THE STREET SHONE like a black mirror. The dust was gone, and the neighborhood was drenched in color, a page in the coloring book of someone who pressed down hard on her crayons. Headed for the horizon, the sun gleamed like a polished coin.
“Still not here,” Mercedes said, pointing toward Da’s empty driveway.
Monette and Three-C. Mo had forgotten all about them.
“Don’t worry,” she promised Mercedes. “When they get here, I’ll be right beside you. Two against two!”
But even as she said them, the words sounded wrong. In families it couldn’t ever truly be against. Maybe beside, or among, or in between. Maybe even without. But against, that wouldn’t work, not for long.
Mercedes’s long, muddy legs took Da’s front steps two at a time. She disappeared inside. Except for the rainwater gurgling into the drains, the street was quiet as a stage after the play has ended. Or just before it begins.
“You know what?” Mr. Wren hoisted Dottie onto his shoulders. “I could eat a horse.”
Pi was the first to spot them. He Paul Revered down the street on his board, calling out, “She’s saved! The Wild Child is back!” Dottie waved and blew kisses as people spilled out onto their porches.
“You found her,” Pi told Mo. He flipped up his board to hold it by an axle. “Why am I not surprised?”
His hair was soaking wet. He must have been searching this whole time.
“I forgot your poncho down the hill,” she said.
He shrugged. “Keep it.”
Mo lowered her eyes, focusing on his reconstituted board, now painted a deep, dark blue. “You know this morning, when you asked me if we were moving…”
Pi set the board down and hopped back on, fingers tucked in his armpits. “Wait a minute. That was this morning?”
It did seem like days ago.
“Well. Guess what.” Mo drew a breath. “We are.”
She felt as if she’d been holding a heavy box all by herself and could at last put it down. Her arms ached with emptiness, but there was relief, too.
“When?”
“Not yet. But we will.”
“Not yet is cool.”
“You think?”
From the Baggotts’ yard came the pop of leftover Fourth of July firecrackers.
“Gives you time to learn how to skateboard. Right?”
Before she could answer, Pi turned toward his house.
“Okay!” she yelled after him. “It’s a deal!”
“Mojo!” Mr. Wren swooped Dottie down off his shoulders. “I’m going to Abdul’s! Be right back!”
With the rain over, and Dottie safe and sound, people seemed reluctant to go back inside. Ms. Hugg brought her keyboard out onto her porch and began to noodle out some music. Baby Baggott took off down the sidewalk butt naked, and somehow Mrs. Baggott, flip-flopping behind him, wound up on Mrs. Petrone’s porch getting a hair consult. Mo watched Mr. Duong roll his grill into his driveway and get a fire going.
The couple from the Kowalskis’ old house, who worked the night shift, must have had the day off. They came outside and stood blinking like bewildered night creatures. Mrs. Hernandez, hand extended, crossed the street to them.
“Hey, where’s the party?” A couple of guys from the Tip Top, red cheeked and way too happy, wandered down to lean against a parked car.
Dottie raced by with a tall, empty green bottle. “His name’s Brad.”
The dips in the sidewalk brimmed with rain. Sparrows hopped from puddle to puddle, excited as little kids on opening day at the pool. From the ground rose a soft mist, wrapping the houses and bushes, smudging corners, blurring the edges of things. The sweet smell of hickory smoke mixed with wet grass and steamy sidewalk.
By now nearly everyone was out. Only Mrs. Steinbott’s door was shut tight, her porch graveyard quiet. That wasn’t right.
Mo crossed the street, meaning to knock on her door, but somehow kept on going, up the driveway, into the backyard, to stand beneath the plum tree. The tree’s broken branch hung down, motionless now the wind had stopped. Mo touched the raw place where it had cracked off, and then, lifting the branch, she tried to fit it back into place. No sooner did she let go than it swung loose, and this time it came away altogether, falling to the ground among the sad, unripe fruit.
But in a sudden rush of wings, a blackbird flapped by, circled, and sat on a branch above her. Squawk. It drew Mo’s eye to a cluster of plums that had managed, despite the drought, to grow to nearly normal size. Mo realized she was hungry enough to eat a horse herself. Up on her toes, she picked one, then bit into its dusky skin. Not sweet as it should be, but good enough. Mo picked another one and ate that, too. Just as she was about to toss the pits on the ground, the bossy bird cried out again, and Mo remembered the backyard of Corky’s, and that restless cardinal looking for a place to settle. That sorry yard, not a tree to its name, blank as a piece of paper no one ever bothered to write on. Squawk! The blackbird fixed her with a round, knowing eye.
And here came another one of Mo’s thoughts.
She wiped the slimy, golden stones on the leg of her wet shorts and carried them inside. Down in the basement she pulled a pair of shorts from the laundry she’d done just this morning, a hundred years ago, and changed into them. Upstairs she carefully sealed the twin pits inside a Baggie, slid it into her pocket, and gave it a pat. How did people live without pockets? She pictured Mercedes sealing that astonishing photo safe and snug inside her jacket pocket.
Mercedes. Mo couldn’t wait to tell her her new idea. But first she had to make sure Mrs. Steinbott was all right.
What a day! Drawing a deep breath, she headed back outside. Along the fence, around the corner of the house, past the roses. To the foot of the steps leading to Mrs. Steinbott’s porch.
Where Mo stopped. And rubbed her eyes.
Dark and light, tall and minuscule. They sat side by side in the porch chairs like queens of opposing kingdoms who had, at last, crossed the wide river dividing them and shaken hands. Just behind them stood the peace treaty herself. Mercedes.
“There you are,” she said to Mo.
Dusk nibbled at the edges of the street, where Taur Baggott darted by, emitting his spooky alien noise. A smooth melody rippled out from Ms. Hugg’s. Mo’s father, back from the store, had commandeered Mr. Duong’s grill and was busy flipping burgers and turning brats. “Bush leaguer!” Mo heard him exclaim, and she knew he was telling everyone what he’d found out about Buckman. Mrs. Baggott dragged lawn chairs out into the street, while Mrs. Petrone spread a flowered cloth over a picnic table. Voices rose, people laughed.
“Come on,” said Mercedes. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Out on Fox Street, the jubilant commotion rolled on. Up here on Starchbutt’s porch, a small, still space opened out.
Mrs. Steinbott’s little claw reached for Mo’s hands. “See? I’ve got…I’ve got family.”
Mo nodded, and Mrs. Steinbott’s fingers curled tight over hers.
Da reached across the space between them and caught up Mrs. Steinbott’s other hand.
“We mean to make up for all that time we foolishly wasted.” Da shook her head. “Come to discover Gertrude and I have both had our notions, all these years. Thinking back, we’ve both come this close to the truth.” Her long fingers signified a tiny pinch. “But we shied away. Isn’t it funny how you can know something and refuse to know it at the same time?”
Mo nodded again. It was exactly how, at this very moment, she felt about Fox Street. Look at it! So familiar and so unknown at the same time.
Da tugged Mercedes close. The four of them made a circle as lumpy and hopeful as one that a little kid might draw.
“Too. Good.” Mrs. Steinbott swallowed, watery blue eyes glittering. “You! You made this happen!”
Da beamed at Mo.
“Her name’s Mo Wren,” she said. “But what’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”