One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street (9 page)

li loved Ms. Snoops's giant-sized
Oxford English Dictionary
—the
OED
, as those in the know called it, which now included Ali. The
OED
was so big it stood on its very own wooden podium by the window in Ms. Snoops's office. You needed a magnifying glass to read the tiny type on its thousands of pages.

“Take your time, dear. And I hope your friendships turn out to be as infrangible as mine and Gertrude's,” said Ms. Snoops, who was curled up on her window seat, happy to have someone else to talk to besides a cat.

Ali slowly turned the almost see-through pages, blinking at all the delicious words she found on the way to infrangible:

Ignoble. Imbonity. Imperiwiggle. Incandescent. Infallible. Infossous
.

“Something strange happened this morning,” Ms. Snoops murmured.

Ali was so engrossed in the wonderful words, she didn't hear Ms. Snoops at first.

“So strange, so strange,” repeated Ms. Snoops.

Now Ali looked up at her friend.

“I was gazing out my front window, minding my own business,” Ms. Snoops continued, “and, in front of my house, someone was sitting in a green car. It was olive colored. Or maybe sea-green, or a shade close to emerald. I'm not really sure . . .” Ms. Snoops's voice trailed off, and her forehead was wrinkled in concentration.

“So what happened?” asked Ali.

“What do you mean?”

“You were talking about a green car,” Ali said.

“I was?”

“Yes, and someone sitting in it.”

Ms. Snoops clasped her hands tightly to her chest, as if she were trying to hold on to something. “Oh, right! It was a ghost,” she said.

“A ghost?” Ali felt a stirring, as if one of those invisible, theoretical angels from the empty lot, having accidentally fallen asleep on her shoulder, was beginning to wake up.

“Yes. Someone who has been dead for many, many years.”

Ali couldn't think of anything to say to that. The invisible, theoretical angel opened one eye.

Ms. Snoops giggled. “Then, just before the
ghost
drove away in his green car, I got a better look. And I realized it must have been the slant of the sun, or his bushy beard, or my mind playing a trick on me, reminding me of someone who used to live on Orange Street, years ago.”

Ms. Snoops had made finger quotes around the word “ghost.” Ali's little angel yawned and went back to sleep. Ali herself sighed with relief because, for a second or two, she'd thought Ms. Snoops was a bit crazy, talking about ghosts. Ms. Snoops had so many thousands of memories, decades' and decades' worth! It was only natural they'd get in each other's way.

Ali went back to the
OED
. There it was. Infrangible.

Infrangible, in-fran´gi-ble, adj. Not capable of—

“Is that your friend Leandra, with her dog?” Ms. Snoops asked suddenly. “Or is that the girl with the animal name? I can never remember who is who.”

Ali ran to the window to look. “That's Bunny. She's the one with the dog.”

It was puzzling to Ali why Ms. Snoops couldn't seem to remember who was who, when the who's were so different. If you were comparing Bunny and Leandra, Bunny would be a little breeze, and Leandra would be a blustery, hot Santa Ana wind. Or Bunny would be a whistled tune under your breath, and Leandra would be a marching song, or the loud music they always play during the TV commercials.

Ali opened the window, leaned out, and called, “Hey!”

Robert poked his head out from behind the bougainvillea bush.

“Not you, Robert! I was talking to Bunny,” Ali shouted, even though she knew that was
ignoble
of her. “Bunny! The meeting was cancelled!”

Then, to Ali's joy, there was Leandra herself, strolling down Orange Street toward the empty lot! Leandra looked up and waved at Ali. “Come on down,” said Leandra. “We'll have another meeting!”

In the meantime, Robert had raced across the street, carrying his big shoebox. He loped up Ms. Snoops's outside and inside stairs, two at a time, and burst into her sunny office.

“What are
you
doing here?” Robert asked Ali, panting a little. Robert was a boy some people called chubby. In any case, he wasn't used to loping up anybody's outside and inside stairs, two at a time.

“I guess I should ask you the same question,” said Ali. “
I'm
looking up a word at the moment.”

“Which word?” asked Robert.

“Specifically, infrangible,” said Ali, returning to the
OED
.

Infrangible, in-fran´gi-ble, adj. Not capable of being broken or separated into parts.

“Then I guess I'm here to do that, too,” said Robert.

“Oh, sure you are,” said Ali, without looking up. “
Which
word, then?”

Robert glanced around the room a bit wildly, his ears pinkening (Embarrassment Level One: grapefruit). He couldn't think of a word as interesting as Ali's at that moment, so he made one up. “Hifflesnuffle, for starters,” he said. Looking at the size of Ms. Snoops's dictionary (a dictionary that needed its own table, for halibut's sake!), Robert gambled that
hifflesnuffle
was in there, somewhere.

“I'll bet that's not even a real word. But here, be my guest,” Ali said, handing him the magnifying glass.

Robert stepped up to the podium. He slowly turned the
thin pages of the
OED
. “Well, if hifflesnuffle's not in here, I can always look it up online.”

“Remember, if you can't find it, that doesn't mean it's not a real word,” said Ms. Snoops. “New words get invented every day. That's why the
OED
is so voluminous.”

Actually, when you came right down to the truth, neither Robert, Ali, nor Ms. Snoops needed a dictionary or a computer to tell them what hifflesnuffle meant. Ali had had a sudden insight, which may have had something to do with Robert's pink ears.

Hifflesnuffle: hif-ul-snuful (v.) -snuffled, -snuffling, -snuffles. (tr).
To like someone when that someone doesn't like you back.

“What's in the shoebox?” Ali asked kindly.

Robert looked up from the
OED
, startled. “Shoebox?”

There she was.
Wow, oh, wow
, thought Robert. The old Ali! His former orange juice–selling business partner, his fellow astronaut in space, on whom his very life had once depended, standing right in front of him, as if she'd never gone away.

“That one,” said Ali, pointing to the big shoebox on the floor by the dictionary stand. “What's in it?”

“Oh, nothing,” said Robert. “Nothing,
yet
.”

“OK.” said Ali, shrugging. And
poof
! The old Ali disappeared into thin air, right before Robert's eyes.

Maybe a hint of magic would impress her, since she was always wowed by Magic Manny's stuff, Robert thought. He put down the magnifying glass. “By the way,” he said to Ms. Snoops, “you know that book you lent me? Do you mind if I keep it for a while longer?”

“Which book?” asked Ms. Snoops.

“You know,
Incredible Magic Tricks for a Rainy Day
. It's really great.”

Oops
, thought Robert. Ms. Snoops was pretending she didn't know what he was talking about! He shouldn't have brought it up. Maybe the book was so special, Ms. Snoops wanted to keep it a secret, sort of like a pact between the two of them.

“Oh, is that a book of mine? Sure, keep it as long as you like,” Ms. Snoops said.

“Thanks,” said Robert, and winked.

Ms. Snoops smiled and winked back.

Ali hurriedly gathered up her treasures from the coffee table. “I have to go now,” she said. “Leandra and I have something to discuss, and soon Edgar will be waking up from his nap and asking for me.” Oh, how she wished
that
was true!

Then Ms. Snoops said something that made Ali's sleeping
invisible, theoretical angel suddenly awaken—and sit up straight.

“Who's Edgar?” Ms. Snoops asked.

The invisible, theoretical angel began whispering furiously in Ali's ear, and Ali realized something she'd known all along, but hadn't really known she'd known. The thought made her sit down slowly on Ms. Snoops's orange and green striped sofa.

Ms. Snoops's memory, whispered the angel, was like the lacy antimacassars on the orange and green striped sofa's arms. Ms. Snoops's memory had little holes in it, here and there, where facts slipped through and disappeared: people's names, titles of books, answers to questions Ms. Snoops had to keep asking, over and over. But then there were the parts of her memory with no holes at all—those would make her memoirs grow fatter and fatter . . . all those stories, all those historical and scientific facts she knew, all those wonderful words she remembered.
Naranga! Infrangible!
It was so confusing, and so, so sad.

Now it was Ali's turn to hug Ms. Snoops.

“Edgar is my little brother,” Ali said. “But I promise I'll be back soon, to read those memoirs you were going to write. I'll help you remember.”

“That would be lovely,” said Ms. Snoops. “And a nap sounds likes a good idea right about now.”

“I guess I'll go now, too,” said Robert. “May I please borrow your fruit-picker pole? I'd like to pick some more of the oranges, the ones you said were extra-special.” He winked at Ms. Snoops again.

“I'll give you some of mine! No need to pick them your-self,” said Ms. Snoops, winking back at him. She filled a paper bag for both Robert and Ali from a big bowl of oranges on her coffee table. “These are the tree's sweetest oranges,” she said. “The perfect ones that were hanging from its topmost, southerly branches.” And then she added, “Personally picked by me. This old body can still scamper up a ladder when it wants to!”

After they'd gone, Ms. Snoops watched the two of them from her window. Ali looked up at her and blew a kiss. Robert hifflesnuffled behind Ali, off to his meeting with Manny.

“This has been my lucky day,” said Ms. Snoops. “Two guests!”

obert sat down beside Manny on the front steps to Ali's house.

“What's in the shoebox?” Manny asked.

“Nothing,” said Robert. And there wouldn't be, not today anyway, because his secret mission hadn't worked out as he'd planned. He let out a long sigh, but it was a satisfied one. Ali wasn't home, but it still felt good to be there. Just like old times, long ago. Well, not so long ago, maybe two or three years back. They used to sit on those same stairs and count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder, to calculate how far away the storm was (five seconds = one mile)
, not even caring if they got soaked. Or they'd cheer on the L.A. Marathon. Small stuff, babyish stuff even. But satisfying.

“So. What's on your mind, Rob-o?” asked Manny.

He actually did feel like a Rob-o, sitting there, talking one-on-one with Manny. “I'm into magic, as you may or may not know. Like yourself.”