Table of Contents
Title Page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Edith of No Special Place
Always One More
Family Portrait, Baltimore, 1936
Inspector Bubby
There Goes That Theory
Now We’re Even
Some People Don’t Understand About a Big Family
I Wonder What It Would Be Like
Keeping the Days Straight
Why Can’t Summer Last Forever?
Lucky Lenny
One Summer Night
Goodbye to Summer
I Wish I Had New Back-to-School Clothes
The First Day of Sixth Grade
Poem Correction
Still Searching
Who I Am
An Undeserved Nickname
If Only...
Even I Get in Trouble Sometimes
A Wait-Till-Your-Father-Gets-Home! Yell
It Could Be Worse
When He Comes Home
I Know Who I’m Not
A Bad Fairy Tale
Mom’s Birthday Surprise
A September Swim with My Favorite Little Brother
Open Wide
Bubby Anne’s Store
How We Got Our Name
At Lunchtime Every Tuesday
Keeping Kosher, Maryland-Style
Trying to Be Polite at Eunice’s House
My Dumb Neighbor
After School
Maybe I Should Be More Like Marian
The Memory Dance
Even in America
Maybe I’m Not Cut Out to Be the Good Little Mother
Raymond Gets into Trouble
Not Everything Can Be Mended
Staying Mad
A Bad Sign
That Night
Somebody Listened
An Explanation, Sort Of
Disappearing Act
They’re Lucky I Found Them
I Wonder
It’s Hard to Stay Mad at Bubby Etta
It’s Our New Year
Like We Do Every Year on Rosh Hashanah
As Long as I’m Here
October 2
The Dreaded Bee
Nobody’s Surprised
Diner Division
Winter’s on Its Way
A Borrowed Holiday
Another Christmas Morn
My Present
The Grass Isn’t Always Greener
Mildred, Queen of Chocolates
I Love Christmas Break
Another Plaster Disaster
No Plaster Patcher This Time
We Are a Party
It’s Not Always a Party Here, Though
Some Things I Just Don’t Understand
I’m Not the Performer in the Family
Our Calling Card
Now It’s Not Too Cold to Be Outside Anymore
Signs of Spring
Our Cousins Are Coming to Town for Passover
Getting Ready for Passover
A Second Chance
Nobody Invites Us to Their House
A Family Emergency
The Worst Night Ever
The Day Our Family Got Too Small
Melvin’s Funeral
It’s Passover No Matter What
Sometimes I Forget
It’s Shabbos
When God Spoke to Mom
The Meaning of Bittersweet
Looking for a Way Out
Back to School with a Plan
A Crime
Sometimes I Can’t Stand Mildred
Working Late
The One Good Thing About Working Late
I Need to Know
I Have a Good Excuse
At the Diner Without Dad
Something of My Own
I Had a Coin Collection
I Can Feel Summer Just Around the Corner
An Inspiration
Floating
Even Bubbles Have to Work
Bubby Comfort
Our Secret
I Have to See for Myself
Who I Am Now
Maybe He Does Care
I Wish
Ironing Out Memories
No One Will Come to See Me Get My Award
Awards Day, June 2, 1937
After My Last Day of School
AUTHOR’S NOTE
GLOSSARY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Copyright © 2012 by Betsy R. Rosenthal
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
Houghton Mifflin is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
www.hmhbooks.com
The text of this book is set in Centaur MT
The photographs are courtesy of the Paul family.
Glossary on pages 164–165.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Control Number 2011017124
ISBN 978-0-547-61084-9
Manufactured in the United States of America
DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
4500346196
To my wonderfully loving and selfless mom,
for sharing a lifetime of stories with me
Edith of No Special Place
I’m just plain Edith.
I’m number four,
and should anyone care,
I’m eleven years old,
with curly black hair.
Squeezed / between /two / brothers,
Daniel and Ray,
lost in a crowd,
will I ever be more
than just plain Edith,
who’s number four?
In my overcrowded family
I’m just another face.
I’m just plain Edith
of no special place.
Always One More
I saw these wooden nesting dolls in a store,
the kind where you don’t know how many dolls
there are altogether until you start
opening them up,
and there’s always
one more inside,
sort of like
my family.
Family Portrait, Baltimore, 1936
We’re lined up:
girl boy, girl boy, girl boy, girl boy, girl boy,
and in the middle of us all, Dad,
who ordered us to smile
right before the Brownie clicked,
standing stiff as a soldier,
no smile on his face,
and Mom’s beside him,
a baby in her arms
and in her rounded belly
another one,
just a trace.
Inspector Bubby
When Mom goes to the hospital
to have this new baby,
us older kids
watch the younger ones
and keep the house clean.
We think we’re doing okay
until Dad’s mother, Bubby Anne,
comes over
and runs her finger across the top
of the china cabinet
that we couldn’t even reach,
just to show us the dust
we’ve left behind.
There Goes That Theory
Nobody asked my opinion
about having another sister or brother.
But if someone had,
I would have asked
for another little sister,
even though I was sure
this new baby
in Mom’s belly
had to be a boy.
How could I be s
o sure?
Because the last girl she had was my sister Annette.
Sometime after Annette came along,
Mom collapsed
and Dad rushed her to the hospital,
where they took out one of her ovaries
(part of her baby-making equipment,
Bubby Anne told us).
So my sisters and I thought
it must have been
the girl-making one
because since the surgery
Mom has had nothing but boys—
my brothers Lenny, Melvin, Sol, and Jack.
But now this baby in Mom’s belly
turned out to be Sherry.
And that’s the end
of our ovary theory.
Now We’re Even
Maybe Mom and Dad
wanted one last one
With six boys
and now six girls,
maybe they’re done.
I guess there’s really
no way of knowing,
but I sure hope
our family’s
all done growing.
Some People Don’t Understand About a Big Family
My friends Connie and Eunice
love coming to my house.
To them it seems like
we’re always having a party.
But I’d rather go to their houses,
where there’s room to move around
without bumping into anybody
and you never
have to stand in line
to use the bathroom.
I Wonder What It Would Be Like
To sleep by myself
in this bed
that holds three
with all of the covers
to cover
just me.
To spread my arms wide
and lie
at a slant
with no other bodies
to say
that I can’t.
To lie
on a pillow,
no feet in my face;
I’d lie awake nights
just feeling the space.
Keeping the Days Straight
Since it’s summertime
and we aren’t back in school yet,
I keep forgetting what day it is.
So my brother Raymond
teaches me the trick
of checking what Mom’s making for dinner.
Mondays are milkhik,
Tuesdays, liver;
Wednesdays are macaroni casserole days,
Thursdays are meat,
and Fridays we eat a Shabbos feast
of chicken, chopped liver, and soup.
Saturdays we have what’s left,
and Sundays Dad brings home deli.
So the day of the week
all depends
on what’s inside my belly.
Why Can’t Summer Last Forever?
Summer means
we’re outside,
trying to cool off.
So my little brother Melvin
grabs my hand
and we run by the garden hose
that Mom’s waving around.
We scream with glee
as she hoots and sprays us
with its misty breath.
Summer means
trips to the shore with Dad,
where we all play tag
with the waves
and build castles in the sand
and then, on the way home,
stop for kosher dogs,
lathered with mustard,
like shaving cream on a man’s face.
Summer means
matinees at the Roxy Theatre
on weekdays,
not just weekends,
and taking my brothers and sisters
to the park
to play dodge ball
and horseshoes
and hum in the kazoo band.
Why can’t summer last forever?
Lucky Lenny
Last Sunday
when Dad took us to swim in the bay
at Workmen’s Circle Lodge,
my little brother Lenny slipped
on a plum pit in the pavilion
and broke both his legs.
He’s in the hospital now,
getting loads of comic books,
marbles, and card games
and more candy buttons and chocolate licorice
than he could ever eat,
and the nurses are fluffing up his pillows
and bringing him grape soda all the time.
He’s even making new friends,
playing war and go fish
with the man in the next bed.
Today when we went to swim,
I looked as hard as I could
for my own
plum pit.
One Summer Night
My little sister Marian is missing again,
(we can’t all fit)
and we drive around until we finally find Marian
in the park,
bouncing her little paddle board and ball,
not even noticing the dark
at all.
When we get home,
Dad uses Marian’s paddle,
but not on the ball,
and she doesn’t act like she’s sorry
at all.
Goodbye to Summer
When Dad’s mother, Bubby Anne,
gives us all pairs of new socks
to wear to school,
it’s time to say goodbye to summer.
When Mom’s mom, Bubby Etta,
reaches into her shopping bag
full of crayons, jacks, and candy
and hands each of us
“a little something special
to start off the new school year,”
it’s time to say goodbye to summer.
But I wish it wasn’t.
Now I’ll have to go to school all day
instead of swimming
at the Patterson Park pool
and playing stickball
with Daniel and his friends
and taking Melvin to the Roxy
to see the Popeye cartoons.
I’ll have to get up early,
even before the sun rubs the sleep
out of its eyes.
I’ll have to face math tests
and spelling bees and homework,
and the weather will turn dreary and stormy
like in a scary movie.
I know it’s time to say goodbye to summer,
but I’d much rather be saying hello.
I Wish I Had New Back-to-School Clothes
But in my family
we wear
hand-me-down
down
down
down
downs.
The First Day of Sixth Grade
My new teacher, Miss Connelly,
is making us write a poem
about our family.
It’s not exactly fair
because mine will have to be really, really long.
I’ll start with Dad,
who only wanted lots of kids
so he could put us all to work
at his diner when we’re old enough.
Then Mom,
who works hard all day at the diner
and all night at home,
but still finds time to dance with us
and make us caramel apples on a stick,
no matter how tired she is.
Then there’s Sylvia, my oldest sister,
who never tells on me
if I sneak a slice of pie at the diner
when Dad’s not there,
and Mildred, the queen of us all,
who likes to wave the candy and flowers
in our faces
that she gets
from her dozens
of boyfriends,
and Daniel, the favorite son,
who would walk the plank for Mom
if she asked him to,
and whenever he earns a little money,
he buys something special just for her.
Then there’s Raymond, who I help
with schoolwork,
although he sometimes skips school
and always seems to get spanked
more than the rest of us,
and Marian, who is never done playing,
so I have to drag her home for dinner
while she screams so loud the neighbors
think I’m murdering her,
and Annette, who follows me around
all the time
and cries waterfall tears
when I try to lose her,
and Lenny, Sol, and Jack,
the three musketeers,
who are always looking for adventure,
always finding trouble,
and Melvin, my very favorite,
who walks to the bakery with me
to get the Sabbath challah,
holding on to my pinkie finger
with his little hand,
his brown ringlets bouncing
from side to side.
And finally, there’s Sherry,
who’s just a baby in a carriage
and the last child
(I hope!)