That's when they heard something that sounded like a great group of squirrels chattering, but far, far off.

  The mayor leaned into the microphone. "Happy Easter, everyone!" he said. "The Easter Bunny has outdone himself this year—there are five Golden Eggs hidden in the park with gift certificates to some of Turtle Rock's finest business establishments!"

  Someone called out from the crowd. The mayor responded: "Carol says there's a twenty-five-dollar gift certificate to Tamarack Books!"

  That chattering sound behind them grew louder. It wasn't squirrels. It sounded more like an assemblage of chanters—a roving band of monks? People began to turn around, away from the platform where the mayor and Miss Wiggins stood, squinting to see if they could spy anything back at the edge of the park. They knew it was rude to look away while the mayor spoke so sincerely, but surely no one expected them to pretend such a racket did not exist.

  And then they saw them: they were coming up over the edge of the bluff, from the unused path that ran by the old sanatorium. They appeared bit by bit: carrying signs, wearing hats, either green or yellow or both. There must have been sixty of those junior-high kids, yelling and chanting, with signs pinned on their shirts, hanging off their green-and-yellow hats, and mounted on hockey sticks: FREE WIGGINS HILL! IT'S THE SUGAR BUSH NOT WIGGINS HILL! SLEDDING FOR EVERYONE!

  They scanned the group to pick out that girl Lucy Moon—the green-and-yellow hat, the braids so long that one fell into each pocket of the orange puffy coat. She must be here somewhere, they thought.

  And there she was: Lucy Moon stood right near the front with that Zoë Rossignol. They were leading the chanting, sign-bearing adolescents toward the podium. When they got close, they circled the podium and the crowd in front of it. The noise was deafening.

  Some of the audience members smiled to themselves, because this was shaping up to be much more interesting than they'd ever expected—this wasn't news, this was a human drama of epic proportions! (Or as "epic" as a situation got in the polite society of a small town located in northern Minnesota.)

  Heads began to pivot between Miss Wiggins, the mayor, Lucy Moon, the junior-high protesters, and back again. The mayor continued talking, but later, no one could recall a word he said—not a soul had listened.

  The two photographers from the Turtle Rock Times scuttled around, shutters clicking.

  The junior-high students chanted so loudly, they effectively masked the sound of the mayor's voice over the speakers. "Steward—not owner! Wiggins Hill's a loaner!" "Take down the fence! We want recompense!" "No one owns it! No one owns it! No one owns it!"

  It seemed Miss Wiggins wasn't paying a lot of attention to the commotion passing by at ankle-level. She looked as though she were truly listening to the mayor, but one couldn't help but notice how her lips seemed pinched together.

  The mayor tried to wrap things up. "And now, before we begin, a word from Miss Wiggins . . ." he said, nearly dropping the microphone as he swatted at a protester's sign, "... who nourishes our souls with the mulch of her composting verbiage on the eve of spring!"

  Miss Wiggins raised an eyebrow at this. A few people chuckled at the introduction, since the poor, befuddled man had just said that Miss Wiggins's words stunk to high heaven.

  But Miss Wiggins took the microphone graciously, all at ease, it seemed. Then she searched through the faces of the chanting adolescents. She found the girl she wanted— Lucy Moon—and she said this directly to her, in the gentlest voice anyone had ever heard Miss Wiggins use: "Could I have a moment to speak, please? I think you'll like what I have to say."

  Lucy Moon finished her chant, ". . . Wiggins Hill's a loaner!"

  "Please," said Miss Wiggins.

  Their eyes connected. For a moment, the tension between them was so palpable, it was easy to imagine a squirrel traversing it like a telephone wire.

  Then Lucy Moon nodded. She stopped marching, put down her sign, and signaled to the others. It took a minute, but soon they were quiet.

  Miss Wiggins smiled at the protesters and began. "This year, my Easter Egg Hunt Address will be personal in nature."

  The reporter from the Turtle Rock Times opened her notebook. The photographers focused their lenses on Miss Wiggins. Folks in the crowd glanced at each other expectantly.

  "I've come to a time in life when I need to make some decisions," Miss Wiggins continued, "and since I've been so intimately involved with Turtle Rock, I feel I should announce them publicly." Miss Wiggins glanced around. "There are three announcements: First, as you know, Turtle Rock's hospital attracts people from all over northern Minnesota because of our first-rate staff and medical technology. I've decided that there needs to be a complement to the hospital in the form of a luxury retirement community. This has been a dream of mine for a long time, and I've had the blueprints for several years. So, with the blessing of the hospital, I'm happy to announce that we'll begin digging this spring. The first resident will be me."

  "This means that, secondly, I will be spending fewer hours at Wiggins Faucet. I don't expect to ever give up work, but I will be allowing more time for travel, seeing friends, and reading historical treatises."

  "Thirdly and lastly." Miss Wiggins twisted around so she spoke directly to Lucy Moon. "I must thank Lucy Moon and Polly Kortum for discovering the agreement between Amos Zebulon and Sebastian Wiggins concerning the sugar bush, a thing I knew nothing about until I read it, with all of you, in the Turtle Rock Times" Miss Wiggins paused, and then continued: "Wiggins Hill will be donated to the city of Turtle Rock as a public park. The fence will come down as soon as I hire a construction crew to remove it."

  Miss Wiggins held an open hand in Lucy's direction. She began to clap. "Thank you, Lucy Moon."

  The crowd gasped, and then began clapping, too. The protesters began to cheer, throwing their signs and hats into the air.

  "And now, I suppose we should begin the Easter Egg Hunt." Miss Wiggins seemed to say this directly to Lucy Moon.

  (Later, a few folks suggested that Miss Wiggins's smile seemed strangely triumphant, but others said, "Oh, no, that wasn't it at all; though I will say she stared at that girl for an awful long time.")

  Still, when they glanced at Lucy Moon to see how she took that look, they saw Lucy meet Miss Wiggins's gaze steadily, her lips a straight line. That girl had courage, some thought. Others wondered how a junior-high girl had found the perseverance to keep at this Wiggins Hill issue all this time. A town could do worse than having a few more Lucy Moons around.

  Then the mayor handed Miss Wiggins a megaphone, and Miss Wiggins aimed it at the children waiting to begin the hunt for chocolate eggs.

  "Ready . . ." she said.

  Several children put one foot over the start line.

  "Set. . ."

  The children leaned forward, gritted their teeth, and tried to focus on this year's egg-hunting strategy.

  The elderly in the crowd reflected that things didn't go this right very often in a lifetime. Then they smiled, watching those children. If Miss Wiggins didn't say "go" soon, someone would likely be impaled on an elbow!

  As snowflakes began to drift from the sky, the word came:

  "Go!" said Miss Wiggins.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Through big flakes of snow, Lucy watched the little kids break through the ribbon and spill out over Lookout Park. Lucy Moon felt her happiness flee with them.

  All around her, junior-high students were jumping up and down, hugging each other, and screaming. They tossed their green-and-yellow hats into the air, trampled on their signs, and threw the bits of cardboard sign up, and up again. Some students ran to Miss Wiggins and thanked her. It seemed to Lucy that Miss Wiggins shrugged them off (of course), but it was stupid, stupid to go thank her, treating her like some sort of hero, after all the wrong she had done. She had fenced the hill even after her father had signed an agreement promising not to do it. Had everyone forgotten?

  Lucy put her hands on her hips.

  And then, Miss Wiggins had used Lucy in her speech to make herself look generous! She'd used her!

  Sam and Zoë grabbed Lucy's hands and dragged her around in a circle. Then they hugged her. Lucy submitted with the enthusiasm of overcooked spinach.

  The impression Lucy had of Miss Wiggins's announcement was of someone doing a dance step—step here, step there, do a twist, and walk away.

  At the very least, Miss Wiggins should have said these three words: "I am sorry." But she hadn't said them. No, instead, Miss Wiggins made the announcement sound as if it were her idea all along: to give a gift of Wiggins Hill to the itty-bitty children. And everyone cheered. How was this possible? This was all wrong! "I'm sorry" was what Miss Wiggins needed to say!

  Oh, Lucy couldn't stand it! She stomped her foot. But since Sam stood right next to her, she ended up stomping on his foot, hard.

  "Ouch!" he said. He began rubbing his foot, pain scrawled across his face. "What did you do that for?"

  "Oh, sorry," Lucy said. "Really sorry, Sam!" The only boy she'd ever liked, and she'd stomped on his foot.

  Lucy realized then that she, Lucy Moon, had just apologized. Yes, Lucy was the first one to say "sorry" in Lookout Park at the Easter Egg Hunt.

  She was getting a pain in her head. Lucy rubbed her temple and watched Miss Wiggins walk up the hill to her car. She stopped here and there to shake hands. A photographer hovered around Miss Wiggins like a gnat, until the mayor opened Miss Wiggins's car door. She stepped in, closed the door, and drove away. Just like that.

  "I'm leaving," Lucy said to Sam and Zoë. She started to run. She ran as hard as her lungs let her. She pumped her arms and legs like pistons in an engine. Her braids flip-flopped against the back of her coat, and Lucy ran and ran and ran and ran.

  Lucy ran past the parked cars, out of the park, and into the neighborhood. Thank you, Lucy Moon. Lucy heard it again and again, like a mosquito hovering near her ear. Thank you, Lucy Moon. Thank you, Lucy Moon.

  Lucy yelled, "AAAAAAAAaaahhhhhh!"

  Then she bent over, panting, and realized what she had done—she had just screamed in the middle of a neighborhood on Easter Sunday. What was she thinking? She glanced around between breaths. In each of the shoe box—style houses, people began to gather in the rectangular windows, peering out.

  Lucy tucked her braids, her most recognizable feature, into the collar of her orange coat. She was happy to note it was snowing harder now, making it more difficult to see.

  She needed to get out of here, but where could she go?

  Then she got an idea. Yeah. It was a little out of the way, and she didn't want to walk on any major roads, because someone might see her, give her a thumbs-up, or want to talk to her. Still, she could get there.

  So Lucy lifted a line of barbed wire with one hand and bent underneath it. She'd start by cutting across this field.

  Lucy thought of her dad then. He'd expect her home any minute now. Reluctantly, he'd let her go to the Easter Egg Hunt, and only after Lucy had begged for an hour, promising a peaceful protest (like Gandhi and Martin Luther King). Lucy was pretty sure he thought it was only going to be six of them holding signs. (Lucy truly hadn't expected all those kids, either.) She was supposed to return home right afterward for Easter dinner (vegan stuffed peppers). But nothing had turned out the way Lucy had expected, and she didn't want to go home. She wanted to be alone.

  Lucy ignored the eerie sense of deja vu all this wanting to be alone gave her. She had spent weeks avoiding people, being alone. That hadn't gone so well. But so what? There had to be times when people needed—like oxygen, water, food, and sleep—to be alone, right?

  It was snowing quite hard now. Lucy reached up to take off her hemp hat so she could pull on her knit one, and that's when she realized that the green-and-yellow hat wasn't there. Where was it? Lucy spun around in one direction and then the other.

  The hat was nowhere to be seen. It must have fallen off when she was running, or maybe it had gotten caught on that barbed wire a while back. Tears gathered in the corners of Lucy's eyes. But she would not lose control. Lucy pulled on her knit hat, wiped at her eyes with her mittens, and kept on walking.

  This would not, should not—will not be the end, thought Lucy. It couldn't end this way. Lucy remembered the last weeks: the Genie wearing green-and-yellow hats day after day, and then everyone else doing it, too. The Genie—of all people! When Zoë, Sam, and Lucy gathered people for the Easter Egg Hunt March, tons of kids had shown up. They'd swarmed up the side of that hill, chanting, signs held high. It was all so right, so how could it have ended so wrong?

  After walking through a grove of pines, sprinting discreetly through the backyards of a few houses, hauling her body over a fence and onto a neighborhood street, Lucy finally reached the end of Twelfth Street. She walked to an opening in the trees and saw it—Wiggins Hill.

  Even fenced, the hill took her breath away. The light through the falling snow washed the scene with the palest blue, and the giant sugar maple looked like an etching. Everything else—the five smaller sugar maples, the brambles, the top of the hill—dropped away, suggestions only, hidden behind a lace of snow.

  Lucy felt better immediately. She began to jog the perimeter of the hill, sticking out her mittened hand to bump it along the chain link.

  That's when it occurred to her: this fence was coming down. Next time, she'd be able to dash across this hill and tag the big sugar maple if she liked.

  It was as if she'd been struck by lightning. A surge of joy shook Lucy's body.Yes!

  Why had it taken her this long to see it? Why did she have to be physically present at Wiggins Hill to understand the celebration at the Easter Egg Hunt? Yes, Miss Wiggins had fenced the hill. But Miss Wiggins was donating the hill to the city for a park. She was giving it up! That seemed a fair trade for a document that probably wouldn't hold up in a court of law. Suddenly, Miss Wiggins's using Lucy to look good didn't seem like such a big deal anymore. Miss Wiggins could thank her morning, noon, and night! Lucy wanted to . . .

  "WHOOOHOOOOOWEEEEEYAAAAAAAA!"

  Lucy began dancing an Irish jig (or what she thought an Irish jig looked like). She clapped her hands over her head and sang a made-up song: "Ha-ha-ha-ha . . . freedom! Freedom!"

  They had done it!

  "Who's there?" a voice called from the top of Wiggins Hill.

  Lucy froze.

  She squinted up the hill. She could barely make out a woman standing near the top, and if it weren't for the big solid boots on the woman's feet, Lucy would have said it was Miss Wiggins. The woman shaded her eyes with her hand and peered down the hill. It was Miss Wiggins.

  Surely, Miss Wiggins saw Lucy in this bright-orange coat, but Lucy didn't say anything. She had wanted to see the hill, not Miss Wiggins. And now she saw that coming to the hill hadn't been the brightest idea since, of course, Miss Wiggins lived at the top of it.

  Lucy was reminded again of all the times Miss Wiggins's name had popped up over and over the last few months, and how it seemed like she was connected to Lucy's life. But Lucy was sure she wasn't. Still, Lucy couldn't get Miss Wiggins out of her head. She'd read the newspaper and see her name and photo everywhere. Miss Wiggins was either on the board of some organization, or donating money, just like she donated that money for the gallery space that replaced her mom's studio, or for Mrs. Mudd's new "The Tiny Tims & the Healing Power of Dickens" brochures. She probably even gave to that dumb "Fill the Pencil with Lead" fund-raising campaign for the gymnasium at the junior high. . . . But what did Miss Wiggins get in return?

  That's when it occurred to her. Lucy stood stock still, hardly daring to breathe, until one by one her thoughts slipped into place. Could it be?

  Well, there was only one way to find out. . . .

  "It's Lucy Moon!" she yelled as loud as she could.

  Lucy climbed through the hole in the fence and half jogged up the hill toward Miss Wiggins.

  Miss Wiggins waited for her at the top of the hill, her arms crossed over her chest. And though Lucy was out of breath, she summoned every bit of strength to begin talking as soon as she came near enough to be heard. "Was it a coincidence that Gustafson's Wild Nature Gallery got a donation from you after you'd had some sort of run-in with my mom on the road? What about the junior high needing a new gymnasium and looking for donations? Is that why I got a double-length detention, a psychological examination (a lame one, by the way), and a recommendation for Youth Action? Was it a coincidence that Mrs. Mudd had decided to make me her special cleaning companion around the same time she got a donation from you for those new 'Tiny Tims & the Healing Power of Dickens' brochures?"

  Lucy didn't know what she expected to happen, but in a rush of insight, she knew that if Miss Wiggins had any sense she wouldn't answer. And she didn't—or not with words. But for a split second, recognition seemed to cross Miss Wiggins's face. Miss Wiggins knew something; she had done something, but what? The look passed, and a more polished demeanor took its place.

  Then it occurred to Lucy that the situation might be more complicated than she had thought. (Lucy wondered why sometimes it took saying a thing to make this realization.) It was complicated because when someone had money, people did all sorts of things to please them. Everybody knew that Lucy was involved with The Turtle Rock Times Shuts Its Eyes and the "Free Wiggins Hill!" postcards. Maybe people punished her because they thought it would please Miss Wiggins. Or maybe it wasn't something as harsh as punishment—maybe it was as simple as not giving Lucy the benefit of the doubt. Not getting the benefit of the doubt could lead to all sorts of things—things like Youth Action and unending detentions. All of this could have happened without Miss Wiggins knowing about it at all. And, hey, maybe Miss Wiggins believed that reading Dickens healed people.

  Oh, come on, thought Lucy. No one was going to convince her that Miss Wiggins believed in that kind of baloney!

  "You did something," Lucy said.

  Miss Wiggins snorted. "Just because a person has the money to pay for anything they want doesn't mean they'd do it, Lucy. I'll have you know I have strict principles and I adhere to them."