touch his nose with his tongue. Paulo imitated his brother.

“Ummmm …,” Paulo said. He gave up and pressed his nose flat with the palm of his hand.

“I’m still the only one who can do it,” Keisha informed her brothers, expertly sticking out her tongue and tapping the bottom of her nose with it. “If I were you, Razi, I’d pick The Cone Shop and get ice cream. Your cone won’t melt at this time of year … even if you dawdle.”

“I know!” Razi jumped out of his chair. “We’ll go to Charley’s Crab and have the inside-out German chocolate cake!”

“Excellent idea.” Daddy took Paulo out of his booster seat and swung him in an arc around the room.

“No!” Razi held up his finger. “I want to go to Marie Catrib’s and have the carrot cake. That’s my final final.”

“You don’t have to decide your final final until after the show,” Mama reminded Razi. “You just can’t change your mind after we start driving.”

Since Rocket got excited whenever Daddy swung Paulo or when Razi hopped up and down, the Carters’ puppy was now doubly excited. Even though Mama hadn’t released him from his “down-stay,” he jumped up on Razi, who grabbed his front paws and twirled around the room with him.

“All this commotion is making it hard to clear the table,” Mama said. “And I need to be early to check the length.”

Mama had made the prettiest gossamer skirts for the snowflake dance. Since they had elastic waists, she’d had Keisha try on every one to make sure they had just the right swinginess. But they couldn’t touch the floor or else someone might trip.

Keisha picked up the puppy and let him touch the tip of her nose with his tongue. “Shouldn’t you be practicing, Razi?”

“I am,” Razi said, heel-toeing across the floor. “Listen, Key. It sounds like rain.”

“I mean your routine.”

Razi stiff-stopped and made his arms rigid. “My
what
?”

“Your routine. What you’re gonna do onstage.”

“Don’t you know anything, Keisha? It’s never the same dance twice.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means if you forget …” Razi’s feet interrupted his mouth with a flurry of tippy-taps. “You just improvise.”

“Improvise?”

“You make it up.”

“How can you make it up? It’s a routine!” Keisha and Rocket had to jump out of the way of Razi’s swinging arms.

“Well then … look at everybody else and do what they’re doing!”

“When I do my routine, it’s always the same. Every time. Yours is, too. I’ve watched you practice.”

Razi just rolled his eyes as if Keisha didn’t understand anything about performing.

Mama said, “Ada, take Rocket for a quick walk around the block. He’ll be in his crate most of the evening.”

Keisha pulled on her boots, her coat and her mittens. The late-afternoon sun slanted through the tree branches and glistened on the snow as Rocket attacked
every pile that had drifted against a mailbox or bush.

Snatching up a stick, Rocket offered Keisha the other end and began a playful tug-of-war. As they passed the Bakers’ fence, Harvey the dog started barking. Since getting a puppy of her own, Keisha had learned that barking was not just barking. It was playful, sad, angry. Harvey was an angry barker, a stay-out-of-my-yard-or-I-might-just-snap-your-nose-off barker. But Keisha suspected he was also a sad barker, an I-never-get-out-of-the-yard-to-go-for-a-walk barker.

Rocket dove behind Keisha, barking back at Harvey. Rocket’s name used to be Racket, so Keisha had heard a lot of barking and howling from her coydog. But now that she thought about it, it was hardly ever angry or sad.

“Poor Harvey,” Keisha told Rocket. “He has the same routine every day. Wake up, bark at people on the other side of the fence, eat dinner, go to sleep. Wake up. Do it again.”

Whoa.

Keisha sat down on a pile of snow, and she didn’t even have her snow pants on. She was having a dizzy-making thought. She realized that she’d used the same word—routine—to describe what she did in jump rope, what Razi did in dance class and what Harvey did in the Bakers’ yard.

What did that word mean anyway?

Rocket brought her back to her mission by piddling on the Bakers’ mailbox. You couldn’t clean that up! Keisha piled some snow over the yellow marks and swatted more snow off her bottom. Then she raced Rocket back to the house.

Inside, she wiped Rocket’s paws and ran upstairs to change into “going out” clothes. “Can we bring my jump rope?” Keisha asked Mama. Since they only had one vehicle, everybody had to go early with Mama. This guaranteed great seats for the performance, but gave them a lot of time to hang around while Mama made last-minute alterations to the costumes and Ms. Allen and Ms. Perry checked the sound system and gave the children their final instructions.

Mama pulled Keisha’s jump rope off the peg by the door and stuffed it in her big purse. “As long as you stay out of the way, I’m sure no one will mind.”

Once they’d arrived, Keisha told Grandma she wanted to find a quiet spot to practice her jump rope routine.

That was easier said than done with snowflakes dancing down the halls and stair dancers tapping up and down every step.

“I’m sticking with you,” Grandma told Keisha.
“I want to see it for the first time on the big stage.”

While Daddy and Paulo practiced walking up the carpeted auditorium steps, Grandma and Keisha found a short hall that no performers seemed to have claimed.

“I’m going to invent a new yoga pose while we’re waiting,” Grandma said, pressing her palms into the wall. “Are you going to practice your freestyle routine?”

Keisha shook her head. “Not tonight. Right now, I’m going to do the opposite of my routine. I call it … ‘fun roping,’ instead of jump roping.”

They could hear the pianist warming up her snowflake music. It sounded like whispers and swinginess. Keisha started to jump to the music, which wasn’t like typical routine music with a heavy beat. It was so easy to jump when no one was watching you. Keisha just wanted to feel the music with her jump rope. The snowflakes came out of the piano and whistled past her. She could feel the cold air on her cheeks. It felt like … Keisha did an overhand turn and landed in a squat. She
kept jumping from a squat until another swish of wind blew her into a crisscross turn into a scissors kick.

By the time Daddy called to them to take their seats, Grandma had stopped inventing poses and was watching Keisha. But Keisha didn’t notice either of them right away. She was a skittering snowflake blowing over a snowy landscape.

The motto at Celia Cruz Performing Arts School was “Jump-stART every day with art!” The mid-winter festival was an old tradition, meant to help everyone remember why they loved snow and ice, since folks in Michigan were getting a little tired of them by mid-February. So the Cruzies celebrated with a big concert, featuring the Sensational Snowflake Dancers, the Tremendous Snow-Toe Tappers and the New Orleans Jazzy Winter Wonderland Combo.

The lights went down, and even Paulo stopped his babbling to watch the blue uplights shine through the fog machine. Soon dancers were twirling over the floor in their white leotards and shimmery skirts. Keisha couldn’t help it. She swayed in her chair right along with them. Of course, they got a standing ovation. As the stagehands swept up the glitter and snowflakes, Ms. Allen and Ms. Perry rolled out the two staircases. They
placed them against one another so the dancers could tap up one side and down the other, just as Keisha had seen the famous dancer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson do in a YouTube video.

The audience took their seats again and grew quiet with anticipation. The first dancer entered stage right. The program said his name was Cyril, and he was about a foot taller than Razi. He moved his feet as if he didn’t have shoes on at all. Just slippers. But then Keisha heard the tapping. Razi was right! It sounded like rain. Syncopated rain. The beat from the dancer’s shoes traded off with the notes of the piano. Even Cyril’s coattails knew how to dance. Swish-tap-slide-tappety-tappety-slide. He hop-hop-hop-tapped up to the top of the stairs and back down again, over and over until he was tapping and stepping and leaping so fast, his feet were a blur. When he finished, he folded his long body into a bow. The audience was silent for a moment—mesmerized—but then they burst into wild applause. You had to stand up and shout and whistle for a performance like that.