The Three Day Rule
- That night, Mo pulls out her Piggly Wiggly Chronicles—a series of notebooks that she uses to research her own autobiography.
- For as long as she can remember, Mo's been trying to find her mother; there's a map of North Carolina on her wall with pushpins on all the places that she's searched for her mother.
- The phone rings and Mo picks it up to hear that someone's found one of her messages in a bottle… but that he's not her mother. She thanks the caller and hangs up before placing another pushpin on her map.
- What Mo knows about her history is this: She was born eleven years ago during one of the biggest hurricanes in history, and her mother tied her to a raft and sent her downstream to safety.
- The Colonel crashed his car near the creek, saw her floating by on the raft, and saved her. He and Miss Lana then took Mo in and have raised her like she's their own daughter ever since.
- Anna Celeste, Mo's sworn enemy, calls her a throwaway kid, but Mo still feels lucky that she has the Colonel and Miss Lana.
- The Colonel pops into her bedroom and Mo asks him if Miss Lana has called yet—he reminds her that Miss Lana just left this morning, though, so it's nowhere near the three day rule.
- The rule in their household is that whenever the Colonel or Miss Lana leaves home, they have to call and check-in at least once every three days.
- He tells her to call Miss Lana if she wants to—after all, she's just visiting her Cousin Gideon in Charleston—but Mo tells him that she doesn't want to over-dial. Then she returns to her search.
- Miss Lana started the search eleven years ago when she called to towns upstream after the hurricane to ask if anyone was missing a baby. And whenever people from Tupelo Landing leave town, they ask around to see if they can find Mo's real family. But no one's turned up any leads yet.
- The Colonel taps on her door again and says that they're going to have popcorn in five minutes.
- The phone rings again and Mo picks it up hoping it's Miss Lana, but it's just another townsperson offering her a ride to Anna Celeste's party. She says no obviously.
- Anna Celeste has been Mo's enemy since the first day of kindergarten. When Mo got to the playground that day, Anna Celeste's mom told her not to play with Mo because she wasn't "one of them."
- Mo wanted to cry, but instead she charged at Anna Celeste like a bull and knocked her over. After that, Miss Lana bought her notebooks so that she could work out her rage on the page instead of through physical alterations.
- The phone rings again and this time it is Miss Lana. Yay! Mo decides not to tell her about the detective or Mr. Jesse's missing boat because it will just make Miss Lana worry.
- Mo thinks about how she and the Colonel are connected: He came into town on the same stormy night and lost his memory when he got into a car crash. The first thing he remembers is getting out of that car and finding the baby in the creek.
- After Miss Lana's phone call, Mo scurries to find the Colonel and they settle down in front of the television with some popcorn. She looks outside and sees Mr. Jesse's lights flickering. It's the last time she'll see that.