Page 26 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery
Instead, they peer past the car at the dogs, and I can’t blame them, because the dogs are going absolutely berserk. One is up on its hind legs again, nosing around inside the driver’s window, poking at the hat. I try a gentle roundhouse kick to nudge the dog down. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to roundhouse kick. Also, I am balanced on a car hood, so I only succeed in straining a groin muscle. I stifle a grunt of pain.
The assembled kids and parents all stare at the seafoam Kia and me, at the dogs and at the old lady who’s yelling into her phone, confusion playing across their faces. One parent opens his mouth to ask a question I definitely won’t want to answer, so I plaster on a smile and put on my loudest voice.
“Looks clear for crossing!” I say, pointing forcefully toward the street. “It’s swimming pool rules today! I’m a traffic lifeguard up here right now! Just go with it!”
Cool. Very normal, Mo.
But it works, or rather, the first bell rings, so they mumble tothemselves and walk across the street, and I’m mulling over how I might turn this experience into a bullet point on my résumé, when the old lady yells,“Marlowe. No.”
It startles me enough that I yelp and almost slide off the hood and straight into the hole. At the last minute, I spin and manage to grip the windshield wiper gap and pull myself back up.
And now I see what the old lady was yelling about.
It’s that pink-haired kid again.
She’s at the driver’s-side window, peeking under the giant hat and taking a picture with her phone as the dogs flank her.
“Whoa,” she says. “Dead guy.”
“He’s just sleeping,” I say quickly, awkwardly scooting over so I can climb down onto the relative safety of the street. “And you shouldn’t disturb ... people while they’re sleeping.”
Marlowe looks up at me dryly, like it’s too much effort to fully roll her eyes, but she would if she felt like it. “That is not a sleeping guy. That is adeadguy. I’ve watched a lot ofLaw & Order.”
“Marlowe,” scolds the old lady again, crossing to join us. “Delete that before I tell your moms.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, Claudia.” The tween crosses her arms defiantly.
The old lady—Claudia, apparently—steps in so the two of them are eye to eye, and she points in the direction of the train station a couple blocks away. It’s one of the few in the city on street level, and the early wave of commuters is heading toward the entrance.
“I can see Shoshanna from here,” Claudia says. “Do you want me to yell for her? Do you think she’ll appreciate being late for her fancy-pants lawyer meetings because her daughter is taking pictures of dead people?”
Marlowe sighs loudly.
“Phone. Delete. Now.”
Marlowe groans as she goes through the phone, trashing the pictures. “I wasn’t going todoanything with them.”
“Only a creep says that sort of thing,” Claudia declares. “Now get to class.”
With one final grumble, Marlowe heads for the school.
Once she’s out of earshot, Claudia whispers, “Smart kid. Huge pain in the ass, though.”
“So, um, back to the dead body?” I ask, my voice squeaking. “What exactly do we do now?”
“You go help those folks across the street,” she says, nodding at a few oncoming stragglers. “I’ll hover around the car and shoo off anybody who wants to get too close.”
I do exactly what she says, and some people ask about the accident, but most people roll their eyes as if to say,Of course that happened, it was inevitable, how could that douchebag not hit a sinkhole.
I absolutely do not mention the corpse inside.
As the latecomers cross, I glance back and see that Claudia has removed the big green hat and is, it seems, taking lots of pictures of the dead guy as the poodles swarm around her, begging for attention.
What’sshedoing?
Just as I’m about to ask her, an ambulance whizzes down the block and I swear to god, I’ve never been so happy to hear a siren in my life, not even the time I thought my appendix was bursting in Target and I made Chris call 911 and it turned out to be the Italian beef I’d had for lunch.
Still. That was a good sandwich.
