One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street Read online

  Was it a note from someone in danger? Was it a love letter from long ago?

  Nobody asked these questions out loud, but it was as if they’d floated right out of that old jar, along with the pieces of paper.

  What was actually on that paper was something none of them expected:

  Nothing at all.

  The scraps of paper were blank, more or less. True, there were splotches and water marks and mud drops on them. And if you squinted a bit you could see what looked like an upper case “D” and a wiggly lowercase “Y.” (Maybe.) But there was nothing that would have made the man’s eyes go back and forth and up and down, as if he were reading something. It was all very disappointing.

  “That man was just a weirdo,” said Leandra.

  But Ali and Bunny/Bonita and Leandra, and even Manny holding Edgar in his arms, continued to stare hard at the pieces of paper, as if hoping the invisible letters would reappear, if they waited long enough.

  That’s why nobody was prepared for what happened next. The air was hot and still, but suddenly the wind chimes were clanging like crazy, leaves shuddered, and branches snapped.

  Mitzi had made her move.

  While everyone studied the mysterious note, Mitzi scrambled up the tree’s trunk, then leaped on top of the Birdhouse of the Golden Arches. She swung there precariously for a split second as her prey fell to the ground, followed by Mitzi herself.

  Everyone ran to the tree. Ali grabbed the cat by the scruff of her neck, dropped her at the far side of the lot, then raced back to where everyone else was crouching down in a circle, examining Mitzi’s prey—if prey was the right word.

  “It’s a jelly bean,” said Bunny/Bonita.

  But the wrinkled brown being had a tiny beak. Its eyes were closed and it was breathing very fast.

  “It’s not a jelly bean, silly,” said Leandra. “Look. Its tiny heart is beating. I think it’s some kind of bird.”

  “Poor little thing,” said Ali.

  Manny was standing above them, Edgar asleep again on his shoulder. “That’s a baby hummingbird, fallen from its little nest on top of the birdhouse,” he said.

  A hummingbird! Bunny/Bonita took a big breath, tapped her purple hat, then blinked three times.

  “Where’s the mother?” Ali asked.

  “She must be here, somewhere,” Manny said. “If not, she’ll be looking for her baby when she returns.”

  They all looked at the orange tree. Its leaves were still and silent. The Birdhouse of the Golden Arches was still swaying slightly, a little speck of a nest, smaller than a walnut, perched on its roof.

  “But meanwhile, the mother’s baby could die!” said Bunny/Bonita.

  “One of us should take it home and nurse it back to health,” said Ali.

  “Oh, no! Not me! Sorry. I can’t take that bird home,” said Bunny/Bonita, thinking of all the hat-tapping and eye-blinking that would be required until her own mother returned home safely.

  “Neither can I,” said Leandra. “Nope. Impossible.” She could feel that black-magicky fear again, making her heart tighten up like a fist.

  “Then it’s settled,” said Ali. “Manny and I will take it home. But first we’ll go straight to the library for some hummingbird books.” A semi-amazing idea occurred to her. “This could be a new focus of the Girls With Long Hair Club. Birds! We could be the Girls Who Save Birds’ Lives Club.” It was only a semi-amazing idea because there wouldn’t always be birds to save. But there was this poor, tiny bird now. And that was a start.

  “I think it would be better to phone a wild bird expert,” said Leandra. She looked down at the hummingbird. Maybe she didn’t have to worry so much. It was such a teeny tiny bird. Just a bird! Maybe that black-magicky stuff didn’t count with birds.

  Her heart opened up, and a question flew out. What will you call it? Teeny? Little Hum? Bean? “I’ve changed my mind,” Leandra said. “We know something about birds at our house, so I’ll take it home.”

  “Well, I want it, too,” said Ali. “Let’s have a vote.”

  Leandra almost yelled, but she decided not to. She pulled a wrinkled tissue from the pocket of her shorts, then gingerly placed the bird on the tissue. “There’s no time for a vote. I was the one who called the meeting, and now I’m adjourning it!” She hugged Bean gently to her chest, and for the second time that day, Leandra raced from the lot.

  hile all this was going on in the empty lot, Robert Green was sitting on the bottom bunk of his bed, trying to juggle some tennis balls. He was also thinking about the three biggest secrets of his life; three secrets that were connected, like the big metal rings of Manny’s Magic Ring Trick.

  Secret Number One was a little mouse named Harry Houdini. The day before, Robert had captured him in the empty lot at dusk. He’d made a comfy hotel for Harry out of another shoebox of his dad’s (men’s sandal, bwn, 14w), which was hidden under the bed. The shoebox was padded with cotton balls and sprinkled here and there with tempting trail mix and salami. But Harry Houdini didn’t appreciate his new home much, if at all. All night long the lonely mouse squeaked to be let out, and Robert figured that a companion mouse would calm him down. So Robert’s mission had been to find a suitable friend for Harry. He had been trying and trying since early morning, but no dice.

  Robert leaned down to peek under the box’s lid. As usual, Harry exploded from the box and raced around the bedroom, every now and then leaping in and out of an open drawer. Finally, Harry Houdini shimmied up the pole of the bunk bed to the top bunk, exhausted.

  Robert tossed one ball into the air, followed by another ball, then watched both balls bounce across the floor. Juggling was so impossibly hard! He could hear Harry scratching at the blankets above him. Sighing, Robert put aside his third ball and climbed the bunk bed ladder to grab the mouse.

  Green likes mice.

  That’s what kids would say if they could see him now. Even though he’d mouse-napped Harry Houdini from the empty lot strictly for training purposes, luring him into the shoebox with treats.

  “Hey, little guy,” Robert said, gently stroking Harry’s mushroom-colored body. “Don’t you want to be the star of the show?”

  Apparently not, because Harry Houdini wriggled free again, sliding down the pole to hide under Robert’s pillow.

  Secret Number Two was the true answer to the question, “How can I get my tricks to work and wow an audience like you do?” He had just discovered the answer a short while ago that afternoon, on his own. And Robert found it odd that Manny hadn’t mentioned it, and recited that poetry stuff instead. It was as if Manny wanted to keep the secret all to himself. Robert hadn’t figured Manny to be that kind of guy.

  The true answer to his question about wowing an audience, and the real reason for Manny’s success, was something Robert had learned online. It was on the website where Magic Manny shopped, with its snazzy eye-popping demo videos and expensive props.

  “Sure, anyone can wow an audience,” Robert said to Harry Houdini, whose pointy ears were now emerging from under the pillow. “All you need are big bucks!”

  Robert liked the sound of the sneer in his voice. He sounded cooler with a sneer.

  To be fair, Manny himself didn’t really deserve that sneer. Manny didn’t buy the biggest buck items. His Bending Key Trick? $24.95. His Cigarette Up-Your-Nose Trick? $14.95. His Gravity-Defying Juggling Balls? $19.95. His Magic Ring Trick was the most expensive, at $32.50.

  Then again, it all added up to more bucks than, he, Rob-o, could afford. But Manny was older, and a working man.

  When he, Rob-o, was a working man, he’d spring for the incredibly expensive tricks. He couldn’t wait to see the look on everyone’s faces when he was able to master some of those incredibly expensive tricks.

  Especially Ali’s face.

  That was Secret Number Three. That look on Ali’s face was something Robert wished for in the deepest pocket of his heart—the look on Ali’s face when she was with Manny, as if Manny were some sort of superh
ero or something! Or the look on her face when she was taking care of her little brother, like Edgar was someone she’d jump into a lake for, or walk a trillion miles for in a Walkathon. Real love, man. Ali was the neatest, kindest person on Orange Street. (Almost as kind as the old Ali used to be.) If Ali looked at him like that, then that would mean, he, Rob-o, was pretty neat, too.

  Sure, maybe he’d been acting not so neat lately. Maybe like a jerk, for starters.

  “He’s exhibiting a bit of an emotional developmental lag,” Mr. Pokrass, the principal, had told his mother.

  True, he’d showed up late once or twice, and lost one or two library books, and disappeared into the boys’ bathroom to eat chocolate bars a couple of times. Lots of eleven-year-olds were emotional laggers (like Leandra’s brothers, for starters).

  And so it wasn’t really his fault, and even if it was, there were some good reasons for his own particular lags. Because, speaking of disappearing, everything seemed to be disappearing on Orange Street lately, and that was getting him pretty down.

  Life had been going along very well when all of a sudden his best friend Nick (309 Orange Street, now for sale) disappeared to New Zealand. Robert hadn’t heard one word from Nick yet, even though he’d had so many sleepovers in Robert’s top bunk, and he loved fish and computers and werewolf tales as much as Robert did. Nick, whom Robert had taught to make his trademark shark face, a dazzling virtuoso display of lip-curling and teeth-baring. Audiences (well, only the two of them, so far) roared with laughter at that shark face and Robert thought that Nick could have been his magic show assistant, or even his partner, for halibut’s sake, if he’d hung around. But now Nick was too busy kayaking and hunting and fishing (or whatever you did in the wilds of New Zealand) to even bother e-mailing him. Robert had so many questions to ask his friend. Like, ha, ha, where’s Old Zealand, for starters?

  Harry Houdini dashed under the bed. Robert hung face-down over the side and watched the mouse select a sunflower seed from the shoebox.

  “Sure, New Zealand is far away, but that’s a lame excuse, right, Harry? Because the Internet is everywhere!”

  Robert noticed that his voice sounded deeper and more gravelly when his head was hanging down like that. “The Internet is everywhere, man!” he repeated, louder this time.

  There was a soft knock at his door. “Are you all right?” his mother asked.

  “I’m fine,” said Robert. Just as Harry was making another run for it, Robert grabbed him and placed him under his quilt. The plan had been to introduce the mouse to his mother after a training period. Harry wasn’t ready yet.

  Mrs. Green opened the door a crack and peeked in. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Maybe he’d stop acting so babyish if his mother stopped treating him like a baby! Like asking him if he was all right, over and over.

  Robert lay across his quilt casually, his right arm on top of the mouse underneath. The quilt had colorful fish on it. Robert’s entire bedroom, in fact, was done up in an aquatic theme. He even had splashy aquamarine waves painted on his walls. Harry Houdini’s wriggling made the quilt’s fish look as if they were swimming upstream.

  Mrs. Green didn’t seem to notice. “Your father will be here to pick you up soon,” she said.

  “I can tell time, Mom,” Robert said. He waved his left arm, the one with his wristwatch, hoping to distract his mother from the job of his other arm. That’s what magicians learn to do—distract the audience from the magician’s trickery. Then, as a guaranteed distraction, he flashed a modified shark face at her.

  His mother took a deep breath. Robert could tell she wanted to tell him he was being snippy, but she decided not to.

  “Just wanted to remind you,” was all she said. “Your father doesn’t like to wait.”

  That was another thing. Life had been going along pretty well until “Dad,” as Robert’s mom used to call him, got that new name: “your father.” Talk about disappearing! Sure his father came to get him every Wednesday evening and alternate weekends. But his shaving stuff and his clothes and his books and his camera and his paintbrushes (it was his dad who had painted the splashy waves on his wall) and Dad himself, with his deep, gravelly voice and big feet had— poof!—vanished from 302 Orange Street, just around the time Robert had started acting like a jerk.

  It wasn’t as if he were the only jerk doing stuff on Orange Street—making fun of girls, hiding stink bombs in garbage pails, talking snippy to adults . . . for starters. He was just the newest jerk. If Leandra’s brothers were bad influences, was that his fault? And hadn’t he been a voice of reason, that time A.J. Jackson, wearing a Superman cape, wanted to use a dog leash to swing from his grandparents’ ceiling fan? (Although those guys had been acting less jerky lately, for some unknown reason.)

  And then, all of a sudden you had a little kid like Edgar disappearing into the hospital and coming out all different: no smiling, no talking, and he was just a little kid, man! It could happen to anyone, of course, but why Edgar, for mackerel’s sake? Edgar, who was too tiny, and let’s face it, too sweet, to even think about acting like a jerk!

  When you came right down to it, that’s what Robert loved about magic tricks. It was all about disappearing and reappearing, disappearing and reappearing. And the disappearing and reappearing part happened when you, the magician, wanted it to happen!

  Now Robert stood in front of his dresser mirror, wearing a towel as a cape, and a sneer. “It’s time, ladies and gents, for The Great Rob-o’s Incredibly Expensive Magic Show!” His voice was deep and gravelly. He bowed, then sneered some more and faced his audience again, standing on tiptoe.

  “Here I stand, floating two inches off the ground, wearing my Incredibly Expensive Floating Shoes (only $249.99 while supplies last). I shall now perform my Incredibly Expensive Drop of Blood Trick ($174.99, knife included). Watch how I pierce my thumb with this blade. Yes, ladies and gents, it’s a real knife. Watch me squeeze out a drop of my own blood! I press my thumb with my fingertip. One second, two seconds, release. Wow! What do we have here? Ladies and gents, the drop of blood has been transformed into a . . . ladybug!”

  The Great Rob-o held up his hand. “Hold your applause, please! What’s that, ma’am?” He listened patiently to a question from the imaginary audience. “Rest assured, ma’am. Neither the ladybug nor the Great Rob-o have been harmed during this Incredibly Expensive Trick.”

  Robert opened his top dresser drawer.

  “And now, ladies and gents, it’s time for the Incredibly Expensive Handkerchief Surprise (only $349.99, with a DVD and hand-woven silk handkerchief included)!”

  Robert pulled a pair of his underpants from the drawer, stand-ins for the incredibly expensive hand-woven silk handkerchief. He turned the underpants inside out, then right side out again. “As you can see, there’s nothing whatsoever inside this handkerchief,” he assured his audience. “Now, sir, I wave the handkerchief around your head, like so, and, what’s that you say, sir? There’s a mouse in your lap? It must have magically appeared from inside the handkerchief! And now I will make that mouse disappear again!”

  Robert stopped waving the underpants. Harry Houdini, who had been scampering around the room during the trick, had disappeared, but into the clothes closet. He found the mouse shivering inside a sneaker.

  “Come here, fella,” Robert whispered. He held the struggling mouse against his T-shirt and flopped down on the bed again. He could feel Harry’s heart pitter-pattering. Harry’s accusing left eye looked right at him, reminding Robert of someone, but he just couldn’t think who it was at that moment. He patted Harry’s head until the mouse’s long, ridged tail finally stopped twitching.

  Green likes mice. Actually, when you came right down to it, he did. They were sort of like very small friends.

  “Stay, little guy,” Robert whispered. But now he could feel Harry’s claws really digging in, so he let the mouse go. Harry scurried across his chest and under the bed again.

  Robert sighed. H
e gathered up his tennis balls and tried to juggle again, but lacking the Gravity-Defying Juggling Balls, he failed miserably, as usual.

  What a jerk he’d been, thinking he could tame and train his own mouse! And all those ladybugs he’d collected in the empty lot, none of them with any talent. Oh, how he wished he had big bucks so he could send away for those incredibly expensive tricks! Then he’d find out how they were really done.

  “Those online videos tell you nothing! They just get you to shop!” he called out to Harry Houdini, whom he could hear scuttling around under the bed.

  The truth was, he wasn’t even sure Harry was a mouse. There was a chance he was a small rat. Maybe that had been the problem in the training department. And of course there would be no way to convince his mother to keep a rat.

  Performing great magic tricks just wasn’t in his future.

  Except . . . except for the possibility of real magic.

  On a night table by his bed was the book he’d borrowed from Ms. Snoops, Incredible Magic Tricks for a Rainy Day. Incredibly babyish tricks, thought Robert.

  Except . . . except for that one trick—the one trick which cost $174.75 online, and according to the website had been a closely guarded secret for over one hundred years. But to Robert’s amazement, there it was in Incredible Magic Tricks for a Rainy Day, for anyone to discover, whether it was raining outside or not—for free!

  And Robert had the trick’s magic ingredient, the ingredient that would guarantee the trick’s success, safely tucked away in his backpack.

  A car honked twice beneath his window. Robert grabbed his backpack and opened the window.

  “I’ll be right down, Dad!” he hollered.

  That’s when Harry Houdini sprinted across the bed, jumped onto the windowsill, and in an instant, poof!

  Disappeared.

  t was evening on Orange Street and you could see the sun, like a juicy orange itself, slowly dropping down, down through the palms and the sycamores. As it dropped, you felt the air cooling your skin, at last. You breathed in the sharp supper smells—different smells from different windows: grilled cheese (301), turkey burgers (301½), salmon croquettes (302), scrambled eggs (303), franks and beans (305), teriyaki chicken (308), and more. If you stood smack in the middle of the block, all the smells jumbled together into one big spicy stew.