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table in front of the reading corner couch. “Thanks,” she said, accepting an Italian soda from Susan and grabbing a maple bar.
    No sooner had Susan and Jenny gobbled down a doughnut each, chasing them with heavily creamed coffee, the business day started at Sullivan’s. A half-dozen people, young and old, and even an elderly farming couple from out of town, browsed the shelves. The phone rang constantly, local businesses ordering office supplies, which Jenny would deliver later that afternoon.
    Penny and Zoe stuffed themselves on doughnuts and headed back outside.
    Penny scanned the street and sidewalk again, but there was no sign of a fox, talking or otherwise.
    “Come on,” Zoe tugged on Penny’s arm. “There’s an amethyst crystal in there I want to buy.”
    Penny had no real interest in spending the day rummaging through boxes of rocks, interesting as Zoe found them, but followed anyway.
    The old shopkeeper met them with a wave, and a slightly embarrassed smile. “Welcome back, young ladies.”
    Zoe gave him a distracted wave as she honed in on the back room again, but Penny lingered, more interested in his memories than his rocks.
    “I’m sorry to hear about your mother, young lady. She was a nice girl. You must miss her a lot.”
    Mention of her mom momentarily drove all questions from her mind. Just when she was finally thinking of something besides her mom, when it seemed she was able to go a day without crying, all the sadness crashed back down on her. Penny looked at her feet so he wouldn’t see her burning eyes, so he wouldn’t see how close to tears she was now, and said, “Thank you. I do miss her, but I’m doing okay.”
    He made a sound of affirmation, almost a grunt. “Miss Taylor is the nicest person you could have found to stay with. She’ll take care of you.”
    Penny nodded, then hurried to the back room, questions about her father forgotten for the time. She found Zoe standing over the same bin as before eyeing the polished stones like the contents of a treasure chest.
    “Ah ha!” She pulled a cluster of fat purple crystals from the bin and held them up for Penny to admire, then rushed past her to pay for them.
    Oh well , Penny thought, giving her shoulders a shrug. So what if she’s a bit weird .
    Everyone was weird in some way. At least Zoe was weird in a fun way.
    Rooster, his brother, and the rest of the boys were back at the park for their daily ball game, so Penny and Zoe decided to walk over to the school and have a look around. As they passed the game in progress, Zoe stopped and said, “Look at that!”
    Penny turned and saw the fox again, sitting in the outfield, watching the game.
    “You … you can see it too?”
    Zoe gave her an incredulous sideways glance and said, “Of course I can.”
    However, when the fox rose on all four legs and trotted into the infield, Zoe’s mouth dropped open. The fox passed between second base and shortstop, stopping behind the pitcher’s mound and Rooster.
    She turned back to Penny and said, “Can’t they see it?”
    Penny shrugged, continuing to watch the spectacle.

    Rooster’s arms pinwheeled in a comically exaggerated pitch, but before he could release the ball the fox stepped up behind him and grabbed the hem of his shorts with its teeth. It yanked them down to his ankles, exposing Rooster’s saggy, stained underwear.
    The other boys in the field, including Rooster’s older brother, exploded in laughter as Rooster’s pitch flew wild and he scrambled to get his shorts back up.
    Penny was too shocked to laugh, but Zoe laughed hard enough for both of them.
    “Do you think we can get it to follow me home? Maybe I could train it to tie his shoelaces together.”
    Rooster turned and shook a fist at them, as if they’d somehow caused his shorts to fall down.
    The fox was gone.
     

 
Chapter 7
    The Fox and the Box
    Penny and Zoe rounded off their day with an exploration of the school grounds, lunch at the little restaurant next to