on the sofa bed,
or so she thought,
and ran to the store.
But after she left,
they started to bounce
and bounce
and bounce some more.
Then the bed closed up
and they were stuck
until I came home
and changed their luck.
I Wonder
If a sofa bed swallowed me up
like a hungry tiger,
would anyone care?
With twelve kids to look after,
would Mom and Dad notice?
Would anyone notice
if I wasn’t there?
It’s Hard to Stay Mad at Bubby Etta
Since it’s so cold outside,
I don’t want to take the long way home,
so I stop by today
to warm up a little,
but really to ask Bubby Etta how
she could have left Mom in Russia
for so many years.
She tells me that she tried
to bring her over sooner
and that it hurt bad in her kishkes
to be so far away from her.
She says she saved the money
people gave her
for bringing their babies
into the world
so she could bring her baby
to America.
“My husband,
he used that money to bet on horses,”
she says,
“but he always lost,
and that’s why it took so long
to buy your mother’s ticket.”
So
it was really
my step-zayde Jacob’s fault!
I never liked him
anyway.
It’s Our New Year
Mom says Rosh Hashanah
is the gift of a new start for each one of us
and that we need to think hard
about the bad things we’ve done all year.
I bet every year Bubby Etta thinks about
what she did a long time ago—
leaving Mom in Russia.
And I hope Zayde Jacob thinks about
how it was his fault
Mom couldn’t come here sooner.
But I have to think about what I’ve done.
So for starters,
I think about how
I let the ice pan overflow
so many times
and threw those greasy peanut butter balls
against the new wallpaper
and especially
how I slapped Annette so hard
it left a mark.
Mom says we need to
tell the people we’ve hurt
that we’re sorry
and promise to do better
in the new year.
She says that on Rosh Hashanah
God hears our apologies
and decides what will happen to each of us
in the coming year.
So I’d better hurry up and get started
saying I’m sorry.
I don’t want God
to get the wrong idea about me.
Like We Do Every Year on Rosh Hashanah
With our new clothes
from Bubby Anne’s store
(hats and white gloves for the girls,
suits and ties for the boys)
and our new starts,
we walk to Bubby Anne’s shul,
we climb the ancient stairs to the balcony,
where the women are praying,
and we give Bubby Anne
a peck on each cheek
(her cheeks are nice and soft,
not prickly like her husband’s).
Then we walk three blocks
to Bubby Etta’s shul.
I take Melvin’s hand, and we
go up the creaky stairs
to the women’s section.
We peek down from the balcony
at the men bowing up and down
and mumbling in Hebrew.
And even though I don’t understand
a word of it,
I like hearing the sounds—
When we find Bubby Etta,
we squeeze over to her seat
and give her kisses, too.
She pats our cheeks
and whispers, ‘‘L’shana tova,"
warming us up with her smile.
I like the Bubby-kissing part
of our New Year,
even though it’s nothing new.
As Long as I’m Here
While I’m in each shul,
I pray to God
that this year I’ll figure out
who I am
in this big family of mine.
I don’t want to seem greedy,
so I just pray
for a little hint of who
I could possibly be.
I sure wish I knew
if God’s listening
to me.
October 2
I wake up today
thinking that maybe this year
Dad’ll say something.
But he doesn’t.
I act fearless, like Marian,
and run up to him at the door
as he’s leaving for the diner.
“It’s my birthday today, Dad,” I say.
“Oh yeah, how old are you?” he asks.
“Twelve.”
Then he pulls some coins
out of his trousers pocket
and counts them into my hands.
“Here are twelve pennies,” he says.
He doesn’t even say Happy Birthday,
but that’s okay.
I’ll still remember this day always
because it’s the first time my dad
has ever given me
anything.
The Dreaded Bee
Ugh,
today’s the school spelling bee
and they give me the word,
minuscule.
I ask for its meaning.
“Very small,” they say.
Then I sound it out in my head,
m-i-n-i-s-q-u-e-w-e-l-l.
I’m the worst speller
in my class.
Maybe I should just pass.
M-i-n-e-s-c-u-e-l-l.
I’m the worst speller
in school.
And when I spell it out loud—
m-i-n-a-s-k-e-w-e-l,
I feel
just like
my spelling word.
Nobody’s Surprised
At the school spelling bee,
nobody’s surprised
that the last one standing
is smarty-pants Helen Krashinsky,
and nobody’s surprised
that the first one down
is me.
Diner Division
I’ve missed a lot of lessons at school
because I’ve been out sick
with whooping cough—
a cough louder than the crash of coal
rumbling down the metal chute
into our cellar.
Now I’m having trouble figuring out
the problem Miss Connelly wrote
on the chalkboard:
How many gallons of gas
can someone buy at nineteen cents a gallon,
if they’ve got two dollars to spend?
So I turn the math question
into a hot dog problem
because I don’t know about gas,
but since I help at Dad’s diner sometimes,
I know all about
the price of hot dogs
and I can always figure out
just how many chili dogs
two bucks can buy.
Winter’s on Its Way
And I wish I had new shoes
to wear on t
his rainy day.
But I don’t,
so I stuff cardboard
deep down in the soles
of my hand-me-down-downs
and pray I’ll get to school
before the rain
soaks through the holes.
A Borrowed Holiday
I love the sparkling lights downtown,
and when I was little,
I loved sitting on Santa’s lap,
whispering my wishes
while I was itching to start licking
the candy cane he was going to give me.
Mom has to tear me away from the stores,
where every toy I’d ever want
is crammed into the windows
as tightly as my family in Dad’s car.
I love hanging up stockings
on Christmas Eve
and going to bed,
knowing by morning
there’ll be tangerines in the toes
and walnuts and filberts and hard candies
and maybe some crayons or jacks
filling up the rest.
And best of all,
I love waking up extra early
to a mound of presents
(there’s only one for each,
but with so many of us,
the pile gets pretty high)
and a family stampede.
So when Freddy, a neighbor kid,
says Christmas isn’t mine,
I tell him he’s wrong:
“Of course it’s mine.
Everyone celebrates Christmas.”
Then I ask Mom,
and she says it’s not really ours,
but we’re borrowing it
because here in America
we can celebrate
anything we want.
Another Christmas Morn
Last year
Marian said “Pee yew”
to the green coat she got for Christmas.
Marian said
“Pew yew”
to what Bubby Etta gave her, too.
So this year
Mom filled Marian’s stocking
with orange peels and coal.
Now she really
has something
to “Pee yew” about.
My Present
When I unwrap it,
careful not to rip the brown paper
so Mom can reuse it next year,
I find paper dolls inside.
I can’t wait to show them to Eunice,
but when I get to her house
and see what she got for Christmas—
roller skates with a shiny key,
a new ruffled dress,
a bingo game,
and a porcelain doll—
I feel like saying “Pee yew”
to my present, too.
The Grass Isn’t Always Greener
With our measly presents,
our holey shoes,
our used-up clothes,
and our same old dinner
every Friday night—
matzo ball soup and boiled chicken,
I’ve been thinking
we’re poor...
until today,
the day after Christmas,
when our new neighbors,
who have a lot of kids, too,
invite me to stay for dinner.
Their kids got no presents at all,
have no shoes on their feet,
and there’s nothing in their house to eat
except potatoes and bread
without any butter.
Mildred, Queen of Chocolates
She sits on her throne
while we sit at her feet,
our mouths watering
at the sight of the chocolates
her boyfriend Max gave her for Christmas.
She examines each brown treasure
and with a little push
of her thumb
caves in the bottoms.
She drips
the creams
and caramels
into her own mouth
and shares the nutty ones,
her least favorites,
with us,
her loyal subjects.
I Love Christmas Break
While we’re out of school
for Christmas break,
my friends Eunice and Connie and I
run our own little school
for the neighborhood kids
and charge them a penny each.
We teach them how
to make aprons out of burlap
for their mothers,
and pinwheels
out of construction paper and pins.
I wish someday I could be a real teacher
like Miss Connelly.
But I stink at spelling
and I don’t know
what those big words mean
that smarty-pants Helen Krashinsky uses,
like preponderance, pungent, and pretentious.
So I guess I’m not smart enough
to be a teacher after all.
Another Plaster Disaster
Christmas break’s over
and I’m doing my homework
at the kitchen table
when suddenly chunks of white plaster
rain down on my head.
I look up to see legs
dangling from the ceiling,
and I race up the stairs
to pull Lenny free.
They tell me that Lenny, Sol, and Jack
were all jumping around on the bed
when Lenny missed his step
and fell through the floor.
But Dad’s going to go through the roof
when we call the plaster patcher
who’s been to our house
fifty times before.
No Plaster Patcher This Time
In the boys’ room,
the plastic spacemen
line up on the dresser,
perfect BB-gun targets
for Lenny and Sol.
These crazy brothers of mine cheer
when a BB makes a hit,
and they watch
the little men
as they teeter and fall.
But when Dad goes
to paint their room,
he makes them patch
every one of those
fifty million
holes
in their
bedroom wall.
We Are a Party
I complain to Bubby Etta
about not getting invited
to Passover Seders, weddings,
and bar mitzvahs
because there are too many of us.
She tells me, “Shayne maideleh,
you shouldn’t worry,
with so many kinder
you are a party.”
I guess she means like when
Mom gives us each a penny
and we go to the A&P across the street,
where Mr. Kennedy fills up bags
with candy and peanuts and pretzels
for each of us.
And when we get home with our bags,
we sit out on the marble steps
and play the movie star guessing game,
giving out only initials as clues,
and we sing our favorite songs
from Snow White
while we dig into our bags
and share our treats.
It’s a penny candy party,
and with so many of us,
we don’t even need to invite
anyone else.
It’s Not Always a Party Here, Though
All of us kids are in the cellar clubroom,
crowded around the Victrola,
singing along
to “Some Day My Prince Will Come,”
the song we play over and over
and over again
because w
e only have three records
and this one’s our favorite.
But then Dad stomps downstairs,
yelling, “I told you kids if I heard that song
one more time...!”
and he snatches the record
right off the Victrola,
scratching across the voices in mid-song.
He snaps it in two
over his knee.
The little ones start crying.
Even Melvin,
who always has a smile on his face.
And when Melvin looks up
with his chocolate-colored eyes all watery,
I hug him tight.
Now everyone’s crying,