"Don't you open "a dat box!" came a voice from the window behind them. "It' gonna be all kinds of trouble iffa you do!"
They turned to see the Bird Lady glowering down at them. Her wide black eyes shone like the black material of the box. A silver and black scarf covered her glistening raven hair. A green and red parrot sat on one of her shoulders. A black crow sat on the other.
"But, but, we were just taking it out with the other things to the curb," explained Nikki, "do you want to keep it?"
"You just leave that box where it lay!" returned the Bird Lady with a wagging finger. "That's just old trouble. Believe me, kids, you don't wanna be messin' with dat ting. It shoulda' ben thrown to the bottom of the ocean! Silly fantasma turned out all wrong. Dumb mistake. Bah, I don't wanna think about it!" she waved and said, as she turned away, "you just put it down, kids, it's all old bother!" and she disappeared.
"Boy, what a creepy lady!" whistled Coach as he adjusted his ball cap.
"Looney as a foul ball on the fourth strike!"
"But I don't get it," Pandora said brushing her hair back over her ear with one hand while she held the box in the other. "Did she say she wanted it or didn't want it?"
"She said to throw it to the bottom of the ocean!" brays Horsehead Miller.
"Then she doesn't want it?" muses Pandora. "And it's so pretty."
"It's enchanting!" says Nikki joking with arched eyebrows and dainty touch on the box.
"Let me see!" Missy jumps up and down.
"C'mon, lets finish with this job so we can get paid. How much is the Bird Lady paying us?" asks Coach. He has another box of junk in his arms just come up from the basement.
"I forget. I hope we don't have to ask the her about it," says Red. The kids continued their work in the fine autumn light. Pandora put the strange box on the fence near the sidewalk pile still not sure if she can keep it or should leave it.
"What could be trouble about such a pretty box?" she wondered. Coach and Horsehead Miller finished tossing a broken chair on the pile when the Bird lady' son drove up.
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