WITHIN DAYS THE A.O.L. HOUSE 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.