The Vanderbeekers to the Rescue

by Karina Yan Glaser

  An hour later, Oliver had fallen asleep on the couch, and Laney was snoozing on the tarp with her paintbrush still in her hand. Even Isa was fading. Jessie was sitting in an armchair, struggling to stay awake to keep Isa company, when she saw Isa put her paintbrush down and collapse into the armchair next to hers.

  “I’m just resting my eyes for a second,” she told Jessie. Then they both promptly fell asleep.

  A few minutes later, Paganini, curious about what Laney had been doing all night, hopped into the middle of the living room. He stood on his hind legs to peer into the paint can. Then he rested his front two paws on top of the can and tipped it over. Paint oozed over the can lip.

  No one saw the pink paint spread out on the tarp in the shape of Antarctica. No one saw it pool in Laney’s hair as she slept.

  No one saw Paganini hop into the spilled paint, then kick and jump frantically around the living room to get it off his feet.

  Instead, the Vanderbeekers slept and the brownstone slept. Paganini, having by now sufficiently stamped enough of the pink paint off his paws, hunkered down in the corner by the new bookshelves and kept watch over the night.

  Thirteen

  The sun came up and touched Harlem that morning, revealing a deep blue sky without a trace of clouds. Hyacinth woke to find herself on the couch, Franz tucked in right next to her. His tail waved a good morning when she met his eyes.

  Sunshine glittered through the large living room windows, and Hyacinth looked outside and noticed that everything was bright and clean, her absolute favorite kind of day to wake up to. After a good, solid rain, Harlem always looked brand-new, as if someone had run it through a vigorous car wash. Beautiful, shiny days always made her feel like the hours before her were full of possibilities, which was a good thing because it seemed important to hope this week.

  Ready to begin the day, Hyacinth sat up so she faced the center of the brownstone. But at the sight of the living room, she blinked, rubbed her eyes, then looked again.

  The paint, which had looked like a romantic rose color in the darkness of the previous night, was so blindingly bright in the early-morning light that Hyacinth winced. It was as if a cotton-candy machine had exploded. Even worse, pink rabbit-sized paw-prints dotted the floor, carpet, and the seat of their favorite yellow reading chair. Hyacinth’s eyes frantically scanned the room for Paganini. She located him in the corner next to a potted plant. He was staring at her with an “It wasn’t me!” face despite the pink paint stuck to the fur around his feet and at the tips of his long whiskers.

  Hyacinth tried to get off the couch, but she got tangled in Franz’s limbs and the blanket and tumbled to the ground with a yelp.

  Jessie bolted up from her sleeping spot in the purple armchair. “Don’t let the petri dishes break!” she yelled.

  Isa groaned and draped an arm over her eyes. “Ow. My arm muscles are sore from painting all night.”

  Franz trotted over to Oliver and licked his face.

  “Yick,” Oliver said, rubbing the slobber off.

  Laney was the last to open her eyes. “Is it time to get up?”

  “Holy smokes!” Jessie exclaimed, jumping out of the armchair and pointing at the stiff pink paint globs in Laney’s hair. “What happened to you?”

  Laney’s eyes widened. “What?”

  All five Vanderbeekers were suddenly completely awake, and they quickly saw that Laney’s hair was the least of their worries.

  “Oh my gosh, that paint is nuts,” Isa muttered, looking at the wall. “How did this happen? The color is giving me a headache.”

  “Maybe because we painted with only one light on,” Oliver suggested.

  “Paint is on the reading chair!” Laney yelled. “Someone is in serious trouble!”

  “ Paganini,” Hyacinth said simply, pointing at the culprit. Paganini stretched out his front legs and gave a big yawn; then he settled back into a ball and closed his eyes.

  “Oh my gosh, Mama is going to kill us,” Jessie moaned.

  “Why is Mama going to kill you?” Papa called as he descended the staircase.

  The Vanderbeekers froze.

  Papa got to the bottom of the stairs, and his head swiveled to take in the scene. His mouth fell open. The Vanderbeeker kids didn’t dare breathe.

  “You’re absolutely right,” Papa said at last. “Mama is going to flip.”

  “We can explain everything,” Jessie said.

  “My hair feels weird,” Laney said.

  Papa sighed. “You guys are in big trouble.”

  “Our intentions were honorable,” Isa told him.

  “You can explain later while we’re cleaning up,” Papa said. “First, let’s try to fix this before Mama sees it.”

  * * *

  Jessie watched Isa carry Paganini into the bathroom, his legs kicking out furiously as he tried to escape. Isa had assigned herself the immense job of bathing Laney and Paganini as penance for coming up with the terrible paint idea, and Hyacinth was tasked with feeding the kittens and cleaning their litterbox.

  After the bathroom door closed, locking Isa inside with Paganini and Laney, Jessie googled “how to remove paint from hardwood floor.” Google instructed them to use a plastic putty knife to scrape the not-quite-dry latex paint off the wood. Oliver ran to borrow supplies from Mr. Smiley, the superintendent of the big building two doors down and the father of his best friend, Angie. He had an impressive storehouse of tools in the building’s basement.

  Jessie was blotting the carpet (not scrubbing—Google specifically said not to scrub) with paper towels when Oliver returned. Papa was unzipping the yellow couch cover while interrogating his daughters about the paint situation.

  “We wanted to help beautify the brownstone for the photo shoot,” Jessie explained. “We know you’ve been wanting to paint the living room, and Benny had paint they weren’t using from when the Castlemans repainted the store.”

  Papa raised one eyebrow. “I don’t remember their bakery being painted this color.”

  “That’s because they decided to go with Saguaro Blossom Yellow instead,” Hyacinth explained as she came down the stairs, finished with attending to the kittens. She joined Jessie at the carpet.

  “Smart,” Papa said, laying the couch covering on the floor and blotting away. He had a cup with water and dish detergent to help.

  Oliver took a putty knife and got to work scraping the paint from the floor.

  “Next time, please obtain the proper parental consent before painting our apartment fuchsia,” Papa said. Blot, blot, blot. “Ugh, it’s so tempting to scrub.”

  “We thought we were helping,” Jessie said. “Don’t worry, we’ll fix it before the photo shoot.”

  “I want white paint this time,” Papa said. “Good old boring white paint, please.”

  “Yes, Papa,” the kids said.

  “We probably need five coats of primer to make sure the pink doesn’t show through,” Oliver grumbled. Scrape, scrape, scrape.

  Jessie had a thought: maybe fuchsia was one of those colors that look unexpectedly wonderful on camera. She pulled her phone from her back pocket and snapped a photo to test her theory. She looked at the image. The wall glowed and turned all the objects around it pink.

  Nope, they definitely couldn’t keep the wall fuchsia.

  * * *

  When Mama got up, Papa intercepted her as she came down the stairs and handed her a cup of coffee and the newspaper. Then he told her to get back to bed and that he’d let her know when it was safe to come out again.

  Mama made the mistake of glancing around. “What in the world—”

  “Trust me,” Papa said. He put his hands on her shoulders and swiveled her back toward the bedroom. “It’s better not to know.”

  It took nearly two hours to clean the floors, the carpet, the couch, Laney, and Paganini. Isa used one and a half bottles of shampoo to gently comb through the paint-covered strands of hair. Laney emerged from the bathroom grumpy and with a sore scalp from all t
he pulling, and Paganini was similarly disgruntled (but remarkably fluffy) after his bath and the subsequent blow-dry to keep him from getting a chill.

  Oliver was able to get most of the paint off the floor by using the plastic putty knife, but the carpets and armchair cover did not fare so well: even after all the blotting, they still had large spots of pinkish hues. Everyone crossed their fingers that the color would fade once everything had dried.

  It was at that point that Papa brought Mama downstairs to examine the fuchsia paint job.

  The Vanderbeekers gathered around and waited for the verdict.

  “It’s terrible,” Mama finally said. “We can’t keep it like this.” She exchanged glances with Papa, then murmured, “I think we need to dip into the Fiver Account.”

  “Not the Fiver Account!” Papa whispered in horror.

  “What’s the Fiver Account?” Laney asked. She had really good ears.

  Mama and Papa looked at each other for a long moment; then Mama finally said, “For the past two years, we’ve been putting any five-dollar bills we get into a can we nailed into the corner of our bedroom closet. It was a bizarre idea we had one night.”

  The Vanderbeeker kids were speechless. Apparently there were things their parents did that they had no idea about. Even Laney, who had a gift for snooping, didn’t know about the can.

  “I got the idea from a book I loved when I was a teenager,” Mama said. “It was called A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and in the story, the mom saves extra pennies and nickels and puts them in a can in the closet.”

  “Like a savings account?” Jessie said.

  “Sort of,” Papa said. “We already have a separate savings account, so this is like . . . fun money. We were hoping we could save enough to go on a family trip one day.”

  The Vanderbeeker kids burst into chatter.

  “That’s so cool!” Hyacinth said. “Could we go to Monterey Bay Aquarium?” Hyacinth had wanted to visit that aquarium since she was five years old.

  “I think we should go to Europe,” Isa said. “There are so many great concert halls there. Bach lived there. Mozart lived there!”

  Before the other kids could chime in with their dream vacations, Mama held up a hand. “I definitely want to hear all of your ideas, and I hope one day we’ll be able to take a big trip together. But right now, I think we need to dive into the Fiver Account for paint. I’ll ask Uncle Arthur whether he gets a discount at the hardware store.” At her kids’ distraught faces, she added, “We’ll save up again. One day, we’ll have enough.”

  The kids looked at one another. They couldn’t think of a more terrible way to use the Fiver Account than buying boring white paint.

  Mama sank down onto the couch and rolled her shoulders.

  Hyacinth, who was by the back door ready to let Franz out, yelped. “There are guinea pigs outside!”

  Fourteen

  Laney knew just what to do with guinea pigs—her kindergarten classroom had two as pets, and she had taken care of them all winter break, so she considered herself a professional. She marched right up to the back door and opened it. In a box with the top open sat two guinea pigs on a bed of hay. They were chewing contentedly.

  One of the guinea pigs was brown and white, with hair that looked like Papa’s and Oliver’s when they woke up in the morning. The other had short hair the color of a lion.

  Behind Laney stood the rest of her family. They wore a mixture of expressions, from astonished (Hyacinth and Oliver) to concerned (Isa and Jessie), amused (Papa), and resigned (Mama).

  “Where are these animals coming from?” Isa exclaimed.

  “This is nuts,” Oliver said.

  “Don’t worry,” Laney announced, picking up the box and bringing it inside. “I am a Guinea Pig Expert. I will take care of them.”

  “Aren’t guinea pigs a type of rodent?” Mama asked with a shudder.

  “Yes, they are,” answered Laney, Guinea Pig Expert. “So are beavers, prairie dogs, chipmunks, and capybaras.”

  “Really?” Papa said.

  “Rodents account for forty percent of all mammal species,” Jessie chimed in. “They are found in huge numbers on every continent except Antarctica.”

  “Is there a guinea pig rescue organization?” Isa asked. “We can’t keep them here.”

  “But they’re so cute!” Laney said. “Look at their noses!”

  Isa ignored Laney. “We have to find out who’s leaving these animals. Yesterday it was kittens; today it’s guinea pigs.”

  “Maybe tomorrow it will be pigs,” Hyacinth said hopefully. “Pigs are really smart. I’ve always wanted one.”

  Mama and Papa looked at each other. Then Papa said, “Your mom and I have busy days, so you’re on your own with this one. We’ve got to get ready for work.”

  “Just leave the tarps where they are.” Mama gestured toward one fuchsia wall. “We’ll need them when we repaint. Isa, Jessie, and Oliver, you’re in charge of cleaning all the brushes. Laney and Hyacinth, you are forbidden to touch paint again until you’re old enough to vote. And, Laney, under no circumstances are you to let the guinea pigs out of that box!”

  “Yes, Mama,” they chorused, and Mama and Papa went upstairs to shower and change while Laney ransacked the refrigerator for vegetables suitable for guinea pigs. Oliver ran across the street to borrow Angie’s cage—her guinea pig Phee-Phee had died the winter before—and when he returned, Laney got to work. She dusted off the cage, lined the bottom with newspaper, filled the water bottle, put some of Paganini’s hay into the hay rack, and cut up leafy greens. Then she carefully transported the guinea pigs to their new habitat and watched as they instantly went for the vegetables.

  The latch secured, Laney put the cage on the dining room table, and the Vanderbeekers sat around it and stared at the guinea pigs. The kittens were frolicking at their feet, Franz was doing laps around the table, George Washington was glaring at the kittens from his perch on the windowsill, and Paganini was chewing a giant hole in the abandoned cardboard box the guinea pigs had been delivered in.

  Isa crossed her arms and rested her chin on her hands. “This situation is getting out of control. How are we going to get all these animals out of here and remove all evidence of them by Thursday morning? That’s two days away.”

  Laney stood up. “Hyacinth and I are going to see Mr. Beiderman. He knows all sorts of things. Maybe he knows who’s leaving them at our door.”

  “Don’t forget to ask him about keeping the animals in his apartment during the inspection,” Oliver said.

  Laney nodded, then looked around for any cookies Mama might have left behind from her orders. Sometimes Mr. Beiderman was in a bad mood, and when they wanted a favor, they knew it was best to arrive prepared.

  * * *

  Hyacinth and Laney picked out the most perfect cookies from the ones Mama had left and put them in a Tupperware container. Laney grabbed the guinea pig cage, and together they went upstairs to introduce the new animals to Mr. Beiderman.

  “Who is it?” boomed Mr. Beiderman at Hyacinth’s knock on the door.

  “It sounds like he’s in a bad mood,” Laney whispered to Hyacinth.

  “Good thing we brought cookies,” Hyacinth replied.

  “I heard that,” Mr. Beiderman said as he opened the door.

  “Heard what?” Hyacinth said, her eyes wide and innocent.

  Mr. Beiderman grunted. “What kind of cookies did you bring? Wait, what are those? Rodents?”

  “That’s right!” Laney said.

  He tried to close the door on them. “I don’t want rodents in my apartment.”

  “They’re guinea pigs,” Laney clarified as she pushed her way inside. “They’re cute rodents.”

  Princess Cutie leaped down from the top of her three-tiered deluxe cat tree, where she had been napping, and sauntered toward the cage. She stared at the guinea pigs, then backed away, her tail sticking straight up as if she had been electrocuted.

  “Don’t tell me you got more
animals,” Mr. Beiderman said. “Weren’t the kittens enough?”

  “We found these this morning,” Laney told him.

  “They were left in a box outside our door,” Hyacinth explained. “Have you seen anyone suspicious leaving animals at people’s doorsteps?”

  “No,” Mr. Beiderman said. “But I just got home last night.”

  “You should adopt the guinea pigs or one of the kittens,” Hyacinth said. “I think Princess Cutie would like a friend.”

  Princess Cutie hissed and swatted a paw at the guinea pigs’ cage. Mr. Beiderman scooped her up, and she immediately began to purr in his arms. “I think Princess Cutie likes getting all the attention. And I don’t want rodents in my apartment.”

  “What about one of the kittens?” Hyacinth suggested. “I can run downstairs and bring them up so you can look at them again.”

  Princess Cutie was peering over Mr. Beiderman’s shoulder, her cat eyes narrowed to slits as she stared at the guinea pigs.

  “No,” Mr. Beiderman said firmly. “This is a one-cat household.”

  Laney looked up at him with her Super Sad Puppy Eyes, but Mr. Beiderman was immune to her charms.

  “Okay, fine,” Hyacinth said, “but would you be willing to take Franz, Paganini, and George Washington on Thursday for a couple of hours?”

  “No, thank you,” Mr. Beiderman said. Princess Cutie purred in agreement.

  “But Mr. Beiderman!” Hyacinth protested. “We just took care of Princess Cutie for five whole days while you were at your conference!”

  “Princess Cutie is a polite, well-mannered cat. You’re asking me to look after three wild animals!”

  “They aren’t wild!” Laney said.

  “Last time Franz was in my apartment, he ate four dish towels,” Mr. Beiderman pointed out.

  “He was hungry,” Hyacinth explained. “He had just started his diet.”