Ginger Clark is a gift. I’m grateful for her advice, encouragement, and advocacy. To Holly Frederick, I send a vibrant Harlem garden for being a terrific film agent. I am thankful to Nicole M. Eisenbraun and Madeline R. Travis for all their hard work and support.
Librarians, teachers, and booksellers are national treasures and deserve palaces and an endless supply of cookies. I am thankful for all the ways they share their love of reading with young people.
Hugs to Amy Poehler, Kim Lessing, Matt Murray, and the entire Paper Kite team!
One of the best parts about being a writer is being surrounded by compassionate and creative colleagues in the Kid Lit community. Special thanks to Lauren Hart and Laura Shovan for their feedback on an early draft of this book. So many writer friends have encouraged, advised, and made me laugh this year. Thank you to Sarah Mlynowski, Christina Soontornvat, Stuart Gibbs, Max Brallier, Hena Khan, Rebecca Stead, Jenn Bertman, Supriya Kelkar, Vicki Jamieson, Linda Sue Park, Gbemi Rhuday-Perkovich, Jarrett Lerner, Janice Nimura, and Celia C. Pérez.
Lots of love to Lauren Hart, Emily Rabin, Katie Graves-Abe, Harrigan Bowman, Kate Hennessey, the Glaser family, and the Dickinson family for being wonderful, amazing people. A special shout-out to the communities that have inspired and encouraged me, including the Town School, Book Riot, Read-Aloud Revival, the New York Society Library, the Renegades of Middle Grade, the New York Public Library, All Angels’ Church, and my Harlem neighbors.
I wrote this book while sheltering at home with my family during the coronavirus pandemic. Huge thanks to the health care workers and essential workers who kept us safe.
Each book I write is always possible because my family inspires and loves me. Each book is always because of and for Dan, Kaela, and Lina.
Keep reading for an Excerpt from Karina Yan Glaser’s Poignant New Novel, A Duet for Home, Coming April 2022!
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 30
Days at Huey House:
Tyrell 1,275; June 1
One
June
CAN BAD LUCK FOLLOW A PERSON FOREVER? June Yang had always believed there was a cosmic distribution of fortune by which everyone had equal amounts of good and bad luck in their lives. But here June was, miles away from home, standing in front of a drab, used-to-be-white building with her viola strapped to her back and a black garbage bag next to her filled with everything she owned in the whole world. Her theory about luck must be wrong, because it seemed as if she had had enough bad luck for two lifetimes.
“What is this place?” asked Maybelle, her little sister.
June didn’t answer. She stared up at the building. The entrance had a crooked sign nailed over the entrance that said Huey House.
Maybelle, who was six years old, wore multiple layers of clothes on that unseasonably warm September afternoon: several pairs of underwear, leggings under her jeans, two T-shirts, three long-sleeved shirts, a sweater, and her puffy jacket, a scarf, winter hat, and sneakers with two pairs of socks. If she fell over, she might roll down the street and disappear forever. June admired Maybelle’s foresight, though. By wearing nearly every item of clothing she owned, she had freed up room in her garbage bag for the things she really could not live without: her books (all about dogs) and stuffed animals (also all dogs).
Maybelle really liked dogs.
“Is this like jail?” Maybelle continued, poking the bristly hairs from the bottom of her braid against her lips. “Did we do something really bad? When can we go home again?”
June put on her everything will be just fine! face. “Of course it’s not jail!” she said. “It’s an apartment building! We’re going to live here! It’s going to be great!” Then she reached up to grab the straps of her viola case, reassuring herself it was still there.
“It looks like a jail,” Maybelle said dubiously.
June gave the building a good, hard stare. Even though it appeared sturdy, it seemed . . . exhausted. There were lots of concrete repair patches on the bricks, and every single window was outfitted with black safety bars. The door was thick metal with a skinny rectangle of a window covered by a wire cage, just like the windows at school.
It did look like a jail, but June wasn’t going to tell Maybelle that.
She glanced at her mom, but June already knew she wouldn’t have anything to say. Mom had stopped talking about six months ago, right after the accident.
“June, where are—”
Before Maybelle could finish her sentence, the metal door of the building creaked open. A man—his head shaved, two gold earrings in the upper part of his ear, and wearing a black T-shirt—emerged and stared down at them from his great height. He looked like a guy who belonged on one of those world wrestling shows her dad would never let them watch. Maybelle shrank behind her, and Mom stood there still and quiet, her face blank and unreadable. June referred to this as her marble-statue face. Once, on a school field trip, June had gone to a fancy museum and there was a whole room of carved marble heads, their unemotional faces giving nothing away.
“You guys coming in?” the man asked, jamming a thumb toward the building.
June fumbled in her jeans pocket for the piece of paper the lady at EAU, or the Emergency Assistance Unit, had given her. The marshall, who delivered the notice of eviction, had instructed them to go to the EAU when June told him they had nowhere else to go.
June had packed up all their stuff while Maybelle cried and Mom shut herself in her bedroom. After checking and double-checking directions to the EAU (June had had no idea what that was), she’d managed to pack their things into three black garbage bags. She told Maybelle that they were going to a new home but then immediately regretted it when her sister wanted to know all the details: Was it a house or an apartment? How many bedrooms did it have? Was the kitchen large?
That was last night. Other than a funeral home, the EAU was the most depressing place June had ever been. After filling out a stack of forms and spending the night in the EAU hallway, which they shared with three other families and buzzing fluorescent lights, June had been told by the lady in charge to come here. Staring at the building and hoping it wasn’t their new home, June crossed her fingers and begged the universe to have mercy on them.
The universe decided to ignore her, because the man said, “The EAU sent you, right? First-timers?”
June nodded, but her stomach felt as if it was filled with rocks.
“I’m Marcus,” he said. “Head of security here.”
Security? Maybelle moved even closer to June while Mom maintained her marble-statue face.
Marcus pointed to June’s viola case. “You can’t bring that inside. It’ll get confiscated in two seconds.”
The rocks in June’s stomach turned into boulders. June wrapped her fingers around the straps so tightly she could feel her knuckles getting numb. “It’s just a viola,” she said, her voice coming out squeaky.
“Exactly. Instruments aren’t allowed.”
June tried to look strong and confident, like her dad would have wanted her to be. “There’s no way I’m letting you take this away from me.” After all, the viola was the only thing Dad had left her. It was equal to over two years of his tip money. Even after so many months, June could picture him as if he were still with them. Dad making delivery after delivery through congested and uneven Chinatown streets, plastic bags of General Tso’s chicken and pork dumplings hanging from his handlebars. Dad riding his bike through punishing snowstorms because people didn’t want to leave their house to get food. Dad putting the tip money into the plastic bag marked Viola in the freezer at the end of every shift, his version of a savings account.
Maybelle, still hiding behind her, called out, “June’s the best eleven-year-old viola player in the world.”
“That’s not true,” June said humbly, but then she wondered if Marcus thought she was going to play awful music that drove him bananas. She added, “But I’m not, like, a beginner or anything. No one had a problem with me practicing in our old apartmen
t. And I play classical music. Mozart and Vivaldi and Bach.” She felt herself doing that nervous babble thing. “I can also play Telemann if you like him. He lived during Bach’s time . . .”
Marcus’s mouth stayed in a straight line, but she could tell he was softening.
After a long pause, he spoke. “I can hide it in my office, ” he finally offered. “If you bring it inside and she sees you with it, she’ll throw it out.”
June swallowed. What kind of monster would throw away an instrument? And how could she be sure that Marcus wouldn’t run off with it?
“I promise to keep it safe,” he added simply.
June felt Maybelle’s skinny finger stick into her back. “You’re not really going to give it to him, are you?”
June never let anyone touch her instrument, ever. Maybelle had known that rule the moment June showed her the viola for the first time. But what choice did June have now? It was either trust a stranger with her viola or lose it forever.
She handed the viola case over, her skin prickling with a thousand needles of unease.
Two
Tyrell
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU! HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO you! Happy birthday, dear *unintelligible murmuring*! Happy birthday to you!”
Tyrell Chee looked at his best friend, Jeremiah Jones, and smirked. Jeremiah shrugged, then turned his attention back to the handful of middle schoolers from the Cressida School for Girls. The Cressidas never bothered to learn anyone’s name before the birthday song. Tyrell and Jeremiah knew not to say anything about it, or even to laugh. One, because they were nice kids, okay? And two, because MacVillain would erupt like Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE (their history teacher, Ms. Koss, had told them all about how that volcano buried whole cities).
The Cressidas, who had their drivers bring them to the South Bronx from their fancy private school in Manhattan, had brought a birthday cake for the kids at Huey House who had September birthdays. The cake was in a pink box with a gold sticker that said Amelie’s Patisserie in curly script and was set on a folding table that had one sad red streamer taped to the front. Tyrell liked ice cream cakes best, but nobody had asked him. A pile of presents wrapped in shiny paper sat stacked on the floor. Once the Cressidas were done singing, the little kids shrieked with happiness and nearly knocked each other over as they rushed for the gifts. Tyrell and Jeremiah, however, stayed cool. They had lived here for three years. They knew what to expect.
The Cressidas carried the stacks of presents to Lulu, who was sixteen and the only person there who looked as if she was in charge. They then migrated to a corner, where they whipped out their phones, as if major things had gone down in the ten minutes they had spent setting up this birthday party, which counted toward their community service credits. Tyrell glanced over at Stephanie, the employee who usually worked the front desk. She was supposed to be supervising but was on her phone instead, probably sending selfies to her boyfriend.
Tyrell stood there, trying to ignore the screams of the younger kids, but Jeremiah shoved his hands in his pockets and drifted over to help Lulu. Even though he never said anything about it, Jeremiah crushed on her so hard. Who could blame him? Lulu had swishy dark hair that was shiny and long. Tyrell had tried to touch it once to see what it felt like, but she’d caught his wrist and said, “Touch my hair and you die.”
Anyway.
Lulu directed the little kids to sit on a faded rug with a picture of a bear in a hot-air balloon on it, and Tyrell watched Jeremiah distribute the gifts.
Tyrell and Jeremiah were like brothers. They had moved in within a week of each other, and it was like glue and paper from the start. Shared the same birthday (September 9), went to sixth grade at the same boring school a few blocks away from Huey House (M.S. 121), and loved oranges but hated bananas. Even though they were together all the time, no one ever mixed them up. Jeremiah was built like a football fullback, big and solid as a refrigerator; Tyrell was more like a basketball point guard, wiry and fast, and it was good he was fast, because he spent a lot of time running away from trouble. And though he had always admired Jeremiah’s cornrows, Tyrell’s hair was too straight for that style. Ma said he got his brown skin from her and his straight black hair from his dad.
The kids ripped open the presents, screaming with joy. Then the door to the meeting room burst open and a frazzled woman with pink hair wearing a dress printed with tiny kittens stepped into the room. She carried a giant cloth bag filled with something heavy on her shoulder. The room quieted down and everyone stared at her.
“Whoa,” the little kids breathed, their eyes wide.
“Ms. Hunter!” squealed the Cressidas, instantly pocketing their phones and rushing to her.
“Sorry I’m late, people,” the kitten lady said, giving a tiny wave with her hand up by her ear. She pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed at her neck, then said, “I took a wrong turn when I got off the subway. I’m Ms. Hunter, the head librarian at Cressida. Sorry I’m late. It’s not easy getting around the city when you’re dragging around awesomeness!” She pointed to the bag.
Tyrell exchanged an eyebrow raise with Jeremiah.
“Are you ready?” Ms. Hunter asked.
“Yes!” shrieked the little kids, jumping up from their rug spots, abandoning their gifts, and swarming her.
“Now, I have to warn you,” Ms. Hunter said, putting out a hand to prevent the kids from trampling her. “This bag is filled with extremely rare, priceless, and dangerous stuff.”
Whoa, Tyrell thought. This lady is good.
Jameel, who was six, bit his lips. “How dangerous?” he lisped through his missing teeth.
“So dangerous,” Ms. Hunter said, “if Ms. Gonzalez were here, she would kick me out immediately.”
“Ooh,” the little kids said, glancing at each other with big eyes.
Okay, fine. So this lady was really good. In English class, they call it building suspense. But just as kitten-dress lady opened the bag to reveal the rare, priceless, and dangerous contents, the door opened again and Ms. G appeared.
Visit clarionbooks.com to find all of the books in
The Vanderbeekers series.
And look for The Vanderbeekers on the Road in fall 2022!
About the Author
Photo by Corey Hayes
KARINA YAN GLASER is the New York Times best-selling author of the Vanderbeekers series and the forthcoming novel A Duet for Home. A former teacher and now a contributing editor at Book Riot, Karina lives in Harlem, New York City, with her husband, two daughters, and assortment of rescue animals. One of her proudest achievements is raising two kids who can’t go anywhere without a book.
Visit her online at karinaglaser.com
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