“That’s this place!” Laney cried.
“—and how they could sell it to a condominium developer.”
“What’s a cond-min-um?” Laney asked.
“It’s a boring building,” Jessie said, “that’s going to be built right on top of our perfect garden.”
Herman ran his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he said. He walked over to a pink flag and pulled it out. “But maybe it won’t happen. Land deals fall through all the time.”
“Are you allowed to take those out?” Hyacinth asked, her fingers pulling at the hem of her shirt.
Herman yanked another flag out of the garden. “Do you want a building here or not?”
Twenty-Two
Pretty soon all the Vanderbeekers were helping Herman. They were careful not to step on the seedlings, and soon enough they had plucked all the flags from the soil. Laney collected them to stick in their backyard when they returned home; she thought they looked pretty.
“Is it really worth working here anymore?” Oliver said. “If it’s all just going to be bulldozed?”
The others looked back at him, then out at the garden. They thought of all the dreams they had for the space. Jessie could practically see Mr. Jeet and Miss Josie sitting on a bench, surrounded by plants and chatting with their friends and neighbors. Oliver could imagine racing up the Silver Queen with Angie and Jimmy L, hiding himself among the summer leaves. Hyacinth was envisioning a lazy Sunday afternoon after church, sitting next to Tilia of the Eternal Spring with Mr. Beiderman and Franz. And Laney thought about all the herbs and vegetables they could grow for Paganini. Why, they could grow enough for a dozen bunnies!
At the same time, it hurt to look out at the space and all that possibility—the seedlings; Luciana’s seeds; and the Silver Queen, which had shown Hyacinth the way into the garden in the first place. Would all their dreams and hard work be destroyed by a cookiecutter condominium complex?
* * *
Jessie asked her siblings to be ready to vote that night: Should they or should they not continue working on the garden? When they arrived home, Oliver took refuge in his bedroom to think about it. Was it worth putting more work into the garden when it would most likely be destroyed?
Oliver didn’t think so. He was going to vote no.
The doorbell interrupted his thoughts, but he didn’t have the energy to race downstairs to answer it. He heard the door open, then Jessie’s voice, then Orlando’s. A moment later, their chatter faded away.
It was the perfect time to look for much-needed candy in Jessie and Isa’s room. He slipped into the hallway and then into the twins’ bedroom, undetected.
He started with the usual places. He pulled up Jessie’s mattress, looked under the bed, and yanked up the loose floorboard. Nothing. She had probably changed her hiding place after the last time he’d gotten into her jelly-bean stash. He poked around on her messy desk. Then he opened her desk drawers, starting at the top. Two drawers down, he heard a familiar crinkle.
Jackpot! A whole unopened bag of mini-Snickers! Oliver picked up the bag—he might as well take it all—but underneath it, a letter caught his eye. Along the top it read “PECKS POND SCIENCE CAMP,” with “Congratulations!” below Jessie’s name.
Oliver was confused. This was the science camp Jessie had been talking about all year—the one she hadn’t gotten into. He pulled out the letter and sat on her desk chair to read it.
Pecks Pond Science Camp
Dear Jessie,
Congratulations! You have been chosen to participate in this year’s science camp! We received hundreds of applicants but could choose only fifty. We were very impressed by your science fair project, “Endothermic and Exothermic Reactions.”
We are happy to provide you with a full-tuition scholarship, although due to funding restrictions, we cannot provide any financial assistance with room and board or transportation. Scholars who require further financial assistance are encouraged to apply for individual grants.
We look forward to meeting you in August! Please have a parent or guardian sign the enclosed release forms and send them back to us with a $200 deposit for room and board. The remainder of the fee is due no later than May 1.
If your plans have changed and you are no longer able to attend, please let us know so we can accept applicants from the wait list.
Sincerely,
Tisha Hernandez
Director, Pecks Pond Science Camp
Oliver put the letter down. So Jessie had gotten into science camp after all. His mind reeled. Why hadn’t she gone? He read the letter again, and one sentence stood out: “. . . we cannot provide any financial assistance with room and board or transportation.” Did Jessie say no because she knew their parents were already paying those expenses for Isa’s orchestra camp? And did she say she hadn’t gotten in so Isa and her parents wouldn’t feel bad?
It was amazing how generous people could be without wanting or expecting something in return. He knew how much Jessie had wanted to go to science camp; it was all she’d talked about for months. Maybe, Oliver thought, maybe the world worked only if people gave all they could without measuring the worth of what they gave.
He went downstairs to find Jessie. He was surprised to see everyone in the basement, sitting on the floor. Hyacinth and Herman were knitting; Orlando was using a Swiss Army knife to cut into jugs that looked suspiciously like the paint jugs they had sorted during their recycling duties. Angie and Laney were painting the jugs, and Jessie was sketching a complicated diagram with lots of arrows in her science notebook.
“We need to go ahead with the garden,” Oliver said in a rush. “We have to do it for Mr. Jeet and Miss Josie, and for the whole neighborhood. The garden is perfect, and we need to save it and share it with everyone. Even if it does get destroyed in fourteen days.” He watched everyone exchange glances. “What?” he demanded.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” said Hyacinth.
“Yeah, come on. We need your help making these into planters,” Orlando added, motioning toward the jugs.
“Wait, you all decided to go ahead? Even though it might get destroyed?” Oliver said.
“Get with the program, Oliver,” Jessie said. “We have so much to do before the Garden Extravaganza!”
Twenty-Three
A week flew past. By the following Monday, they had made lots of progress on the garden. Herman had donated his bike lock, an eighteen-millimeter-thick gold-standard-rated padlock, to keep the gate secured so that if the building developers came back, they couldn’t get inside and mess up all the new plants. Laney checked Luciana’s seeds every day, but there were no signs of growth. Herman had an iPod, so they loaded Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on it and set it on the brick circle to play music in hopes it would encourage the seeds to emerge.
Hyacinth and Herman spent time sanding down the long plank of wood they’d found in Mr. Smiley’s basement, which they placed on top of two plastic paint buckets to make a bench. They wrapped the board in a few layers of rainbow knitting to make it softer for Mr. Jeet and Miss Josie to sit on, then put the finished bench under the Silver Queen.
Every time Angie came to the garden, she brought some of her dad’s abandoned houseplants. They planted them all in the southwest quadrant of the garden, with Miss Josie’s seedlings. Oliver discovered a spigot on the side of the church, and they spent many hours filling the watering cans and trying to keep the plants from perishing in the hot weather.
During the week, they talked about anything and everything while they worked, with the exception of one topic: Mr. Jeet. He had moved out of the Intensive Care Unit into a general care wing, but there was still no word on when he would come home.
Five days before the Garden Extravaganza—four days before Isa was due home—the Vanderbeekers and Herman were working in the garden when Orlando burst in and demanded that they all follow him. He led them all the way across Harlem to the Madison Avenue Bridge on East 138th Street and crossed over to the South
Bronx. Right over the bridge was a gated area with a huge painted sign that said LA FINCA DEL SUR COMMUNITY GARDEN. Orlando went inside, where five people, all wearing floppy hats, were manning a table filled with plants in seedling trays. Beyond them were garden beds with plants spilling out in every direction.
“Plant sale!” one of the women said. “Ten dollars a flat!”
Jessie examined the trays and looked back at everyone. “Each flat holds forty-eight plants.”
“You can mix and match,” the woman told them. “We have squash, tomatoes, cukes, herbs, and flowers.”
“This is a garden paradise,” Laney breathed.
“Why are they so cheap?” Herman said with skepticism.
“We got a grant from the parks department,” the woman told him. “We’re all volunteers. Our goal is to get everyone growing in the South Bronx.”
“What about Harlem?” Laney asked. “That’s where we live.”
“We’d love for you to start growing in Harlem too,” she told them. “We want to make this whole city a garden!”
“Try some cherry tomatoes,” said a woman with her hair in dozens of tiny braids that trailed down her back. She held out a basket.
Everyone took a few and popped them in their mouths. Oliver bit down on one, and it was like sunshine exploding in his mouth.
“Those taste amazing,” Jessie told them.
The gardeners pointed to a basketball-player-tall guy who wore a straw hat and a beige tracksuit. The man tilted his hat and smiled at them. “That’s the tomato guy,” the gardeners said.
The Vanderbeekers and Herman and Orlando conferred.
“We have around thirty dollars left in our budget,” Jessie told them. “Should we blow it all on these plants?”
The answer was a unanimous yes. Then Herman and Orlando kicked in another ten dollars each so they could buy two more trays. They picked three trays of assorted flowers: purple and pink petunias and daisies with sunshine-yellow centers; spring-green and lavender hostas and red geraniums; impatiens in a rainbow of colors; and something called Dusty Miller, which had leaves that looked like snowflakes.
The vegetables were harder to decide on. Jessie and Hyacinth didn’t like cucumbers and refused to put them into the garden, but Orlando insisted they could make pickles with them. Hyacinth was skeptical that a vegetable as gross as cucumbers could turn into something as delicious as pickles. While everyone was arguing about the cucumbers, Laney filled an entire tray with plants Paganini would enjoy: red and green lettuce, kale, chard, basil, sage, and cilantro. They felt as if they had won the plant jackpot as they paid for the five trays.
“I want to live in your garden,” Laney said.
The gardeners were so charmed by Laney that they gave her some seed packets so she could grow her own tricolored carrots. After thanking the gardeners, the Vanderbeekers, Orlando, and Herman trooped back over the bridge with their trays. They spent the rest of the afternoon arguing over the placement of each of the two hundred and forty plants, finally deciding to place the plants in four quadrants.
“Too bad we couldn’t have a lavender garden,” Jessie said. “Mr. Beiderman would have liked that.”
“Lavender was Luciana’s favorite flower,” Hyacinth told Herman.
“Uh-huh,” he said.
“Mr. Jeet and Miss Josie are going to love this,” Laney said. “It’s going to be the best garden in the world!”
* * *
Later that night, the Vanderbeekers gathered around the kitchen table for dinner. Before Papa sat down, he handed a few green M&M’s he’d been saving to Laney, who stored them carefully in her skirt pocket. Then the kids looked at their mom for their daily report on Mr. Jeet.
“About the same,” she reported as she passed out bowls of cold beet soup. Oliver was just getting up to add yet another check to the “Bad Days” column on the health chart when Laney pushed her bowl away from her. The red soup splashed onto the table, and Laney stood up on her chair.
“Laney!” Mama and Papa admonished at the exact same time.
“Get down right now! Where are your—” Mama started.
“I am going to the hospital tomorrow!” Laney announced, crossing her arms over her chest. She was tired of adults telling her what to do all the time. “Mr. Jeet needs me, and you can’t stop me from visiting him.”
Hyacinth stood up on her chair too. “I’m going too!”
Jessie stood up, although not on a chair, and joined her sisters in protest. “Me too.”
Oliver, who was frozen by the chart, stared at his parents.
Mama and Papa looked up at the kids, then looked at each other.
“Mr. Jeet is not feeling well. He’s still not talking,” Mama warned them.
“I don’t care!” Laney yelled.
“He’s lost weight,” Mama continued. “He has an IV needle in his arm and is hooked up to machines.”
“We miss him. We want to see him,” Jessie said, and Hyacinth nodded vigorously.
Mama did her silent-communication thing with Papa. That seemed to go on forever, until finally she nodded. “Okay. Tomorrow we’ll all go see him.”
“Hooray!” the kids shouted.
Laney, encouraged by this victory, pressed her luck. “And we demand regular food again! No more red soup! We want cookies!”
The lasers from Mama’s eyes were enough to make Laney sit down hastily and pull her bowl toward her. Her siblings followed suit, sitting down in their chairs and bravely putting the soup into their mouths.
Despite the terrible beet soup, everyone was smiling.
Twenty-Four
Laney woke up and bounced out of bed. Today they would see Mr. Jeet! And she would bring Paganini. If anyone could cheer up Mr. Jeet, it was Paganini.
Laney considered her options. She couldn’t bring Paganini in the pet carrier—too obvious! And her backpack was not that great a choice either. First of all, it had no air holes. Second, it was filled with stuff: two small bottles of hand sanitizer, a bag of mini-marshmallows (they made a good pillow and a great snack!), pictures her friends had drawn for her, pictures she had drawn for her friends but had forgotten to give to them before school ended, her inhaler just in case, and, at the very bottom, paper clips, hair ribbons, and a bunch of pencils with erasers shaped like hearts.
Laney searched her closet. Way at the back, under a stack of puzzles and board games, was a picnic basket. It was the perfect size; plus, it had little holes between the weavings, so Paganini could breathe. Laney would put some greens and rabbit pellets in there, and Paganini would be quite comfortable.
Laney knew it wasn’t wise to tell anyone she was bringing Paganini; they would tell her not to because Paganini didn’t have that therapy certificate everyone thought was so important.
When Laney went downstairs, she pursed her lips really, really tightly. She was not going to mention anything about Paganini! And pursing her lips paid off, because she didn’t mention her bunny, not even once, and no one suspected anything! Even better, Oliver wasn’t going to the hospital. He said he had important business with Mr. Beiderman that couldn’t be delayed. That was good news, because her brother was the best at figuring out when people were hiding something.
So as Mama labeled food containers and placed a fresh batch of clothes for Miss Josie in a sturdy tote bag, Laney took greens from the fridge and stashed them in the basket along with a handful of rabbit pellets. When Mama announced that they were leaving in one minute, Laney quickly picked Paganini up in the picnic basket, then shut the flaps and hooked the latch so her rabbit couldn’t pop out. A few seconds later, she could hear the faint sounds of Paganini chomping on the greens.
Mama led the way out of the brownstone. “Remember, girls. He’s not talking, so don’t ask him any questions,” she reminded them. “Miss Josie is anxious enough; we don’t want to make it worse.”
The girls nodded solemnly, but Laney worried. If Mr. Jeet couldn’t talk, then how would Laney figure out whethe
r he liked having Paganini there?
They walked single file down 141st Street, then swung a right onto the main avenue. Soon the Vanderbeekers were marching through the hospital lobby. Hyacinth’s yarn bag hung from her hips, and Jessie had a science encyclopedia under her arm because she needed to show Mr. Jeet an article about quarks. Laney carried the picnic basket carefully and smiled back at everyone who smiled at her; she didn’t stop smiling, because then people might begin to suspect she had a bunny in her picnic basket. She didn’t want to get all the way to the hospital only to be turned away at the last minute!
But sneaking Paganini into the hospital was easier than she thought. She had an adult with her, so no one would stop them because they were only kids. No one asked to check her basket. Mama led them into the elevator and punched the button for the fifth floor, a different floor from before, since Mr. Jeet had been moved out of Intensive Care a week ago. The elevator was crowded with people, including a man in a wheelchair who had tubes in his nose connected to something that looked like a bag filled with water on a rolling coat rack. He had two nurses with him: one who pushed the wheelchair and one who pushed the coat-rack thing.
At the back of the elevator was a man in a security uniform. Laney pulled her basket closer to her stomach. It was a good thing it was so crowded in there; she hoped the security guy didn’t notice that the flaps of the basket were straining the latch, as if something was trying to get out. Laney put a hand on top of the basket. If Paganini got out, she would be in big trouble for sure.
She was relieved when Mama led the way out of the crowded elevator onto the fifth floor. Right before the elevator fully closed, when the doors were only a sliver apart, she heard a man say “Did anyone else see something moving in that girl’s basket?”
The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden Page 11