Mo Wren, Lost and Found Read online

  She dug into a bin in the corner. After a moment she pulled out a fuzzy blue scarf and wrapped it around the neck of the man who’d been reading by the door. “It’s cold out there,” she said, buttoning up his coat.

  Homer smiled as if he knew what was coming. “How cold, Carmella?”

  “Why, it’s so cold that when you open your mouth, ice cubes pop out. It’s so cold that this morning, my shadow froze to the side of a building and I had to leave it behind!”

  “Hah,” Mo said to Shawn. “Now I know where you get your whoppers. You steal them from her!”

  Gilda pulled a lacy heap of underwear from Number Four, and Mo loaded the rest of the Wren laundry. Soapy scents sailed through the air. The TV on the wall was tuned to a cooking show, where a woman demonstrated how to make coconut chiffon cake. Mo watched Shawn fold a pile of baby clothes, rolling pastel socks into cottony Easter eggs. Never had she seen him so calm and focused.

  “You’re good at that,” said Mo.

  “I’m good at lots of stuff! You should see me run. I’m so fast it takes three people to spot me. One to say here he comes, one to say here he is, and one . . .”

  “. . . to say there he goes!” Carmella chimed in. “Enough tall talk, mister.”

  She fitted a key into the door of the vending machine and swung it open. At the sight of row upon row of junk food there for the taking, Dottie gasped. She gazed at Carmella the way primitive man did at fire. Carmella winked.

  “Take your pick, Red.”

  When Dottie had her Skittles, Shawn his chips, and Mo her peanut butter cups, Carmella locked the machine back up. She folded her slender arms and watched with pleasure as they tore into their treats.

  “Where do you two girls stay?” she asked.

  “Corky’s,” Dottie told her. “My daddy’s doing an expensive revolution.”

  Carmella’s eyebrows disappeared into her hair.

  “She means extensive renovation,” Mo said.

  “My guess is it’s expensive too.” Carmella shook her head. “Corky’s. My my my. I wonder where that sorry man is now. “

  “I told Mo all about the curse,” Shawn said.

  “Curse?” Dottie froze, something she never did with sugar in her hand.

  “There’s no such thing.” Carmella gave Dottie’s shoulder a squeeze. “Besides, every curse was made to be broken. Will you look at that—your clothes are almost done! Let’s find you a dryer.”

  Once their wet clothes were tumbling, Carmella went back to work.

  “Bedtime in Madagascar,” Shawn said, displaying his wrist with its big, complicated watch. “Breakfast in Alaska.”

  “So is Carmella your auntie or something?” Dottie asked.

  “She’s my mom’s friend. I used to go to the library till my mom got off work. But it’s too noisy there. I’d rather hang here.”

  “I wonder if I could get a job here,” said Dottie, eyeing the vending machine.

  “You’ve got enough chores to do at home,” Mo informed her. “You didn’t even unpack all your stuff yet!”

  “I wouldn’t bother unpacking. Considering the curse.” Shawn knocked his fist against his forehead and cut his eyes toward Dottie. “I mean. That is. If there was such a thing. As a curse.”

  “You can’t scare me,” said Dottie. But she inched closer to Mo.

  “What makes you sure something bad happened to Corky?” Mo harvested a bit of lint from Dottie’s hair. “All we know is he vanished in the night.”

  “You ever hear of somebody vanishing in the night for a good reason?”

  Pins and needles prickled Mo’s skin. She jumped up to check their clothes, just as Mr. Wren poked his head in the front door and waved.

  “I’m double-parked!” he yelled, and ran back outside.

  Shawn helped Mo and Dottie toss their clothes into the basket. As they hurried for the door, Carmella called to wait. Reaching into the bin in the corner, she pulled out a book and handed it to Dottie. Caring for Your Pet Lizard.

  “I got a baby doll in there, too, but you’re not doll people, I can tell.”

  “Ooh,” said Dottie. “I love reptiles.”

  What was that bin, anyway? Like a magician with a hat, every time Carmella reached inside, she came up with a surprising and perfect thing.

  “Don’t let your laundry pile up like that again, you hear?” Carmella pulled open the door and clucked her tongue. “That your daddy? The man looks like he’s about to take a bite out of the steering wheel?”

  Mo shoved the basket into the backseat, and she and Dottie squeezed in beside it. Both the front seat and the floor beneath their feet were piled with boxes labeled THIS SIDE UP and FRAGILE.

  “You got beer mugs!” said Mo, examining the pictures on the sides. “And water glasses!”

  “That supply place had some great deals.” Mr. Wren squinted into the side mirror. “The trunk’s full, too.”

  “You got a lot done!”

  “Yeah, well. The bank didn’t take near as long as I expected.” All at once he stepped on the gas and shot out into traffic, making someone behind them blast the horn. “Your momma wears a mustache!” Mr. Wren yelled.

  “Did you get the loan okay?” Mo asked.

  “You see all the stuff I bought?” he said.

  Clean clothes perfumed the car. Dottie read aloud the many reasons lizards make ideal pets.

  “They are not messy or nosy.”

  “Noisy.”

  “They can be very in—”

  “—telligent.”

  Mo studied the back of her father’s head. Had his bald spot gotten bigger since this morning? That must be scientifically impossible. Probably she was just viewing it from a different angle, since his shoulders were hunched so close to his ears.

  “Lizards don’t get lonely,” Dottie read, and turned a puzzled face to Mo. “How can that be?”

  Their father shot through a light as it turned red, setting off another round of honking.

  “Your momma sold her car for gas money!”

  The Pits

  “Mo!” cried her best friend. “Is it really you? I was just thinking of you, and the phone rang. You’re a mind reader.”

  “I knew you were going to say that.”

  Mercedes laughed. Mo sank into the green armchair wedged into their upstairs hall.

  “I’m going bonkers,” Mercedes said. “The baby’s a devouring monster! It’s not even born, and it already took over. Half the time my mother’s throwing up and the other half she’s cooking disgusting, inedible food. Last night she put cinnamon in the mashed potatoes. Normally her intelligence is way above average, like all Walcotts’. But the blood must be going to her belly instead of her brain. She cries over everything, at the same time saying how happy she is.”

  Mo drew her knees up to her chin and listened to Mercedes describe how nervous her stepfather, Three-C, was about the baby, his first, and how he followed her mother, Monette, around with sweaters and cups of stinky herbal tea that only annoyed her, since she was always too hot. Yesterday Monette had bought something called a breast pump, which Mercedes was too freaked out to even ask what that was.

  Mo poked her finger in and out of the hole in the armchair upholstery, waiting for her turn to talk. When Mercedes paused for breath, she grabbed her chance.

  “It’s so strange,” Mo said. “I can’t picture where you are. And now I’m someplace you’ve never been, either.”

  “What? Oh, cripes—I almost forgot! You moved!”

  “You forgot?” Mo sat up straighter.

  “I mean . . . I always think of you on Fox Street. Sometimes when I can’t fall asleep because I miss Da, or Three-C made me furious, I picture you there, and I don’t know. It’s like counting sheep or listening to a lullaby. I feel so safe.” Mercedes’s voice dipped low. “But whoa. You’re not there.”

  Mo pulled a tuft of stuffing from the chair. All of a sudden she felt like she was nowhere at all. Like she and Mercedes were nothi
ng but sound waves vibrating on the thin, cold air. She gripped the phone as if it was trying to get away.

  “Merce?”

  “I’m listening.”

  Mo had so many things she’d planned to tell—about her unfriendly new school, and what a little traitor Dottie was, and how the more her father lectured not to worry, the more she did, the way you try not to pick at a scab but your fingers just keep going there. Before she could decide where to begin, Mercedes spoke again, the words coming out in a rush.

  “Da had to go into the hospital for a couple of days because her sugar got so out of whack.”

  “What? She did? Oh, no.”

  “And the gutters leaked inside her wall, and before she knew it, part of the dining-room ceiling fell in.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Not on her! But still. She’s having a really bad winter. “

  “If I was there, I’d help her. I’d go over every day.” Looking down, Mo discovered a little pile of chair stuffing in her lap. She tried to poke it back in.

  “It’s not right for her to be alone. Monette keeps begging her to move down here, but you know Da. Now she says she’s waiting for reports from some scout.” Mercedes’s voice sank, weighted down with worry. “Do you think she could be going, you know, demented? Like old people do?”

  Mo got to her feet, not an easy operation, since the armchair hogged almost all the floor space.

  “Da? Never!” What could she say to cheer her best friend up? The pits! That was it!

  “Merce, when you feel really bad, take your pit out and look at it.”

  “My what?”

  “You remember! Last summer I gave you a pit from my plum tree? And we swore that if I ever moved, we’d plant them in our separate yards, on the very same day, at the exact same moment, so they’d grow up to be twins?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Those pits.”

  “It’s our pledge of undying friendship. It’ll make you feel better.”

  “I better go.” Mercedes didn’t exactly sound cheered up.

  “I’ll call Da.”

  “That’d be so great. You can tell her she should move. You can tell her it worked out great for you.”

  “Umm . . . I could.”

  “Mo, you’re my best friend. No matter what.”

  They said good-bye, but when Mo tried to set the phone down, her fingers refused to uncurl. No matter what. Mo leaned against the chair. Every morning when her father got up and staggered toward the bathroom, he stubbed his toes on it. His ye-ow was her alarm clock these days.

  Her hand was glued to the phone. Da. Mo’s posture automatically improved, just thinking of her. She knew the number by heart.

  “Hello?” said a thin voice.

  “Da, it’s me. Mo Wren.”

  “Give me strength!” Her voice plumped right up. Unlike Mercedes, it was easy to imagine Da: sitting in the corner of her couch, her reading lamp switched on, the crossword puzzle on her lap. “Child, I look across the street and think of you every day.”

  Mo sidled past the chair and into Dottie’s room.

  “That Sarah’s so handy. Remember how your side door used to bang? And your front door used to stick? She took them both off and replaced them. Your house has two brand-new doors.”

  Feeling a little weak in the knees, Mo sat on the floor among Dottie’s unpacked boxes.

  “So,” she said. “I guess they like Fox Street.”

  “Mrs. Petrone just gave that baby her first haircut. And Gertrude Steinbott!” Da chuckled. “She’s knit Min an entire wardrobe by now. I doubt there’s an ounce of pink yarn left in this entire city.”

  It was really cold on the floor.

  “Let’s see what else. Ms. Hugg got engaged! I hear she might be moving to Pittsburgh. Leo Baggott broke his collarbone playing Helen Keller. No sooner do I have two snowflakes on my front walk than Pi’s out there shoveling. And he won’t take a cent. That boy’s a frog just waiting to be kissed.”

  “Erk!”

  “Child? Did you say something?”

  “What else, Da? Tell me more about the street.”

  “The old Kowalski place is up for rent again, in case you’d like to move back.” She clucked her tongue. “That was meant as a joke, but it wasn’t very funny, was it?”

  Da hadn’t even mentioned the hospital or her dining-room ceiling. The last thing she’d ever want was people feeling sorry for her, but still. Was it possible Mercedes had exaggerated a little? After all, she was dying for her grandmother to move down to Cincinnati. Could she be making Da’s situation sound worse than it really was?

  “I know why you called,” Da said, and Mo pictured her lifting her chin that way all the Walcotts did. “I’ve been waiting for your report, scout. Tell me what it’s like out there in that brave new world.”

  “It’s . . . well.” Suddenly Mo had a vision of Da’s house with a 4 SALE sign out front. The porch stood empty and the windows were dark. She could almost hear the wind whistling around the corner, battering the old lilac. “It’s hard, Da. It’s like . . . well, our dining floor is crooked. And sometimes it feels like everything here is. Like I can’t keep my balance. Like I’m just learning how to walk or something!”

  “I know that feeling. After I lost my toes, I was afraid to take a step on my own. It was mortifying.”

  “Yeah,” said Mo. “I mean, yes.”

  “You need to give it more time. You haven’t lived there very long.”

  “It feels like it.”

  “Time creeps when you’re young,” Da said.

  And then she didn’t say anything else for a while. Mo pulled her knees up under her chin, trying to get warm. Why’d she blurt all that out? She was supposed to reassure Da that moving was great! Merce would be so disappointed if she knew. At last Da spoke.

  “Whom does fortune favor?”

  “The brave, Da.”

  “You’re such a good student, Mo Wren.” But Da sighed, as if she wasn’t exactly sure about that lesson anymore. “I’m a little tired now. I appreciate your calling me.”

  By the time they said good-bye, Mo was worn out too. She rested her head on the box marked TREJER. Dottie’s supposedly precious bottle collection! Mo closed her eyes, and before she knew it, Pi and Mercedes were helping unwrap the bottles, only instead of here, they were at the old Kowalski house. One of the bottles was full of plum pits, and when Mo picked it up, it turned into a tiny, wailing baby wrapped in a yellow blanket.

  “Mo,” someone said. “Mo!”

  Mo opened her eyes to find her sister’s grubby face an inch from hers.

  “Don’t cry,” Dottie said.

  “I’m not.”

  Dottie patted her head, as if she’d forgotten who was the little sister, and who was the big.

  Shelter

  Mo washed the new mugs and glasses and set them in a row beneath the mirror over the bar. When the walls were finally spackled and sanded, she stood on a ladder and helped her father paint the room Moonglow. It looked beautiful. They spent most of one morning scrubbing the floor, which was covered with a layer of grime so thick, they were surprised to discover the linoleum was actually green.

  “That Corky wouldn’t recognize soap if it bit him in the you-know-what.” Mr. Wren put his hand to the small of his back, a gesture that was getting familiar. “All those years as a mud rat for the water department, I never worked this hard.”

  Every night, he toiled at perfecting his burgers and omelets. He performed meat loaf experiments, trying hard-boiled eggs in the middle, or spicy ketchup on top. Mo didn’t like meat loaf, no matter what, but Mr. Wren was convinced it would be a top seller. The Dottie Delight was spaghetti and two giant meatballs. The Mojo—that would purely and simply be the best burger in town. At first they ate in a corner of the kitchen, at their old table, but more and more they ate side by side at the bar, their reflections chewing along in the speckled mirror.

  Mr. Wren’s lists, written on sticky notes, covered half the mirror. M
o loved lists—making them, crossing things off them. Sometimes she’d pull on a jacket she hadn’t worn for a while and discover a crumpled list in the pocket. Even if she could no longer remember which library book it was she’d returned, she’d still get satisfaction from the neat checkmark next to it.

  But Mr. Wren? Back on Fox Street, he’d never made so much as a grocery list. They were always out of peanut butter or toilet paper. Dottie was used to eating her cereal with apple juice poured over it.

  Now he’d papered the mirror behind the bar with sticky-note reminders. There was one for reading up on electricity, since Mr. Wren had discovered wires patched together with Scotch tape. And one for pricing toilets, since the bathrooms had to become handicapped accessible. Mr. Wren’s handwriting was worse than his singing voice, so Mo couldn’t decipher most of them. When notes unstuck themselves and fluttered to the floor, she taped them back up. Lists were supposed to be orderly things, but his swarmed around like yellow jackets at an ice-cream social.

  “Lizards eat crickets,” Dottie said, spinning her stool. “Just FYI.”

  Lately, Dottie talked in letters. AKA and ASAP and TMI. Even her best friend was named K.C.

  Mr. Wren gathered up their plates and started for the kitchen.

  “Lydia wants me to come over her house after school,” Dottie called after him. “Can I?”

  “You just went over her house,” Mo said.

  “OMG! That was Lauren, not Lydia!”

  Mr. Wren paused, giving Mo a puzzled look. “Motown! How come you’re not going over anybody’s house?”

  “Because. There’s too much to do here. I like being here.” The words didn’t come out with the oomph she intended.

  He set the dirty dishes on the bar and pulled his wallet from his pocket. “Tomorrow,” he said, “you and a friend get doughnuts and cocoa.”

  Getting that bank loan didn’t seem to have fattened his wallet any. He fingered the bills a moment, then pressed them into her hand.

  “It’s okay, Daddy. I don’t need . . .”

  He put a finger to her lips. “Remember—blue skies.”

  But when school let out the next afternoon, Dottie went home with Lydia, and Mo, as usual, walked across the park alone. She walked quickly, past the empty wading pool and empty benches, as if she had someplace exciting to go. Mo had never been the popular type. She’d always been content to have a school friend or two to eat lunch with and be her partner on projects. At the end of the day, she’d been happy to come back to Fox Street, where feeling lonesome was out of the question. And then all summer long, day in and day out, she’d had Mercedes.