He made a face and turned his sticky hands into claws.
“Rarrrrr!” he said. I’m the molasses monster! Slime shoots out of my eyes!
“Or maybe it was a shark!” Tony said, turning his claws into a fin. “It sneaked onto the molasses ship and then wiggled through the pipe into the tank.”
Carmen smiled. Tony really was smart. It was true that the molasses came to Boston on big ships. The ships traveled from Cuba and Puerto Rico — islands in the Caribbean. The molasses was pumped from the ships into the tank through a giant pipe.
Carmen caught her breath and brushed some dirt from her coat.
She didn’t admit to Tony what she’d really thought when she heard those noises: that a person was trapped inside. What if a worker had fallen in and was drowning, being smothered by the disgusting, bitter goo?
Just the idea made her heart pound with horror.
But now she looked at Tony’s grinning face and laughed.
Wait until Papa heard about this!
Carmen and Tony burst through the squeaking stable door.
Instantly, Carmen felt calmer as she breathed in the smell of hay and horses and heard the loud nicker of hello from Rosie. The mare was the only horse still at the stable at this time of day. The others were out pulling wagons back and forth across Boston. Rosie was too old to work anymore. But Mr. Vita loved her too much to sell her.
Rosie poked her white head over the door of her stall, flicking her ears and snorting softly. Carmen gave her a kiss on her nose. Tony rubbed her head — he loved her, too.
Rosie stuck out her long pink tongue and started licking Tony’s fingers. Tony laughed.
“I think you like molasses even more than I do,” he said to Rosie.
“Papa?” Carmen called. “We’re here!”
Carmen expected to hear Papa’s cheerful voice. He usually came running out from the back, to wrap her — and Tony — in a big hug.
But it wasn’t Papa who appeared. Or Mr. Vita.
It was Tony’s mother, Mrs. Grasso.
What was Mrs. Grasso doing here at the stable? Who was watching Tony’s little sisters and his little brother, Frankie?
And then Carmen noticed the worried look on Mrs. Grasso’s face.
More than worried.
Mrs. Grasso looked scared.
A stab of fear slashed through Carmen’s chest. Had something happened to Tony’s father? Had Frankie broken his arm again? Did one of the little girls get bitten by a rat?
But wait. Why was Mrs. Grasso looking at Carmen? Why did she have tears in her eyes?
“Carmen, mia cara …” — my dear.
She took Carmen’s hands.
“I’m so sorry. But your papa is very sick.”
Carmen wiped away tears as she and Tony and Mrs. Grasso hurried through the streets. Mrs. Grasso had explained what happened — that Papa had become very ill around lunchtime. Mr. Vita took Papa home in a wagon.
“He’s in bed now,” Mrs. Grasso continued as they passed the bakery. “The doctor already came. He said your father has some new kind of flu.”
The word flu made Carmen feel calmer. The flu wasn’t really a killer, like typhoid or polio or rabies. Carmen had the flu just last year. She’d felt rotten and was in bed for days. But within a week she was back to herself.
Papa will be fine, Papa will be fine, Carmen repeated to herself as her boots clicked against the stone streets.
And looking around her, everything was the same as always. There were the little kids playing hide-and-seek between the pushcarts piled high with fruits and vegetables. There was Mrs. Ortelli through the window of the bakery, chatting with her customers. There was the gray cat sunning himself outside the tailor’s shop, and the hams and sausages hanging in the butcher’s window. There was a rat poking through a pile of trash.
And of course there was Tony, right next to her.
But then, when they stopped at the corner to wait to cross the street, Carmen caught sight of something else.
The newsboy, the one she and Tony had passed earlier. Carmen had barely listened to the headlines he’d been shouting out. But now Carmen slowed down and stared as the boy waved the afternoon paper at the people rushing by him. Suddenly his words seemed meant just for Carmen.
“DEADLY FLU HITS BOSTON!”
Carmen practically flew up the narrow staircase that led to their apartment. She rushed past Mr. Vita into the small bedroom she and Papa shared.
Another neighbor, Mrs. Perelli, was kneeling next to Papa’s bed. But that man in the bed … that couldn’t be Papa.
He looked like a shivering ghost, deathly pale, lips tinged blue. His teeth chattered, even though the bed was piled with blankets.
“Papa?” Carmen rasped, dropping down to her knees.
Papa’s eyes fluttered open.
The ghostly mask fell away for a few seconds.
“Mia ragazza,” he rasped. My girl.
Carmen sat down, blinking away tears, forcing a smile. She would cheer him up, just like she cheered up Tony.
“Papa,” she said, her voice shaking. “I … I got another one hundred on my math test … ”
But Papa’s eyes were already closed again.
Carmen grabbed his hand — it was so hot! As if his blood was boiling, as if his bones were on fire.
She pulled a rickety chair over to the bed and sat down.
“I’m here, Papa,” she said. “I’m here.”
Hours passed, and the sun went down. Papa tossed and turned, muttering in his sleep.
And then came the cough, a hacking, wheezing cough like nothing Carmen had ever heard. It sounded like little bombs were exploding in Papa’s lungs.
Mrs. Perelli and Mrs. Grasso sponged Papa’s face and arms to cool him. They spooned medicine into his mouth.
But Papa’s skin got hotter.
The cough got worse and worse.
Carmen sat in her chair, gripping Papa’s hand.
Her mind kept drifting back to the flood after the earthquake, when Carmen clung to Papa’s back as they were caught in the churning sea.
Nonna had told her the story so many times.
“I was up early that day,” she always began, “because that naughty goat escaped again. I’d just reached the top of the hill when everything started to shake.”
The earthquake lasted forty seconds but it felt like years, she said. When it was over, she raced down the hill to the house.
The roof had collapsed. But Mama, Papa, and Carmen made it out, and were safe.
“We thought the worst was over. But we were wrong.”
The earthquake had caused the sea to rise up. Now tidal waves twenty feet tall slammed into the village.
“Your papa grabbed you and tried to run,” Nonna continued. But nobody could outrun the sea.
Nonna always got a twinkle in her eye at this point. “The water was strong. But your papa was stronger.”
He grabbed a shutter from a ruined house. He climbed up on it, and told Carmen to hold on to his back.
The water rose and rose.
They got separated from Nonna and Mama.
They floated on that shutter for hours.
And this was the part that had etched itself in Carmen’s mind, especially the words Papa had called out to her over and over.
“Hold on,” he’d said.
Now Carmen leaned into Papa, an inch away from his sweat-covered brow.
“Hold on, Papa,” she whispered. “Please hold on.”
She gripped his hand.
She held it tighter than she’d held on to Papa’s back in the flood.
Tighter than anything she’d ever held in her life. She held on even after Papa stopped breathing.
Even after the doctor put the sheet over Papa’s face.
Even after Papa’s hand grew cold, and Carmen understood that some things get taken away, no matter how hard you try to hold on to them.
It wasn’t until much later, when the sun came up, t
hat Carmen finally let go.
Carmen was awake, but she kept her eyes squeezed shut.
The mornings were always the hardest. She finally eased her eyes open and took some deep breaths. She listened for Papa’s voice in her mind like she did every morning.
Buongiorno, mia ragazza — Good morning, my girl.
“Good morning,” Carmen whispered back.
“Hi, Carmie!” a little voice chirped.
Carmen looked down, and two sleepy brown eyes peeped up at her.
It was little Teresa, Tony’s three-year-old sister.
“Go back to sleep,” Carmen said with a smile. “It’s still early.”
Teresa flashed a gap-toothed grin and closed her eyes.
At the end of the bed, Tony’s other little sister, Marie, was curled up under a tattered blanket. Carmen reached over and tucked her in tighter.
A snore rose up from the floor. That was Tony’s six-year-old brother, Frankie. He was a skinny little bean. But he snored like a giant! He and Tony were asleep on a mattress tucked into the corner.
Across the room, the curtain that hid Mr. and Mrs. Grasso’s bed was already pulled open. Carmen could hear them talking in the kitchen.
This was Carmen’s home now, the Grassos’ two-room apartment. She’d been living here since the night after Papa died, when Mr. Grasso carried her upstairs and tucked her into bed with the two little girls. There were seven of them living here, crammed together like tomatoes in a jar. The noise was constant. The girls’ giggles. Frankie’s bouncing ball. Mr. Grasso’s booming laugh.
And the fighting!
“Frankie bit me!”
“Marie wet the bed!”
“Teresa is eating a cockroach!”
No wonder Tony couldn’t study!
But Carmen knew how lucky she was to be with the Grassos, who treated Carmen like family.
Carmen looked over at Tony, fast asleep with drool dripping out the corner of his mouth. He had hardly left Carmen’s side since Papa died. He’d even started reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz aloud at bedtime.
“It puts the girls to sleep,” he said.
But Carmen had a feeling he was reading it for her. He somehow sensed that hearing about Dorothy made Carmen feel better, like she wasn’t the only girl who sometimes felt completely lost.
Worse than lost. There were moments every day when Carmen’s heart seemed to be crumbling apart, like the church tower in her village after the quake.
But then Tony would tell her one of his dumb jokes. Frankie would come racing over to show her a new baseball card. The girls would climb up onto her lap. Or Mrs. Grasso would ask her to stir the pot of tomato gravy. With all these kids, there was always work to be done. Carmen tried to help Mrs. Grasso out as much as she could.
Which was what she should be doing now, instead of lying here like a lump.
Carmen quickly got dressed. She stared out the window as she brushed the knots from her hair.
Of course, her gaze went straight to that ugly molasses tank rising up in the distance. It was impossible to look out the window and not see it. And now the tank would always remind Carmen of that terrible day that Papa got sick. She remembered those strange noises she and Tony had heard, how they’d run away in fear, and then fallen down laughing.
It amazed Carmen to think of how carefree she’d felt on that bright September day. She’d had no idea that Papa was sick. That the Spanish influenza had already sunk its fangs into Boston. That they would all soon find themselves caught in the middle of one of the deadliest disease outbreaks in history.
The epidemic spread through Boston and across the country — and the world. Tens of millions had died so far. Mr. Lawrence told them it was even more deadly than the Black Death, the plague that struck Europe during the time of the knights.
Here in Boston, hospitals ran out of beds. Schools and theaters and movie houses were shut down to slow the spread. But nothing helped. Bodies piled up in the streets. There weren’t enough gravediggers to bury the hundreds dying each week.
Carmen wasn’t the only kid at school who’d lost a parent. Some lost two, and brothers and sisters, too.
So much had changed since she and Tony stood together in the shadow of the molasses tank.
But that tank hadn’t changed at all. It was still huge and ugly and leaking.
Carmen sat on the edge of the lumpy mattress to button up her brand-new boots. The Grassos had given them to her for Christmas. Her last boots were so small her toenails had turned black. Carmen stood up and wiggled her grateful toes. She figured she’d help Mrs. Grasso with breakfast and then head to school with Tony and Frankie.
She tiptoed toward the kitchen door. She could hear Mr. and Mrs. Grasso talking over their morning cups of espresso.
“Carmen’s a gem,” Mrs. Grasso was saying. “The kids adore her.”
They were talking about her? Carmen crept closer.
“She sure is,” Mr. Grasso agreed.
Carmen flushed, and smiled a little.
“When are we going to tell her?” Mr. Grasso said.
“The ship doesn’t leave for another week,” Mrs. Grasso answered. “No need to worry her about the voyage.”
Carmen froze.
Ship? Worry?
“It’s such a long journey,” Mr. Grasso said. “It’s going to be tough. Italy is very different from here.”
The hairs on the back of Carmen’s neck stood up.
“I know,” Mrs. Grasso said. “But it’s for the best. Carmen and her grandmother will be together again.”
Carmen stepped back. It was suddenly very hard to breathe.
The room started to spin as she understood what they were saying.
They were sending her back to Italy.
Carmen stood there frozen, barely breathing.
Tony called over to her through a yawn.
“Hey, Carm. Are you pretending to be a statue or something?”
All the kids were awake now. Four sets of big Grasso eyes were on her.
“The Wicked Witch of the West cast a spell on her!” said Frankie.
The kids all giggled, and Carmen knew they expected her to join in. But she couldn’t laugh right now.
She pushed open the door to the kitchen — she had to get out of the apartment, before she burst into tears. She would go to the stable. Mr. Vita was in Connecticut, visiting his cousins. Carmen could get Rosie and take her to the park. She wouldn’t have to talk to anyone.
She stumbled into the kitchen and headed straight for the coatrack. Mrs. Grasso stood up.
“Carmen? Do you feel all right?”
“Yes. But I’m … I’m going to school,” Carmen lied, struggling to keep her voice steady. She threw on her coat. “Mr. Lawrence wanted some help —”
“So early?” Mrs. Grasso said. “It’s barely seven.”
But Carmen was already in the hallway, ignoring the voices calling after her.
She flew down the stairs and out the door onto the street.
Her mind was swirling.
How could they send her back?
This couldn’t be Nonna’s idea, could it? She and Carmen had been writing to each other nonstop, but Nonna hadn’t written a word about that. The Grassos knew how much Carmen missed Nonna. Did they somehow think Carmen wanted to go back to Italy?
Somehow, she made it to the stable. She waved hello to Mr. Pallo, the cheery older man who was watching the horses while Mr. Vita was gone. She hurried to Rosie’s stall. She didn’t bother with a saddle, just climbed on up and clicked her tongue. Rosie knew that meant “go.”
They headed toward the park by the harbor. Usually, the sound of Rosie’s horseshoes on the cobblestones was soothing to Carmen. But today each footstep was a hammer pounding on her heart.
Clop, clop. She imagined herself saying good-bye to Mr. Vita.
Clop, clop. To Mrs. Grasso.
Clop, clop. To Tony.
She stroked Rosie’s mane.
Who woul
d ride her after Carmen left?
By the time they reached the park, Carmen’s chest felt bruised.
She looked out at the ships, remembering when she and Papa first sailed into Boston Harbor. Papa was so excited!
“Anything is possible in America,” Papa always said. “If you work hard, a person can be anything they want to be.”
You couldn’t be anything you wanted to be in southern Italy, though. Not unless you were already very rich. Papa had barely earned money as a farmer. All the men were farmers or fishermen; there were no other jobs. And girls? They got married and had babies.
Carmen wanted a family of her own one day.
But she didn’t want that to be her only job.
Maybe she’d be a teacher, like Mr. Lawrence. Or a nurse, and help people who were sick. Or she could write a book, like The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
She’d never do any of those things if she went back.
There wasn’t even a school in her village.
Rosie came to a stop near the playground, as if she knew Carmen needed a break. Carmen slid down and buried herself in Rosie’s mane, staring at her shiny new boots through the mare’s soft white hair.
Suddenly, anger boiled up inside her.
She wasn’t angry at the Grassos — not after everything they’d done for her. She was mad at herself. All this time she’d let herself feel a part of the Grasso family. But Mr. and Mrs. Grasso already had four kids. Mr. Grasso worked at construction sites, where he probably earned no more than thirty dollars a week.
Carmen should have eaten less! She should have tried to find a job in the factory, or as a maid for one of the rich families outside the North End. And she shouldn’t have accepted these boots for Christmas.
Carmen kicked the dirt so hard that Rosie whinnied.
“Sorry, girl,” Carmen said, giving Rosie a gentle stroke on the forehead.
Carmen paced back and forth, wrestling with the thoughts in her head.
School would start soon. But Carmen decided, for the first time ever, to play hooky. What did math or spelling matter now that she was going back to Italy? The only math she’d need there would be for counting goats and rows of tomato plants. She’d never speak English again.
I Survived the Great Molasses Flood, 1919 Page 2