Chapter 10THE DOLL BABY ON MULBERRY STREET
The next weekend, twelve-year-old Maggie pedaled her bike standing up, while Ivy sat on the seat behind her. Ivy held her feet away from the tires as they rode up and down Mulberry Street. Maggie’s braids swayed as she pumped the pedals. The playing cards clothes-pinned to the spokes click-clacked as the wheels turned on the gravel road. The bike wobbled from the unbalanced awkwardness of the additional passenger and almost tumbled over. Ivy screamed. Curtains moved, and faces peered at them from the neighbors’ windows.
A trim man in his early fifties wearing a sleeveless white undershirt, pressed black pants, and a hat with a stingy brim watched them from his front lawn.
Maggie waved at him, letting go of the handlebars. “Hello, Mr. Jackson.”
