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wonderful way to settle down.
    Keisha needed to settle down to figure out where a scared little alligator would go when he escaped from a bathtub. If he was frightened, he probably wouldn’t go in the direction of the animal enclosures behind the house. Too many noises and strange sounds and smells. While she was stroking the curve of baby Paulo’s foot, a word popped into Keisha’s brain—“moist.” That’s what the alligator would seek. His little osteoderms—those bony lumps under his scales—would want water. Alligators can smell water, too. Hadn’t they found him in the city pool in the first place?

    Just as Keisha was reaching her deepest and most excellent thinking-like-an-alligator thoughts, she was interrupted by the sound of a familiar song. Ugh. Even though she could barely hear it, she knew that song. It was “Possums in Love,” the silly song on the music toy that Mr. Sanders had given Razi.
    If Paulo hadn’t thrown it out the window, Keisha could have pulled on the string until it broke so she’d have a little peace and quiet again.
    Wait a minute.
    Keisha froze, listening for the direction of the music. Baby Paulo had thrown the toy out the window over the sink. But the music was coming from the big window by the table. That was around the corner from where Paulo had thrown it.
    How did the toy get around the corner? And
who
kept pulling the string?
    Surely not an alligator!

Chapter Six
    Keisha climbed onto the counter to stick her head out the open window. Looking to her right, Keisha could see Grandma across the alley, talking to Mr. Perkins about his sweet peas. She couldn’t call out to her because at the corner of the house, she saw that the bushes were rustling! She could barely hear it, but wasn’t that possum music in the bushes? And it was getting farther and farther away!
    Keisha pulled her head back inside and sat on the counter. If only she could run outside and investigate, but Mama had said no one was to go outside—no exceptions.
    She put her fingers at the place where her hair met her forehead. Maybe the noise was coming from someone’s car and they were driving away. No, because a car driving would make the music disappear altogether, and Keisha could still hear the song. Hmmm. Maybe someone was playing it on their radio. No again. Because Keisha heard just the music and not the lady’s voice like they had on the radio.
    Keisha started rocking Paulo’s car seat on thecounter next to her. Could the alligator have found the music toy and eaten it? That would explain how it moved! Everyone knows that the places things come out are not as big as the places things go in … especially with an alligator. Oh dear. They might have a very sick alligator on their hands. Keisha had to act quickly.
    Every once in a while—not so very often—Keisha broke the rules. Daddy called it the gray area. It might be wrong, but if it was wrong for the right reasons, especially if it was an emergency, it was okay to break the rules.
    Mama had been clear that Keisha was
not
to go outside. She was not to let anyone else outside, either. But Keisha could not think of another answer for how that toy moved around the house. There weren’t any kids playing nearby. Razi was upstairs.
    The question to ask was: Does an alligator swallowing a music toy make an emergency?
    It might not if you were a normal person, but Keisha was part of Carters’ Urban Rescue and
that
meant it
was
an emergency.
    Keisha looked down at the sleeping baby. His head had fallen to the side, and bubbles of spit were coming out of his mouth. Tearing a piece of paper towel fromthe roll, Keisha wiped the spit bubbles away. She thought about running over to get Grandma, but Grandma didn’t always help matters.
    If
the sound of the music was moving because the alligator ate the music toy,
then
wherever the music was the alligator was, and
if
she knew where the alligator was,
then
she could catch him.
    But why was the alligator