Chapter 10 Clint's street felt a little broken down. It was only a few blocks away, but it did not have the same comfortable feeling of the streets to the east. There were windows that had been replaced by boards, some of them long ago by the look of them. As they walked down Clint from Meyer towards Sycamore Street,

they could see that the west side was mostly businesses, many of them in converted houses,

none of them looking like they were doing particularly well.

"'I don't know why it's like this,' Abigail said.

"'The woods and the trees are so beautiful.

You'd think that this would be the fanciest street in the neighborhood.

It's the ravine, Timothy said.

The street is still the way it is, because the city passed rules to protect the ravine.

Years and years ago.

It was supposed to keep the whole area from getting

built up and closed off so only a few people could enjoy it, but it made it hard to sell some of

the properties. Nobody wanted to buy a place I couldn't fix up the way they wanted, so everything

got like this. See, this is what I don't get, Abigail said. You're what, 11? Why would you know that?

It's interesting, Timothy said a little defensively. No, Abigail said, taking the tape recorder out of her bag. It isn't.

Well, my mom works for the paper, he said, and she did a story on it.

I think it's interesting.

Abigail said nothing, but she raised an eyebrow and almost smiled at him, and he seemed to feel

mollified by that.

She pressed the play button, and they walked the rest of the block

in silence, broken only by the chirping calls of Karen Hightower calling for her cat. They were

almost to the corner of Sycamore and Clint when they saw a break in the row of buildings,

where the woods came right to the edge of the road, as if they were a wave that had

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