What Happened on Fox Street Read Online Free PDF

it,” she rasped, as if saying the same thing three times might break the evil spell.
    â€œA neighborhood goes downhill, and some sleazoid sees his chance to make money.” Mercedes started fanning herself like someone single-handedly tryingto extinguish a forest fire. “He buys up houses for next to nothing, throws a little paint on them, then resells them for a profit.”
    â€œBut…but why would he send it to my dad? Of all people?”
    Mercedes stopped her fanning. She studied Mo. “You might want to ask him that question.”
    Mo did not care for the tone of her best friend’s voice. She snatched the letter back and reread it. Phrases like “generous offer” and “one hundred percent cash” leaped out like neon signs.
    â€œIf my father saw this, that scum-bucket Buckman would be history!” She crumpled the letter in her fist.
    Just then Da shuffled out onto the porch, leaning on her cane, a three-pronged contraption that looked designed to support a light or a fan, not a human being. Mercedes hustled to put a pillow behind her and drag over a stool for her feet. When Da plopped down with a small grunt, Mo worked hard not to picture what was inside those shoes.
    â€œMo Wren! There is no music in the nightingale. Why do you look so upset?”
    â€œI’m not!” Mo shot Mercedes a look that said, No need to worry Da, right?
    â€œWe feared a lethal gas attack,” Mercedes replied,cool as can be. “But it was only dear sweet Mrs. Steinbott.”
    Three heads swiveled to look across the street, where Mrs. Steinbott was spraying her roses from a yellow canister that was nearly as big as she was.
    â€œThose poor bugs.” Da gave her head a small shake. “They don’t stand a chance.”
    â€œMe either,” Mercedes said. “Every time I pass her house, I feel her watching me. It creeps me out. I feel like she’s counting the hairs on my head. I mean, if there were any hairs.”
    â€œDon’t be silly.” But Da, who’d always taught them how rude it was to stare, in turn regarded Mrs. Steinbott for a long time.
    â€œWhen Mr. Walcott and I first moved here,” she said at last, “Gertrude and I used to sweep our sidewalks every evening. Now, being the first people of color, we Walcotts weren’t particularly welcomed. That, my children, is what you call an understatement.”
    Under normal circumstances, there was nothing Mo loved better than sitting on this porch listening to Da’s tales about the old days on Fox Street. Da was big on history. “If you don’t know where you’re going,” she liked to lecture, “you’d best know where you’re coming from.” Not that Mo planned on goinganywhere. Da’s Fox Street tales were her tales, too. Sitting on this cool, creaky porch, she loved slipping back to the time when Fox Street was paved with bricks, and the neighborhood was so young, someone else lived in the Wren house. The thought of that made her brain cartwheel.
    Now a completely new and previously unthought thought gripped Mo. A thought that was terrible and yet so obvious, so undeniable, it yanked her upright in her chair.
    If someone had lived in the Wren house before them, someone else could live there after them.
    â€œGertrude and I would be out there wielding our brooms, and she wouldn’t so much as look at me. Mr. Walcott and I were going to be the ruination of the neighborhood, after all! A month went by, and then another, and by then Mr. Walcott and his green thumb had transformed this front yard into the neighborhood Garden of Eden.” She raised her eyes to heaven. “Forgive me, James, for the sorry condition it’s in now.” Taking the fan from Mercedes, she waved it slowly, wafting memories around.
    â€œBy then, all the other neighbors were dropping by to borrow a rake, or investigate that good smell coming from my kitchen, or