Whoa. Early looked sideways at Aisha. “I’m sorry — that’s so, so sad. I didn’t know.”
Aisha shrugged, then coughed. “It happened three years ago now, when I was little. I’ll always miss them. Sometimes I hear their voices in my head. We got their pictures with us, wherever we go. And my mom’s still real upset. Every time she gets a job, like restaurant-counter work, a few weeks go by and then they want her to leave. Maybe because she cries real easy, I’m not sure.” Aisha wiped her nose on the back of her mitten.
“Your mom seems nice,” Early said, not knowing what else to say. Sometimes I hear their voices in my head. Early especially hated that part of Aisha’s story.
They walked a little without talking, boots crunching in the snow. It was a gray morning, no wind, and the neighborhood looked bigger and busier than Woodlawn. It also seemed like there were a lot of very poor people out on the streets. Some held coffee cups with jingly change in them, saying things like “Good morning, can you help the homeless? Have a blessed day.” Others huddled over grates on the sidewalk, heads down, feet wrapped in thick rags for warmth.
Some had hand-lettered cardboard signs that read I am Hungry. Lost my Home. Fallen down in Hard Times. Or, I am a Vietnam Vet with injuries. I fought for you! Can you give back to me? I have four grandkids to raise and no work. Or, Lost my job. Got medical bills I can’t pay. Please help me stay alive. Don’t want to die. Others simply walked, wandering back and forth, talking to no one Early could see. She wished she had some coins to give. Seeing these people out in the cold, many trying to share their stories while no one listened, made Early move slower and slower. Didn’t anyone care? Aisha pulled on her arm.
Mrs. Happadee glanced back, then said, “Early, come on up here. I want to tell you a few things about your new school. You’ll love it! Now, this morning they’ll be giving you some tests to see what grade you should go into, so you’ll be in the office most of the day. But you can have lunch with the other kids, so keep an eye out for Aisha here.”
“I’ll look for her,” Aisha piped up.
“But I’m in fifth grade. They can call my old school and ask.”
“Well, they just like to do things this way, so that’s what’ll happen. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine.”
“And, Mrs. Happadee?” Early glanced at her face.
“Yes?”
“Did Darren, ah, leave the shelter? He kinda made friends with me and Jubie….”
Mrs. Happadee sighed. “Very sad. A friend of his mom’s died and they all left suddenly, but, well, I have a feeling they’ll be back.”
“Not his dad?”
“Nooo, not his dad.” Mrs. Happadee’s tone made it clear the conversation was over.
When they stepped inside the door, the other kids walked down the hall in a little cluster. The school was big and gloomy, as if someone had forgotten to turn on the lights. A woman in a security uniform sat at a desk at the entrance, calling hello to some of the kids by name. Army-green lockers lined the halls, and kids put away backpacks and boots with the familiar whack-thud-slam that echoes through most schools at the beginning of each day.
Mrs. Happadee ushered Early into an office down the hall. “New student,” she called out. “Early Pearl, she’s registered.”
“Gotcha. What a pretty name,” a woman with a blond beehive hairdo cooed. She walked long lemon-striped nails back and forth over a stack of papers. “I’ll be right with you. Oh! You need breakfast, sugar?”
Early shook her head. “No, ma’am,” she said. As soon as the beehive left the room, Early looked around, skimming the shelves for a telephone book.
A new one lay just behind the reception area.
Before starting the test, several minutes later, Early asked if she could have the phone book next to her, just in case she wanted to sit on it.
“Well, why not,” the beehive lady said, and brought it over.
That wasn’t so hard, Early thought to herself. She was getting used to the life of a spy.
The test was all true-false questions. Early filled in little round circles with her pencil, turning page after page. Soon the bell rang for lunch, and she heard kids pouring out into the hall.
“Can I go?” she asked.
“Soon as you’re done” was the reply.
Early hustled through the last couple of pages. “That was pretty easy. Oh, and can I just look up a family friend, as long as this phone book is here?” she asked.
“Certainly. Let me have the test. Right back, honey.” The lady left the room, coffee mug in hand, test under one elbow.
Early thumbed through the W’s, her heart beginning to pound. Oh, please, Mr. Waive, be here, she thought. Her finger ran down the column, but there was no Waive with an i in the spelling. Dash had told her that it was an unusual Irish name. She slapped the book shut, suddenly discouraged.
The beehive lady returned, steam rising from her mug, and smiled pleasantly. “Find it?” she asked.
“Well, no.” Early took a deep breath and added, “You see, my dad’s disappeared, and we’re pretty sure he got caught in something bad. I want to get in touch with his old teacher, Mr. Skip Waive. I know he taught in a school on the South Side. He was good to my dad and he might be able to help us.”
“Know which school?” the lady asked brightly.
“No.” Early frowned. “Isn’t there a teacher list you could look at?”
“Not really, but I’ll see what I can do. You just stop by again after lunch.”
“Oh, thank you, Mrs. —” Early paused.
“B.,” the woman said, smiling.
Early hurried away, wanting to laugh. A Mrs. B. with a hairdo for bees on her head and yellow stripes on her dark fingernails! She felt almost bouncy walking into the lunchroom.
Yikes. As the door swung shut behind her, she stopped dead. The room was huge, and filled with kids, talking and laughing and eating. She scanned the faces. No Aisha, at least that she could see. She walked slowly toward the line for food, watching carefully so that when she grabbed her tray and fork and spoon, she’d look like she knew what she was doing.
Meat loaf … potatoes … peas … a dish with applesauce. Early paused, holding her tray, and started to sit at a table that was half full when a girl at the other end, with a group of boys, called, “No room! Holding seats!” then covered a smile with her hand.
Early glanced at her face and turned away, trying to look like she didn’t care. She tried another table, this one all girls. No one there told her not to sit, but they didn’t make her welcome, either; those sitting closest turned their backs. She ate quietly, each mouthful taking forever to chew, studying the napkin holder in front of her.
As she stood to go, she didn’t know what to do with her tray. “Over there.” A girl with long, perfect braids pointed to the corner. “That’s where garbage goes.” She then tossed her head, a black braid snaking backward over one shoulder.
“Thanks,” Early said. Now the girl was pressing one finger under her nose, as if she smelled something bad.
“Stinkin’ shelter kids,” she hissed, in a loud voice to her friend. “Give our school a bad name. My mom says not to talk to ’em, but I’m not that unkind.”
Early couldn’t breathe for a moment. Shelter kids! She glared at the girl, her eyes filling with tears, then wished she hadn’t. The girl made her eyes big and round and gave Early a what-did-I-do look. Her friends backed her up, wrinkling noses. “Hey, I can’t take the unwashed clothes, can you, Marie?” one asked, and the group stood together, turned, and walked away.
Early stumbled toward the corner with her tray and shoved it hard onto the pile. She pictured whizzing it expertly at the girl’s head, and bits of gravy and potato going everywhere — the group of girls screaming, their clean, smooth T-shirts spotted with grease.
When Early got back to the office, Mrs. B. said, “Well, I have some nice news for you. I’ve found Mr. Waive. He’s retired, and I need permission from him before I
can give you his phone number. Can you spell your dad’s first name for me?”
Early did, her misery lifting. “Sounds like the mystery writer Dashiell Hammett. Ooh, thank you so much!”
“Never heard of him, but that’s nice, you’re a bookish family,” Mrs. B. said. “I don’t read much, gotta admit,” she giggled, as if that were adorable.
“My dad works in the big Chicago Public Library downtown, in Harold Washington. His department is History and Social Sciences,” Early said.
“Ahh,” Mrs. B. cooed, just as if Early had said she loved giant cupcakes. “Well, I can tell you’re a special daughter, and I’ll see what I can do. You be sure to stop by and see me tomorrow. Meanwhile, where would you like to wait? I’m assuming you’re walking back with Mrs. Happadee after school today.”
Early spent the rest of the afternoon in the library with some of her old friends. She reread the part in Katherine Paterson’s The Great Gilly Hopkins in which Gilly snipped off a hunk of her own hair, did everything possible to make everyone around her angry, and started a huge, bloody fight at school, even staring down the principal when she got sent to his office.
Early imagined chopping off one of those long, excellent braids and getting thrown out of the Hughes School before she’d even started. And what if she complained and moaned about taking care of Jubie and comforting Sum? About listening, all the time, with every bit of her aching soul, for Dash? She was tired of trying to make things better. Tired of putting a good spin on things. Tired.
Then she thought about the people on the street, the ones no one even seemed to notice. That sadness blotted up some of her anger at the unfairness of it all. What had happened to their family might be unjust and frightening, but at least they had things to eat and stuff to do. At least people listened to what she had to say. At least Sum would get help from the police once they understood that Dash hadn’t done anything wrong. At least they had hope.
As they lined up to walk back to Helping Hand, Aisha rushed over. “Where were you, Early? I looked and looked!”
“Maybe the later lunch crowd,” Mrs. Happadee suggested. “By the way, Early, I understand you’re going in with the fifth grade tomorrow. You did fine on the test.”
“That’s good,” Early said, her voice flat. “Yeah, I looked for you, too, Aisha. Sat with some mean kids. They said I smelled bad because I came from the shelter.”
“Aw, that’s terrible!” Mrs. Happadee scowled. “Well, you just ignore those kind of comments. Obnoxious! They don’t know any better.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Early said. She pictured that lovely braid on the lunchroom floor, surrounded by squashed peas, crumbs, and sticky sneaker prints.
On the way home, she nodded hello to each person who was begging on the street. The generous response she got, a whole lot of “Bless you, darlin’, good luck, now!” and “Know you’d help if you could,” made her feel more like herself. Like Dash’s girl.
That is, until she saw Sum waiting inside the door of Helping Hand, Jubie in her arms, pacing as tears ran down her face.
Crimp, from the Dutch krimpen
Verb: to make wavy or add a wrinkly pattern; to fold
or bend stiff leather or metal; to pinch or crease in
order to seal, as around the rim of a piecrust.
Noun: an addition that causes a problem; an
unwanted wrinkle.
Crimp
Mrs. Happadee hurried the Pearl family into her office, cluck-clucking and now-nowing down a long hallway, and left them there with a box of tissues. “We all need a few minutes of privacy sometimes,” she said, and gently shut the door.
Sum’s and Early’s stories spilled and ran together, blurring and bending all their “hold fasts” and hopeful words. Jubie had fallen asleep on Sum’s shoulder, so they could talk freely.
“You first,” Sum began. She hated Early’s lunchroom story. “I’m so sorry this has happened to you, baby. Dash would feel terrible, too. One day it’ll be a tale to tell.”
And Early sure hated Sum’s story.
When Sum and Jubie arrived at the police station that morning, they were shown into a room with three officers, two of them detectives. Sum was told immediately that there was a warrant out for Dash’s arrest and the FBI was now involved.
“Thanks for coming in — you saved us a trip,” one of the men said, his face twisting into an unfunny smile.
“What?” Sum had wailed. “You’re smiling at me? What kind of nightmare is this? I thought I was coming to you folks for help!”
Sum then told Early the bad news. First, Mr. Pincer had told the detectives that no one by the name of Al worked on the sixth floor at Harold Washington and that there was no bookseller, international or not, by the name of Lyman Scrub. He didn’t exist. Second, this supervisor asked why anyone honest at the Chicago Public Library would ever be involved with selling books that valuable on the side, or having them shipped to his home in the process.
“Whoa,” Early whispered.
Sum went on, “And that’s when I started to see red. I said, ‘And what if my husband didn’t realize that this book business was illegal, if it even was? What if he trusted this person Al, who, believe me, does exist. Or what if Al is a made-up name for a Library Page at History and Social Sciences, for someone who’s been breaking the law but wanted my husband to take the blame? For someone who’s still there? And is it my husband’s fault if this Lyman Scrub person, the one who organized the whole thing, put a crimp in the works by using a fake name?’
“‘We can —’ an officer began, but I told him, ‘And has everyone forgotten that a group of three men and a woman, folks with pale skin and a full-body disguise, pushed me to the ground, threatened our eleven-year-old daughter, and destroyed our apartment? They stole my wallet, our books, and a bunch of family notebooks. Does that not matter here? What happened to the laws that protect the innocent?’”
Sum shook her head as she told Early, “The officer continued smoothly, as if I’d only sneezed, ‘We are hoping your husband turns himself in and can clear his name.’”
“Whoa,” Early said again.
Sum held up her hand. “Just wait. Here’s the slammer: One of the officers then asked me about jewelry. I told him that Dash and I only had wedding bands, and that they weren’t expensive gold. I showed him my hand.
“‘No engagement ring?’ the officer asked.
“‘We couldn’t afford it,’ I said. ‘We’ve been saving all these years for a home.’
“The officer reached in a metal box sitting on the table and pulled out something tiny and held it up to the light. It sparkled. ‘Ever seen this before?’ he asked me.
“‘Is it a diamond?’ I asked, squinting for a better look.
“‘Yes, small, but quite valuable: a stone probably cut for an engagement ring. But this is no ordinary stone. Using a laser to identify it, a jeweler in Chicago tells us this is a gemstone from the biggest diamond heist in history. The theft happened almost eight years ago, in the European city of Antwerp, in Belgium. Only one of the other thousands of stones taken that day has been recovered. This is the second. Giant news.’”
“So he was just trying to impress you or something?” Early asked.
Sum paused. “That’s what I was wondering, too, and then Jubie blurted, ‘I love Belgian waffles! Yeah, cream and syrup, sticky-wicky fingers!’ and suddenly I didn’t know if I was laughing or crying.
“The detective glared at me and said, ‘You won’t be smiling when you hear the next part. Sticky is right. This stone was found on the floor in your apartment when the police went through the mess again. One of the officers picked it up next to the broken coffee table.’”
Sum paused and blew her nose. “I asked them right away if someone could’ve gotten in there and dropped the diamond to make Dash look bad. They ignored me. And, of course, finding the stolen gemstone is what sealed the arrest warrant and made the whole darn book business look so bad. This is all just
one thousand percent insane.”
Early was stunned. “Dash would never steal for us, would he?” she whispered.
“Of course not, baby. Never.”
Early could only nod, the dreadfulness of this whole day catching up to her.
Sum was still talking, her voice now shaking. “I realized something awful in that room today. That when you’re this poor and without money or an address, hardly anyone thinks you’re worth listening to or helping. Just the words living in a shelter make you someone the police aren’t too worried about, less than your average citizen when it comes to rights. And now that Dash is missing, the fact that he’d been a man with a job, a family, and a home doesn’t seem to count. Seeing how excited the detectives were about that dumb diamond today, I knew they cared more about the stone than the man. Or us.”
“Dang,” Early said, swallowing hard. “That’s scary.” Her voice wobbled. “Dash is gonna be okay, right, Sum?”
“Of course, baby,” Sum said softly. Then she shook her head and sat up straighter, as if to pull them all together.
Jubie, now awake, said, “Pow, pow! Let’s get those guys!”
“Oh, Lord, don’t talk like that,” Sum said. “Seriously, son, you’re hearing an awful lot these days and you need to stay quiet and polite in all of this. No gun talk. Don’t want to make extra trouble for Dash.”
Sum reached for her children’s hands so the three made a circle. She went on, “And before Jubie and I left today, one of the policemen told me that I shouldn’t talk to anyone about the diamond, not yet. So, you two, you know what that means: Zip the lip.”
“Okay,” Early said slowly. “But why did they talk about it in front of Jubie, then?”
“He’s four,” Sum said.
“Zip the lip,” Jubie promised, nodding so hard and fast, his teeth rattled. “Ow,” he added, popping a finger in his mouth.
“Understand, son? Not a word about what we heard today.”
“I’ll be good.” Jubie nodded.
“Hey,” Early said. “I was saving this for later, but … I did think of one person who might help us, Sum. Remember Dash talking about Mr. Waive? Well, he’s got a cell phone number. I asked a lady in the office at school today to look him up in a Chicago Public Schools directory. She’s getting in touch to let him know that I’m Dash’s daughter, and to ask if I can call.”
Hold Fast (9780545510196) Page 9
