“Hey,” Oliver interrupted after what seemed like hours. “My mom will kill me if I don’t deliver these cookies. You still in?”
Angie took one last look at the search results, then reluctantly closed down the search engine. “I’ll do more tonight,” she promised before grabbing her coat and entering the living room. “Dad, I’m going to help Oliver with the cookie deliveries!”
Mr. Smiley, startled to see the kids, hastily stuffed an empty cellophane cookie bag behind the couch cushion before flashing them a guilty smile. A scattering of crumbs clung to his beard.
Angie pointed an accusing finger at him. “Da-ad! You ate all of them?”
When Mr. Smiley could only offer a sheepish shrug, Angie rolled her eyes and stomped out the door.
Oliver followed her. He looked at his cookie bag, and then at Angie. In an act of supreme sacrifice, he tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned around, he held the bag out to her. “You can have some of mine. I don’t mind,” he lied.
“Really? Thanks!” Angie took a cookie (it happened to be the one Oliver would have chosen to eat next himself) and nibbled off an end. Oliver sighed. Sometimes it was just so hard to be nice.
Two hours later, the cookies were delivered, and Oliver had been grateful for Angie’s company. It was exhausting remembering his manners when talking to all those people, but Angie smiled and chatted as if she didn’t mind seeing the same baby over and over in two dozen pictures.
The cookie basket was empty save one bag, and they had gathered twenty more signatures on the petition. Oliver gave Angie another cookie from his personal supply, leaving him with only two. Oliver could not wait to go back home, sit alone in his bedroom, read Prince Caspian, and eat those last two cookies in peace.
“If you want to leave those petition sheets for me, I’ll get more people to sign,” Angie offered.
Oliver handed over the petitions, then walked back to the brownstone. He had one last bag to deliver, this time to someone in his own building. The label said “Mr. Beiderman” in his mom’s swirly handwriting. Oliver trudged up to the third floor. When he got there, he saw a bag of trash hanging on the handle of the Beiderman’s apartment. He knew his father came up to the third floor a few times a week to collect the Beiderman’s garbage and bring it down to the building trash bins. Oliver unhooked the bag from the doorknob and left the bag of cookies in front of the door.
Halfway down the stairs, Oliver turned around, climbed back up to the third floor, and placed his own bag of cookies down next to the one he had just left there.
“Peace offering,” Oliver said out loud.
There was no response from the other side of the door—Oliver didn’t expect there would be—so he headed back downstairs. Something inside the garbage bag made a funny clinking sound, so naturally Oliver peeked in to see what it was.
Scattered among the remains of frozen dinners were shards of a broken record.
“Two days left for Operation Beiderman,” Isa said from her spot by the easel in the twins’ room. “We need to diversify our strategy.”
“We got a bunch of signatures for the petitions,” Jessie said as she fiddled with an old computer hard drive she had found on the curb.
“It’s not enough,” Isa said. She drew a diagram on the whiteboard and wrote “Beiderman Strategy” in big letters in the middle, then drew two arrows pointing outward. One arrow pointed to “Petition.” At the end of the second arrow, she wrote “Acts of Kindness.”
Oliver groaned when he saw Isa’s last addition. “Can’t we sabotage the people who want to rent our apartment? That’s a lot more fun.”
“I know the other nice things we did for him did not go as planned,” Isa said, “but the petition can only do so much. It tells the Beiderman that people like us in the neighborhood, but it doesn’t tell him why. We have to persuade him to like us. We need to appeal to his heart.”
“Technically, it’s the brain that processes emotion, not the heart,” Jessie pointed out.
“You know what I mean,” Isa replied.
“I left the little Christmas tree outside his door,” Laney said while sucking on a strand of her hair.
“Don’t suck on your hair,” Isa said, followed by, “That was very sweet of you.”
“And me and Oliver left him a record. A jazz record,” Laney added.
Isa raised her eyebrows. “A jazz record? Cool.”
“Miss Josie said he liked jazz,” Laney said breezily.
“I can’t believe I never thought to ask Miss Josie about him,” Jessie said. “Of course. They’ve lived here even longer than he has.”
Oliver was not about to share what he’d discovered inside the Beiderman’s trash and break Laney’s heart. “Angie tried to search for him on the Internet,” he reported instead, “but she didn’t come up with anything yet.”
“What is wrong with me?” Jessie said to no one. “I should have asked Angie if I could use their computer.”
“I also gave him some of my cookies,” Oliver said.
The room stilled.
“You . . . what?” Isa whispered.
“Cookies. Some of the ones Mama made for me.”
Jessie spoke slowly. “You gave the Beiderman cookies. From your own personal stash. Willingly. Not under duress.”
“Wow,” Hyacinth said in wonder. Franz’s tail thumped on the floor.
“I’m so proud,” Isa announced. “Such sacrifice.”
Oliver’s face turned red. “Can we just keep going with the meeting?”
Hyacinth spoke up. “Mr. Jones said the Beiderman used to teach art at the castle college. No, not art.” She tilted her head, thinking. “Art history.”
“We should contact the art history department at City College,” Isa said. “Maybe someone knows him there.”
“Art history sounds so boring,” Oliver remarked.
“I think it sounds romantic,” Isa said. “I would love to know more about what life was like when Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso lived.”
“That’s because you have an artist’s soul,” Jessie said. “The right hemisphere of your brain is very highly developed.”
“Yeah. Art history is boring to those of us with normal brains,” Oliver chimed in.
“I like art,” Laney interrupted. “I want to learn about it.”
“Thank you,” Isa said primly.
“I think we should go to the art history department,” Isa repeated. “Maybe tomorrow when we go out with the petitions again.”
Laney’s face lit up. “We get to go to the castle?” The last time the Vanderbeekers went to the castle was for a spring fair their school was hosting with the college. Laney was only two at the time, and to her disgust she didn’t remember anything about it.
“Sounds good to me,” said Jessie.
“Great. Now, what I was going to say before we got sidetracked”—Isa gave Oliver a pointed look—“is that we need to give the Beiderman a more personal look into who we are.”
“How?” Oliver asked suspiciously. “I’m not giving up any more cookies, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“We need to wow him with how great we are,” said Isa. “So he wouldn’t be able to imagine anyone as awesome as us living here.”
“I’m good at hugging people,” Laney announced.
“I can’t see hugging the Beiderman going well right now,” said Jessie.
“Maybe you can draw him a picture of the brownstone,” Isa suggested. “Who doesn’t love a picture drawn by a four-year-old?”
Laney’s brow creased. “I’m four and three-quarters,” she corrected Isa.
“I can make him something science-y,” offered Jessie.
“I’ll write him a poem,” Oliver said. His sisters stared at him. “What?” Oliver said defensively. “Poetry is cool, okay?”
“I wonder if I should make him a CD of my violin playing,” said Isa. “I’m so much better than I was six years ago.”
Hyacinth kept her head down, pretending
to inspect Franz for fleas.
“Don’t forget we need to continue collecting even more signatures,” Isa reminded them. “It’s a lot, but we can do it!”
Oliver started humming the Star Wars theme song.
“No obstacle is too big,” Isa continued as Oliver increased his humming volume.
“No man too mean,” Jessie added.
“We are the Vanderbeekers!” piped up Hyacinth as Oliver reached a crescendo in his song.
“Let’s save our home!” declared Isa.
Monday, December 23
Fifteen
“We’re going for a walk,” Jessie announced to her mom.
“Take Laney with you,” Mama called out from the kitchen. “Please,” she added with a note of desperation.
On every available inch of counter space, and on every available inch of the kitchen floor, lay Mama’s baking supplies, ready for packing. Laney was having a wonderful time examining each item and organizing the supplies for her own personal “store.” She had found a stack of sticky notes and priced items anywhere from one cent to three hundred thousand dollars.
Papa emerged from the bathroom, where he was sanding down the walls in preparation for a new coat of paint.
“I think you officially have every baking utensil ever invented,” Papa said, looking at the clutter of the kitchen. He picked up a metal pincher thing with needle-like tips. “What is this?”
“It’s a fondant crimper. Don’t let Laney have it,” Mama replied as she watched him hand it to Laney.
“Ooh, fun,” Laney said, squeezing it together.
“Please, Isa. Save my life here,” Mama pleaded.
“Laney, let’s go for a walk,” Isa suggested, plucking the fondant crimper out of Laney’s hands and handing it back to Mama.
“We could check out City College,” Isa said in a singsong voice as she took Laney’s coat off the coat hook and held it out to her.
“Yay, the castle!” Laney said, jumping to her feet. She looked at Mama. “We’re going to find out if—”
“—princesses live there,” Isa cut in.
“Okay,” Mama said as she packed up the fondant crimper. She did not say “Be careful!” or “Be back in an hour or else!” so the kids knew she was very distracted.
A northeastern wind had joined the cold front, and it felt twenty degrees colder than the day before. Whenever a gust passed, the kids turned so their backs served as shields against the wind. No one spoke—hats were pulled low and scarves were pulled high.
The smell of Castleman’s Bakery tempted the Vanderbeekers when they passed by, and each Vanderbeeker felt noble as they resisted the desire to take shelter in the cozy store. They crossed the street and stood before the college entrance. Imposing wrought-iron gates reached skyward, and beyond the gates was the college campus. Up close, the buildings were more intimidating than they were from the brownstone roof. Instead of being like a princess’s home, the buildings looked like they belonged on a craggy cliff above a raging sea during a lightning storm.
The Vanderbeekers looked at each other. Finally, Isa shrugged and stepped inside the gates. Her siblings followed her down a cobblestone path toward the center of campus. When they emerged in the enormous courtyard, they found the college almost deserted.
“Wow,” said Oliver. “Where are the people?”
“I think this college is closed,” Hyacinth said.
“I’m sure people are still working,” Isa said in her falsely cheery voice. “There must be a map somewhere . . .”
“I see it! I see a map!” Laney said. She dragged Isa by the hand to an information post.
“Look, they have a whole department just for chemistry,” Jessie said reverently, looking over Laney’s shoulder as she examined the map. “That’s awesome.”
“And a music department too,” Isa said.
“Let me see,” said Oliver, crowding in.
“Ah! Here it is! The art history department. It’s in Goethals Hall.” Isa looked away from the map and surveyed the campus. “That one.”
To Laney’s disappointment, Goethals Hall wasn’t the huge castle building visible from the Vanderbeekers’ brownstone roof. Instead, it was like a miniature version of the more impressive castle. The kids made their way to the building, and it took the strength of both Oliver and Jessie to push the heavy wooden doors open wide enough for the rest of the kids to squeeze inside. The black iron hinges groaned. The temperature inside was only slightly warmer than outside, and the interior seemed to be made entirely of cold marble: marble floors, marble walls, and, before them, a long marble staircase.
The kids wandered around, lost for ten minutes before they ran into a student in plaid flannel pajama bottoms and boots that looked like house slippers.
“Do you know where the art history department is?” Jessie asked him.
The guy pointed. “Two floors up, make a right. The office is at the end of the hall.”
The kids followed his directions, and sure enough, a door at the end of the second-floor hallway had a piece of paper with “ART HISTORY” written on it in fat marker. Isa peeked in. A woman with graying hair pulled into a severe bun sat behind a wooden desk that took up nearly the whole room. The top of the desk was completely empty except for a shallow box filled with papers in one corner and a desktop computer in the other.
“Just put it in the box,” she said in a monotone voice, not looking up from her computer. Tap tap tap.
Isa stepped into the room. “I’m sorry to be a bother, but I just have one quick question.”
“You’re about to be late with your paper. Either turn it in now or fail the class,” she replied. Tap tap tap.
“But I’m not in a class,” Isa replied. “I have a question about someone who might have worked here.”
Finally, the woman looked at the Vanderbeekers. “Kids are not supposed to be here,” she said, her pencil-thin eyebrows raising up to her hairline.
“We have a question,” Isa repeated, slowly. “We were wondering if you know of a Mr. Beiderman. He used to work in this department.”
“Never heard of him,” the woman replied, going back to her computer. “Where are your parents?” Tap tap tap.
“We’re doing research on our neighbor,” Jessie chimed in, stepping inside the office, followed by Oliver, Hyacinth, and Laney. “He might have worked here six years ago.”
“I told you I never heard of him, and I’ve worked here for five years.” Tap tap tap.
“Is there anyone who would have been here six or seven years ago who might know?” Isa pressed.
“Nope. Faculty left last week. Final papers are due right now, and in ten seconds I’m packing these essays up and mailing them off to Professor Suarez’s home. The college will be closed until January fifteenth. You can come back then.” Tap tap tap.
“January fifteenth?” Jessie exclaimed. “You can’t look it up on your computer right now?”
The lady stopped tapping and powered down her computer. “Sorry.”
She did not sound one bit sorry. The Vanderbeekers watched as she slid the papers from her desk into a manila envelope.
From the hallway, the Vanderbeekers heard someone yell, “Wait! I have it!”
The kids peeked out the door and saw a disheveled girl racing toward them, waving a paper. When the girl reached them, she grabbed hold of the doorway to stop her momentum. The Vanderbeekers parted to let her inside. “I have my paper!” she gasped.
“Too late,” the gray-haired lady replied. She pointed at the clock. It was 10:01 A.M.
The girl clutched her heart. “Please! I have to pass this class or I’ll lose my scholarship!”
“Everyone out of my office,” the ruiner of hopes replied. “My winter break started one minute ago.” The lady grabbed her jacket and purse from the coat rack, then pushed everyone out of the office and into the hallway. She followed them and closed the door behind her. After she locked it, she took a last look at the dejected group of peop
le around her.
To Isa and Jessie she said, “Come back in January, after the fifteenth. Maybe someone can help you then.”
To the girl with the paper—who was now wringing her hands and crying—the gray-haired woman snapped, “Next time, don’t be late.” Then she yanked the essay out of the student’s hand and clicked down the hallway, disappearing around a corner.
“Oh, thank goodness,” the frazzled student said, slumping down against the wall.
The Vanderbeekers shook their heads in wonder. College was looking more and more like a place where dreams came to die.
“There are no princesses here,” Laney said, tears leaking out of her eyes as she followed her siblings out of the building.
“Oh, Laney, I’m sorry. This was my terrible idea,” Isa said, picking Laney up and drying her little sister’s eyes. “Do you want to go to Castleman’s? I’ll buy you a cookie.”
Laney shook her head, her hair tumbling into her face. “I want to go home.”
The Vanderbeekers began to trudge back to 141st Street, all illusions about the magic of the castle college lost forever. They yearned for the warmth of their home, the pets awaiting their arrival, the comfort of Mama’s nourishing meals, and the love of their friends and neighbors.
It was a quiet walk back to 141st Street. When they arrived at their block, Jessie paused to get a signature for the petition from their neighbor Charlotte and her son Joseph. While five-year-old Joseph carefully inscribed his name on a line, a middle-aged man in a worn overcoat and swathed in a bright red scarf approached them.
“Want to sign our petition?” asked Laney, approaching him and unearthing another crumpled petition from her coat pocket.
The man’s eyes crinkled kindly as he looked at the five kids standing before him. He took the paper and unfolded it.
“Hello,” the man said in a deep, gravelly voice. “Tell me about your petition.”
The kids introduced themselves. “We’re trying to convince our landlord to renew our lease,” Isa explained.
“Surely,” he said, signing “Mr. Austin Rochester” on an open line without bothering to read the top. “I applaud your civic-mindedness,” said Mr. Rochester. A blast of arctic wind came through, and Mr. Rochester and the kids turned their backs to it. When the wind eased, he continued. “I love seeing people get involved in their community. I always try to encourage that in my work.”
The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street Page 10
