Chapter 3

The moment he said it, Maisie went white, and Joe hopped on the spot in a panic.

"On what grounds can you take it back? This is our Fox family house!"

Joe lunged forward to tear the notice off the wall.

The director shoved him back and gave a cold laugh. "No deed, no proof it's yours. Rules are rules. If I don't see the papers by noon tomorrow, I'll send the bulldozers in and settle it that way."

The moment the redevelopment people left, the way Maisie and Joe looked at each other changed.

Everyone knew there wasn't much time left.

That night nobody in the house slept.

I lay in bed pretending to sleep, eyes half open on the window.

At two in the morning, footsteps crossed the yard.

I lifted the edge of the curtain and saw Grandma walk into the front room, her hair loose.

At the same moment, the doors of the east and west rooms both cracked open a sliver.

Grandma stopped in front of the altar table, looking at Grandpa's memorial tablet, her body swaying.

"Old man, you went so early. That box you tucked behind the tablet, I locked everything valuable inside it. Nobody can take it from me."

When she finished muttering, she turned and shuffled slowly back to her room.

She had barely gone inside when the yard came alive.

Joe ran straight to the gate and threw the main power switch.

"Joe Fox, you bastard!"

Maisie cursed him out in the dark.

Then I heard a rush of scrambling footsteps heading for the front room.

I pushed my door open and looked, by the moonlight, in the direction Grandma had gone.

Joe had just reached the front room doorway when Maisie, a padlock in her hand from somewhere, slammed into him from behind and shoved him straight into the woodshed beside it.

Then, with a click, she locked the woodshed door.

"Let me out! Maisie Fox, you vicious witch! You think you can keep it all?"

Joe kicked at the door and roared from inside.

Maisie ignored him. Flashlight in hand, she darted to the altar table, knocked over Grandpa's memorial tablet, and pulled a wooden box out of the hidden compartment behind the shrine.

"Mine! It's mine! The five houses are mine!"

Maisie hugged the box and laughed out loud.

Inside the woodshed, Joe heard her and lost it.

He grabbed a rusty hatchet, smashed the window, and hauled himself out through the frame, not caring about the pain.

He was about to pounce and grab, when his eyes caught on the floor tiles under the shrine.

That was the spot Grandma had spent all day staring at with that vacant grin.

Joe's eyes shifted. He dropped to his knees and started prying up the tiles.

A few minutes later he dug out a square bundle wrapped in oilcloth.

"Yours is a fake! This is the real deed!" Joe crowed.

My parents watched the two of them, each clutching something, and stamped their feet in a panic, but neither dared step in and grab.

So that was how it went. Neither Maisie nor Joe dared to sleep.

They guarded each other like they were guarding against a thief, and dragged themselves through in the yard until dawn.

Noon on the third day.

The township supervisor and the redevelopment office director stepped through the gate right on time, a crowd of nosy neighbors trailing behind them.

"Time's up. Did you find it? If not, we go by procedure."

The director checked his watch and pressed them, his face cold.

Maisie rushed up first and slapped the wooden box down in front of him. "Found it! This came out from behind my father's memorial tablet. It's absolutely the deed!"

Joe wasn't about to be outdone. He shoved Maisie aside and set his mud-caked bundle on the table too.

"That's a load of crap. Yours has to be fake. Mine was hidden the deepest. This is the real deed!"

The director frowned. "Enough, stop arguing. We'll open them and see."

Maisie shot Joe a smug look and started prying at the box's latch.

The box opened, and there really was a yellowed old sheet of paper lying inside.

Maisie was shaking with excitement. She handed the paper over with both hands. "Take a look, sir. It's the old deed!"

The director took the paper, unfolded it, and his face went strange.