I Survived the Great Molasses Flood, 1919

by Lauren Tarshis

  To all of you readers who are new to America

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  MAP

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  KEEP READING!

  WRITING ABOUT THE MOLASSES FLOOD

  MORE FACTS

  OLD-FASHIONED GINGERBREAD RECIPE

  FURTHER READING

  SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

  TEASER

  COPYRIGHT

  Twelve-year-old Carmen Grasso was drowning.

  She was caught in one of the deadliest disasters in the history of Boston. A gigantic wave had crashed in to the streets — a swirling, raging monster moving faster than a train. It turned buildings to rubble. It smashed wagons and motorcars and tossed trucks into the harbor. Twenty-one people would soon be dead. Many more would be fighting for their lives.

  This killer wave wasn’t made of water. It didn’t come from the sea. The monstrous wave was made of a thick brown syrup: molasses. For years, millions of gallons of sticky molasses had been stored in a building-sized metal tank. The hideous tank loomed over Carmen’s neighborhood, blotting out the sun.

  And in one ear-splitting moment, the molasses tank had exploded apart.

  Carmen and her best friend, Tony, had watched in horror as the tank began to shake, as its rounded steel sides bulged in and out. The tank seemed to have come alive, as if it was boiling with fury, ready to destroy.

  And then suddenly, thousands of the steel bolts that held the tank together let go.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

  They blasted through the air like bullets fired from a machine gun. Seconds later, the metal tank blew apart completely. Jagged chunks of metal whirled through the air like knife-winged birds.

  The molasses hovered in the air like a black, roiling cloud. And then, with a thundering crash, it hit the ground. Instantly, the streets became raging rivers filled with wreckage — chunks of wood and metal and glass, overturned motorcars and wagons.

  Horses whinnied in fear.

  Screams of terror rang out.

  “Run!”

  “Get out of the way!”

  “Help me!”

  Carmen ran for her life, Tony right behind her.

  But the wave was moving too fast. Within seconds, the swirl of thick syrup had caught them. The molasses wrapped itself around Carmen’s legs, like millions of powerful snakes dripping with slime. It rose up to her waist, to her chest.

  She had to do something!

  And then she saw it: a broken wagon, floating toward them. She and Tony both managed to climb on … until a huge hunk of metal from the tank rammed into the wagon.

  Carmen tried to hold on as the wagon nearly flipped. But she slipped off and sank into the swirling flood of ooze.

  “Carmen!” Tony screamed.

  It was the last sound Carmen heard as the molasses rose up over her head and swallowed her whole.

  Carmen and her pal Tony were heading back from school, making their way through the noisy streets of their neighborhood, Boston’s North End. Horse wagons clattered and squeaked, and motorcars honked. A young newsboy shouted out the front-page headline.

  “DEADLY FLU HITS BOSTON!”

  Usually Carmen and Tony would be talking and joking as they zigzagged their way through the packs of people that jammed the street. They would maybe stop at Ortelli’s Bakery and see if they could sweet-talk Mrs. Ortelli into giving them a free creamy cannoli or crunchy biscotti. They always left empty-handed. But they kept trying, because anything was possible, right?

  But today Tony was in a rotten mood. He walked glumly, skinny shoulders slumped. Carmen had been trying to cheer him up, but nothing was helping.

  “He hates me,” Tony moaned.

  “He” was their teacher, Mr. Lawrence.

  “No, he doesn’t,” Carmen said, for the hundredth time.

  Mr. Lawrence was the nicest teacher they’d ever had. Over the summer, he’d come back from fighting in the Great War. He’d been badly hurt in a bomb attack, and couldn’t go back into battle. So he came home and took a job as a teacher. He had a bad limp, but he acted like it didn’t bother him.

  “I’m stupid,” Tony continued.

  “No, you’re not,” Carmen said, rolling her eyes. How many times had she told him he just had to study harder — or maybe open a book for once?

  That was why Tony flunked the first big math test of the year. Carmen knew it wasn’t the F that upset him; he’d had plenty of those over the years. It was Mr. Lawrence’s new idea to keep Tony in at recess so they could play some math games together. Carmen knew Mr. Lawrence was trying to help Tony.

  Tony thought Mr. Lawrence was trying to torture him.

  “That test was impossible!” Tony grumbled now, as they wove around a big pile of horse manure in the street.

  “Well …” Carmen said.

  She’d gotten 100, but she hadn’t told Tony that. She’d carefully folded the test and slipped it into the pages of the book Mr. Lawrence had lent to her, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The book was about a girl named Dorothy who gets sucked into a tornado and dropped down in a strange land called Oz.

  Carmen couldn’t wait to show the test to Papa.

  He’d pin her perfect test up on the wall with all the others. Then he’d pat her cheek.

  “This is why we came here to America,” he’d say.

  They’d come here four years ago, from a little village in Italy. The village was a beautiful place, where Mama’s and Papa’s families had lived for hundreds of years.

  But in 1908, when Carmen was two, a powerful earthquake struck the south of Italy. Entire cities turned to dust in the quake. Minutes later, gigantic tidal waves roared across the land. More than 100,000 people were killed.

  Including Mama, who was swept away when the sea rose up.

  Carmen had only one memory of that terrible day — dim and hazy like a dream. She was clinging to Papa’s back as the sea churned all around them.

  “Hold on!” Papa had cried. “Hold on!”

  Papa’s voice had risen above the roaring waves, above the screams of the people all around them.

  Carmen gripped The Wonderful Wizard of Oz harder as Tony kicked a rotten apple core into the gutter.

  Papa never talked about the earthquake. But growing up in Italy, Carmen had heard the stories from her grandmother, Nonna. And reminders of the disaster were everywhere in their village — the crumbling church, the ruined school, the graveyard where Mama was buried.

  Papa had wanted to stay in the village. But as the years crawled by, he realized there was no future there, especially for Carmen. The school never reopened, and most girls didn’t go to school anyway. It was harder and harder for Papa to earn money as a farmer.

  And that’s why, when Carmen turned eight, she and Papa got onto a big ship and came here to America. They’d begged Nonna to come with them. But she’d refused.

  “Someone needs to stay and watch over this place, tesoro,” she’d told Carmen. That’s what she called Carmen. Her treasure.

  Carmen hated leaving Nonna. But she’d always been curious about that magical land across the Atlantic Ocean: l’America.

  Carmen had imagined golden streets, skyscrapers topped with rubies, wide-open spaces where she and Papa would build their new life. Life would be muc
h easier in l’America, she was sure.

  Carmen smiled to herself now, remembering how shocked she was when she and Papa first arrived here, in the North End. She glanced around, flashing back to how all of this looked through her eight-year-old eyes.

  The sagging buildings. The piles of trash. The dark alleys filled with howling dogs. She and Papa lived in an apartment so small there was barely enough room for the two of them — and the family of rats that refused to leave.

  What was Papa thinking? she’d written to Nonna. We made a big mistake coming here!

  Why would anyone want to live in l’America?

  But Nonna wrote her back, telling her to be patient.

  Trees don’t grow overnight, she’d said.

  Why was Nonna writing about trees? Carmen had wondered. There were hardly any trees in the North End anyway.

  But soon Carmen understood what Nonna meant. It took time to get used to a new place. Like trees, she and Papa slowly grew into their new lives in the North End. She still missed Nonna, of course, more and more, even. And sometimes Carmen had to escape the crashing noises and crushing crowds. She’d find a quiet spot in her favorite park, close her eyes, and pretend she was back in the village.

  She’d picture the Italian flag flapping in the town square, with its stripes and shield. Sometimes she could practically smell the sweet Italian breezes, a mix of lemons and flowers and the sea.

  But the North End was her home now. She loved school. There was always something new to see in this bustling city. And most of all, she loved their neighbors — Tony and his big, noisy family. They lived in the apartment right above them. They’d welcomed Carmen and Papa from the start. Most nights the delicious smells of Mrs. Grasso’s cooking wafted under their door. And most nights Mrs. Grasso sent one of the kids down to invite her and Papa to join them for heaping plates of pasta or bowls of garlicky soup with chi chi beans.

  Carmen glanced over at Tony now, smiling to herself. He was more like a brother than a best friend. She hated seeing him so sad!

  But then she had an idea that would definitely cheer Tony up.

  “Come on,” she said, grabbing his arm. “I’ll race you to the molasses tank!”

  Tony’s face lit up as they took off running. Carmen knew he loved the taste of the thick, sticky syrup.

  And he wasn’t the only one. Kids from the neighborhood visited the tank all the time. The tank leaked. Molasses was always dripping down the sides, like ice cream melting down a cone. Kids would scoop the molasses into their mouths with their fingers, or turn sticks into molasses lollipops. Who needed to waste a penny at the candy store when you could get a taste of molasses for free?

  “I thought you hated molasses,” Tony said as they trotted along.

  Carmen shrugged. “Maybe I’ll take some to Rosie.”

  Rosie was a horse, an old mare who lived at the stable where Papa worked. Carmen liked to take her out for rides after school. They’d go to the park by the harbor. Rosie would nibble on the grass and Carmen would write letters to Nonna. Her grandmother loved hearing about all the people in the North End. But Tony was her favorite.

  She called him trottolino — wild boy.

  But today, Rosie and Nonna’s letter would have to wait.

  It took only a few minutes to get to the tank, which rose up over them like the mountains in Carmen’s village back in Italy. Except the tree-covered mountains were beautiful. The tank was hideous — brown-painted steel covered with syrupy slime.

  Tony slammed his hand onto the sticky tank. “I win!” he said gleefully.

  Carmen grinned at her friend. She’d finally cheered him up! Nonna’s voice echoed in her mind. Ben fatto — good job.

  “Wow!” Tony said, pulling his hand away from the tank. His fingers dripped with syrup. “It’s leaking like crazy!”

  Tony was right about that. The tank always leaked a little. But today the goo was bleeding through the lines where the sheets of metal came together. Thick streams of molasses ran down the sides.

  Tony stuck his finger into his mouth and closed his eyes.

  “MMMMMMMmmmm,” he said. “Tastes like Cracker Jacks.”

  Carmen dipped a finger into the syrup, then took a catlike lick.

  “Blech!”

  The molasses tasted sweet, but with a bitter, black-licorice aftertaste. She shook her head and made a face.

  Tony laughed. Then he smeared some molasses above his top lip, making a sticky brown mustache.

  “Hello,” he said, lowering his voice. “I’m Mr. Lawrence. Recess is now against the law!”

  They both had a good laugh.

  “Let’s find some sticks,” Tony said. He started walking around the tank, scanning the ground.

  Carmen didn’t need a stick — she’d had enough molasses, thanks. Plus, being this close to the tank gave her a queasy feeling. She tried not to look at the dead flies stuck in the goopy puddles on the ground. She wrinkled her nose as she breathed in the sickly-sweet smell. Blech was right. She stared at the tank, wondering why it leaked so much. Whoever built it did a bad job. And why did the molasses company have to put such a big tank right here? It blocked out the sun and ruined the views of the harbor.

  And Carmen hated to think about what all that molasses was used for.

  She’d heard Papa and his boss, Mr. Vita, talking about it at the stable a few years ago. They were in the little back office, playing cards. Carmen was brushing Rosie.

  “They say it can hold more than two million gallons of molasses,” Mr. Vita said.

  Two million gallons? That sounded like enough to fill a big pond.

  Papa whistled. “What do they do with it all?”

  Carmen had been wondering the same thing. She knew some famous American foods had molasses in them, like baked beans and gingerbread. But two million gallons? That was a lot of gingerbread.

  “It’s used for bombs,” Mr. Vita said.

  “Bombs?” Papa said with surprise.

  Carmen nearly dropped Rosie’s brush.

  Was Mr. Vita joking?

  No. He explained that the molasses went to a factory where it was boiled down into something called industrial alcohol. Then it was used to make dynamite and bombs.

  Strange, Carmen had thought. But then Rosie had snorted, impatient to get out for a walk. Carmen put the tank out of her mind. Back then, the molasses tank was just one of many strange things about America. Carmen had only just figured out that Red Sox weren’t things you wore on your feet. And why did so many English words have sneaky letters that made no sounds?

  The bombs didn’t mean much to Carmen, either, back then. The Great War had just started, and America hadn’t yet joined the fight against Germany.

  But now, three years later, tens of thousands of American soldiers had been killed in brutal battles. She knew this war was bloodier than any before. There were new kinds of weapons. Like machine guns that fired hundreds of bullets a minute, and poisonous gas that burned soldiers’ skin and lungs.

  Carmen stepped back and stared at the ugly tank, as if she was seeing it for the first time.

  She pictured Mr. Lawrence, limping through the classroom.

  Suddenly this molasses didn’t seem like any fun at all.

  She looked at Tony, whose face was covered with goo. She couldn’t help smiling a little.

  “Hey,” she said. “You done yet?”

  “Just one more lick —” Tony started.

  But he was cut off by a sound. A low, gurgling growl.

  GRRR guh guh gug gug GRRR guh, guh, guh, guh …

  The growling noise got louder.

  GRRR guh guh gug gug GRRR guh, guh, guh, guh …

  “Is it dogs?” Tony asked nervously. He looked around, eyes wide.

  Carmen’s stomach tightened.

  The North End was infested with vicious stray dogs that roamed in packs. They howled in alleys at night. And many of them had rabies. If you got bitten, you’d die a grisly death if you didn’t get rabies
shots stabbed right into your stomach.

  The sound got even louder.

  GRRR guh guh gug gug GRRR guh, guh, guh, guh …

  The ground around the tank shook.

  Carmen’s heart pounded. Could it be an earthquake? She didn’t think they had those in Boston. But what did she know?

  She whirled around, ready to grab Tony and bolt. She imagined the North End crumbling apart, like her village back in Italy.

  But the men working along the waterfront seemed to be doing what they always did. They were rolling their barrels and lugging their crates, talking and laughing.

  “Look!” Tony cried.

  Carmen followed Tony’s gaze to the tank. The metal in front of them was vibrating, as if it was breathing.

  Is … is there something in there? Carmen thought. Her heart skipped a beat. What if it’s a —

  But just as quickly as the noise started, it stopped.

  The tank went still.

  Carmen and Tony were so focused on the tank, they didn’t hear the footsteps creeping up behind them.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” boomed a voice.

  Carmen practically jumped out of her skin. She and Tony slowly turned around.

  A big-bellied man with a greasy black beard and small, mean eyes stood over them. He was holding a huge club — and he looked like he was ready to crack some skulls.

  “You’re not allowed to be here,” he growled. “This is private property!”

  Carmen realized he must work for the company that owned the tank.

  “Sorry,” Carmen said, her voice shaking. “We were just worried. We … we heard noises coming from the tank.”

  The man shook his head and rolled his eyes, like she and Tony were scared little babies.

  “So what?” he said. “It’s always doing that. Molasses makes noise. It boils up sometimes.”

  He raised his club. “Now get out of here before I give you something to cry about!”

  Carmen and Tony took off.

  The stable was only a couple hundred yards away. They stopped to catch their breath behind a shed. Their eyes met — and they burst out laughing.

  “I thought there was a monster inside the tank!” Tony cried.