Read Online What Happened on Fox Street by Tricia Springstubb - Free Book Online

leaned over her porch railing. Mo crossed her arms over the bulge beneath her shirt. “What did she say?”
    â€œShe said…wow. She’d never seen the like.”
    Mrs. Steinbott continued to fix Mo with an expectantlook, as if there must be more.
    â€œShe said…” For some unearthly reason, Mo longed to tell her crazy neighbor whatever it was she longed to hear. If only she could guess what that might be. From the foot of the steps she gazed up while Mrs. Steinbott gazed down, the two of them yearning toward each other, their longings crisscrossing above the glorious, indifferent roses.
    â€œShe liked it,” Mrs. Steinbott prompted.
    Mo clutched the jar with one hand and slid the other behind her back, crossing her fingers. “She really did.”
    Mrs. Steinbott nodded. Exactly the answer she’d been looking for. Settling back in her chair, she picked up her knitting needles and commenced clicking away, her eyes on Da’s front porch, as if it were an empty stage and she were waiting for the play to begin.

Magic Hands
    â€œM O!”
    Mrs. Petrone, power-walking past, paused to unhook the earbuds of her iPod. She was always testing new beauty products on herself, and today her hair was gelled up into a sort of picket fence. In the heat, her round face was shiny and pink as her track pants.
    â€œIsn’t it about time for a visit to my shop?” The way she eyed Mo’s hair, Mo knew it wasn’t really a question.
    The next thing Mo knew, she was in Mrs. Petrone’s kitchen, which smelled like strong coffee and coconut shampoo, not to mention was delectably air-conditioned. For as long as Mo could remember,Mrs. Petrone had cut her hair. Her cheery kitchen had shelves full of cookbooks and a special album of cards and letters from the grateful families of people whose hair and makeup she’d styled at the House of Wills. “You made Grandma resemble an angel,” one letter said. “We hardly recognized Uncle George, and that is a total compliment,” read another.
    â€œBusiness is slow,” she told Mo, lining up her bottles and combs and scissors. “People don’t die in the summer if they can help it. Winter, that’s a different story.”
    When she washed your hair, Mrs. P was more or less a hypnotist. You never had to be nervous she’d dig into your scalp, or tug too hard, or do anything but massage firmly yet gently, so before you knew it, she’d thrown you into a sort of trance.
    â€œ Bella, bella ,” crooned Mrs. Petrone. “You’ve got the best hair on the street—don’t tell anyone I said so.”
    She didn’t ask Mo how she wanted her hair cut. She knew—not too short, not too long, just right. Mo’s eyes drifted shut. The chair cupped her like a big, warm hand. Mrs. Petrone talked and talked, her voice a lullaby. Murmuring how when she was a young girl, her hair was so long she could sit on it, how every night her mother brushed it one hundred strokes, how thosewere some of the happiest moments of her life.
    â€œThat was a lifetime ago, but I remember it like it happened yesterday,” she said. “But oh, don’t ask me where I put my keys!”
    She set down her scissors and pulled the lid off a big red tin on the counter. A plate of golden pizzelles, dusted with sugar, appeared on the table in front of Mo. The cookies were thin and crisp, fragrant with vanilla. All at once, Mo felt sick.
    â€œGo on—I remember how you like them.”
    But here Mrs. Petrone remembered all wrong. Mo could no more eat a pizzelle than a fried worm. Just the sight of one filled her ears with the terrible wrenching wail of sirens.
    Sirens! They blared on Paradise all the time. Mo had hardly noticed them that summer afternoon. She’d been too happy, thinking of ice cream, imagining her mother’s smile when she saw the rocks Mo had collected.
    That was almost the worst part. It was