The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street
Page 3
So instead of thinking about ideas to save their home like Isa had asked, Laney put all her attention on getting double chocolate pecan cookies from Mama. On occasion she pawed at Mama’s feet and was rewarded with a carrot. Laney didn’t like carrots so much—too crunchy and too orange—but Panda-Laney loved them! Panda-Laney also loved cookies—well, Laney liked them too—and if she was lucky and ate three whole carrots, usually a cookie would follow.
Panda-Laney peered around the kitchen island. She spied Paganini, her lop-eared bunny, under the couch.
“Paganini!” Panda-Laney said in a loud whisper. One bunny ear twitched, and Paganini’s nose moved up and down like a motor. The gray rabbit scooted out from under the couch, and—after a suspicious glance in Franz’s direction—hopped toward Panda-Laney’s outstretched hand. Paganini loved it when Panda-Laney came out to play, because that meant carrots. After grabbing the carrot, Paganini dragged it back under the couch and devoured his prize.
Panda-Laney ate the other two carrots with less enthusiasm, then crawled back to her mom’s heels and looked up.
“Okay, you little beggar!” Mama said with a smile. “Just one cookie, and bring one to your sister.” Her mom passed her two cookies. Panda-Laney inspected both with a critical eye. One was a little bit larger, but the other was shaped like Paganini. Panda-Laney debated between them before choosing the larger one and giving the Paganini-shaped cookie to Hyacinth, who crammed it in her mouth and mumbled a gloomy “Thanks” without bothering to look up from her ribbons.
Jessie, wearing jeans and a baggy navy hoodie, was perched on the steps leading to the dungeon with a pile of colored gumdrops and wooden toothpicks in neat piles around her. She was constructing model molecules by connecting colored gumdrops that were supposed to represent atoms, but she got distracted pretending the gumdrops were the Beiderman’s eyes and she was stabbing them with the toothpicks.
Isa was down in the basement, positioned at the bottom of the stairs so she could see Jessie. Her violin was cradled on her shoulder and she was zipping through various etudes—short study pieces her music teacher insisted she practice every day. When she finished, she gazed up at Jessie.
“So . . . do you have any ideas for saving our home yet?” asked Isa.
Jessie scowled. “Does it look like I have any ideas? Can’t you tell I’m in the anger stage of grief?”
“Jess, you’ve got to pull it together. We need your problem-solving brains.”
Jessie put down her toothpicks and looked down the stairs. “Sorry. I’ll totally have ideas when we meet up later.”
Mama walked by and ruffled Jessie’s already disheveled hair. “Ideas for what?” she asked.
“Oh. Uh, ideas for . . .” Jessie trailed off and looked down at Isa in alarm.
“Christmas Eve dinner,” Isa lied.
“I’m so glad you girls are taking care of that,” Mama said briskly. “And don’t worry about what everyone has been saying. I’m sure it will be great. Why don’t you look up some recipes online? I saw this one recipe for shredded Brussels sprouts with maple hickory nuts that maybe you want to try . . .” Mama passed Jessie her smartphone. “It’s bookmarked under Recipes.”
Isa shuddered at the thought of Brussels sprouts—shredded or not—and Jessie made a face at the complexity of the recipe.
The twins had been responsible for preparing the family meal on Tuesdays since they turned twelve earlier that year. This year, Christmas Eve fell on a Tuesday, and in the Vanderbeeker tradition, Christmas Eve dinner rivaled Thanksgiving dinner in scope and quality. Oliver—not a huge believer in the twins’ cooking abilities—suggested that Jessie and Isa have immunity on Christmas Eve, or perhaps that they trade for a different, less important day. Hyacinth agreed with Oliver’s suggestion, and even Papa seemed inclined to think this was a good idea. The twins, offended by the little faith of their so-called family, insisted on keeping to the schedule and vowed to prove themselves.
That is, until they received the news about moving.
“It’s going to be the worst Christmas Eve dinner if we have to move,” grumbled Isa.
“Any ideas for what we should make? And not that Brussels sprouts thing,” Jessie added.
Isa paused. “Anything but turkey. I’m still recovering from Thanksgiving. I will, I repeat, will, throw up.”
“Okay, how about this.” Jessie set aside the octane gumdrop molecule she had started on and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. She settled back down on the top step. “We could do roasted vegetables for the side dish. We’ve never messed those up before.” At Isa’s nod, Jessie wrote “roasted vegetables” on the list. “Okay, main dish. What about beef stew? How hard could that be?” Isa nodded again, and Jessie jotted it down. “And what to conclude the meal with . . .” Jessie murmured to herself. She opened up the search engine on Mama’s smartphone and scrolled through some recipes on the cooking website they liked to use. She picked two under the heading Easy Dessert Recipes Sure to Impress Your Guests. “What do you think about strawberry cheesecake and carrot cake?”
“Great,” Isa said. “Add fresh bread from Castleman’s Bakery too.” Isa started a new etude, making a number of mistakes along the way.
“Okay.” Jessie wrote the final menu on a sheet of paper.
The twins went on to the guest list. “Miss Josie and Mr. Jeet, of course,” Isa said. “Oh man, what will they do if we move?” Miss Josie and Mr. Jeet had lived in the apartment above theirs for as long as anyone could remember. Retired, they spent a lot of time with the Vanderbeekers, and Mama and Papa helped them with grocery shopping and keeping track of their doctors’ appointments and medicines.
“I don’t think Laney and Hyacinth will be able to leave them,” Jessie said. “Laney will latch herself on to Mr. Jeet’s leg and refuse to let go.”
Jessie continued with the guest list, which grew to include the children’s favorite relatives, Auntie Harrigan and Uncle Arthur, who lived in Westchester, as well as Isa’s music teacher, Mr. Van Hooten.
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could get the Beiderman to come?” Isa mused.
“If the Beiderman ends up at our dinner table, it will be a Christmas miracle,” replied Jessie.
Isa shrugged, then began playing “Csárdás” by Vittorio Monti, moving through to the end of the piece and striking the last note with a flourish of her bow. A familiar scuffling was heard outside. The door to the apartment burst open and in tumbled their dad.
Papa took off his coat and hung it up next to the door, then walked across the kitchen to the basement door. “Brava!” he called down to Isa. “A perfect rendition of ‘Csárdás’! Excellent emotional interpretation! Amazing dynamics!”
“Oh, Papa.” Isa rolled her eyes. “That was the worst!”
“But each time is new, my little violinist. You’ve never played it exactly that way, right? The beauty of live music!” He flicked a nickel down the staircase, where it bounced off some steps and landed in Isa’s violin case, then he scooped up Laney and placed her on top of his shoulders. “Has anyone seen my Laney-Bean? I’ve been looking all over for her!”
“I’m not Laney-Bean. I’m Panda-Laney!” the white-swathed wonder called from above.
“Ah, Panda-Laney! My favorite type of panda! Let me see, I don’t remember . . . Are Panda-Laneys . . .ticklish?” Laney collapsed in a torrent of giggles, and Papa swung her off his shoulders and to the ground. Laney wrapped her arms and legs around his left leg and held on for dear life. Papa half dragged her to where his wife was mixing batter for cheesy bread. The soup pot bubbled on the stove, the fragrant smell of herbs and vegetables drifting through the kitchen.
“Hello, beautiful lady,” he said, dropping a kiss next to her ear.
Mama looked him over. Papa still wore his superintendent “uniform,” an outfit of his own choosing that he insisted on wearing whenever he did building duties. “On the bright side,” Mama said, “if we move, you won’t have to wear that jumpsuit
anymore.”
“For your information,” Papa said, both of his index fingers pointing down at his uniform, “these are coveralls. Only the coolest supers wear them.”
“I want coveralls too,” Laney said from the ground, where she still hung on to Papa’s leg.
“See?” Papa said to Mama. “Our daughter has excellent taste.”
“I just don’t see why you can’t wear your normal clothes to take out the trash,” Mama said, pouring the bread batter into two greased loaf pans.
“Honey, I can’t wear my computer clothes when I do stuff around the building. The computer clothes don’t have the let’s-get-dirty-and-fix-things personality that my coveralls do.”
Mama sighed.
Papa scanned the living room and took in the funereal atmosphere. Isa played a mournful tune on her violin, and the brownstone was devoid of the bustle and laughter typical of the Vanderbeeker household. His voice lowered. “They’re not taking the move well, are they?”
Mama looked into Papa’s eyes. “No matter what happens,” she said, touching his cheek, “I’m grateful for the past six years here.” She paused. “Even if you did have to wear coveralls.”
Papa’s smile didn’t change the melancholy in his eyes as he reached up to put his hand over hers. “Life here couldn’t have been better.”
Four
After Oliver’s conversation with Jimmy L, he came back inside, swiped three of the double chocolate pecan cookies Mama had baked earlier, then retreated to his bedroom for some Beiderman brainstorming time.
Being the only boy among four sisters was not easy, but there was one perk: Oliver was the only one in the family who had a room to himself. Indeed, it was a tiny walk-in-closet-turned-bedroom, just big enough to hold his loft bed and a narrow desk underneath it. Five years ago, Uncle Arthur arrived unannounced wearing a tool belt and armed with a power drill. Uncle Arthur declared that if Oliver was to survive being the only boy among many sisters, he needed two things: an imagination and a place of his own to escape to. His uncle proceeded to install bookshelves on every inch of available open wall space in the room while Papa looked on in wonder at the blur of construction. From that day on, Uncle Arthur sent Oliver books on a monthly basis—books about superheroes and Greek mythology and pirates and space exploration and presidents. Now walking into Oliver’s room was like entering a miniature library that someone happened to live in.
An hour later, Oliver had done zero brainstorming. Rather, he was so deep into his book, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, that he didn’t hear Mama calling him to dinner. He was Jim Hawkins, struggling to board the ship after cutting the anchor loose, only to be confronted by the wicked pirate Israel Hands—
“OLIVER!” his sisters yelled, crashing into his sacred, quiet bedroom.
Oliver jumped at the intrusion before realizing that one, he was not Jim Hawkins, and two, he was not on a pirate ship. He lifted the book right in front of his face. “Leave. Me. Alone.”
Laney bunny-hopped over to Oliver and threw her arms around him. “I love you, Ollie,” she declared, planting four wet kisses on his cheek. “Time for dinner!”
“Ugh,” Oliver said, scrubbing his cheek with his sleeve. “Long John Silver would maroon you for such despicable behavior.”
Laney grabbed Oliver’s hand and tried to yank him to his feet, budging him not one bit. She did, however, manage to trip over his left knee and knock down a pile of comic books stacked by his desk.
Laney emerged from the comic-book avalanche still gripping Oliver’s hand. “Come on! Dinnertime! Mama made cheesy bread.”
Oliver’s stomach rumbled, the double chocolate pecan cookies he’d eaten an hour earlier a distant memory. Despite the lure of piracy, he decided that dinner would be a good idea. Together the Vanderbeeker children clambered down the steps to the kitchen, all talking at once.
“Ah, the sound of my graceful children coming down the stairs. Delightful,” Papa called from the kitchen.
Mama turned toward her children and pointed a canary-yellow spatula with a glob of meringue cream at them. “Attention! I need this table set, pronto!” The meringue cream dripped off the spatula and splattered on the floor, right next to Franz, who was lurking around the kitchen hoping for such a miracle.
The kids rushed around, banging drawers and dropping utensils. Finally the table was set, food was placed in the middle, and people were seated. Then Oliver got up because he wanted ice in his water. Then Laney insisted on rummaging through the silverware drawer for her special soup spoon. When everyone was seated again, the family held hands, Papa said a quick blessing over the food, and dinner began.
“So,” Oliver said, jumping right into the very topic at the forefront of everyone’s minds. “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling like we need to see the Beiderman. You know, before we move.” He looked at his parents with his “innocent” face.
Papa glanced at Mama. “He’s trying to look innocent. Something’s up.”
Mama sighed and looked at Oliver. “What are you planning to do to that poor man?”
“What? Nothing! Why is everyone looking at me like that?” Oliver reached over the table and riffled through the slices of cheesy bread, searching for the biggest piece. “I’m just saying, the Beiderman should be a man and show his face to us at least one time before he evicts us. We need an explanation!”
“It’s Mr. Beiderman, and he’s not evicting us. He’s not renewing our lease,” Mama said.
Isa spoke up. “I’ve always wondered what he looks like. Is he short? Tall? What color hair does he have?”
“What types of things is he interested in?” Jessie chimed in.
“Does he like cute little bunnies?” asked Laney, bits of cheesy bread escaping from her mouth.
“What about Christmas carols? Or, do you know if he’s Jewish?” asked Oliver. For that, he got a kick under the table from two different sources. Based on the synchronicity and the force of the kicks, he was pretty sure they came from the twins.
“I know absolutely nothing about him,” Mama said. “You know how private he is.”
“Every time I’ve had to go into his apartment,” Papa said, “he tells me to let myself in with my super key and closes himself into his bedroom until I’m done.”
“You have a super key?” said Laney, amazed. “Does it have powers? Is it magic?”
“He means the superintendent key,” Oliver said, rolling his eyes.
“I think this whole situation is weird,” Jessie said, banging her soup spoon on the table. “We’ve lived here for six years and haven’t seen him once. Then he kicks us out of our home without even getting to know us?”
“Mr. Jones said he used to work at City College before we moved in,” Hyacinth said.
Mama cleared her throat, then said the words no one wanted to hear. “We need to start packing tomorrow.”
Around the table each Vanderbeeker finished dinner, but the food tasted like dust and left them empty and unsatisfied. After clearing the table and loading the dishwasher, the kids headed upstairs as the brownstone creaked mournfully in the silence.
“Off to the REP?” asked Isa.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” replied Jessie.
Isa opened her closet door, pulled out an armload of hoodies, and passed them out. While everyone zipped up the thick sweatshirts, Jessie gathered the REP bag, a duffel that was filled with fleece blankets along with a large two-liter bottle that used to hold soda water but was now filled with tap water. With what Oliver believed was superhuman strength, he yanked up the twins’ bedroom window and the kids climbed out onto the fire escape. Isa hitched Laney on her back and started up the groaning metal stairs to the REP, otherwise known as the Roof of Epic Proportions.
There were two ways to get up to the REP, but the other way required the Vanderbeeker kids to use the ladder directly across from the Beiderman’s door. They had never used that roof entrance, for obvious reasons.
The roof floor was not the typical concrete, sandpapery surface that covered most roofs in New York City. Right before the Vanderbeekers arrived, the one-hundred-year-old roof was replaced and then topped off with currant-colored ceramic tiles. The tiles made the rooftop welcoming and soundproof. Nevertheless, the kids knew to tread in the same manner they did when visiting one another’s bedrooms late at night, being careful not to wake their parents. They were certain the Beiderman could not hear them, because he would definitely have said something about it. And not in a nice way, either.
“Water wall to launch, with your permission,” Jessie said to Isa when she got to the roof, lifting the water bottle out of the REP bag and holding it up. The sky glowed a Persian blue, and the black silhouettes of the buildings gave the neighborhood a fantasy quality, like the chimney-sweep scene in the Mary Poppins movie.
“Go for it, boss,” Isa replied, taking the REP bag from Jessie and setting the blankets out on the ground.
Jessie had built the water wall along the eastern façade of the brownstone, inspired by a science class during which her teacher showed them different cartoons of Rube Goldberg machines. The one Jessie loved the most was the cartoon demonstrating a sheet music turner. A guy who looked like a young Beethoven was sitting at a music stand, where he was pumping a foot pedal that set off a bunch of reactions, like starting a bike pump that puffed air into a boxing glove that punched a lever that caused a stick to shoot out and turn the page on the music stand. This comic gave Jessie an excellent idea for something to make for Isa, and when she couldn’t get the sheet music turner to work, she created the water wall instead. It ended up being a present for Isa’s twelfth birthday, and Jessie had spent nearly all of June working on it.