The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street

by Karina Yan Glaser

  Oliver was not a good present giver. It did not matter whether he put a lot of thought into the gift or not. Actually, it seemed as though the more thought he put into something, the less the person liked it.

  Oliver took his stegosaurus bank down from the shelf. He pried open the bottom plug and shook the money out. A handful of pennies and nickels fell onto his desk. Oliver tilted the bank, stuck his fingers inside, and felt around. He pulled out two dollars but nothing else. With $2.36 laid before him on his desk, Oliver tried to think back to what he could have spent money on. He guessed he did buy churros almost every day after school from Manny the churro guy, who had a cart he wheeled around the neighborhood. There was something about the fried dough covered with cinnamon sugar that Oliver could not get enough of.

  Oliver knew that $2.36 would not go far for Christmas presents.

  Fortunately, it was almost two o’clock and time for his weekly basketball game with Jimmy L, which meant he had permission to stop thinking about presents. Oliver went downstairs, where Hyacinth was doing something with yarn and two sticks. When Hyacinth saw her brother approaching, she quickly jammed the whole thing under Franz’s tail. Oliver scowled—was she making another Christmas present?

  On the other side of the room, Mama was baking. She pushed a piece of hair out of her face, whitening the strand of hair with flour. “Oliver, can you help me for a second? I’ve got to finish these cookies so I can pack up my baking supplies tomorrow. Can you grab me another bag of flour?”

  Oliver opened the pantry door and dragged a twenty-pound flour bag over to Mama.

  “I’m going to the basketball courts,” Oliver reminded her before she could rope him into helping more.

  “Look both ways before you cross the street, okay? And be back in an hour.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Oliver,” his mom warned. “One hour.”

  “You could get me a phone,” Oliver suggested, grabbing a handful of chocolate chips from the bag on the counter. “Then you wouldn’t worry so much.”

  “I never worry,” Mama said. “And absolutely no phone. I survived without a cell phone until after college.”

  “That’s because cell phones weren’t invented way back then,” Oliver said, then ducked and ran to the front door when Mama aimed a piece of cookie dough at him.

  “Oh, Oliver?” Mama called. “I’m going to need some help later, so don’t be late.”

  Oliver made a face as he shrugged on his puffy blue jacket and laced up his gym sneakers, shoes his sisters described as “disgusting” and “foul.” He exited the brownstone and went down the block to the park. At the end of the block, the Baptist choir was rehearsing Christmas carols, their rich voices spilling out into the neighborhood from the open church door.

  Across the street from the Baptist church was a park with two basketball courts, a playground, and a grassy path lined with benches. In the summer, the older people of the neighborhood liked to sit on benches and scold the teenagers who cruised by on dirt bikes. The shaved-ice guy would stroll through, pushing his cart and ringing his bell right next to the mango lady, who sold peeled mangoes on sticks. The mango flesh was a brilliant orange color, and when Oliver bit into it, the sticky juice would drip down the mango and onto his clothes.

  In the winter, no one really went to the park except dog owners, who had no other choice, and Oliver’s basketball buddies, who believed that a day without a basketball game was not a day worth living.

  “Hey, Oliver!” Jimmy L and some of their buddies from school were already racing up and down the courts. Oliver jogged over and Jimmy L passed him the ball. Oliver dribbled and went for a shot, only to be blocked by Angie.

  Angie turned and beamed an I-can’t-help-it-if-I’m-that-good smile at Oliver. She was the best basketball player in the third grade, and probably even fourth grade too. The kids proceeded to push and shove and block and dribble and fake each other out. Oliver wasn’t handling the ball with his usual ease, but at least the game was taking his mind off his life. That is, until it started to get windy and his hands cramped from the cold. He knew he needed to get home before his mom showed up and embarrassed him in front of all his friends.

  “You’re off your game today,” Jimmy L remarked to Oliver.

  “I’ve got troubles,” Oliver replied, rubbing the place on his stomach where Angie had elbowed him.

  “Yeah? Hey, did you get more signatures yesterday after we left?”

  Oliver nodded; then he reluctantly told the small crowd that had gathered around him about the Christmas-present dilemma.

  “You need a present for Isa?” Jimmy L asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “All my sisters,” Oliver replied.

  “Jessie too?” Dwayne asked, with a goofy smile on his face.

  “All. My. Sisters.”

  Every boy in Oliver’s grade had crushes on Isa and Jessie. It was disgusting.

  “How about jewelry?” Angie suggested, jogging up to Oliver after completing a flawless lay-up. “Girls like that kind of stuff.”

  “You never wear jewelry,” Oliver pointed out.

  “It gets in the way of basketball,” Angie replied with a shrug, spinning the ball on her index finger.

  Oliver shook his head. “I have two dollars and thirty-six cents total to spend on my sisters and my parents.”

  His friends winced. Realizing the gravity of the situation, they started rummaging around in their pockets and backpacks for anything they could contribute to the cause. Things got pushed into Oliver’s hands. One stick of peppermint gum. Two dimes and three pennies. A beat-up piece of candy. A bright green mechanical pencil with a nubby pink eraser at the end. A strand of plastic gold beads shaped like hexagons. A rock flecked with silver. Three red rubber bands in varying sizes and widths. A small bottle of hand sanitizer.

  “Wow. Thanks, guys!” Oliver said happily.

  “Christmas dilemma officially solved,” Jimmy L announced.

  Oliver agreed as he shoved everything into his jacket pockets, gave high-fives to his buddies, and headed back home. Those are the best friends I’ll ever have was Oliver’s first thought. Then, This Beiderman thing better work.

  I’ll tell Isa about Benny this afternoon, Jessie promised herself. At the moment, Isa was in the dungeon practicing her violin and Jessie was perched at the top of the basement stairs, a new experiment spread out before her. She was trying to make a fruit battery out of lemons, nails, wires, and pennies.

  Isa paused from her violin playing and looked up at Jessie. “Are you going to electrocute yourself?”

  “Of course not.” Jessie squinted at the objects spread around her. “Maybe.” She shrugged, unconcerned.

  “Why don’t you work on that down here?”

  Jessie fiddled with her wires. “You know the probability of getting me down there is point oh one percent, right?” she replied.

  “C’mon, Jess,” Isa said. “We might be moving soon. I want to share this with you.” Silence. “Please, Jess? Don’t you love me?” she wheedled.

  Jessie sighed and stood up. “Fine. But only because you identified my greatest weakness.”

  Jessie inched down the stairs, glancing around as if waiting for something with venomous tentacles to drop on her head and inject poison into her bloodstream. When she got to the bottom, however, her fears vanished.

  “Isa, wow,” she breathed. “This is . . . magical.”

  “I knew you would like it!” Isa gloated. Isa’s eyes followed Jessie as she walked slowly around the basement, running her fingers through thick, nubby carpets hung on the wall and gently touching delicate silver stars strung above. While Jessie took it all in, Isa began to play a tender Beethoven concerto, her violin ringing through the basement. Jessie felt the music go straight into her heart. Never had Jessie heard Isa’s violin sound better, and she knew it was from the homemade acoustical treatment her sister had created in the basement over the years. Everything about the space breathed life and happi
ness and beauty.

  When Isa’s piece ended, she lifted her bow off the strings and Jessie watched her twin drift back to earth.

  “Sounds pretty great down here, right?” Isa said, grinning at Jessie.

  “It’s . . . mind-blowing,” Jessie admitted.

  Isa started wiping down her violin with the soft cloth she kept in her case. The violin actually belonged to Mr. Van Hooten. It was a three-quarters-size instrument that had been in his family for generations. With no one using it, he was lending it to Isa until she went up to a new size. At first she hadn’t even wanted to touch it—the wood was hundreds of years old!—but when she had tried it, the sound was so pure and so lovely that she couldn’t bear to let it go.

  “It took me six years to get down here,” Jessie said, ashamed. “I’m sorry, Isa.”

  Isa tilted her head. “You don’t have to be sorry. I’m glad you’re here now.”

  “You put so much work into making this place beautiful. I didn’t even help you. And now it’s so perfect and your violin sounds so lovely . . .”

  “Hey,” Isa said, “you’re always around when I need you. You’ve always stood up for me when it mattered. Remember Jefferson Jamison?”

  Jessie remembered Jefferson Jamison, all right. Last spring Isa had had a solo violin part in the school concert. Jessie had been heading backstage to wish her good luck before she performed when she overheard Jefferson Jamison talking to someone. Jefferson was one of the “cool” eighth-graders who never took off his letterman jacket and always had a crowd of girls following him around.

  “These concerts are so boring,” Jefferson had said to a girl with long wispy hair and tiny ears. “I wish they would cut the snooze music. Especially that violin player. What’s her name? Izzy?”

  Jessie had been shocked. Snooze music indeed! Dvořák’s “Humoresque” was one of the most beautiful pieces ever written! How dare he insult Dvořák and her sister! Jessie peeked around the curtain to see Isa looking stunned and uncertain. Jessie felt the telltale signs of her temper rising as hot blood rushed through her body.

  Jefferson and the girl were laughing when Jessie marched straight up to him and punched him in the arm. Hard.

  Jefferson stumbled back. “What the—”

  “You want to repeat that, jerk face?” Jessie had said, jabbing her index finger in the middle of the big A on Jefferson’s letterman jacket. Jefferson was too dumbfounded to say anything to this tiny sixth-grader with big black glasses and crazy hair getting in his face.

  “You were talking about my sister,” Jessie had said between gritted teeth, “who just happens to be the most brilliant sixth grade violinist in the whole entire world. Maybe you smashed your head too many times on the football field, but even someone who has never heard quality music would know that Dvořák’s ‘Humoresque’ is a work of genius. I suggest you stop strutting around in that dumb-looking jacket and get some culture!”

  Jessie had spun around, her backpack full of thick science books smacking Jefferson in the ribs, and walked away. “And another thing,” Jessie had said over her shoulder to a slumping Jefferson. “After my sister plays, I better see you applaud. I’m watching you.”

  Isa had been called to the stage at that very moment. When she stepped into the spotlight, she looked confident and radiant. Then Isa lifted her violin and played “Humoresque” like she had never played it before. It was an unforgettable moment.

  Jessie shook off the memory and looked at Isa, who was now sitting on the carpet next to her. “I never asked you how you felt after playing at that concert,” Jessie said.

  “It was amazing. This is going to sound crazy, but I felt your strength flow through me when I was playing. See, Jessie, you make me strong. Sometimes I think you know every thought that goes through my head.”

  Jessie didn’t respond. She wanted to believe that she was a good sister, but she couldn’t shake the guilt about Benny. “Isa, I have to—”

  “Do you think the brownstone loves us?” Isa interrupted, so caught up in her own thoughts she didn’t hear her sister. “I do,” she continued, wiping a tear from her eye.

  Jessie swallowed. Obviously this was the wrong time to bring up Benny.

  Isa leaned back so she was lying in the middle of the carpet. “Here, let me show you something. Lie down next to me.”

  Jessie dropped down next to Isa so they were head to foot.

  “Listen,” Isa said.

  “What am I—”

  “Shhh. Just listen.”

  Jessie watched the stars glitter above her. She heard the pipes of the brownstone clinking lightly as they carried water inside and outside their home. Next to her, Isa breathed in and out in a steady rhythm. After a few minutes, Jessie almost felt as if she could hear the brownstone’s heartbeat. And she knew, just knew, that if she could save Isa’s basement, then the Benny thing would be okay too.

  Fourteen

  When Oliver returned from the basketball game, he snuck past the kitchen, where Mama was mixing away. The noise from the mixer’s motor made it easy for him to race up the stairs without Mama noticing.

  Back in his bedroom, Oliver pulled on the arm warmers that Hyacinth had made for him and took out the donated gifts from his friends. He was delegating the red rubber bands to Laney when his mom called to him from the kitchen. Oliver swept the gifts into his desk drawer, then grabbed his earphones and put them in, hoping that his mom would be too tired to climb the stairs in search for him.

  It was not to be. Twenty seconds later, his mom opened the door and peeked inside.

  “Hey, you,” she said. “Want to do me a favor?”

  Oliver sighed and removed the headphones. “Actually—”

  “Great,” said Mama. She handed him an enormous basket of cookies, all packaged in clear cellophane with jaunty little tags. Every year Mama made enough Christmas cookies to feed the entire population of Harlem, and ever since he could remember, she appointed him the distributor.

  “Mama, can’t someone else do it? Whenever I pass your cookies out, people want me to come in and look at photos of their grandkids and talk to me forever.”

  “That’s why I included sustenance!” Mama reached into the basket and pulled out a bag labeled “OLIVER.” The bag contained all six kinds of cookies he liked best. Mama sure fought dirty when she wanted to.

  “All right. Go on now,” Mama said. On her way out of his bedroom, she grabbed a stack of books off one of his shelves and put them into the empty moving box she had left in his room earlier that day. Then she disappeared out the door, and Oliver could hear her weaving around the growing number of boxes stacked against the hallway wall. Oliver put the books back on his bookshelf, shoved a few petition papers into his back pocket, then stumbled down the stairs with the enormous basket.

  “Have a fun time, honey!” Mama called from the kitchen. Oliver grunted. He braced himself against the cold, then let himself outside.

  First stop: Mr. Smiley, the super at the building two doors down and the father of Angie, his basketball buddy. Oliver staggered to the sidewalk and made his way over.

  “Oliver!”

  Oliver looked up to see Angie waving at him from the stoop of her building. She bounded down the steps like a gazelle and landed at his feet. He put his basket down and greeted her with their special basketball handshake, a complicated series of backhand slaps and finger pointing, ending with tilting their heads over their shoulders and saying “Oh yeah!”

  After that particular ritual was over, Oliver leaned down and pulled out the bag of cookies his mom had made for their family. “For you,” Oliver said.

  Angie grabbed them and wasted no time opening the bag and removing a sugar cookie decorated like a Christmas tree. She took a bite and closed her eyes. “I love your mom’s cookies,” she said when she was done chewing. “Hey, can I come with you to drop the cookies off? We can get more signatures for your petition.”

  Oliver nodded. “Sounds good. Hey, did I tell yo
u that the Beiderman started showing the apartment to new people already?”

  Angie’s eyes widened. “Don’t you have tenant rights or something? My dad is always talking about tenant and landlord rights.”

  “Mama says our lease is only good until the end of the year. He’s allowed to rent to someone else if he wants.”

  “There must be a way to stop him,” Angie said, tapping her fingers against her chin. “Have you done an Internet search on the Beiderman yet?”

  Oliver nodded. “We tried, but our Internet got shut off.”

  “My dad will let us use his computer.” Without waiting for Oliver to respond, Angie grabbed one of the two handles of the cookie basket and together they lugged it to Angie’s apartment.

  They opened the door to find her father, Mr. Smiley, sitting in his armchair flipping through a dog-eared dictionary.

  “Are those Mrs. Vanderbeeker’s holiday cookies?” Mr. Smiley asked, rising from his seat.

  Angie gave her dad the squinty eye before pulling the bag of cookies from her pocket and handing it over. “Don’t eat them all,” she warned. “Oliver and I are going to use the computer.” She tossed her jacket onto an empty chair and sat down at the living room table, where an ancient monitor sat attached to a whirring hard drive.

  Oliver flopped into the seat next to her. “Does that thing even work? It looks a million years old.”

  “It got a lot better after Jessie fiddled with it,” Angie said, pulling up the Internet search engine, which opened at once.

  Oliver didn’t have time to be amazed at Jessie’s apparent genius around computers, because Angie had already typed Beiderman into the search function. They didn’t know his first name, so they added Harlem, and then City College. Angie scrolled and scanned, then punched more keys. Oliver watched the screen until his eyes glazed over. This was taking forever.