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shaking ashes from her bathrobe.
    Mama Lu wiped soot from her eyes. “I ain’t calling ya nothing. All I know is that it don’t take much brains to know a bad apple is a bad apple.”
    Gertrude growled. “All I know is that it don’t take much brains to know how to bake an apple.”
    “Are ya calling me a bad cook?”
    They balled up their fists and stood, smudged face to smudged face. Isabelle delighted in the sight. They had gotten what they deserved for taking that apple from Gwen. Maybe they’d start punching each other. Oh, how she’d love to see that, but if the landladies caught her spying she’d be in huge trouble. How could she get back upstairs without being seen? The distance between the hanging slickers and the stairway stretched before her, where squeaky floorboards lay like landmines. It was too risky, but so was standing in the entryway with her feet sticking out from under the slickers.
    Mama Lu’s Boardinghouse had a back door, used only by Boris and Bert because it led directly to their basement room. Isabelle could hide in their room until Mama Lu went to sleep. She’d have to walk around to the back of the house in the dark, but she’d manage. The front door couldn’t be seen from the parlor, so she’d be able to slip out. Isabellereached for the knob and was about to yank it open when she noticed two eyes staring at her through the window.
    “Ahhh!” she cried—not scared, just startled.
    A stranger stood on the porch in a puddle of kitchen light. His eyes were darker than any eyes Isabelle had ever seen. And he wore a hooded cape.
    “Who’s that?” Mama Lu bellowed. Isabelle tried to hide behind the slickers again but Mama Lu grabbed her arm. “Whatcha doing down here? Ya looking fer something to steal?”
    “No, I heard something. There’s someone outside,” Isabelle said, her heart pounding in her ears. “A stranger.”
    “What?” Mama Lu stomped over to the door and pulled it open. “There’s no stranger out there.” She slammed the door shut.
    Gertrude emerged from the parlor, wiping soot off her face with her bathrobe sleeve. “She was going to steal my apple. That’s why she came downstairs.”
    “I wasn’t going to steal anything,” Isabelle said. The landladies closed in. “There was a man standing on the porch just now. In a cape with a hood. I saw him.”
    “Yer a terrible liar. Did ya fiddle with my oven?” Mama Lu demanded. Isabelle shook her head. “I bet yer the reason the apple got ruined. She’s the reason, Gertie. She thinks she’s special just because she got left on a doorstep. Well, I say she’s a mold-covered lying rat and she fiddled with my oven.”
    “You’re right,” Gertrude said. “She done it because she’s friends with Gwen.”
    Isabelle braced herself for the inevitable punishment—not a slap or a spanking, but a loss of a privilege.
    “Ya know the rules,” Mama Lu snarled, pointing a soot-stained finger in Isabelle’s face. “No walking around after lights out. Ya just lost yer breakfast privileges.”
    “But…”
    “And you’ll have to pay for my apple,” Gertrude said. “Dish duty at my house for a whole month.”
    “But it wasn’t
your
apple,” Isabelle blurted. “The bird didn’t drop it on
your
head.”
    “Why, you little eavesdropping brat,” Gertrude snarled.
    Isabelle hadn’t been in this much trouble since the broken cheese tray incident. She needed a distraction. Just as Mama Lu opened her blackened mouth to decree another punishment, Isabelle pointed at the fireplace where a tiny bit of peat had fallen onto the hearth. “Slug,” she said, trying to sound alarmed.
    “Slug?” Mama Lu cried. She drew the salt canister from her bathrobe pocket and launched herself at the fireplace. Snapping the canister open, she dumped the entire contents onto the little peat ball.
    “Kill it, kill it, kill it!” Gertrude screeched.
    Isabelle raced up the stairs as fast as she could, fleeing the wrath of the