Minerva Clark Gives Up the Ghost by Karen Karbo Page B

handle and started toward the door. He stopped once and looked around the place, at the charred walls, the broken windows. He squinted up at the hole in the ceiling. “Ha, yeah, a will. Sure thing. A lady who cooks every week for the homeless has a will. Try debts. Up to her sweet ol’ eyeballs.”
    I followed him back down the narrow staircase, through the grocery, and out onto the sidewalk. I waited while he replaced the padlock. “If you’re looking for Angus, I ain’t seen him,” he growled.
    â€œWhere were you when the fire broke out?” I blurted out.
    He turned and glared at me through his thick glasses. “Not where I shoulda been, which is home making sure Ma got out okay, now, was I?”
    Around the corner from the grocery, parked beneath the shade of a huge Hawthorne tree, sat a dusty old Ford Explorer. A faded bumper sticker said, NOBODY DIED WHEN CLINTON LIED. Through the back window I could see a pile of stuff—some clothes and shoes, a box of groceries, some empty two-liter soda bottles, a sleeping bag, and a pillow with a dirty flowered case.
    I watched stupidly while Wade Leeds unlocked the car door and stuffed a pile of shirts into the back. He put the green metal file box on the passenger seat next to a shaving kit. The zipper was open. Inside I could see one of those plastic travel boxes you keep soap in, a red-and-white can of shaving cream, a razor, and a hairbrush.
    Before he slammed the car door and drove off, he said, “That Angus is bad news, and if you’re a smart girl, you’ll stay away.”
    Oooo-oooo-oooo-ahhnn!
Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa.
Oooo-oooo-oooo-ahhnn!
Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa. Before answering the call, I watched Wade Leeds drive slowly to the end of the block. The rear bumper hung down on one side, making the vehicle and Wade Leeds look morepathetic than ever. I sighed and flipped open my phone.
    â€œWhere are you?” said Angus. He sounded mad. Mad! When he was the one who was an hour late.
    â€œHuh? I’m here. Where are you?”
    â€œWaiting for you.”
    â€œWhere?” I looked up and down the street. Two houses down from the grocery a lady sat on her front porch smoking a cigarette and petting her cat. There was no other human activity that I could see.
    â€œI’m here. At my house. Waiting for you, Minerva, intrepid goddess of warriors and poetry. Did you know Minerva invented music, too? I looked it up online. No wonder you rock.”
    â€œAt your house?” I said. What was he talking about? I stared at the mural on the side of the grocery, at the snow-covered volcano spewing out tomatoes, zucchinis, and corn. When we’d talked the night before, I was sure we’d agreed to meet at the grocery.
    â€œI’m a-waitin’ for my wheels, too.”
    â€œOh, right!” My meeting with Wade Leeds had been so bizarre I’d forgotten all about Angus’s Go-Ped. I dashed back around the corner. It was still propped where I’d left it, against the garden wall across the street. I exhaled. That would have sucked if someone had stolen it.
    Angus’s house was six blocks away, straight down the tree-lined street. He lived in one of the old arty hippie houses. It was tall and skinny, and painted thecolor of a raspberry, with purple-and-cream-colored trim. The front yard was a lush garden of lavender and white roses and a bunch of other flowers I couldn’t name.
    A lady wearing faded jeans and a big straw hat knelt in the garden, working a trowel in the dark soil beneath one of the roses.
    â€œAngus is inside,” she said, looking up briefly.
    This must be Angus’s mom, I thought. She had the same dark eyes and freckles. I took a step forward, then stopped. “I’m sorry about your grocery,” I said.
    Then she smiled, and it was Angus’s smile. “Why thank you. That’s very sweet.”
    I steered the Go-Ped up onto the porch and tapped on the door.
    Angus