Hannie was set on carrying the bag filled with that old stuffed unicorn all by herself, so it took forever getting up to the highway. I kept looking for Brody, but for once he really must have been off somewhere minding his own business. We walked straight up the road past Newell’s field without seeing anyone.
The traffic rushed like a storm up on the highway.
We cut along the side of the road and followed the trail to the drainage ditch. The water down the bottom was green slime and stinking.
Hannie hung back, holding the bag with the unicorn so tight that blue veins popped out along each of her arms. But Mooch eased himself into the tunnel and let out a whoop.
He turned back around to Hannie and me, grinning at his own echo, his hands on his hips and the freckles on his nose squinched up so tight they laid on top of each other. “See,” he said. “I told you this place is good.”
It didn’t look all that good to me, especially the way Mooch was balancing himself inside that tunnel, where the cement walls rose from that skinny ledge. Below the ledge was a dirt bank with the stinking water at the bottom.
“Careful, Mooch,” I said, edging closer. I wrapped my arms around myself, hunching against the roar of traffic above. The sooner I was gone from here, the better. Looking down into the greasy water made me feel dizzier than spinning too long on the roundy-round.
Moochie reached inside a hole you couldn’t even see from the path. He was clearing a place out for the unicorn. He stood up, shoving his fist in his back pocket.
Moochie called from inside the tunnel, “Give it here, Hannie.” He stuck his dirty hand out, reaching for the bag full of unicorn.
But Hannie refused to hand it over.
“Hannie, it’ll be all right,” I said.
“No!” Hannie cried, pulling back. She turned toward home, then stopped. There was someone in the path. From where I was standing, all I could see was a pair of legs and some fancy new sneakers. There was only one kid at school who had a pair of shoes like that.
“Hey, Margaret Wade, what you doing in there?”
It was Brody Lawson. He slid down the path, closer to Hannie. I hated the way his eyes were spaced so close together on his head and that his thick black hair was all ridgety from front to back. It made me plain sick just looking at him.
I felt trapped there, between the highway and Brody. “I’m not doing anything,” I said.
“That’s my ditch,” Brody said. “You’re trespassing.”
I swear I wonder why the earth doesn’t just open right up beneath that boy and suck him down inside it.
“This is not your drainage ditch,” I said. “Nobody owns a drainage ditch.”
“If I say this place is mine, it’s mine, Margaret Wade. You hear?” He came a step closer.
Mooch moved in the tunnel behind me. I saw his hand tighten around a rock. He was taking aim at Brody.
“You leave my sister alone,” Mooch said. “Don’t you come no closer or I’ll knock your stupid brains out.”
“You better watch how you talk to me, boy,” Brody said. “I’m thinking I might just tell my mama about you stealing the Twinkies right out of our kitchen.”
“I did not!” Mooch said.
I looked at Moochie.
“I can prove it,” Brody said. “I can prove you did it. You might just be going to jail pretty soon.”
Mooch looked at me. “I did not steal, Mags.”
Hannie looked scared. She started whimpering.
The whole school was going to hear about this tomorrow. Patty Jo and Alice, too, about my crazy sister and my crazy brother down in the drainage ditch.
“We’re going, Brody,” I said, helping Mooch out of the tunnel. “Don’t wet your pants.”
Mooch took my hand. His chin stuck out and quivered a little, but he didn’t cry.
We started away from the ditch toward where Brody was standing in the path. The wind from the highway blew hot across the back of my neck.
“Wait a minute,” Brody said. “What you got there in that bag?”
Hannie’s fists tightened around the unicorn.
“Nothing,” I said.
“I’m not letting you past until you tell me.”
“It’s none of your fat-butt business,” said Moochie, glaring at Brody.
“It is if you found it down in the ditch,” Brody said. “Everything in that ditch belongs to me. Come on, what you got?”
“You stupid turkey head!” Mooch yelled. “You want to know what we got?… We got dead bodies in there. I been chopping up all the bad people I know. We were just coming for you.”
“You better watch what you say, boy,” Brody said. “You just keep your mouth shut.”
“If you want my mouth shut, then you better let me and my sisters by,” Moochie said.
Brody glared at Mooch with those narrow eyes of his, but he stepped aside. Hannie, Mooch, and I, we pushed right past Brody up the trail. I wrinkled my nose as we came by like I was passing skunk.
Hannie and I took turns carrying the bag with the unicorn back home. Moochie ran ahead and slipped into the house to see if Mama was looking and gave us the all clear. We shoved the garbage bag under the steps of the trailer alongside some junk Mama was saving for Judgment Day.
I washed up good at the kitchen sink: my face, my hands, I even splashed water on my hair. I wanted to be full clean of the highway and the ditch and Brody Lawson before I came anywhere near those new clothes from Aunt Lainie.
I never even dried myself off. I was heading straight for that penguin sweater when Mooch caught me by my pants pocket and yanked.
“I’m hungry, Mags,” he said.
“Not now, Moochie!”
“But my stomach’s turning inside out,” he said.
Mama poked her head out of the bathroom. She looked so pretty with her makeup and her new clothes and all.
“Lordy, Mags, are you ever wet. What’d you do, girl, get caught in a rainstorm? Dry on off now, and start some dinner up, you hear?”
“Shoot!” I muttered under my breath. I swear that pile of clothes picked itself up and moved a little bit away from me.
What kind of wish did I get on that unicorn anyway? The clothes were there maybe, but it didn’t look like I’d ever get a chance to try them on. Why did I always have to be taking care of everybody else? Why couldn’t I just once take care of myself first?
I turned around and found Hannie staring out the window at the porch steps.
“Get away from that window,” I whispered. “Mama’s coming out and she’ll figure what we’re up to, sure as sugar. Come on now, Hannie. Can’t you listen just for once?”