Jessie ran downstairs, grabbed her raincoat and an umbrella, and joined everyone else on the sidewalk in front of the brownstone. They waited at the curb while Papa retrieved the car they were using for the trip. Mama was interrogating Oliver about his outfit.
“Why aren’t you wearing slacks and that nice button-down shirt Grandma gave you?” she asked him.
Jessie watched her brother squirm. “Um, I sort of sold them.”
“Sold your nice clothes!” Mama exclaimed. “Why would you do that?”
Jessie didn’t want to hang around to hear the rest of that conversation. “I’m going to run up and doublecheck one last time whether Mr. Beiderman wants to join us,” she said to them. She closed her umbrella, and ran up the three flights—forty-four steps—and banged on the door.
There was no answer. She knocked again. “Mr. Beiderman! We’re leaving for Isa’s concert. Can you come?”
After another minute, she ran back down the stairs and put her umbrella up.
“No answer,” Jessie announced, not that she was surprised.
Hyacinth went up next, but she was back a minute later. “He’s not responding,” she said. “I think he wants to be alone.”
Laney wanted to give it one last try. She dug around in her bag and pulled out her precious green M&M’s jar. “I’ll go!” she said cheerfully, being careful not to shake the jar and crack the perfect M&M’s.
Jessie, Oliver, and Hyacinth watched. Maybe Mr. Beiderman wouldn’t be able to resist Laney.
Mama spoke while squinting at a traffic map on her phone. “Hurry up!” she said to her phone, and the kids assumed she was talking to Papa, even though he was nowhere in sight.
Laney hopped up the steps on one foot in her clunky pink rain boots, pretending to be a flamingo, while her siblings hollered, “Hold the handrails!” and “Be careful!” and “Walk up normally, for heaven’s sake!” Laney didn’t appear to understand anything they were saying, because she continued hopping all the way to the top and pushed through the brownstone door. She was gone longer than everyone else.
Laney came back outside at the exact moment that Miss Josie opened her second-floor window and called, “Don’t forget to record the performance for us!” and Papa rolled up to the curb and beeped the horn. The vehicle Papa was driving was not the nice, cleansmelling rental car they had all been crossing their fingers for. The windshield wipers were squeaking, working overtime to wipe the rain off the front windshield. At the sight of the van, Oliver was too busy making gagging noises; Jessie was too busy nudging Mama and saying, “We’re not really going in that, are we?”; and Hyacinth was too busy waving to Franz through the apartment window to notice that Laney had returned without her green M&M’s jar.
* * *
The Vanderbeekers did not own a car, so when they needed to get out of the city, they either rented a car or borrowed a car from a neighbor. When Papa rolled up in Mr. Smiley’s van, everyone groaned.
“Maybe it won’t smell,” Mama said optimistically.
Papa stepped out of the car and gasped as if he had been holding his breath. After he had pulled fresh air into his lungs, he looked at his horrified family and said, “Ready?”
“I am not going in there,” Oliver reported. He jabbed a thumb behind his shoulder at Laney. “Because you-know-who has the you-know-what problem.”
Mama sighed and started toward the van. “Come on, troops. We might not hit traffic if we leave right now. Isa is waiting for us.”
“It smells better than it did last time,” Papa said encouragingly.
Given that Mr. Smiley was an avid fisherman, Jessie doubted it. She glared at her father. “Don’t even talk to us,” she said.
“It was a last resort,” he explained. “The amount of money the rental companies charge for a car on a Friday is extortion.”
“You should have paid it,” Oliver mumbled as he pinched his nose and climbed inside, cracking all the windows open before he buckled himself in. They made Laney sit next to a window that could roll down all the way, and off they went. Everyone kept their raincoats on, because it was going to be a long, wet ride.
Jessie thought about the garden as Papa revved up the van. She wondered how the plants were doing and whether they were happy to get some rain. It was funny how attached Jessie had gotten to the garden and plants in a few short weeks. She thought about the birds and wondered whether they missed hearing the kids talking and singing. She even wanted to see the pesky squirrel that liked to dig up parts of the garden in his search for nuts.
Jessie had never thought botany was her thing, but after only two weeks in the garden, the miracle of seeds and soil thrilled her. She would miss entering that peaceful haven, with the sunlight filtering through the leaves, the way the light would cast a dappled glow on everyone’s faces. She would miss the joy of watching a plant grow a little bigger each day, and studying flower buds that would one day turn into a tomato or a zucchini. She would miss the way the garden rustled with happiness every time they stepped inside.
The loss felt so heavy on Jessie’s heart that when the van chugged down the street, she had to turn her head away from the church and its gated garden so she wouldn’t catch a glimpse of the place they would never enter again.
* * *
Their two biggest worries—Friday traffic and Laney getting carsick—turned out not to be problems. Laney ate precisely twenty-three peppermint drops and threw up just twice. The only bad thing about the peppermint-candy consumption was that she was even bouncier than usual after all that sugar.
It had rained the entire ride up, and given the choice between fishy van smell and fresh air, they unanimously chose fresh air and kept all the windows cracked. They arrived at Isa’s concert a whole ten minutes early, everyone damp from the rain. While Mama and Papa dried the van’s interior with stacks of paper towels, Oliver set up Papa’s phone so he could livestream the event for Mr. Jeet and Miss Josie.
They got seated in the concert hall just as Isa walked onto the stage in her long black dress; Hyacinth almost didn’t recognize her. Instead of the usual slick ponytail, Isa’s hair was in a braid that wrapped all the way around her head like a crown. She took her place as first chair of the second-violin section, and she looked so confident and regal that none of the Vanderbeekers doubted that being up onstage, playing the violin, was what Isa was meant to do.
The concert was beautiful (even though Oliver did think it was unnecessarily long), and the Vanderbeekers were the first of the audience to leap out of their seats to give a standing ovation. They clapped so much, their hands hurt. When the orchestra finally left the stage, the Vanderbeekers exited the concert hall and milled around the fancy lobby, where a sparkly chandelier hung from the ceiling and a red carpet covered the floor. Laney was weaving in and out of the banister of the grand staircase when Isa came out in her black dress with her instrument and luggage. After the Vanderbeekers descended on her and gave her enough hugs and kisses to make up for her having been gone for three whole weeks, Oliver eyed her dress.
“You’ll want to change,” he advised her.
“Why?” she asked. “I don’t mind wearing this. My shorts are buried way at the bottom of the luggage, and I don’t want to pull them out.”
“Trust us,” Jessie said. “You don’t want your nicest dress to smell like fish.”
“But why would it—” Isa began; then, “Oh no.”
“Oh yes,” Oliver replied.
“Welcome home!” Hyacinth announced as she led the way to the parking lot and the fish van.
Twenty-Nine
The next morning brought bright blue skies and fresh air after the previous day’s rain, and every one of the brownstone’s windows was open, letting in a cool breeze. On the first floor, the brownstone creaked with happiness in the twins’ room as Isa woke up and ran her fingers against the rough brick wall next to her bed. Jessie was still asleep, tangled in her covers, her mouth open and her arm flopped over her face.
In the next bedroom, Oliver mumbled in his sleep. He was dreaming about running down the basketball court, about to make the perfect lay-up. Then he noticed Mr. B jogging next to him, wearing a black-and-white referee shirt and blowing a whistle. Oliver tried to focus on the basket ahead of him, but Mr. B was so persistent! Oliver jerked himself awake to find George Washington nuzzling his head and Laney playing her kazoo right next to his ear. He squeezed his eyes shut, and Laney put her kazoo down on his stomach and pried one of his eyes open.
“I love you, Oli,” she said.
In the next bedroom, Hyacinth lay in a dreamless slumber in her bunk bed. Franz, however, sat as straight as a member of the Queen’s Guard, ready to spring into action the second she woke up.
In the last bedroom on the floor, Mama and Papa were so sound asleep that it would take all five Vanderbeeker kids jumping on their bed half an hour later to wake them up.
Upstairs on the second floor, Mr. Jeet sat on his bed while Miss Josie worked on his bow tie. Once she was done, she gave him a kiss on his forehead. Mr. Jeet put his hand in hers, braced his other hand against the end table, and took a deep breath. Then he stood up, and slowly, slowly they walked toward the kitchen for their morning cup of coffee.
And up on the top floor, Mr. Beiderman put food into Princess Cutie’s food bowl while she rubbed her head against his freshly ironed suit pants. He looked out the window, one hand against the window frame. A breeze brushed his face. Then he dabbed at his forehead with the handkerchief he kept in his pocket, closed his eyes, and prepared himself for the day to come.
* * *
Jessie woke to the sound of Isa plucking her violin strings. She had really missed waking up to that. Above her, she could hear Miss Josie’s gentle footsteps and the joyful creak of floorboards. Today hadn’t ended up the way she had imagined it would, with a giant welcome-home party in their secret garden, but this was enough.
Isa, noticing that Jessie was awake, smiled in her direction.
“I wish I could show you the garden,” Jessie said. “You would have loved it.”
“We could walk over there now,” Isa suggested.
“We can’t get inside anymore.”
“I’d like to see the outside anyway. Then we could walk to Castleman’s and get breakfast.”
Jessie raised her eyebrows. “You want to see Benjamin!”
Isa flushed. “I want a cheese croissant, okay? You coming or not?”
It turned out everyone was hungry for Castleman’s, including Mama and Papa. So they all changed out of their pajamas and headed out the door and across 141st Street.
Hyacinth noticed the commotion first. She pointed it out to Oliver, who pointed it out to Jessie and Isa, who pointed it out to Laney. A small crowd was gathered in front of the garden. As they drew closer, they recognized Mr. Huxley and Herman. Triple J stood next to him with a bulging suitcase.
“Triple J!” Laney cried, running toward him.
“Laney Bean!” Triple J called, then caught her and swung her around.
“Where have you been?” Jessie cried.
“We’ve left so many messages!” Oliver exclaimed.
“Did you know he’s selling your land?” Hyacinth added, pointing a finger at Mr. Huxley.
Triple J glanced from Vanderbeeker to Vanderbeeker, answering their questions. “I’ve been in South Carolina, helping my brother. He fell down the stairs and broke his leg. I’m afraid my phone fell out of my pocket at the airport and shattered, and when I tried to get a new one, the phone company told me I needed to give them my password, which I didn’t even know I had created. So I had to get a new phone number and I lost all my messages. And,” he said to Hyacinth, “I’m finding out about this land thing right now.”
“You asked me to find ways for us to repair the roof and replace the boiler,” Mr. Huxley said, annoyed. “This deal came along, and it was too good to let pass. I tried to call, but you were unreachable. I made the best decision I could, given the circumstances. I don’t need to tell you how critical it is for us to act swiftly before this church crumbles to the ground.”
“You should have waited until I returned,” Triple J said, shaking his head. “I was only away for a couple of weeks.”
Mr. Huxley sniffed. “You know how these land developers are. Once you get an attractive offer, you’ve got to move on it.”
The Vanderbeekers looked at him with distrust.
“If it’s such hot property,” Oliver pointed out, “you would have gotten more money if you’d waited longer.
“It’s called the law of demand,” Jessie said. “It’s a basic economic theory.”
“Wait,” Papa said, confused. “What’s going on here?”
Mr. Huxley ignored Papa. “As treasurer of the church, I have the authority to sign off on all the necessary paperwork. It’s a done deal.”
Herman, who had been mostly quiet during the whole interchange, shook his head. “Dad, there must be another way.”
“This doesn’t concern you,” Mr. Huxley said sharply, and the Vanderbeeker kids instinctively took a step closer to Herman.
“Have you looked inside the gates, Mr. Huxley?” Jessie said. “Have you seen what’s there? What you’re destroying?”
“Wait,” Mama said, trying to follow along. “What’s inside where?”
“Tilia of the Eternal Spring is in there! And the Silver Queen—she’s over one hundred years old!” Hyacinth said. “They’re scared all by themselves.”
“We could have enough vegetables to feed the whole block,” Oliver added.
“We worked so hard on it,” Herman said. “At least take one look.”
“I didn’t even know you were using it,” Triple J said. “How’d you get inside?”
“I want to see it,” Papa said, looking around. “Whatever ‘it’ is.”
“No one needs to see anything,” Mr. Huxley snapped. “The land is sold. Nothing can be done, unless the church wants to be sued for breach of contract.”
The kids sucked in a breath. Could the church really be sued? Before another word was spoken, a swift wind swept down 141st Street, rustling the ivy on the garden fence so fiercely that it sounded like a stadium cheer swelling to a roar.
“I find it peculiar,” came a voice from behind them, “that you sold this land without properly researching its historical significance.”
Everyone froze, then slowly turned around. There, standing tall, with the sun behind him and the leaves rustling all around him, stood Mr. Beiderman.
Mr. Huxley’s voice lowered. “I don’t know who you are—”
“I am Arthur Beiderman,” he said, his voice clear and strong. “I was a member of this church for nearly two decades, until six years ago. My wife and I said our vows at the altar in front of friends and family. When our daughter, Luciana, came along, she learned how to climb stairs by practicing on those steps.” He pointed to the wide steps leading to the church door. “She made her first friends at the church preschool, and played on that land you want to build on top of.”
Mr. Huxley sniffed. “You certainly don’t expect the church to renege on a sale just because your daughter—”
“She also played on the same land where Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., once stood,” Mr. Beiderman continued. “The same Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., who preached the good news as a pastor and campaigned here for the House of Representatives in 1944.”
“A street is named after him!” Laney said excitedly.
“And finally, according to many lifelong Harlem residents and a dozen highly esteemed researchers, this is the same land where a safe house for the Underground Railroad stood, sheltering people escaping slavery as they fled north.”
“How—how can you even prove that?” Mr. Huxley stammered.
“I have the proof right here,” Mr. Beiderman said, pulling books and file folders bulging with papers out of a ragged briefcase. “I had help from the local library, and the librarians assured me they have much more material
if needed. My friend Ms. Lin of the Landmarks Preservation Commission is so eager to maintain important pieces of Harlem that she kindly expedited the paperwork, plus a judge was notified of the situation and placed a cease-and-desist order on the land sale. I’m sure you’ll be notified soon. She’s thrilled that a garden has been planted on the land, and she plans to put up a plaque commemorating the space once the paperwork is official.”
Mr. Beiderman paused to take a breath, then to look at the Vanderbeeker kids, whose jaws had dropped in amazement. “And of course, I had help from my friends, who showed me how to live again, for which I am endlessly thankful.”
He leaned down and pulled one last item from his bag: a jar of green M&M’s, which he handed back to Laney. “Thank you for all this luck. I only needed a couple.”
Thirty
Mr. Huxley had stormed off, phone to ear, dragging Herman behind him. The Vanderbeekers watched them disappear around the corner, and then they turned back to Mr. Beiderman.
“I can’t believe you’re here!” Laney said, wrapping her arms around his waist.
“You’re our hero!” Jessie exclaimed.
“Are you okay?” Hyacinth asked him. “You know, because . . .”
Mr. Beiderman cleared his throat. “I figured if I could survive getting stuck on the subway for hours, I could survive going out again yesterday.”
“Can someone please tell us what’s going on?” Mama demanded at the same time Papa said, “That’s it, everyone is grounded until I know what’s happening.”
Mr. Beiderman raised his hand in surrender. “Don’t look at me. I haven’t even seen the inside.”
“Inside what?” Papa gritted out.
“Inside there,” Laney informed her parents, pointing to the fence. “Oliver picked the lock.”
“He what?” Mama and Papa said.
Jessie spoke up. “I wish we could show you what it looks like, but I doubt Mr. Huxley is going to come back and open it for us. He changed the lock, and now we can’t get in.”
The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden Page 14