The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street

by Karina Yan Glaser

  Castleman’s Bakery, home of the legendary cheese croissants, was right across from the entrance to City College. It had sat in that same location for decades and had a loyal following of people who would cross boroughs and state lines to buy bread and pastries there. The Vanderbeeker kids truly believed the Beiderman would take one bite of the buttery-but-not-greasy, flaky-but-not-crumbly pastry and be won over at once.

  Mr. Castleman was the renowned neighborhood baker, and his wife managed the front of the store. They had a son, Benny, an eighth-grader at the twins’ middle school and a close friend of Isa’s. He worked as a cashier at the bakery on the weekends and some days after school. At his suggestion, his parents had recently purchased an electronic touchscreen register that had all the prices programmed in, along with a credit card machine, allowing customers to sign their name with their finger. Benny, however, was the only one who knew how to operate this register. Mrs. Castleman preferred to use the antique cash register that made a brisk ka-ching! sound whenever the drawer opened.

  “Hey hey, what’s up, Vanderbeekers!” Benny called from behind the two registers with a wide grin. He wore a football jersey and blue jeans under his work apron. Jessie smiled at him, and Laney ducked under the counter and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “Hello, Princess Laney,” Benny said as Laney adjusted the crown on her head.

  “I have a joke for you,” Laney said.

  “Tell me.”

  “Okay, what is Santa Claus rolling down a hill? Wait. That’s not it. I forgot.” Laney’s eyebrows were furrowed with confusion.

  “What’s red and white and . . .” Jessie prompted.

  “Oh yeah. What’s red and white and red and white and red and white?”

  Benny tapped his chin with his index finger. “Hmm . . . that’s a tough one. Hmm . . .”

  Laney was gleeful. “Do you give up? Should I tell you?”

  “Tell me. I can’t think of anything.”

  “Santa Claus rolling down a hill!”

  Benny chuckled. “Oh man, that is a good joke. I’m going to remember that one.” Benny picked Laney up and sat her on the counter next to the register, then plucked a jam cookie from a wide-mouthed glass jar and handed it to her. Then he reached in again and retrieved one for Jessie, presenting it to her with a gallant bow.

  “Thanks, Benny,” Jessie said, taking a bite of the crumbly cookie. She had known him for so long that she forgot to call him Benjamin, the name he decided he wanted to be called the day he turned ten.

  Mrs. Castleman peered through round tortoiseshell spectacles over the glass case containing the breads and pastries, her gaze just barely skimming the top.

  “The usual, yes?” she asked.

  Jessie nodded. “Also, I need three of your best breakfast goodies for our upstairs neighbor.”

  “How are Miss Josie and Mr. Jeet doing?” asked Mrs. Castleman.

  “They’re doing fine, but the pastries aren’t for them. This time it’s for our upstairs, upstairs neighbor. Mr. Beiderman.”

  Mrs. Castleman raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Mr. Beiderman?”

  “He lives on the third floor. We’re trying to persuade him to like us.” Jessie rummaged through her bag for her wallet.

  “Mr. Beiderman,” Mrs. Castleman repeated softly while she leaned down to pluck pastries from the display case.

  Something in the way Mrs. Castleman said his name made Jessie stop. She bent down to peer through the glass case, but she could only see Mrs. Castleman’s hand reaching out to retrieve the pastries. “Do you know him, Mrs. Castleman?”

  A pause. Jessie was about to ask yet again, louder, when Benny interrupted.

  “So, Jessie. Did you hear about the eighth grade dance?” he asked casually, leaning his elbows on the counter. Laney still sat next to the register picking through the coins in the little cup that said “Take a penny, leave a penny.”

  Jessie glanced at Mrs. Castleman once more before turning back to Benny. “No. What about it?” Jessie said to Benny as she dug through her tote. Battered science notebook. A couple of pieces of candy in tired wrappers. Scuffed calculator. Oh, there was her wallet.

  “Well,” Benny continued, “do you think your sister would want to go?”

  Jessie lifted her eyes to his. “What sister?”

  Benny stuck his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans. “Isa. Your twin sister?”

  “Isa? Go to an eighth grade dance? Benny, she’s a seventh-grader. She can’t go to an eighth grade dance.”

  “She can go with an eighth-grader. Which I am. An eighth-grader. And I would ask her nicely, of course. Do you think she would say yes?” Benny began to shift from foot to foot.

  Laney interrupted. “I like to dance,” she informed him while handing him two pennies from the “Take a penny” cup. Benny took the pennies from her and dropped them back into the cup.

  Meanwhile, Jessie’s mind spun like the centrifuge she’d used in science class last month. Benny wanted to take her sister to a dance? Without her? They had never gone to a school dance without each other. They had never gone to a dance with a date, ever. That would surely violate the Rule of the Twins. Somewhere in that unwritten contract, there must be a clause that clearly stated that neither was to attend a dance without the other, especially with a date.

  “I am positive she wouldn’t want to go with you, Benny. I’m sorry,” Jessie said. “Not that you aren’t great . . . it’s just that I definitely think no.”

  Benny’s face fell. “Why not?”

  Jessie started to feel a little bad for him. “It’s nothing against you. I just can’t imagine her saying yes.” She opened her wallet and pulled out some money.

  “I like to dance,” Laney repeated as she took another penny from the cup and tried to scrub it clean with the hem of her jacket.

  Benny didn’t respond to either sister. He carefully rang up Jessie’s order on the cash register, took her money, then handed her the change.

  “Thanks, Benny,” Jessie said, grabbing the bags of croissants and the goodies for Mr. Beiderman. Benny lifted Laney down from the counter and she ducked back under and took Jessie’s hand.

  “See you around,” said Jessie with a brief wave. “Bye, Mrs. Castleman.”

  The two sisters left the bakery while Benny and his mother watched them disappear from view. Mrs. Castleman wisely stepped into the back room, where her husband was twisting and kneading bread, leaving her son alone with his thoughts.

  Six

  The moment Jessie left the bakery, all thoughts of dances and Benny and the Rule of the Twins vanished. Laney, who carried the Beezerman’s bag of pastries, surreptitiously peeked into the brown bag while they were walking home. The sugary, spicy smell of the apple turnover almost made her dizzy. She wondered if the Beezerman would mind if she took that one for herself.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Jessie said, reaching down to cup Laney’s chin. Laney puffed out her cheeks and rolled the top of the bag closed.

  Isa, Hyacinth, and Oliver were waiting in the kitchen when Jessie and Laney returned home.

  “Quick—we sent Mama and Papa upstairs and told them we would bring them breakfast in bed. They looked so pleased they didn’t even ask any questions!” said Isa, her face flushed.

  Hyacinth had taken out her special tea tray and tea things to use for the Beiderman’s breakfast. The tray was faded but still pretty, with a big rainbow in the middle and three cherubs with harps floating above it. Her china teapot only had two chips, and she had folded a piece of red checkered fabric for a napkin and laid it on the side of the tray.

  The kids transferred the remains from the morning’s coffeepot into the teapot; then Oliver dumped three generous spoonfuls of sugar into it and Isa added milk. After Jessie stirred it, Isa placed the teapot on the tray, and Hyacinth artfully arranged the pastries from Laney’s bag. To their knowledge, the Beiderman had never experienced the joy of breakfast in bed, and they were certain that Oliver�
�s excellent idea would win him over.

  “Ready?” Jessie asked Laney.

  “Ready, ready!” Laney chirruped.

  The Vanderbeekers went upstairs, crept past Mama and Papa’s bedroom, then opened the door that led to the first-floor hallway.

  “Be careful,” Isa whispered.

  “Break a leg,” Oliver whispered.

  Hyacinth didn’t say anything; she just bit her lip and looked worried. They watched as Jessie and Laney went up the stairs.

  The scent of laundry soap, old books, and double chocolate pecan cookies from the Vanderbeekers’ floor gave way to the smell of Miss Josie’s Southern Rose perfume on the second floor. The stairs leading to the third floor groaned all the way up, and the air turned musty and stale, as if the brownstone were warning them away.

  Jessie took a deep breath and prepared to knock. Before she could exhale, Laney pounded her two fists on the door.

  “Laney!” Jessie tried to balance the tray while preventing Laney from attacking the door again. The teapot shivered and slid to the edge of the tray. Jessie lifted up a knee to prop up the tray but overcompensated.

  “Fudge!” Jessie blurted out as the teapot slid to the other side of the tray, tipped off the side, and shattered on the ground. The three pastries fell on top of it.

  “Fudge, fudge, fudge!”

  Jessie cast a look at the door. The peephole was a collection of circles getting smaller and smaller, converging on a dark round circle in the middle. Then—the circle blinked.

  “Oh fudge!” This time Jessie’s expletive was quite a bit louder. She scooped Laney up and crashed down the stairs, the destroyed breakfast left abandoned outside the Beiderman’s door.

  Isa, Hyacinth, and Oliver were waiting by the first-floor doorway when they heard Jessie’s yelling, followed by a terrific crash. Seconds later, they saw Jessie and Laney barreling down the stairs. When Isa saw the terror on Jessie’s face, she did not stop to ask questions. Isa swung open the door to their apartment, and together the five Vanderbeekers scrambled inside and let the door slam behind them.

  “Complete . . . fail . . .” Jessie wheezed, her back against the hallway wall.

  “Shhh!” said Isa, pointing a finger at Mama and Papa’s room. The kids tiptoed to Isa and Jessie’s room and shut the door.

  “What happened?” asked Isa the moment the door closed.

  Jessie was frantic. “I lost control of the tray and everything fell. I’m sorry, Hyacinth, I broke your teapot.”

  Hyacinth looked back at Jessie with wide eyes.

  “After I dropped the breakfast, I looked up at the door and I saw his evil eye blink at me through the peephole and it was like he was cursing me with a thousand curses! I didn’t think—I should have stayed there and cleaned up or tried to explain to him or something! I’m sorry, I screwed up,” Jessie babbled.

  “Okay, okay, it’s okay. I’ll clean it up, don’t worry,” Isa said, pulling Jessie into a hug.

  “I’ll help,” Hyacinth said.

  “Me too,” Oliver offered.

  Laney was put in charge of soothing Jessie’s wounded soul by feeding her cheese croissants while Isa, Hyacinth, and Oliver gathered cleaning supplies and a garbage bag and went upstairs. Tears dripped from Hyacinth’s eyes as she gathered the remains of her beloved teapot and put them in the garbage bag. Oliver mopped up the spill with paper towels and mourned the ruined, soggy pastries. Isa did a final mop to get rid of the stickiness, careful to keep her eyes averted from the peephole. They slinked down the stairs, each one thinking that this was a huge setback to Operation Beiderman.

  While Isa, Oliver, and Hyacinth were cleaning up, Jessie and Laney delivered croissants to their parents. Laney went over to Papa’s side of the bed and snuggled next to him as he scrolled through his phone reviewing job tickets, which Laney knew meant all the computer problems people wanted Papa to fix, like when someone spilled coffee on their keyboard or when the computer showed only a black screen no matter how many buttons you pushed.

  Mama looked up from her own phone when Jessie stood by her bed. Mama had been clicking through a Realtor website.

  “Everything okay?” Mama asked, setting her phone on the bedside table.

  Jessie shrugged and handed over the bag of croissants.

  “Talk to me,” her mom said, beckoning Jessie to sit on the bed.

  Jessie perched on the side. “This whole moving thing sucks big-time.”

  Mama nodded and wrapped an arm around her. “This place has so many memories.” Mama looked at the wall where six years ago an unsupervised three-year-old Oliver had drawn a post-impressionist-Picasso-like depiction of their family. The miraculous thing about the artwork was that Oliver had drawn not just himself, Jessie with her signature wild-scientist hair, Isa with her typical smooth ponytail, and his parents, but also yet-to-be-born Hyacinth and Laney.

  “I feel like we need to cut out that part of the wall and bring it with us to our new home,” Mama said.

  “Uncle Arthur could do it,” Jessie suggested.

  “I don’t think the Beiderman—I mean, Mr. Beiderman—would appreciate us gouging a hole in his wall.” Mama continued to look at the drawing. Then, to Jessie’s horror, she saw a tear roll down Mama’s face.

  “Oh, Mama, don’t cry!” Jessie said, even as she felt the burning of her own eyes.

  “Sweetie, don’t worry about me.” Mama brushed her tear away and gave Jessie a brave smile. “Just being sentimental.”

  Jessie’s throat constricted. She wanted to rewind the last hour and do it all over again. In her mind she saw herself handling the tray with elegance and poise, presenting it to a grateful Beiderman, who accepted it with a smile. He would be so relieved to have real food after all those years of frozen dinners. With his first bite of cheese croissant his eyes would light up and he would announce that the Vanderbeekers could stay in their apartment forever.

  If only the reimagined story could be reality.

  Seven

  The mood was somber by the time the five Vanderbeeker kids gathered back downstairs to eat their own breakfast. Hyacinth felt responsible for the failed outreach as she watched Jessie mope; after all, Jessie had wanted Hyacinth to do the first Beiderman mission. Now Hyacinth needed to fix it.

  Directly after breakfast, Hyacinth retreated to her room with Franz. While her dog occupied himself by staring out the window at a bird, Hyacinth took out sewing supplies and sheets of red and green felt. Carefully, she cut out letters spelling the Beiderman’s name from the green felt; then she threaded her needle and sewed the letters onto the rectangular red piece.

  The letters did not end up going across the placemat in a straight line. Instead, four letters in, she realized that there was a distinct upward slant. She tried to correct it with the next few letters, but when she reached the M, the name was tilting the opposite direction. By the time she finished, the name had a decidedly bumpy look about it. And something else seemed off. She thought that the I was before the E, but after she sewed the letters on, it looked a little wrong.

  Hyacinth’s hand was aching by the time she finished. She rolled the placemat up and tied a green velvet ribbon around it. She let her eyes linger on the green ribbon, already mourning the loss of that piece from her collection. It was not easy to part with her beautiful things.

  “You ready to be brave, Franz?” asked Hyacinth. Franz lifted his front legs and rested them against her stomach.

  It was time for Hyacinth to be more than just the fourth Vanderbeeker, the shy one, the scared one.

  She needed to be Hyacinth the Brave: a Girl on a Mission to Save Her Home.

  Together Hyacinth the Brave and Franz left their apartment and marched upstairs. The brownstone stairs whimpered all the way up.

  “Be brave, be brave, be brave,” Hyacinth whispered to herself. She looked down at Franz, and her faithful dog grinned at her and wagged his tail. Hyacinth squared her shoulders and knocked on the door.

  The second Hy
acinth knocked, she knew something bad was going to happen. She knew before she heard the stomping from inside the third-floor apartment and the barrage of clicks and bangs from locks being disengaged. She knew even before the door swung open.

  Hyacinth trembled as she stood before a monster of a man with shaggy dark hair and a beard streaked with white. His face was creased and pale and lifeless. He was wearing black, black, black.

  “Leave me alone.” His voice shocked Hyacinth. It sounded like he was talking around a mouthful of nails. “Move out of here, and let me be.”

  Hyacinth stood frozen for a full second. No longer was she Hyacinth the Brave. She was back to being the fourth Vanderbeeker, first-class worrier and the shyest kid on 141st Street. She dropped the placemat at his feet and stumbled down the stairs, Franz at her heels. She reached the door to their apartment and slammed the door behind her.

  When she reached the safety of her top bunk, she burst into tears. Big, hiccupping, drowning tears.

  Oliver’s stomach was rumbling when he heard the door down the hall from his bedroom slam and then his little sisters’ bedroom door open and shut. For a millisecond he wondered if everything was okay. When he didn’t hear anything else, he put his book aside and decided to search the kitchen to see if he could find where his mom was hiding the double chocolate pecan cookies. He opened his bedroom door.

  Oliver heard sobbing.

  It sounded like Hyacinth.

  He tried to ignore it—the cookies were calling him—but then the sobbing intensified.

  Oliver knocked on Hyacinth and Laney’s bedroom door. There was no answer. He opened the door and peeked inside. Franz sat on the carpet, whimpering. Hyacinth lay on her top bunk, her stuffed penguin held close to her chest.

  Oliver let himself in and closed the door behind him. “Can I come up?”

  There was no answer except suppressed sobs, so Oliver took that as a yes and climbed to the top bunk. Hyacinth was a sad sight, with her blotchy face and swollen eyes.