CHAPTER 1
Nettie Crook sat at the kitchen table and swung her dangling feet in time with her sister Nellie’s. The girls were five years old, identical twins. They loved to trick people into mistaking one for the other. Father could be fooled, but never Mama.
It was wonderful to have a sister as a best friend. Even when Father was gone for weeks at a time—Mama, sometimes, too—Nellie was always there. But one twin is always a little bit older than the other, and it bothered Nettie that her sister was the one born first. Nettie’s birthday was even celebrated a whole day after Nellie’s each year. Nellie was born late in the night of January 23, 1905, and Nettie was born in the small hours of the next morning, January 24. It didn’t seem fair for one twin to be a whole day behind the other one in life. Nettie made up for being second any way she could.
Nettie picked up her doll from the table and set her in her lap. “My Min’s prettier.”
“Dolly’s just as pretty,” said Nellie.
“Says you.” Nettie crossed her eyes at Nellie. Dolly had to be the worst name ever given to a doll.
The dolls had been birthday presents this year. Mama had made each one from a wooden spoon on which she’d painted black curls, a red smile, and china-blue eyes with dark lashes. It was the first and last birthday they would celebrate in this apartment.
“Why do we have to move again, Mama?” Nettie said.
“Father’s through at his job.” Mama leaned over a cardboard box to place a newspaper-wrapped dish inside, straightened up, and pushed a lock of hair from her face. “We have to move so that he can find some other work.”
“Leon works,” Nettie said. Their brother, Leon, was not at home. He was almost nine years old—old enough to help Mr. Mead at the butcher shop sometimes after school. Mr. Mead would give him a few pennies to wash the floors and scrub the walls with a bucket and rags.
“Not that kind of work, not a coin tossed our way now and again. A family needs steady money to live in a house and put supper on the table.”
Nettie swung her dangling feet thoughtfully. She’d heard Father talking about dredging the Erie Canal the last time he was home, some weeks ago. He’d sat around the table with his friends, drinking from bottles that clinked. The low laughter and gentle murmur of the men was a comforting sound in the night as the girls fell asleep in the bed they shared. “Where will we go?” Nettie asked.
“When will we go?” said Nellie.
Mama glanced at Sissy, the twins’ younger sister, napping in a cradle pushed up against the wall. She offered a tired smile. “Come here, girls.” She pulled out a chair and sat in it, leaning heavily against the back, and patted her lap. “Come here to me.”
Nellie and Nettie scrambled out of their chairs and climbed onto Mama’s lap, one on each knee. Like Father, Mama was often gone, sometimes for long stretches of time, and the girls and Leon didn’t know why. They didn’t know that she was a very young mother, and awfully tired and unhappy. They didn’t understand that their little sister was sick, and that Father’s work wasn’t steady. But they knew they loved their mama, especially when she took them on her lap and told them a story.
“Once upon a time,” Mama began, “there were two little twin princesses, as fair as fairies, as gentle as lambs, and as strong and true as an oxen team.”
This sounded so silly that the girls always laughed. “Baaaahhhh,” went Nellie, and “Mooooo,” went Nettie.
“And the twin princesses loved each other very much,” said Mama, “and always cared for each other, no matter what. Isn’t that right, girls?”
Nettie nodded solemnly. They surely did. Especially if the twin who was older by a whole day was apt to cry and needed the younger twin to stand up for her.
A sound came from the cradle. Mama scooted the girls from her lap, cutting the story short. “I just bet this next place will be our forever home,” she said.
Forever home. Maybe. But they had heard those words before. Mama had said “forever home” when they moved the last time, and the time before that.
* * *
At first, Nettie liked their new apartment. Though it was dark and gloomy, she liked the playful way Mama’s kerosene hurricane lamp cast flickering shadows on the walls at night. She pretended the shadows were birds or fairies from Mama’s stories, come to life. It was cozy, sleeping in the same room with Mama and the baby and Leon. Nights that Father was home, his snoring kept Nettie awake, and even that she liked because it meant he was there.
But time went on, and Father didn’t come home very much. The baby got sicker and sicker. The little apartment seemed darker. The shadows leapt and darted like sharp-toothed demons.
And then came the day the shadows seemed to swallow them up. Nettie and Nellie’s little sister died. There were candles at the head and foot of the small coffin at the church. Mama stood by the coffin and stared at her hands. She didn’t speak. She didn’t put her arms around her children to comfort them. Nettie stood close to Nellie, shoulders touching, and squeezed her hand in a pattern, one-two-three. I-love-you. Nellie squeezed back.
Not many people came to the church, but kindly Mr. DiSopo, the grocer, was there. He took off his canvas cap and pressed it to his chest, praying softly in Italian words they didn’t understand. His wife, Nettie knew, had been sick and died, like Sissy. His oldest daughter had gone away to work long hours in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. “Seven dollars a week,” Nettie had heard Mr. DiSopo tell Father, “nine or more hours a day, plus Saturdays, sewing ladies’ blouses.” He stood there worrying his cap and crying.
“Everything is upside down,” Nettie whispered to Nellie. “Mr. DiSopo’s crying, and Mama isn’t.”
* * *
The day after Sissy’s funeral, Mama left home and didn’t come back for weeks. Father was gone, too. The twins went out alone to ask Mr. DiSopo for bread, and he gave them loaves of coarse rye, some apples, and some eggs. Leon earned twenty-five cents selling newspapers.
Then Father came home. When he saw the dirty kitchen, and the children’s filthy clothes and sooty faces, he yelled at them.
“What have you done? Where is your mother? Can’t you even wash your own faces?”
“Who cares about our old smudgy faces?” Nettie made two fists and stomped her foot. “You better ask how we been feeding our own selves!”
Father’s face reddened, and one hand shot up high as if he was about to hit Nettie.
Nettie stared him down. “We don’t know where Mama is,” she yelled over Nellie’s crying, “any more’n we know where you are when you’re gone!”
There was a silence and time froze—with Father’s fist raised high, Nettie glaring fiercely at him, and Nellie holding back her sobs with both hands.
In the next moment, Father seemed to turn his anger on the kitchen table, where there wasn’t any food. He slammed his fist down on it, hard. He slammed the door that Mama wasn’t walking through. And when the latch didn’t catch and the door creaked slowly open, he slammed it again as if to shut it up.
Nellie grabbed on tight to Nettie, jumping fearfully with each blast of harsh noise. “Stop it! Somebody, help us!”
As if in answer to Nellie’s cry, the door flew open. It was Mama. She and Father stared at each other a long moment. Slowly, he lowered his fist. He seemed to get a whole size smaller. Mama came inside. Father put his arms around her.
Maybe this time, Nettie thought, things would get better. At least they were all together again now. Maybe things would change.
Text copyright © 2016 by Macmillan
Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Clint Hansen
