What Happened on Fox Street Read Online Free PDF Page A

around. But the yard was small, and the plum tree got in the way, and though she wanted to keep his spirits up, Mo found playing catch boring. She wasn’t sorry when he said he thought he’d join a pickup game over by the middle school, and that Mo and Dottie should meet him at the Tortilla Feliz, up on Paradise, later. They’d get a table out back and order their favorite, the Burro Burrito.
    So Mo unkinked the green hose and gave the plum tree a hearty drink. A shiny-winged blackbird, high in its branches, eyed her with approval. Then Mo settled on the front steps while Dottie crouched in the dirt beneath the bushes and held a funeral for a housefly. Mo watched Mrs. Baggott push Baby Baggott in the stroller and wondered how it could bethat Mrs. Baggott’s flip-flops only went flop , not flip . Mr. Duong mended a bicycle on his front lawn. The summer sun ricocheted off the roofs of the parked cars and winked in the diamond-paned windows of Da’s yellow house. Mrs. Steinbott was clipping the grass around her roses. Snipsnipsnip, rhythmic as a heart’s beat.
    This was the spot where Mo’s mother would sit, waiting for Mo to come home from school. As soon as she turned the corner and passed the Kowalskis’ hedge, she’d spy her mother’s wild, rusty red hair and start to run. In those days, her backpack held maybe one piece of paper and her crayons. It was empty and light. A little kid’s burden.
    The Kowalskis had moved away a long time ago. The people who lived there now worked the night shift somewhere and slept all day, and nobody ever saw them. Their front windows still said MERRY XMAS in spray-on snow.
    â€œI now pronounce you dead,” said Dottie, smoothing the dirt and sprinkling it with dandelions. “Rest in peas, almonds.”
    Mo flattened her hands on the warm wooden step. The sun was sliding down the sky. A ray slanted onto Mrs. Steinbott’s clippers and made them gleam. Clipclipclip. Everything’s going to be okay, Mo told herself. Things will all work out.
    Still, she wished she didn’t feel so alone. What she needed was a sign. Something real, with a weight she could feel in her hand. Something to anchor her the way, when you did a headstand or a cartwheel, you found a spot on the wall to focus your eyes, so you could keep up, up and down, down.

The Letter, Part 1
    T HE VERY NEXT DAY, the Wrens received the Letter. Bernard, the mailman, a handsome older man with dreads, delivered it. It was the kind of official mail requiring a signature, and he let Mo sign, since Mr. Wren was at work.
    No sooner had she read it than like a pebble from a slingshot, she was across the street and up on Da’s porch, where Mercedes sat fanning herself.
    â€œRead this!” Mo commanded.
    Mercedes laid down the paper fan, which advertised Mrs. Petrone’s funeral parlor. O GRAVE, WHERE IS THY VICTORY? it asked.
    â€œLet me take a moment to introduce myself,” Mercedes read aloud. “My name is Robert J. Buckman, and it is my understanding that your property on Fox Street may be available for purchase…midst the current economic turmoil, when real estate is so difficult to sell…” Mercedes was a speed reader. Her eyes flew down the page faster than her mouth could keep up. “Prepared to make a generous offer…”
    â€œI don’t get it.”
    â€œâ€¦in a position to buy your property in as-is condition…” Mercedes narrowed her eyes. “…can close the sale quickly…am prepared to pay one hundred percent cash…”
    â€œI don’t get it.”
    â€œUnfortunately, I do.” Mercedes tossed the letter aside. “One time, a landlord sold our place right out from under us. Monette and I were out on the street”—she snapped her fingers—“just like that.”
    The normally cool porch grew hotter by the second. Mo’s mouth was Sahara dry.
    â€œI don’t get