Free Miracle on 49th Street by Mike Lupica Page B

busy, so you went home with the Hartnetts.”
    Stevie Hartnett’s uncle was the Red Sox manager, which made him a huge celebrity at school.
    â€œBut how do you know Stevie was at the game?”
    â€œHe could have been,” Sam said. There was a pause and then Sam said, “I’m under the covers, but I think my mom’s coming. Quick, tell me how it went?”
    â€œThe absolute pits,” she said before hanging up.
    â€œWhat?” Thomas said when she put the phone away.
    â€œWhat what?”
    â€œWhat was the absolute pits?”
    â€œThe game.”
    â€œYou got to go to the Celtics game?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAnd that’s a bad thing?”
    â€œLike I told my friend, it’s a long story.”
    â€œSo I should stop being nosy.”
    â€œThat would be good,” Molly said.
    She felt so tired all of a sudden, it was as if she had just played a whole basketball game herself.
    When they got to Joyless Street, she pointed to show him how close 1A was to the corner. Thomas asked if she had a key, and she said she did. He said he’d wait until she was inside. She told him he didn’t have to. He said it was a service that the concierge provided at the Ritz every time the concierge made a new friend.
    â€œNice to meet you,” he said, putting out his hand.
    â€œSame,” Molly said.
    At least somebody was nice to her tonight.
    Molly got inside, quietly shut the big front door, and hoped Barbara was asleep on the couch, which is the way her television watching usually ended when she tried to stay up late. She liked to joke that she didn’t watch David Letterman nearly as often as he watched her.
    Barbara was asleep, snoring slightly, a blanket over her, the television on, a book on her chest.
    Molly just left her there and tiptoed up the stairs, not wanting to wake anybody and have to lie about how getting to see the Celtics in person had been the grandest night of her entire life.
    When she got inside her room, she pulled the yellow baseball cap Josh Cameron had been wearing from her back pocket, the cap she’d swiped when she got out of his car.
    Sam always made fun of how much she liked those high-tech crime shows, saying that she couldn’t possibly understand what they were all talking about when they were looking through their microscopes.
    He was partly right.
    Molly didn’t actually know what DNA stood for, but she understood how it worked.
    Even if all you had was somebody’s hair.

CHAPTER 11
    T hey had worked it out with Barbara that Sam could come over after school on Monday, Monday being the day Barbara took Kimmy out to Wellesley. Wellesley was where Barbara had discovered the most exclusive, absolutely fabulous piano teacher in town.
    Sam usually only came over when Kimmy wasn’t around. They didn’t get along.
    She called him Yoda, from the Star Wars movies. He told her he would give her a nickname that reflected her lack of intelligence, but it would be pointless, since she wouldn’t get it anyway.
    But they weren’t talking about Kimmy on the bus ride home—they were talking about DNA, which Sam had been checking out on the Internet.
    â€œIt should stand for Do Not Ask,” he said.
    â€œWhy?” Molly said.
    â€œAs in, don’t even ask how we’re going to get him and you tested.”
    â€œYou always say that we can figure anything out if we put our heads together,” Molly said.
    â€œMols,” he said, “it’s not like getting a flu shot.”
    â€œWe’ll think of something. We always do.”
    â€œBut say we pull it off,” Sam said. “The way this guy is acting, are you sure you still want him for your dad?”
    â€œI’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”
    â€œIf we don’t want to throw him off one first.”
    As usual, the bus let them off at the bottom of Mount Vernon Street, just up Charles Street from their favorite