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But Mr. Fox didn’t need to tell them what had happened over the years because, right on cue, a squirrel hopped onto the window ledge behind him and flicked
his bristly tail. And before they could say “kabibble,” the squirrel had leapt up and caught the edge of the windowpane just above his head.

“What has happened over the years—” Mr. Fox repeated.

Even though he wasn’t facing the window, Keisha could tell Mr. Fox knew what was going on behind him.

“As I was saying, our great founder, Mr. Charles Lowe, believed in the preservation of nature.…”

It was hard to pay attention to the history of the situation at the same time that a squirrel hung there, trying to catch his footing, his little feet banging up against the window.

“Heavens to Betsey Johnson.” Grandma stood up and walked around the desk. She rapped on the window with her knuckle, but the squirrel just chattered at her. “He’s a stubborn little guy.”

“Please don’t, Mrs. Carter. I’ve tried that already. I’ve shot rubber bands at the window and shined my telescoping shop light right in their eyes.” Mr. Fox massaged the skin at his temples. “All I’ve managed to do is make one squirrel lose his footing and fall.”

“Have you tried this?” Grandma unhooked the latch on the window and started to push on the sash.

“It’s painted shut. Please come away from the window. I don’t want to hurt him. I just want him to go away.” Mr.
Fox turned back to Keisha. “Can you imagine what it’s like to interview job candidates with a squirrel dangling from the windowsill behind your head?”

“Is
he
your five o’clock appointment?” Keisha asked.

“Yes! Around lunchtime and five p.m. almost every day, a squirrel shows up and tries to climb to the terrace above me. Sometimes it’s more than one! It’s very unnerving. I have no idea what he’s trying to get to … there’s nothing on the fourth floor but empty offices.”

“Maybe … maybe someone is feeding the squirrels from a window above yours …,” Keisha suggested. “And that person goes there when there’s no one else around.”

“No, no. I’m sure not.” Mr. Fox smoothed his hand over his head and adjusted his tie. “The woman who used to have this position put peanuts on the ledge out there. I think they’re still hoping I’ll do the same. But I can assure you that hasn’t happened since I became human resources director. What do you think?” Mr. Fox asked. “Is there a safe way to discourage these squirrels?”

The squirrel was still outside doing pull-ups on the windowpane. Keisha wondered how long it could hang on.

“Keisha?” Grandma asked.

Keisha looked at Grandma.
She
usually talked first. “Um … I think the problem bears further study,”
Keisha said, which was the line that Daddy used when he wanted more time to think things through.

Finally, the squirrel managed to get his hind legs up on the windowpane. Now he was hanging upside down, looking in at them.

“Well …” Grandma cleared her throat. She sat up straight in her chair. “Squirrels have small brains, but maybe ninety-eight percent of that brainpower is used to fulfill one task, and—”

A loud scraping noise at the window interrupted Grandma. The squirrel had used the windowpane to launch himself into the cold winter afternoon. Grandma and Keisha stood up together, straining to get a look. They were relieved to see a squirrel, all in one piece, chattering at them from the branch of a nearby tree. He scurried up the trunk until he was out of sight.

Grandma leaned on Mr. Fox’s desk and looked into his eyes.

“We have the bigger brains, Mr. Fox. The task before us is to outfox these squirrels. No pun intended, of course.”

Keisha helped Paulo up on the stool in front of the kitchen sink. Standing behind him so he didn’t wobble off, she held his hands under the running water.

“Scub-scub-scub,” Paulo sang as he slapped his pudgy hands together. Clean hands were always important, but they were especially important at mealtimes in the Carter family.

“Did you put the calabaza squash in the stew?” Keisha called out over her shoulder to Mama.

“Of course I did.” The Carters’ postman, Mr. Sanders, often brought Keisha exotic vegetables and fruits he found at the markets on his route. He’d started the habit when Keisha needed help with her geography. Something you could touch was much easier to remember than a list of cities and countries. Calabaza was a sweet squash from the Caribbean. If you started in Grand River, Michigan, and walked all the way down the United States, taking a left in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, you’d probably meet a calabaza squash along the way.

“Calabaza-calabaza-watch-me-do-the-steptaraza.” Razi heel-toed his way through the kitchen, letting the new word roll across his tongue.

“Hey!” Daddy lifted the platter containing the fufu—mashed sweet potato rolled into balls and fried—so it didn’t meet Razi’s bobbing head. “No tap dancing while we’re getting ready for dinner.”

“But it’s more fun that way,” Grandma said. She step-tapped to the table with the spoons and forks. Grandma liked to eat with her fingers like the rest of the Carters, but she also liked to keep her options open. “Where are the party parasols for the drinks? Do I need to make another trip to the Dollar Store?”

“I needed them to practice my cheers.” Razi pulled two bedraggled parasols from his front pants pocket. “I want to cheer for Keisha next time she jumps rope so she doesn’t get scared.”

“I was
not
scared, Razi. I was nervous.”

“Oh no.” He tried to open one of the parasols but the tissue paper had torn. “This one’s broken.”

“Careful, everyone. This is hot.” Mama put the steaming chicken stew in the middle of the table. Daddy set his platter next to hers. The smell of cinnamon and sweet potatoes filled the room and drew all the Carters to the table.

As Mama put the stew into bowls and Keisha helped Paulo into his seat, Grandma announced: “I will say grace.” She sat down and folded her hands. Before everyone had a chance to sit and spread a napkin on
their laps, she said: “Dear Lord, thank you for the bounty of this food, for the farmers who grew it and the wonderful cooks who make it smell so good. And, if you don’t mind, can you transfer a little bit of the nerve we saw in that squirrel today to our Keisha? Amen.”

“Hmmmm …” Daddy poked his thumb into a ball of fufu and spooned a bit of chicken and rice into it for Paulo. “I was going to tell you about my turtle-shell class, but before I do, I think I better hear about this squirrel.”

“Can I have the floor first, Daddy?” Having the floor meant Keisha got to talk all by herself—no interrupting.

“Of course you can.”

“I would like to ask everyone to please
stop
talking about my nerves. It’s making me more nervous.” As she made her little speech, Rocket jumped up and put his front paws on Keisha’s lap. She patted Rocket’s head. What was it about a puppy that made you feel good even when you felt bad?

Right then and there, Keisha made a decision. “Rocket’s the only one who can give me advice.”

“That’s not fair,” Razi said.

“Nair.” Paulo banged on his tray.

“Good idea, Key,” Daddy said. “Watch Rocket tonight and see if he isn’t the most in-the-moment member of this family.”

“He’s not in the moment. He’s in the kitchen.” Razi dropped his mound of sweet potato into his bowl of stew and pressed it below the surface. “With us.”

“Maybe you need a squirrel on the Grand River Steppers. Think of the tricks he could do, especially if he was hungry.” Grandma proceeded to tell the Carters who were not in attendance about the squirrel outside Mr. Fox’s office window.

“Ee curl,” Paulo said, popping a piece of his fufu in his mouth.

“You can see the squirrel tomorrow.” Grandma reached over to wipe the dribble off Paulo’s chin. “I’ll put you in the papoose and we’ll do some investigating on that campus. Our new friend, Sister Mary-Lee, told us the squirrels are scaring the college students.”

“Paulo can go tomorrow, but
I
can’t,” Razi said. “I have tap-dance practice after school.
I’m
going to be one of the boys doing the Bojangles stair dance.”

“You mean
the
Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson stair dance?” Daddy asked.

Mama leaned over and picked up the napkin Razi had dropped to the floor when he made his announcement. “I thought you said the third graders were doing the stair dance.”

“My music teachers, Ms. Allen and Ms. Perry, say I’m advanced.” As if to prove it, Razi tapped his toes
against the side of his chair. “My costume has a tail.”

“Back to the squirrels for a minute, bucko …” Daddy speared another ball of fufu with his fork and dropped it on Paulo’s tray. “This happened last summer. Don’t you remember, Fay? Mom, it was when you took the kids to zoo camp. Fay and I went out and talked to the head of the Grand River Veterans Affairs Facility. What was his name, Fay?”

“Lieutenant Washington,” Mama said. “ ‘Squirrels gone wild,’ I think he called it.”

“Right. The guys in the rehab program were feeding peanuts to the squirrels, and they got too tame.”

“How did they solve their problem?” Keisha asked.

“They stopped feeding them. It takes a while, but it usually works.”

“But Sister Mary-Lee said they stopped feeding them last summer. Right, Grandma?”

“They were
asked.
That is different from they
stopped.
Something’s amiss at Mt. Mercy,” Grandma said. “No self-respecting squirrel puts on a show like that without food as a goal. I tell you it was worthy of a circus.”

One of the good things about snow was that you couldn’t get too serious about jump rope at lunch. Everyone had to wear their boots and the blacktop was wet. That
meant Keisha and her friends could goof around—play freeze tag, do handclaps or jump double Dutch just for fun. But you had to keep moving because it was cold! Though she loved to play in the snow, Keisha’s hands were always the first to turn to ice inside her mittens.

“Come on,” she said to her friends Wen, Aaliyah and Jorge. “We gotta do something to warm up. Let’s handclap.”

Wen stood in the middle of her circle of friends. “Let’s do it shoulder-to-shoulder so we get some body heat, too. We’ve still got five minutes.”

They leaned against the side of the school in a line and did “The Long-Legged Sailor,” patting their own knees, then patting the friend on the right, then the friend on the left.

Keisha liked “The Long-Legged Sailor” because they tapped faster and faster as the rhyme went on, and you couldn’t help but warm up with all the arm-pumping and getting your knees slapped. They’d finished “short-legged” and “pigeon-toed” and were on “bow-legged”
when Ms. Tellerico came out with her arm around a tall, thin girl in a skirt. Her long, dark hair might have kept her shoulders warm, but Keisha could see goose bumps on her pale legs.

Everyone stopped clapping to watch them come across the playground. Nobody wore a skirt in the dead of winter—at least not without snow pants.

“Something tells me that girl is not from around here,” Aaliyah declared.

“From the way she’s dressed and the look on her face, she must come from someplace warm and sunny.” Wen straightened up.

“Hello, FFGs.” Ms. Tellerico used the nickname their teacher, Mr. Drockmore, gave his class. “FFGs” stood for “Fantastic Fifth Graders.” “I want to introduce you to Savannah. She just moved here and she’ll be in your class, but she needs a buddy.”

“Looks like she needs a hot-water bottle.” Aaliyah tugged on her puffy jacket.

Ms. Tellerico continued, “Keisha, I think it’s your turn to be a Langston Hughes Ambassador. I thought you could give Savannah the tour after recess.”

“Can we go in early since she’s in a skirt?” Keisha asked, hopping up and down.

“There are only two minutes to the bell, and you know if I let you in, every second grader is going to beg me—”

“It’s all right,” Savannah told her. “I can take it.”

Even with her chattering teeth, the children could hear Savannah’s Southern accent.

“Where you from, Savannah?” Aaliyah asked after Ms. Tellerico rushed off to help someone who’d slipped on the ice.

“Alabama.”

“Alabama? Me too! Well, my people are.”

“I saw you handclappin’. Do you know this one?” Suddenly Savannah was a whirl of motion. She clapped her hands on her thighs, then crossed her arms and hit her shoulders before smacking her hands flat on her hips. She had leg motions, too. Heel-toe-rock, heel-toe-rock.

Then, just as suddenly as she’d started, Savannah stopped. “Whew,” she said. “That’s better than standing around freezin’.”

Aaliyah nodded, clacking her braids together. “We don’t use our feet when we’re handclapping. You had yours going in every different direction.” She jumped up and put her hand on Savannah’s shoulder. “Show us again.”