Operation Sisterhood: Stealing the Show!

1

“Your sister needs to be up on that Apollo stage--she can sing!” Ms. Tyler has said that every time I’ve walked past her stoop for the last two weeks. “She is so shy—and acting like Dr. Dolittle with those animals all the time when she got that big voice. Those outfits y’all had on in your little show were sharp. You think your sis-ter, the twin who sews, could make me a dress for church? And what about that one who made the cupcakes—now, that’s what I’m talking about. These new plac-es with their dressed-up dry old bricks they call cake . . .”

“Hello, Ms. Tyler. I’ll tell my sisters you were asking about them,” I reply, and try to keep walking.

“Y’all going to put together something else in that garden? I have some ideas for a little cookout.”

“My sister Bo, the one who made the cupcakes, she made a community calendar so that we can all use it and plan events. But you can also come hang out every day. Auntie Sunflower just put in some more rocking chairs too.”

“Sunflower Rogers is something else. I respect how she’s stayed in the community like that. Some people forget where they came from, but she keeps it real. Appre-ciate her.”

“Yep,” I say. My family appreciates Auntie Sunflower too. We live in one of the brownstones she owns, and my superior detecting skills led me to learn that we don’t even pay rent! Lee says that I shouldn’t call eavesdropping “detecting,” but I say I’m just putting my good ear to great use. Get it? I’m a musician, so I have a good ear, and also eavesdropping? I thought it was a good one. My sisters do not appreciate my humor. “Auntie Sunflower really cares.”

I try to keep walking and smiling my way past Ms. Tyler before she can ask me to go get something from the store for her. Lil says old people just make up things for kids to go get from the store, like it’s payback for being old. I usually don’t mind because a lot of times they’ll tell you something interesting, like when Mr. Wil-liams told me about the great freedom fighter Nelson Mandela coming to 125th Street after he was released from prison. “I worked at the Victoria Five movie the-ater at the time,” he said. “And Coca-Cola had finally stopped doing business in South Africa a few years earlier. So I made sure to get right on out there and give Mr. Mandela a free Coke right from our fountain!”

When I told my sisters the story, they, including Lee, who believes that our beard-ed dragon likes to play checkers, thought Mr. Williams was exaggerating. But I don’t care. Sometimes the spirit of a story matters more than all the tiny details. I wrote a song about Mr. Williams’s story called “Freedom Fizz.” I should remind my sisters that our band, Operation Sisterhood, should put it on the set list at our next musical babysitting gig at Pop’s bookstore.

Ms. Tyler is still talking, even though I’m past her house. “Wait, which one are you?” she calls, but I pretend I’m too far away to hear.

Because I’ve got two sandwiches and my water bottle in my backpack, I’m already kind of hungry, and I haven’t really started walking yet.

Of course, now Marcus Semple has to get in my business. “Where you going all slow like an old lady? Broke your bike again?”

I ignore him. He knows good and well that

1) I’m not that great on my bike. I’ve had two, um, minor mishaps in the last month, and,

2) I’m not allowed to go off the block on it anyway, and,

3) as a detective-in-training and writer, walking gives me ample opportunities to notice and note, which is a thing that the Parents love so much that it’s a regular freeschooling assignment.

But their notice-and-note walks are all about things like noticing the number of luxury developments and noting a lack of trees in some neighborhoods. On my personal excursions, it’s more like There’s Jimmy Bridges holding hands with a girl who’s definitely not Regina Roberts, who said she was Jimmy’s significant other just last week. I look for the stories.

“I got a tire pump if you need air in your tires,” Marcus says.

Since he’s being sort of nice now, I answer. “Bronx,” I say, trying to sound like I’m too busy to speak in full sentences. See, my plan was to walk to my sister Bo’s old apartment in the Bronx to surprise her. Which, technically, nobody said I couldn’t do. She still goes there a lot, and the Parents let her go by herself this morning be-cause she started her own organizing business—and because she’s Bo. We’re all the same age, but the Parents think she’s the Responsible One.

I keep walking and ignore Marcus, who’s back to himself again, and yelling, “Mon-day! Tuesday! Wednesday! Thursday! Friday! Saturday!” like he can’t remember my name’s Sunday.

Sure, that doesn’t ever get old, Bo would say. Lil would probably say it too, but she’d add some words that I’m too scared to even think. Lee would tell him he needs a “fur baby” in his life because she thinks that’s the solution to everything. I want to say something perfectly withering to him, with just the right mix of sar-casm and boredom, but by the time I figure out how I’m going to do it, the mo-ment has passed.

Then, as if he’s reading my mind, he asks where all my sisters are, and when I shrug, he’s all, “Ooooh.” Like he’s not exactly going to snitch, but if he happens to go to my Pop’s bookstore, the words “Sunday is walking to the Bronx by herself” might just fall out of his mouth.

So, though technically nobody said I couldn’t do this . . . I stop and pretend I want to have a conversation with Marcus Semple. “What, Marcus?” I say, and put my hands on my hips before I remember that he called me “the bossy one” a few days ago.

He has nothing to say, of course, except to ask AGAIN why we have a “double-decker family,” which I think is kind of a cute way to describe us, but I would never tell Marcus that anything remotely related to him is cute. When Pop and I moved into Auntie Sunflower’s house with the Twins and their family, he told me that “co-housing” wasn’t a big deal—but everyone on our new block seemed to think it was a little weird. Then when he met and married Lola, and we added her and her daughter, Bo, to the family, all four Parents decided that “patchworked” was a better way to describe us.

I’ve got a good line ready—I’ve been practicing. I take an extra-long gulp from my water bottle for a dramatic pause. Except I overshoot and spill water down the front of my brand-new T-shirt with a picture of Hazel Scott playing two pianos on it.

Marcus laughs hard, like he’s trying out for the Laugh Olympics. “AHAHAHAHA-HAHAHA!”

“Maybe you should follow my example and drink your water and mind your busi-ness.” I deliver my line anyway, hoping that I sound like Bo and that the late-August sun will dry my shirt fast. I start walking, holding my head high.

“And make a mess?” he adds, reaching to steady me before I trip over a tree root. “Watch out, Friday! You’re about to be all scabbed up again.”

It’s true that I have a tendency to trip and fall. Last year he found out my middle name is Gabrielle, and he called me Scabby Gabby for a week. Lil has been offer-ing to give me dance lessons because she says I have as much grace as a goose, which doesn’t even mean anything when you think about it, and of course it made Lee mad because it was, like, an insult to geese or whatever. But dancing is Lil’s thing. I started writing a song about a girl who trips and falls into an exciting world underneath New York City, but I can’t find my notes.

“Seriously, where are your sisters? Any baking happening at your house today?” I just keep going until he gives up.

August in New York City means it’s hot and humid, so that means many breaks to pop into air-conditioned shops along the way. Then I stop at Rucker Park to eat one of the sandwiches, and I realize that

1) I’m not that close to my house, and

2) I still have a long way to go.

It will probably be dark by the time I get there, which the Parents really won’t be happy about. I squint at my mini subway map card, and the D train is so close by. . . . I’ll just sit on the platform and figure out my next steps without people ask-ing me about my sisters every five seconds. (My sisters say I exaggerate every-thing, so okay, I’ll say every ten.) Then a train pulls into the station, and it’s like serendipity because whenever we’re actually waiting for a train, we have to wait for hours. (Okay, long minutes.) I mean, it’s right there, I can’t pass that up! I hop on. It’s not crowded; I sit, take out my book, and find a twenty-five-cent bag of Utz chips in my backpack—double serendipity, for real!

At Yankee Stadium, a gazillion people get on the train. I snap my book shut.

I’m gonna get in SO MUCH TROUBLE for this. . . .

But . . . I’m in it now.

Oh well . . . onward! I’ll work it out later.

Somehow.

2

When I get to Bo’s old apartment building, Bo’s former little neighbor Dougie opens the door with the chain still on, even though he saw me from the intercom video in the lobby. I know that double-checking is one of the things that Bo, as his Official Babysitter Best Friend, taught him. She’s always reminding me that our musical babysitting service has to be security-conscious as well as fun.

“You’re late,” Dougie says, sliding the chain off and pulling me in. “But they ha-ven’t cleaned up much.” He calls out, “Bo, your talky sister Church Day is here!” He’s lucky he’s still cute. He leans in and whispers, “Maybe they need a cleanup song.”

I laugh. “Very funny. And I know you know my name is Sunday, Dougie. Or should I call you Douglas?” His eyes get wide and he grins. “Sorry, Sunday!”

“Everyone needs a cleanup song, that’s true,” I say, “But remember, they’re or-ganizing—that’s different.” Mrs. Dougie is Bo’s first client, but based on the scene behind Dougie, things have gotten off to a rocky start.

Bo left our house this morning wearing a light blue headwrap, green denim over-alls, and a determined smile. Now her headwrap and overalls are definitely char-coal in color, and her mouth is in that thin line it gets to when I forget to keep my rock collection and scrapbook supplies on my side of our room.

A dose of positivity, that’s what the situation needs, and fortunately that’s one of my specialties, like having big ideas and collecting things. “Hi, guys!” I raise my voice. “Seems like you’ve been working hard! Yay, you!”

They both glare at me as Dougie says, “They’re not guys. They’re human beings. Or people. Or you could say friends, or fam, or young women . . . well, just Bo, be-cause my mommy’s kinda old—”

“Okay, thank you, Dougie, we got it,” says Mrs. Dougie with a deep sigh. She pulls up a smile. “So good to see you, Sunday!” she says to me. “You’re just in time to see your sister destroy the last remnants of the Golden Age of Hip-Hop.”

Now it’s Bo’s turn to sigh. “Mrs. Dougie, I—”

“Please call me Dawn, Bo.”

“Um . . . Mrs. . . . I’m really not trying to destroy anything, and I’m sure many peo-ple in this neighborhood alone have, uh, hip-hop mementos, since this is officially the Boogie Down Birthplace of Hip-Hop Bronx, as you’ve always reminded me, but—”

“OH YEAH?!” Mrs. Dougie interrupts, pulling out a cassette tape (!!). “Do you think anyone else still has this extended-play version of  “AJ Scratch” by Kurtis Blow?” She waves the tape in the air. “I think not!”

“You said we don’t have anything to play those on, Mommy,” says Dougie.

“I said I haven’t replaced my old Sony boom box yet, and I just need to decide where I’m going to put it. . . .”

“Mrs. Dougie, I just came here to help you do some . . . ,” starts Bo.

I jump in. “. . . rethinking, reorganizing, remixing!” I think that last one is a nice touch. Bo doesn’t use the word declutter. She gives me a grateful smile.

“Well, all I’m doing is remembering,” says Mrs. Dougie, still frowning. She taps a box, and a giant cloud of dust rises. We all try not to cough too much, except for Dougie, who coughs extra hard.

“Dougie.” Mrs. Dougie puts her hands on her hips.

“It looks messier now than before,” he says, still fake gasping. “Mommy, you’re opening those boxes we never, ever opened. And gremlin dust is coming out!”

“Or goblin dust,” I say. “And if it touches you, you’ll instantly turn into a MON-STER!”

“The EVILLEST MONSTER EVAH!” Dougie picks up the game right away and starts zombie-walking toward me. “Let’s go play one of your stories, Sunday!” he says.

I look at Bo, who frowns. I hope she knows that I’m only trying to help. Right then, she gives me a small thumbs-up. Whew! I turn back to Dougie. “Okay! Let’s go to the playground?”

“Good idea,” says Mrs. Dougie. “And thank you, Sunday. But . . . did you come by for anything in particular?”

“Oh! Yeah! I actually came to see if I could help with the . . . remixing. Bo, I thought I could be like your assistant in training, if you want. I finished my Augusta Savage study early.”

Bo raises an eyebrow. “Of course you did. Thanks, Sis, but you and Dougie can be helpful by playing a story. No offense, but organizing is really not your thing.”

She didn’t have to put it like that. And she didn’t have to put me and Dougie to-gether like that either. She gives me a quick hug, getting gray dust on my T-shirt. You can barely see Hazel Scott now.

“Ahem,” she says. “Um, so, Mrs. Dougie—”

“Dawn!”

“Um, so see, probably since you haven’t opened some of these boxes in a long time, maybe you don’t need the things inside—even though I understand they were—are—important . . . ,” she trails off as Mrs. Dougie’s eyes blaze.