MR. WREN CALLED IN SICK the next day, too. He whistled as he dressed, not in his uniform but in a good blue shirt.
“Help On-the-Dot get dressed, could you?” he asked Mo. “Shoes, underwear, the whole deal. The Wrens are taking a trip downtown.”
“Cool!” Mo faked enthusiasm, even as her radar for surprises began to beep. “What for?”
He slipped a necktie under his collar. A necktie! Mr. Wren pulled the knot tight and stepped back to look in the mirror. He was dazzlingly handsome. Could she really look like him?
“I’m taking a meeting with the illustrious Buckmeister.”
Mo put her hands to her own throat.
“Can…can Mercedes come with us?”
“Porsche? She’s family! But tell her to move it. I can’t be late.”
Mo grabbed a pair of underwear, a top and shorts that actually matched, shoes and socks, and laid them out in a row on Dottie’s bed. She threatened her little sister with a gruesome death if she didn’t get dressed immediately, then raced across the street.
She found Da sitting at her kitchen table, where the pill bottles clustered like a miniature plastic forest. One by one Da sorted the capsules and tablets into a tray with boxes labeled for each day of the week.
“There’s small choice in rotten apples, Mo Wren.” She dropped a big white pill into Thursday and waved the fruit flies off a bowl of bananas. “Old age isn’t fun, but it does beat the alternative.”
The way fingers can’t resist a scab, Mo’s eyes drifted down to the floor. In the heat, Da had left off her big black shoes. Instead her feet wore a pair of toeless slippers. Eeek! Mo squashed her eyes shut just in time. She clapped her hand over them, for good measure.
“Are you all right, child?”
“It’s just a little…a little hot in here.” Mo inched her fingers down.
“In more ways than one.” Da arched a brow. “Am I mistaken, or does Mercedes Jasmine seem especially moody to you?”
“Woo. You said it.”
“Just like her mother. Give me strength-that girl could sulk.” Da snapped Thursday closed. “It stems from excessive pride. Not that I’d know anything about that. Get yourself a cold drink, go on.”
“I’m all right. Where is she?”
“‘The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.’ Give me strength-not our Mercey.”
“Umm, I’m kind of in a hurry, Da. May I be excused?”
“She’s out back. If anyone can cheer her up, it’s you, Mo Wren.”
Mo crossed the little yard, sending an iridescent pigeon rumpling up from the grass. Mercedes slouched on Da’s metal glider, arms crossed, lower lip stuck out at least half a mile.
Mo sat beside her. Back and forth they went, Mercedes’s foot thumping off the ground hard. Mo rummaged through her brain, trying to think what it would take to get Mercedes to agree to come downtown. At last she settled on the truth.
“I really need your help. I’ve got something I can’t do myself.”
There it was-two sticks rubbed together, sparking a light in Mercedes’s eyes. It was the same spark as last summer, when the city closed down the pool’s high dive, which Mercedes adored. She and Mo staged a sit-in demonstration, and even though the high dive never reopened, they got their photos in the paper, plus a personal letter of regret from the mayor. The same spark as two summers ago, when Leo Baggott blew off half his finger with a Fourth of July bottle rocket. Mercedes was the one who found it in the grass, and knew to put it in milk and give it to Mrs. Baggott, who fainted dead away. Later Mercedes and Mo held a bake sale, to help pay the medical expenses.
“What’s the problem?”
“My dad got a second letter from Buckman.”
Mercedes halted the glider with such force, it nearly dislocated Mo’s head.
“The plot thickens,” Mercedes said.
“Did Da get a letter?”
“No. I’ve been watching the mail. As far as I can tell, he’s targeting your dad.”
“My dad’s on the way down to meet with him. It’s getting serious.” Mo swallowed. “I’m afraid he…I’m just afraid.”
“Let’s go.”
Skipping the details, they told Da they were headed downtown with Mr. Wren. Da gave Mo an appreciative wink. Mercedes flung open the door, then stopped abruptly.
“What the…”
A bucket brimming with roses sat in the middle of the porch. Red roses, white roses, roses the pink of a baby girl’s blanket. A trail of scattered petals, like Hansel and Gretel’s bread crumbs, led down the front walk and out into the street.
The porch across the street stood empty. But the lace curtain at the front window twitched.
“Rose bubble bath. Rose roses. I guess…” Mo remembered Mrs. Steinbott leaning over her porch railing, yearning to hear that Mercedes had appreciated the bubble bath. “She really did,” Mo had promised. Not to say lied.
That lace curtain quivered. “I guess she thinks you like roses, Merce.”
“Once again proving she doesn’t know the first thing about me! Roses make me sneeze.”
The scent of those roses was a fragrant river. Lift one to your nose and it flooded you, swept you right off your feet. Mo held one out. “Smell! It’s heaven!”
But Mercedes’s ridiculously sensitive nose accordioned up, her eyes shut down, her shoulders heaved, and out flew a deafening sneeze.
Beep beep! Mr. Wren was backing the car down the driveway, the side mirror missing Mrs. Steinbott’s house by approximately one inch. Dottie waved merrily from the backseat. Just before climbing in, Mo turned and waved to the lace curtain.