What Happened on Fox Street (9 page)

W
ITHIN DAYS THE
A.O.L. H
OUSE
had vanished.
Poof!
The ground was so dry, the machines hadn't even left any tracks. All that remained was a caution-taped pile of dirt, which the Baggotts immediately commandeered for a fort.

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.”

Not me! Just turn around and I'll tell you how tangled up my brain is!

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.

Someone had meticulously arranged a row of beer bottles along the walk. That someone had filled each bottle with water and set inside each a daisy or buttercup from the Green Kingdom.

Except, that is, for the two bottles at the very foot of the front steps. Each of them held a furled yellow rosebud. One kiss of the sun and those velvet petals would open, sharing the secret wrapped inside.

Who but the Wild Child could dream up a beer-
bottle garden? Mo sat on the top front step and gazed out over it. The sun that refused to stop shining tapped the bottles with its dazzling wand, turning them emerald and diamond and smoky topaz.

Mrs. Steinbott's weaselly eyes saw everything. She had to know Dottie had plundered her roses. Had she already called the police? Or was she saving up her wrath for when Mr. Wren came home? Or would she nab Dottie herself and scare the living you-know-what out of her?

Or did she find the garden as beautiful as Mo did?

The daisies and buttercups nodded in the breeze, like skinny-necked old ladies listening to dance music.

What if necessary evil had an opposite? This is what it would be. This unnecessary good.

For the first time in days, Mo smiled.

D
OTTIE SAT BESIDE
D
A
at the Walcott kitchen table, inching word by word through a picture book.

“The woods were dark,” she intoned. “A cold wind made her shrink.”

“Shiver,” said Da.

“At last she saw a house. Oh, God, she told herself.”

“Oh,
good
,” whispered Mo.

“I can take shhh…shepherds here.”

“Shelter,”
said Da. “You've got the ‘sh' sound down solid, Dorothea Wren. Kiss your brain.”

Dottie smooched her fingers, then smacked herself in the forehead.

Footsteps sounded in the hall. Mr. Wren, freshly showered and wearing his favorite Wahoo T-shirt, poked his head through the kitchen doorframe.

“Daddy! You're home?”

Mr. Wren grinned. “I had to leave early—important business,” he said. “Da, would it be all right if the Little Bit hangs with you for a while? I need to borrow my partner, Mo.”

“It's far more than all right.” Da lifted her chin the Walcott way. “This is my star pupil.”

“Where we going, Daddy?” Mo asked as they climbed into the car.

“I've got something to show just you.”

They cruised up Paradise and onto the highway. Lake Erie was flat and blue, like a distant mirage. Mr. Wren sang along with the radio, his voice extra loud because the car's air-conditioning had conked out and both their windows were rolled all the way down. His voice trilled up high as a girl's, then dropped down into his shoes.

Mo remembered sitting in the backseat as her parents sang duets. One of their favorites was “I Got You Babe.” Every time they sang that line, they'd both point over the seat, at her.

Today empty warehouses and factories flew by, a
blur as she squinted into the wind. Where were they going? Oh, Mo hated surprises. But her father's happiness was contagious. It was like the wind itself, catching you up, carrying you along with it.

When a song she liked came on, Mo began to sing, too. Her father tried to harmonize, their voices twining together like the strands of a sturdy rope. Mo began to wish they'd never get wherever they were headed, that they'd just ride around and around like this, happy together, the car a little houseboat floating on the summer afternoon, till at last the sun dropped into the lake and they'd sail back toward Fox Street.

But Mr. Wren took an exit, passing a hospital and a bunch of apartment buildings and easing into a neighborhood of old-fashioned houses that had seen better days. The ground floors had been turned into shops. They passed a bookstore, a bakery, a café, a place selling homemade ice cream. Some had colorful awnings and little tables set out on the sidewalk. Flowers bloomed in boxes and tubs. The upstairs windows were hung with curtains or shades. A white cat solemnly stared down as they went by.

Mr. Wren pulled up in front of a dark green house with curlicue trim over the windows and along the
edge of the roof. The bottom floor was built out and fitted with a big plate-glass window.
CORKY'S TAVERN
said the faded sign over the door.
FOR LEASE OR SALE
read the sign in the window.

Cupping their hands around their eyes, they pressed their noses to the window. A small bar with stools ran across the back wall. There was space for tables, and the corners were snug with wooden booths. Dingy linoleum covered the floor.

“It needs some TLC, that's for sure,” said Mr. Wren. “But wait'll you see the upstairs. Three nice little bedrooms, one with built-in shelves ready-made for Dot's bottles.”

Mo stepped back from the window. “You already saw the upstairs?”

Mr. Wren took her hand. “Come on, come see the backyard.”

A crooked white fence covered with blooming vines looped around its edges. The yard was empty, not a single tree, the sun pouring down.

“I was thinking that'd be the perfect spot for a little vegetable garden. We could grow our own tomatoes and herbs for the sandwiches and soups.”

Mr. Wren gently lobbed his invisible baseball into the invisible garden.

“It's a good neighborhood, Momo. I met a guy who runs his own hardware store, and a gal who's looking to open a teahouse. It's just like Fox Street, except things are looking up instead of down. There's hope in the air.” He scooped the air. “See it?”

He drew her to the back kitchen window and pointed out the nice new grill, the fryers where the best onion rings in town would sizzle. The cooler would hold all kinds of beer, but chocolate milk and all-natural fruit juice, too, because this was going to be a family place, where everybody in the neighborhood felt at home.

“Corky, the old owner, fell on hard times. But that just means a better price.”

The excitement in her father's voice worked a spell, and in spite of herself, Mo saw the two of them, side by side, sweeping and scrubbing and painting. She saw herself doing her homework in one of the corner booths, and heard her father's laughter from behind the bar as he sliced a home-grown tomato for a delicious BLT. Mo glanced up at the curlicued windows. She could see the small face with a lollipop jutting out, waving down at her.

“You know the best part?” he asked her.

“What?”

“I'd never have to leave the two of you again.” His voice went crooked. “We'd be together all the time. I…I could quit asking too much of you, Locomo.”

“You don't!”

“Yeah, I do.” Suddenly he sounded angry. “It hasn't been fair, no way. I want us to be more of a family again. We could be…we could almost be like we used to be.”

A red bird flashed across the yard, looking for a tree to perch in. Mo felt its shadow flutter in her chest. What kind of yard had no place for a bird to nest, no place for a girl to settle her spine and think? Frightened, Mo dug her hand into her pocket. Where was it? Had it fallen out somewhere? Frantic, she shoved her fingers into her other pocket and there, there it was.

“Got an itch?” asked her father.

Words beat inside her, like a bird trapped inside a house, and she longed to tell him. But what if he didn't understand? Her father was different from her. He'd tell her, “You've never seen a fox, Momo. You can't abandon something you're not sure exists.”

“I am sure,” she said aloud.

Mr. Wren gave her a funny look. His curls made a dark halo around his head, and his eyes shone so
bright, Mo realized with a little shock that they were full of tears.

“There are a lot of things we haven't talked about, aren't there? That's my fault, too. I've been a coward.”

“Daddy…”

“Don't go making excuses for me. I won't have you doing that anymore.” He put a finger to her lips. “Listen to me now. When…when your mom was still alive, she made me so happy, she filled up my life with so much light and sweetness—back then, I could work any job, handle any kind of junk, just so long as I had her to come home to. But ever since…since…”

The red bird, a cardinal, was uncertain as a spark, flitting from fence to ground and back again.

“Life's not going to wait for you. If there's one thing losing her taught me, that's it. The world just keeps barreling forward, ready or not.” He slipped an arm around her. “I need to start over, Mo. I've got to take hold of things. I need to leave the bad things behind and make something new for all of us.”

Her father never talked like this. A small door, a door she hadn't even known was there, not to mention shut, creaked open inside her.

“I lay awake a lot of nights, and you know what? I'm convinced she'd think it was the right thing to do.
She couldn't stand any of us hurting. Any time you cried, she'd cry too. I remember when you got your first haircut, she—”

“No!” Mo buried her face against his chest. The door swung wider, letting in a hot rush of pain. “Please, Daddy. I don't want to move. It's too far away. We don't know anybody here! Who'd cut my hair? Who'd tutor Dottie? What about the Den? What about Starchbutt?”

Mr. Wren laughed. “Whaaa?”

“Daddy, I'd miss Mercedes too much!”

“It seems far, but it's really just ten miles. I'd drive over and pick her up anytime you wanted. I promise.” He lifted her chin. “You trust me, don't you?”

Looking away, Mo watched the cardinal settle on an overhead wire.

“I've finally got the perfect name for our place,” Mr. Wren said softly. “I can't believe we didn't think of it before. You ready?”

She shook her head.

“The Wren House. Get it? We'll decorate with bird-houses and feature one on our sign.”

“That's stupid!” The door inside her slammed shut.
Bam
. “We already have a Wren house!”

Mr. Wren let her go. The lines between his eyes, the
trunk of the tree that arched up and disappeared in the shadows of his baseball cap—those lines seemed to grow deeper, harsher, even as she looked. All the joy drained out of him now. He cast his eyes down as if he could see it on the ground, a puddle of lost happiness.

“Too bad,” he said. The cardinal began to sing, its silvery song tumbling all around them. “I was hoping you'd be more open-minded. Maybe even glad.”

“That Buckman's a creep!” Mo cried. “He wants to knock our house down!”

Mr. Wren's face darkened. “A house is just four walls and a roof. You can put a price on a house the same as a car or a baseball team or a pedigree poodle. And when that price all of a sudden skyrockets, you'd be a fool not—”

“How come you're the only one on the street who knows what Buckman's doing?”

“There's such a thing as asking too many questions.” He was scowling now. “You know when a chance like this is going to come our way again? Never, that's when. ‘I hit big or I miss big.' Babe Ruth, not Shakespeare, but it works for me.”

A single forgotten beer bottle lay near the building's foundation. Mr. Wren nudged it with the toe of
his sneaker. “Believe me, Mo. I wish I could tell you life was always fair.”

“You want to buy this place and so you'll do anything! You'll make a sleazy deal. You'll betray everyone else. You'll ruin my life. You don't care!”

The cardinal broke off its song midnote, and the bird arrowed out of sight. The yard grew cemetery quiet.

“This conversation's over.” Mr. Wren pulled his cap low over his face. “I'm the one making this decision. Your job's to get used to it.” With that, he strode toward their car.

Mo grabbed the beer bottle and hurled it at the side of the house. The sound of it smashing zapped her like an electric shock.
Yes!
Whole one second and destroyed the next. Just like that. The blink of an eye.

“No!” she shouted. “I don't trust you! And I never will again, as long as I live!”

Wild currents shot through her. At her feet glittered bits and pieces no one could ever put back together.