“SO. THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM. B and B want Fox Street, and they’re willing to do whatever it takes to get it. They’re targeting your dad.” Mercedes tapped her chin. “My guess is they’re counting on the domino effect. Meaning, one falls and all the others can’t help but follow. If he sells…”
“Which will never happen,” Mo said automatically.
The two of them hunkered on the floor of Da’s porch, out of Starchbutt’s sight. They’d swept it clean of winter dirt, but still you had to arrange yourself carefully in order to avoid splinters in certain tender body parts. What Mo really needed now was a refreshing glass of Da’s extra-tart lemonade-just the thought of it made her pucker up. But Da was inside, napping on the couch.
Mercedes peeled off a sliver of wood and regarded it. She cocked her head in that familiar, quizzical, hungry-bird way. “Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that your dad gets struck by lightning, and when he comes to, he begins speaking in Japanese, and when we find a translator, she explains how your dad is saying he wants to sell the house to Buckman.”
“Ha! So funny I forgot to laugh. Never. He’ll never-”
“Mo! We have to examine all the possibilities!”
“Okay, okay, but even if he did.” Mo swallowed. She gently pushed a ladybug corpse through a crack in the porch floor, down into the cemetery below. “There wouldn’t be a domino effect. Because Mrs. Petrone wouldn’t sell out. Mrs. Steinbott wouldn’t, unless he pays in solid gold. And…” Mo paused for emphasis. “For sure, Da wouldn’t.”
She waited for Mercedes to agree. Seconds ticked by.
More seconds.
“We’re talking Da!” Mo said at last. “Who’s lived on Fox Street even longer than me! Who had to face discrimination and all kinds of bad juju to buy her house! Da, who stands taller on six toes than most people do on ten!” Mo shouted these last words, causing the sparrows to burst out of the old lilac with indignant peeps.
As if Mo’s words gave off a bad smell, Mercedes wrinkled her fine-tuned nose. But before either could say anything more, her phone rang. She wiggled it out of her jeans pocket.
“Cornelius! Just what I need.”
“Don’t answer.”
“He’ll just leave a pompous, boring message. It’s easier to answer and try to annoy him.” Mercedes pressed the phone. “Wazzup, dawg?”
She stood up but immediately wheeled about and fled inside. Peeking around the porch railing, Mo beheld Mrs. Steinbott at the bottom of the porch steps.
“You!” Her voice was loud and accusing.
“Yup. It’s me again.” Mo lumbered to her feet. How in the world had she gotten into this go-between role? Stationed on the crumbly front walk, Mrs. Steinbott wore a black suit that stunk of mothballs. On her feet were black shoes so tiny, Cinderella might have trouble wedging her feet in. She looked headed for a funeral, except that she was…wait.
Was Mrs. Steinbott smiling? One corner of her mouth had gone up but not the other side, as if the mechanism were rusted.
“Wow,” Mo said. “You’re…you’re all dressed up. You look very, very…”
“The time has come. Where did she go?”
“She had an important phone call.”
Mrs. Steinbott clutched a handbag the size of a microwave. An uncertain look stole into her eyes. In spite of herself, Mo added, “But she said to be sure and tell you hi.”
Just then a stampede of Baggotts pounded down the street. Armed with Super Soakers and dirt bombs, they went into slo-mo at the sight of Starchbutt. An evil grin spread across the face of Leo, possessor of the reattached finger. He raised his gun to his shoulder and took aim.
“Wicked witch alert!” he yelled to his brothers. “Prepare to fire!”
Mo ran down the steps and leaped into the space between the Baggotts and Mrs. Steinbott. “Just try it!” she yelled. “I’ll tell my father you’ve been playing with the hose all week, and your mother will get slapped with a fine so fast you guys won’t see daylight for weeks!”
Mo knew this wasn’t true-the Baggotts never got punished for anything-but it sounded good. The other Baggotts threw their hands into the air. Leo Baggott sneered but slowly lowered the gun.
“Mo Wren and the witch. Nya nya nya-nya nya. Takes one to know one!”
One definitely lame dirt bomb landed at Mo’s feet, and the boys reverse-stampeded up the street.
“Don’t worry.” Mo cocked her thumb toward the Baggott dust cloud. “I’ll get their big brother to read them the riot act.”
To Mo’s bewilderment, Mrs. Steinbott’s brittle edges all seemed to soften. “Boys will be boys,” she said. “My own could get up to some mischief, especially when he was around her.”
Mo’s own heart turned over.
“I’m…I’m sorry about your son, Mrs. Steinbott.”
The knuckles gripping the monstrous purse went white.
“By now he’d be a grown man.” Her face was like a piece of paper somebody’d balled up in their fist, then felt bad about and tried to smooth back out. “Ten years older than the last time I saw him.”
A lump rose in Mo’s throat. “Think of that.”
“Oh, I do. I do, every day.”
“I’m sorry,” Mo said again.
She lifted her hand, almost as if she meant to give Mo a pat, but then thought better of it. Instead she reached into the big purse and tugged out…another purse, nearly as big. For a moment Mo feared she’d open that and pull out another one, and then another one, like something in a nightmare.
Instead Starchbutt pushed it toward Mo. Her face was full of urgency.
“This could be the last summer,” she said.
Dread got Mo in its clutches. “What are you talking about?”
“What if I hadn’t opened it? Something made me open it.”
The poor thing really is demented, Mo told herself. Just be nice to her. Don’t get her any more upset.
“She has to have this!” She pushed the purse into Mo’s hands. “Right away.”
“Okay.”
“You promise me.”
“I promise.”
Mrs. Steinbott continued to stand there, her mothball smell rising in the heat. Mo was afraid that she meant to wait till Mercedes finally came back out, but at last, as if she’d convinced herself she could trust Mo after all, she turned around. On the edge of the curb, she wavered. Mo rushed forward and caught her arm. Mrs. Steinbott stared across the street as if she’d lost track of where she was.
“Do you know how long it’s been since I crossed this street?” she asked Mo.
“Long.”
“Longer than the Mississippi.” She smiled again and this time managed to get both corners of her mouth in sync. “Headed my way?” She crooked her arm.
Arm in arm, each carrying a big purse, they looked both ways, then stepped out into Fox Street.