THE STICKY SUMMER AFTERNOON made Esther as limp and damp as melted ice cream. As she and Peter walked from the bus stop, she knew it would be even hotter inside Grandma Shaffer’s tiny, crammed house. She never opened her windows and had only one puny fan to stir the hot air.
“Grandma, we’re here,” Esther called as she opened the back screen door.
“I’m in here.” Grandma sat in a living room chair, fanning herself with a Chinese paper fan. She had taken off her shoes and propped her feet on a footstool, and her pale ankles looked as huge as cabbages. “There you are,” she said when she saw Esther and Peter. “I’ve been worried about you two. According to the radio, the baseball game ended an hour ago.”
“The ball park was full of people, Grandma, so it took a long time to empty out. But once we got to the street, the bus brought us straight here, just like Penny said it would. We’re fine.”
In fact, they were more than fine. As Peter had sat in the stands with Mr. Mendel, watching his beloved Dodgers play, he looked happier than Esther had seen him in a long, long time. He still looked happy, his cheeks and nose freckled from the sun. Esther wished they could have gone home to their own apartment with Mr. Mendel so Peter wouldn’t be reminded that Grandma’s dog was still missing. Maybe he would stay happy for a little while longer. But Penny had gone to New Jersey for the day and wouldn’t be home until late. They would have to spend another night here.
“Oh my, look at your faces!” Grandma said. “You both got too much sun. You should put some witch hazel on your skin to cool it off.”
Esther’s arms and face did feel very hot, but she didn’t care. “The Dodgers won, Grandma, six to nothing. They even hit a home run with two runners on base.”
“Did you eat anything? Are you hungry?”
“Mr. Mendel bought roasted peanuts for us. And hot dogs.”
“The Jewish man bought them? Didn’t Penny give you any money to spend?”
“He wanted to treat us. He couldn’t eat any of the food, but there’s no law against buying it for us.”
“If you’re hungry, you’ll have to fix yourself something. I can’t do a thing in this heat.”
Peter tapped Grandma’s shoulder and pointed toward the backyard, then made a pouring motion. “He wants to know if you checked on his garden, Grandma. Do you think it needs watering?”
“I saw Penny’s father out there with a watering can. You would think they were his plants the way he hovers over them. He checks on them three or four times a day when you’re not here.” But Peter disappeared out the back door to check on his garden, just the same.
Grandma stopped fanning herself and sighed. Her face looked as pink as a peony. “Is Penny going to be back in time to go to work Monday?”
“She said she would be.” Esther found a piece of cardboard on top of one of the piles and used it to fan herself, making sure the limp breeze reached her grandmother’s face, too. “Are you coming to church with us again sometime, Grandma?” She had gone with them this morning in Penny’s place, and Esther thought it had cheered her up. Ever since reading Queen Esther’s story with Mr. Mendel, Esther had enjoyed going to church again. As her Sunday school teacher and minister prayed for all of the men who were fighting in the war, she could more easily imagine how God might be working behind the scenes.
“We’ll see. Who knows how long my ankles will stay swollen.”
Esther hopped off the arm of the chair where she had been sitting, too excited to remain seated. “I have a piano lesson on Monday. I can’t wait! Penny already showed me which bus to take to my music school. I’ll go straight there in the morning, but I’ll be back in time for lunch.”
She had felt scared the first time she’d walked up the steps of the music conservatory. The beautiful old mansion looked like something from a Hollywood movie. But once she’d stepped inside and heard music pouring from all of the rooms, filling the building with glorious sounds, Esther had felt as though she had come home.
“Are you sure your father would approve of you riding buses all over Brooklyn by yourself?”
“I’m thirteen, Grandma. Besides, Penny knows all the drivers. She made them promise to watch out for Peter and me. And Mr. Mendel says he knows of a baseball team for Peter to join. Penny is going to take him there and see if he likes it. It’ll give him something to do while I’m in music classes.”
“Who’s paying for all of this? That’s what I want to know.”
“I don’t know,” Esther said with a shrug, although she felt pretty certain that Mr. Mendel was, even though he denied it. It didn’t matter. She had gone to her first lesson and had loved it.
Peter still wasn’t enthusiastic about joining the baseball team and had refused to even consider it until Mr. Mendel had coaxed him. “Go for one time, Peter. If you do not like it, you do not have to continue. But who knows? You might have a good time.” Peter would try it for the first time on Wednesday.
Esther remembered thinking that this would be a terrible summer, but maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all, even if she couldn’t spend much time with Jacky. The only sad part had been when Woofer ran away. Peter looked a hundred years old every time he walked past the empty dog dish in the kitchen. Esther wished Grandma would put the dish away so it wouldn’t remind them that Woofer was gone. Penny was the only one who had refused to give up. Every afternoon when she arrived from work to take them home, she would walk through the neighborhood one more time calling Woofer’s name. They had made “lost dog” posters and given them to all of their neighbors. So far no one had seen Woofer. Good news and bad news always seemed to happen together.
Once again, Esther remembered her piano lesson and gathered up her courage to ask something very important. She fanned her grandmother a little harder with the cardboard as she did so, drying the wisps of white hair that had stuck to her forehead.
“Um . . . Grandma? I’m going to need to practice the piano during the day this summer, and since I’ll be here, not at home . . . well, Penny talked to her parents about borrowing their piano. She says it’s just gathering dust next door in their living room. They got it years and years ago for Penny’s sister, Hazel, to play.”
Grandma gave a little frown, as if she didn’t understand what Esther was leading up to. “Anyway, they’re willing to let me use it for practice, but they don’t want me to play it over there and disturb their peace and quiet. Could we please, please bring it over here to your house? Peter and I will help you make room for it. Please?”
“A piano? In here? . . . Where in the world would we put it?”
“I’ll go through the stuff in your boxes with you and help you decide if you really need everything or not.”
“Of course I need everything.”
Esther saw the fear in her grandmother’s eyes and knew that physically moving the boxes would be easy compared to coaxing Grandma to change her habits after all these years. She was obsessed with this junk, even though half of it consisted of stacks of old newspapers. Then Esther remembered her own obsession with newspapers and winced. She had filled three large scrapbooks with clippings about the war before her lessons at the conservatory began occupying her mind.
“If we just got rid of a few things, Grandma, I know we could make enough room for the piano. It’s a very small upright.” She stopped fanning and went to the pile closest to Grandma’s chair. “We could start with these old newspapers. You’re done with them, aren’t you?” They were yellow with age and at least five years old, judging by the date on the top one.
“I need those. I always line the bottom of the birdcage with newspapers.”
Esther looked at the size of pile compared to the size of the birdcage and wanted to laugh out loud. Grandma kept enough papers to bury the poor bird beneath a pile six feet deep. But Esther didn’t laugh. She felt sorry for Grandma. And even if she hadn’t needed a piano to practice on, she still wanted to help her. She put her arm around her grandmother’s sweaty shoulders.
“You get a newspaper every week, right? How about if I count out enough pages to change the birdcage for a week? Then the rest of these could all go for the war effort. They need newspapers very badly, you know.”
“They do?”
“Yes. They have special drives for all sorts of things that they need – scrap metal, cans, rubber . . . If you donated some of your things, it might help us win the war.”
“I wouldn’t know how to go about it.”
“It’s easy. They have a place to drop things off over at the bus station where Penny works. She could help us bring stuff there.”
Grandma kneaded her forehead as if it hurt to think. “Well . . . I suppose if they need it for the war . . .”
Esther bent to give her a hug. She might be different than other grandmothers, but Esther loved her, junk and all. “Thanks, Grandma. I can help you get started right now, since I have nothing else to do.”
Peter came inside a few minutes later and helped Esther bind the papers and magazines with twine so they could carry them to the collection center. When they found a box of old school notebooks and homework assignments and report cards that had belonged to her father and uncles, Esther coaxed Grandma to tell stories about Daddy when he was a little boy. It brought tears to Grandma’s eyes to talk about Uncle Joe, but Esther knew that it felt good to remember him, too. She had long been afraid that Mama would be forgotten entirely if no one ever talked about her.
Later, they found two boxes filled with random pieces of cardboard. It looked years and years old. “Do you still need this, Grandma?” She was careful to ask gently, not in a challenging way.
“I-I might . . . I’ll have to think about it.” The process would be slow. Esther would have to be patient. She couldn’t expect Grandma to change overnight.
By bedtime they had cleared away a very small space. It might only be big enough for the piano stool, but it was a start. Eventually there would be room for a piano. Grandma turned off the radio and covered up the cage so the bird would stop chirping. She said goodnight and went to her room, taking the fan with her. Esther and Peter lay down on their makeshift beds. The house was quiet.
Esther was almost asleep when she thought she heard a scraping noise by the front door. She sat up. “Peter? Did you hear that? Listen . . .” She heard it again, something scratching against the front door. Then she heard a sound that she definitely recognized – a dog barking.
Peter heard it, too, and he scrambled up from his bed on the floor and ran to yank open the front door. Woofer raced inside, her tail wagging so hard she could barely stand up. Esther couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Where have you been, you naughty dog? Grandma! Grandma, come quick!” she shouted. “Woofer’s home! She came home!”
Grandma limped into the room in her nightdress, hair askew, groggy and flustered without her eyeglasses. “What’s wrong?” Then she saw the dog and smiled – a real smile. The first one Esther had seen since Uncle Joe died. “Oh my. I don’t believe it.”
Peter was delirious with joy. Esther watched as he rolled on the floor, letting Woofer cover his face with sticky kisses. The dog’s return seemed like a tiny sign of hope to Esther, like the Hanukkah candles or the Christmas tree shining in the window. Woofer was home, safe and sound. And maybe Daddy and Uncle Steve and Penny’s friend Roy and Mr. Mendel’s family would soon be home, too.