Chapter 6-1
991 Words
Chapter 6
The Fox’s Game
Within the hour, Penny knew as much about Zoe as she ever had about any of her friends from the city.
Zoe had moved to Dogwood at the end of the last school year to live with her grandmother while her mom and dad pursued careers as over-the-road truck drivers.
“It’s just for a few months,” she said. “They’ll get tired of it pretty soon and come back for me.”
Penny couldn’t help but notice that Zoe didn’t seem completely convinced of this. She avoided Penny’s eyes for a second, fiddling with a hole in the knee of her jeans.
“My dad’s a Native American. For a while I stayed with my other grandma on the reservation, but I didn’t like it there much, so they said I could come here.”
“Do you like it here?”
Zoe shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess. I like Sullivan’s and the rock shop, but I don’t have any friends here.”
“Me either,” Penny said. “I just moved in with Susan. She’s cool, but my closest neighbor is that little booger with the mullet.”
Zoe laughed. “Lucky you.”
There was a nervous silence, the kind that grew harder to kill with every second it survived. Then, much to Penny’s relief, Zoe ended it. “Have you seen the rock shop yet?”
“No,” Penny said, glancing back toward the Golden Arts. The display window that had still been dark the only time she’d taken a good look in it now glowed with bright fluorescent light.
“Let’s go,” Zoe said. “You’ll love it. They’ve got the prettiest rocks in there.”
Penny had to work to keep up with the taller girl’s strides. Crossing the street halfway between intersections, Penny shot nervous looks up and down. The lack of morning rush-hour traffic still unnerved her.
They passed Sullivan’s, and she saw Susan smiling at them through the window. They waved, and she waved back.
The bell over Golden Arts’ door jingled, and she had to rush to catch it before it swung shut again. She found Zoe inside, striding toward an open door set in the far wall.
An old man behind the glass display counter nodded at Zoe and said, “Morning, Zoe.”
Then his eyes fell on Penny, and he flinched as if goosed.
Penny gave a little wave, which he returned, and he watched her all the way through the showroom door as she caught up with Zoe.
Penny found Zoe standing at the end of a long table, pawing through a bin of loose stones. “What’s with that guy?”
“Dunno,” Zoe said, showing zero interest.
While the main floor of the shop looked like any other low-end jewelry store Penny had ever been inside, the smaller back room was a warehouse of rough gemstones, crystals, and strange minerals. Shelves crowded with displays of sparkling stones, opened amethyst geodes, great shining lumps of fool’s gold, and interesting formations of unidentifiable crystals covered the walls. A row of display shelves dissected the room.
“Weird,” Penny said, staring around.
“I want to be a geologist,” Zoe said. “I love minerals and gems.”
“You’ll make a good one too,” said the old man from the doorway.
He reached into the stone bin, plucking a handful of stones at random. “What’r these?”
Zoe grinned, and named them, one by one, “Carnelian, jasper, obsidian, and turquoise.”
“And this one?” He held up a blue crystal, Penny’s favorite of the bunch.
Zoe, however, seemed unimpressed. “Quartz crystal. But someone dyed it to turn it blue, so it’s not really blue.”
The man laughed, dropped the stones into a paper bag, and handed it over to Zoe, whose grin returned.
“You win again,” he said dramatically. Then he turned to Penny. “You’re a Sinclair, aren’t you?”
“Uh, yeah,” Penny said, a little surprised.
“I knew it,” the man said, snapping his fingers. “I have an eye for faces. Never was good with names, but I knew I recognized you.”
“I’ve never been here before.”
The man waved her comment away. “Don’t matter. Family resemblance. I near jumped out of my skin when you walked in. You look a lot like your mamma.”
“You knew my mom?”
Zoe quit sifting through the bins of crystals and polished stones, watching Penny and the old shopkeeper with interest.
“Oh, yeah,” he said enthusiastically. “She used to come in here all the time when she was younger. Must have had quite a collection of pretty rocks, all the time she spent here.”
He must have quite a memory, Penny thought. The excited flutter in her stomach intensified. Would he remember her father too?
“Your mamma, your aunt, and their friends were in here all the time.”
Penny’s hopes sank at once. She didn’t have an aunt. The old guy might have a good memory for faces, but seemed confused about other details.
* * * *
Still, it was worth asking.
“Do you remember …” but Susan’s voice cut her off as she stepped up behind the old shopkeeper.
“Penny, why don’t you two head back to the shop? I’m sending Jenny out for a late breakfast.”
Penny didn’t know if she’d done anything wrong, but Susan looked irritated. Had Susan guessed what Penny was about to ask the old man?
“Thanks,” Zoe said, grinning as she stepped past Susan into Golden Arts’ showroom. She waved at the shopkeeper and said, “I’ll be back later.”
He nodded, keeping a wary eye on Susan as Penny followed Zoe out.
They waited outside Golden Arts for a few moments, but Susan did not join them.
“Come on,” Zoe said, striding toward Sullivan’s open door.
Penny took a step, and gave a little gasp, freezing on the spot.
The talking fox stood at the other end of the block facing her, unconcerned, as a small group of old women passed it on their way to the senior center, which had a banner over its door advertising All Day Bingo Friday.
A boy on a bicycle passed it a moment later, stopping to scan the street before he continued toward the park.
Could no one else see it?
The fox’s furry snout parted in a sharp-toothed grin, and it winked.
Penny ran to catch up with Zoe, pulling the shop’s door closed behind her.
- Writer
