Tricia Springstubb - What Happened on Fox Street

When Mo stepped out of her house, the summer air was tangy and sweet, a mix of city smells from up on Paradise and country perfume from down in that Green Kingdom. Mo lugged the garbage bag back to the garage. The Wrens shared a driveway with Mrs. Steinbott, and Mo could hear the neighbor’s radio, tuned to a talk show whose every caller shouted and sputtered in fury over one thing or another. Starchbutt stayed tuned to that station twenty-four seven.

Every Saturday she boiled her sponges and hung them out to dry on her little line. In today’s heat the sponges had already grown stiff as boards. Taur Baggott, one of the way-too-numerous Baggott boys, claimed he’d once watched Mrs. Steinbott trap a cat digging in her rosebushes, and the poor thing was never seen again. Boiled, most likely. Her basement was probably piled with bleached bones.

Mo closed the trash-can lid tight. The animals who populated the ravine considered Fox Street their own personal all-you-can-eat buffet. Raccoons raided trash cans, skunks raised their babies underneath porches, and once Mo had watched a red-tailed hawk swoop down and pluck a pigeon right off the sidewalk in front of the Baggotts’ house. Another time a bunch of Tip Top regulars had piled out on the street, shouting and pointing, claiming they’d seen a wild turkey big as a washing machine go by. Not that you could trust those guys.

The only animal no one had ever seen was a fox. Mr. Wren said the chances of spying a fox on Fox Street were about as good as that of spying a band of angels playing harps up on Paradise. And then he laughed. Not his real laugh, but a laugh like something hard hitting something even harder.

She wiped her hands on the grass, which was littered with pale, hard plums no bigger than jelly beans. The plum tree was the best thing about the Wrens’ tiny backyard. It had planted itself, some ambitious plum pit recognizing a beautiful spot and making itself at home. Over the years Mo had done her most productive thinking with her back nestled against its trunk. But it was a bad sign for it to be dropping fruit like that-the weather had been so hot and dry, the poor tree was struggling. Mo made a mental note to pull the hose back here and give it a long drink, and then she headed for the street.

Whenever their father was at work, Mo was in charge of her little sister, Dottie, who was half Mo’s age but possessed approximately one hundredth of her sense. That wasn’t all Dottie’s fault, Mo knew. She hadn’t had the advantage of their mother very long, for one thing, and Fox Street had ruined her, for another. Everyone watched out for her, not to mention spoiled her rotten, so that at any given moment Dottie could be in Mrs. Petrone’s kitchen eating homemade pizza, or on Da’s porch being read to, or-this was all too likely-getting into deep doo-doo with the Baggotts.

Then again, she could be up on Paradise or down in the ravine, both forbidden, hunting bottles for her collection. Which she must have done already today, because there on the front walk was a careful arrangement of tall and short, fat and thin bottles. Dottie grouped her bottles into families-mothers, fathers, children, babies. She had aunt and uncle bottles, grandparent bottles, and teenage bottles with names like Tiffany and Rihanna. Hands on hips, Mo scanned the street. The front yards were small enough that you could lean right over your porch railing and have a conversation with your neighbor on the sidewalk, and there was Mr. Hernandez, owner of the restaurant Tortilla Feliz, chatting with Ms. Hugg, the piano player. Mrs. Baggott slouched on her porch swing, pulling on her cigarette, while beside her, Baby Baggott pulled on his bottle. Mr. Wren, wearing his water department uniform, backed the car out of the driveway, tooted the horn, expertly skirted the colossal pothole known as the Crater, and drove out of sight.

But no sign of Dottie.

Just as Mo was about to start hunting for her, Mrs. Steinbott’s front door opened and out she came, toting her knitting basket. Starchbutt’s hair was fuzzy and white as dandelion fluff, and she herself was skinny as a stalk. At first glance she looked several thousand years old, but look again and you’d see her hands were smooth and her step quick. Mrs. Steinbott whiled away her hours pruning shrubs within an inch of their lives and knitting, though who all those itchy hats and scarves could be for remained a mystery. No one ever came to visit her. Her life was solitary as the unplanet Pluto.

Why was she so alone? And so stone hearted? Which came first? It was as hard to determine as the chicken and the egg, a problem Mo had given some thought to.

“Hello,” called Mo.

Starchbutt cocked her head, like a robin just before it nails a poor, unsuspecting worm.

“Your roses are looking good.” Mo gestured toward the bushes that bloomed in profusion all around the porch. Their perfect, bugless leaves shone in the sun.

Mrs. Steinbott froze midknit. For a moment, Mo actually believed she might say, “Why thank you, neighbor.” But instead, a furious electric shock seemed to go through her. What in the world could make her shudder like that? Starchbutt raised a shining needle and pointed it across the street.

Mo looked, just in time to see a rubber band of a body sproing out Da’s front door.

“MO!”

“Merce!”

Dodging between the parked cars, Mo tore across the street. Mercedes flung long golden arms around her.

“Merce! You look so different!”

“Mo! You look precisely the same!”

“No I don’t!” Mo always talked too loudly around Mercedes Walcott-she couldn’t help it. “I grew a whole inch.”

Mercedes had always been taller, but this year she’d grown so much that Mo had to step back to look her in the eye. Her laugh was the same, though-head back, gap teeth flashing white against her gingersnap-colored skin. Everything about Mercedes Walcott crackled and bit. The only soft thing about her was her hair. Speaking of her hair…

“Merce! You’re bald!”

“Really?” Mercedes widened her eyes and ran a hand over the top of her head. “Crudsicles!” Mercedes laughed again. She adored teasing Mo. And Mo didn’t mind. Much.

“You shaved it? How come? And how come you’re here so early?”

“I took a plane.” Mercedes yawned. “Then a cab.” She plucked at her jeans, which were black and, Mo suddenly noticed, the precise kind the popular girls at her school wore. Her tank top was black, too, with little sparkles around the edge. Mo smoothed her own baggy, wrinkled shorts.

“Wow,” she said. “Cool.”

Every June before this-and there had been five so far-Mercedes had ridden the Greyhound out of Cincinnati. Da would send the money for the ticket, and Merce would jump down the bus steps holding one practically empty suitcase. Every August she staggered back up, that suitcase weighted with all the books Da gave her. Da also tried to plump up her only grandchild, but that never took.

“My new stepfather,” Mercedes said now, as if those two words carried as much meaning as a whole chapter book. Her mother, who’d never had a husband, had gotten married that winter.

“He’s rich?” Mo asked.

“We’re comfortable ,” Mercedes replied. “He’s got avalanches of money, but don’t ever say ‘rich.’ That’s ghetto. You say ‘comfortable.’”

“Oh.”

Mercedes had a way of raising her chin that elongated her entire self, as if she were about to turn into a human steeple.

“Not that he corrects me,” she said. “I have to admit, he’s too smart for that.”