Chapter 4

He cleared his throat and read it out loud, in front of the whole village:

"IOU. Borrower, Joe Fox. August 1998. Having gambled away my money and secretly sold the family's food supply, I borrowed three thousand dollars from my mother to pay off my debts."

"I swear to slave away to repay her. If I don't, may I be barred from the Fox family grave when I die."

The silence in the yard broke into roaring laughter.

"Well, would you look at that! So Joe stole the family's food back then to go gamble!"

"Everyone thought he'd struck it rich out there. Turns out he's just a gambling degenerate!"

The neighbors pointed at Joe, whispering.

His face went the color of raw liver in an instant. He rushed over, tore the IOU to shreds, and roared at Maisie, "You bitch! You dug this out on purpose to shame me!"

Maisie stared blankly at the wooden box, dumbstruck herself.

Joe yanked out his own treasure and slapped it down in front of the director without even looking at it. "Director, read it. This has to be the deed!"

The director sighed, picked it up, and read again:

"Pledge to sever family ties. I, Maisie Fox, am taking the last five thousand dollars in this house today to buy an apartment in the city, and from this day I cut off all ties with the Fox family."

"Even if my mother later starves or falls sick and dies, I will never come back to look at her once. None of the Fox family's debts are any concern of mine."

The blood drained from Maisie's face in a single sweep.

The neighbors' laughter died, replaced by contempt and cursing.

"Ptooey! What a piece of work! Took the old lady's burial savings off to the city, and now she's back to grab the demolition money?"

"These two, brother and sister, are worse than animals, each of them!"

Maisie and Joe stood in the middle of the yard, gawked at by the whole village like a pair of monkeys.

"Director, this, this isn't right..." Maisie said, trembling.

The director's face darkened too. He rapped hard on the table. "Are you people making a fool of me? What is all this nonsense!"

"Time's up. Since there's no deed, we're leaving. The house gets seized as an unclaimed illegal structure!"

With that, the director turned to go.

Six million dollars and five houses were about to slip away. Maisie and Joe went wild.

"Stop! You can't leave!"

Maisie's head snapped around, fixing on Grandma, who sat drooling in her wheelchair.

Something seemed to click for Joe too.

"This old hag's been playing us! She's not senile at all!"

Roaring, Joe lunged at Grandma.

Maisie went straight for her bag and pulled out a red ink pad and a sheet of blank paper. "Mom! No deed today means you'll do it the other way! Put your fingerprint on this paper, now!"

"Once you've stamped it, the house is ours!"

Maisie strained with everything she had to pry Grandma's fingers open.

Grandma burst into wailing tears and cowered back into the wheelchair. "Murder! This wicked woman's trying to kill me!"

My mother hid behind my father, and my father didn't dare step in to break it up. He was still hoping Maisie really would get that fingerprint down.

"Press it! Hurry, press it!"

Joe clamped down on Grandma's wrist while Maisie jammed the ink pad at Grandma's thumb.

Screw this.

I couldn't take it anymore. I grabbed the washboard beside me and slammed it straight into Joe's back.

Joe screamed and stumbled forward.

Then I kicked the ink pad clean out of Maisie's hand and planted myself in front of Grandma's wheelchair.

"Enough!"

"You'd kill your own mother over a little money. You think you deserve a cent of that demolition payout?"

Maisie clutched her reddened fingers and shrieked at me, "Cecily, you little brat! You dare ruin this for us?"

"Without her fingerprint, nobody's getting a dime!"

Joe scrambled up to come at me too. "Get out of the way! Keep getting in the way and I'll finish you off today!"

I let out a cold laugh, then pulled a red booklet and an old household registration book from my pocket.

"What you dug up three feet of earth looking for was right in front of you the whole time!"