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landladies.
    It felt as if the stranger’s dark gaze followed her every step of the way.

T he bedroom lights snapped back on at dawn. Isabelle hadn’t slept a wink. How could she have, with visions of sneezing sea monsters, exploding apples, and strangers in hooded capes bouncing around in her head? She reached under her pillow and pulled out the partially eaten apple. Even though the flesh had turned brown, it still looked delicious. She took three huge bites. It still tasted delicious. How nice it would be to have an apple tree growing in the backyard! She could eat apples for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or whenever the urge struck. How lucky her grandmother had been.
    Wiping juice from her chin, Isabelle returned the apple to its hiding place. Grandma Maxine lay in a deep sleep, but she’d soon need breakfast, so Isabelle hurried downstairs with last night’s tray.
    The kitchen floor felt damp and slimy. Wind howled, rattling the panes. Raindrops beat a chaotic rhythm along the gutters. The tenants shuffled in, quiet and sleepy, taking their places at the table. Mr. Wormbottom rubbed his hands together to warm them. Mrs. Limewig held her cup of tea to her pallid cheek. Isabelle cleaned her grandmother’s bowl and spoon at the sink.
    “Good morning, Isabelle,” Boris said.
    “Good morning, Isabelle,” Bert said.
    Isabelle, sleepiest of all, returned their weak smiles, thenfilled her grandmother’s bowl with cold, lumpy porridge. She poured tea into a cup.
    “That food ain’t fer you,” Mama Lu barked from her throne. She had wrapped a knitted yellow scarf around her neck. A matching knitted yellow hat sat on her head like an oversized egg yolk. “Ya was up to no good last night so ya git nothing.”
    “I’m not eating anything,” Isabelle said. “This is for my grandma.” As much as Isabelle detested the porridge paste, her stomach already missed it.
    “Yer a liar. Ya ruined my dessert,” Mama Lu said, peeling orange wax from a wedge of cheese and flicking the bits onto her tenant’s heads.
    “I didn’t ruin it,” Isabelle blurted. “I didn’t touch the apple. I came downstairs because I heard you scream.”
    “Is ya contradicting me? I say yer a liar.”
    “I’m not a liar.” Isabelle held her breath, trying to control the anger that raced through her. What would the landlady do? Take away her breathing privileges? What else was there to take?
    Mama Lu scowled and leaned over the armrest. The observation chair tipped precariously. “Don’t make me come down there, you unwanted, abandoned little mushroom-growing wretch. ’Cause I will. I’ll come down there and wallop ya on the head with my cheese tray.”
    Isabelle could see right up Mama Lu’s gaping nostrils. She imagined climbing the observation chair’s ladder and shoving a wedge of cheese right up that bulbous nose. But,of course, she didn’t. She couldn’t change the fact that Mama Lu was a tyrant or that her sick old grandmother needed breakfast. So, rather than defending herself further, she hummed a little song to calm herself down while she finished putting together the breakfast tray. And, since she had taught the song to the other tenants, they snickered while she hummed.
The Mama Lu Song
    All day long she sits in her chair,
    in her fuzzy bathrobe and striped underwear,
    yelling and hollering and making up rules,
    telling us we’re stupid, calling us fools.
    What can we do about Mama Lu?
We could
    push over her chair,
    stick slugs in her hair,
    flush all of her cheese down the toilet.
    Sneeze in her face,
    track mud in the place,
    take her bathrobe and boil it!
We could
    dump gruel on her head,
    put slugs in her bed,
    fill both of her slippers with gutter sludge.
    Give her a cold,
    flick her with mold,
    serve her slug poop and tell her it’s fudge.
    “Stop yer humming!” Mama Lu shouted. “Humming and singing all the time. Acting
different
and
special
all the time. Growing that stuff on yer head because ya thinks