Excerpt of Brooklyn Bridge by Karen Hesse
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July 1903
Chapter One
THE GUYS SAY I'M LUCKY. That I got everything.
They’re right. I am lucky.
I’m the luckiest kid in the world.
Not everyone’s so lucky. I know this.
Take Dilly Lepkoff. Dilly pushes his cart past our store
every day, rain or shine. Dilly, in his long apron, he calls, "Pickles!
Pickles!" Just hearing his voice I’m drooling, tasting the
garlic and vinegar across my tongue. Those pickles of Dilly’s,
they suck the inside of your cheeks together. They make the
spit go crazy in your mouth.
So Dilly, he knows what he’s doing with a pickle. But is he
lucky? That all depends on what you call luck. He and his
family, they been to Coney Island, which I have not. That
makes him lucky in my book. But Dilly Lepkoff, he’s still
looking for a land of gold.
In the Michtom house we got golden land coming out our
ears. Does that make me lucky? Ever since school let out I
been asking Papa to go to Coney Island. And always the same
answer. "We’re too busy, Joseph. Maybe next month."
ON THE CORNER of Tompkins and Hancock, Mr. Kromer’s
clarinet cracks its crazy jokes. Mr. Kromer plays that clarinet
all day. He stands under the grocer’s awning in his gray
checked vest and he plays good. Makes you smile. Makes your
feet smile. I hear it, even when I’m playing stickball with the
guys halfway down Hancock. Even when I’m planning how to
sneak into Washington Park to watch the Superbas. I hear it.
Mr. Kromer really knows how to stir up something with that
clarinet.
But does that make him lucky? In Rus sia he played clarinet
for important people. Now he plays on a street corner in
Brooklyn and he keeps the clarinet case open for people to
drop coins. I’m not sure, but if you asked Mr. Kromer I don’t
think he’d say he’s so lucky.
Papa, he’s lucky. He doesn’t work for coins anymore.
We’re not greenies. Not anymore. Papa, he’s been in America
sixteen years.
"And I didn’t have a penny when I got here."
"You had to have something, Papa. How could you live if
you’re dead broke."
"I lived, Joseph. I’m here, am I not?" Papa says. "And I
had nothing." Only he says "nuh- tink."
You get used to it. Everybody got an accent in Brooklyn.
Everybody talks a little different. Papa says he doesn’t hear a
difference but I do. Same as I hear Mr. Kromer’s clarinet. You
gotta listen.
I can’t remember living anywhere but Brooklyn. Only
here, above the store, in this crowded flat. Me, Mama, Papa.
My kid sister, Emily. My little brother, Benjamin. I like coming
home to this place. At least I used to like it. Back when we
sold things like toys and cigars and paper, back before we
turned the candy shop into a bear factory. Our novelty store
with the big glass window, it’s always been like an open book.
The whole block, like a row of glass books on a long cement
shelf. Even though lately we don’t fix up the display window,
I guess I still like coming home to it.
Some kids, they never want to go home. This time last
year I didn’t get it. How could anyone not want to go home?
I get it now.
Still, I’m lucky. My life, it’s better than most guys have it.
I got plenty to eat. I got Mama and Papa both. And they don’t
hit. So even though I can’t turn around without bumping into
someone, even though I’m always tripping over the ladies
who come in to sew, even though most of my time I spend inspecting,
sorting, and packing bears, even though my parents
don’t have time anymore for me, my sister, my brother, even
though the guys in the neighborhood act different with me
now, I guess I’m still lucky.
Excerpted from Brooklyn Bridge
by Karen Hesse, Copyright © 2008 by Karen Hesse. Excerpted by
permission of Feiwel & Friends, a division of Macmillan. All rights
reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted
without permission in writing from the publisher.
