Hound Dog True by Linda Urban Page B

rabbit standing lonely guard. Up past the tangle of pumpkin vines, past Mama's friend tent.
    Up she walks, up the rise to the woods, to the rock ledge by the apple tree. Up to Uncle Potluck's rock, to Mattie's rock, to the place she knows, even in the half-dark, Quincy Sweet will be.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
    Q UINCY IS ON THE ROCK. Sitting on it, knees up, arms folded over them, toolbox and bag papers at her side.
    "Poor Moe," Mattie says.
    Maybe it's a dumb thing to say. Maybe she should have let Quincy talk first.
    But Quincy talks second. "Poor Moe," she says. Like a secret code.
    She puts her papers on the grass, Quincy does. Drops her toolbox on top of them, making room for Mattie to sit on the rock.
    Mattie sits. Pulls close her own knees. The clouds move around some and the light changes, tinting the sky as dark as Miss Sweet's lipstick, Mattie thinks.
    Quincy must notice, too. "I wear lip gloss at school," she says.
    Quiet.
    "I do, too. Or did. Once," Mattie says. "I don't say much at school. I didn't talk at all that morning. By lunch the gloss had turned to glue. I thought my lips would rip off if I tried to open my mouth."
    It is a silly thing to say. So silly, Quincy laughs.
    Laughs and laughs like she's going to roll right off the rock. The kind of laugh Mattie can't help laughing with.
    "It's true!" Mattie says, still laughing around and around, like a screw untwisting.
    Quincy unfolds her legs. Divides her hair for braiding, though she has no bands for the ends and one braid frees as soon as she moves to the next.
    A breeze comes, a cloud shifts, slivering a half-light over the trees, opening the darkening sky to the moon.
    "It must have heard your lip gloss story," Quincy says.
    Maybe. Maybe Miss Moon came out for the lip gloss story.
    But the lip gloss story is not the one that needs telling. Not the one Mattie needs the moon to hear. There is another story, a twist-tight story coiled up inside her. And there, with Quincy on the rock beside her, Mattie tells it.
    ***
    It starts out backwards from the way she has told it before, to Moe and Miney and to herself.
    She was so big, it starts. So big I thought she'd swallow me up.
    The story goes on that way. Bottom turning to top.
    The magic word.
Og-ree.
Notebook pages soaked dark. Stories fist-crunched. She, Mattie, had said
ogre.
    Ogre.
    Ogre.
    How the girl said it:
    Og-ree,
in a sound-out way.
    How the word had been in a story in Mattie's notebook,
    in her yellow notebook.
    How the girl had come upon the notebook in Mattie's backpack,
    after looking in all the other backpacks.
    How she had come in small to the coatroom.
    How her name was Star. How she had come in looking for change.
    ***
    The words loosen. Unwind.
    Mattie feels herself breathe. Slow and deep, in and out.
    "Poor Moe," says Quincy. "That was good. I mean, it was bad. A bad thing that happened. But how you told it was good. No wonder you're a writer," she says. "You're good at stories."
    I am,
Mattie thinks. It is not a question. It is a statement. A truth. A matter of fact. "I am," she says.
    She does not know how loud she says it. Does not know if she has whispered or shouted. Does know that she hears an echo, like the kind you hear on mountaintops. Except this echo is not bouncing off mountains or the woods or the tent or the house. It is not an outside echo at all. It is an inside echo, and Mattie hears it.
    Big and round and full as the moon.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
    I T IS DARKER NOW. The moon is high above.
    Quincy looks up and Mattie looks up, both looking up to the brave round moon.
    "Now what?" whispers Quincy.
    "You can tell your things," Mattie says. "If you want."
    "I did. Before you got out here. I told about Duey and Nicolette and Crystal. All that," Quincy plunks.
    All that. Same stories Mattie's already heard. Same plunky things she's already said. It won't work, Mattie wants to tell her. Trusting the moon means saying things that are secret. Things that matter.
    She starts to tell Quincy