Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6 ALMOST FOUR MONTHS LATER JANUARY 15, 1919 7:30 A.M. Carmen was awake, but she kept her eyes squeezed shut. The mornings were always the hardest. She finally eased her eyes open and took some deep

breaths. She listened for Papa's voice in her mind like she did every morning. Buongiorno, mia ragazza—Good morning, my girl. "Good morning," Carmen whispered back. "Hi, Carmie!" a little voice chirped. Carmen looked down, and two sleepy brown eyes peeped up at her. It was little Teresa, Tony's three-year-old sister. "Go back to sleep," Carmen said with a smile. "It's still early." Teresa flashed a gap-toothed grin and closed her eyes. At the end of the bed, Tony's other little sister, Marie, was curled up under a tattered blanket. Carmen reached over and tucked her in tighter. A snore rose up from the floor. That was Tony's six-year-old brother, Frankie. He was a skinny little bean. But he snored like a giant! He and Tony were asleep on a mattress tucked into the corner.

Across the room, the curtain that hid Mr. and Mrs. Grasso's bed was already pulled open. Carmen could hear them talking in the kitchen. This was Carmen's home now, the Grassos' two-room apartment. She'd been living here since the night after Papa died, when Mr. Grasso carried her upstairs and tucked her into bed with the two little girls. There were seven of them living here, crammed together like tomatoes in a jar. The noise was constant. The girls' giggles. Frankie's bouncing ball. Mr. Grasso's booming laugh. And the fighting! "Frankie bit me!" "Marie wet the bed!" "Teresa is eating a cockroach!" No wonder Tony couldn't study! But Carmen knew how lucky she was to be with the Grassos, who treated Carmen like family. Carmen looked over at Tony, fast asleep with drool dripping out the corner of his mouth. He had hardly left Carmen's side since Papa died. He'd

even started reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz aloud at bedtime. "It puts the girls to sleep," he said. But Carmen had a feeling he was reading it for her. He somehow sensed that hearing about Dorothy made Carmen feel better, like she wasn't the only girl who sometimes felt completely lost. Worse than lost. There were moments every day when Carmen's heart seemed to be crumbling apart, like the church tower in her village after the quake. But then Tony would tell her one of his dumb jokes. Frankie would come racing over to show her a new baseball card. The girls would climb up onto her lap. Or Mrs. Grasso would ask her to stir the pot of tomato gravy. With all these kids, there was always work to be done. Carmen tried to help Mrs. Grasso out as much as she could. Which was what she should be doing now, instead of lying here like a lump.

Carmen quickly got dressed. She stared out the window as she brushed the knots from her hair. Of course, her gaze went straight to that ugly molasses tank rising up in the distance. It was impossible to look out the window and not see it. And now the tank would always remind Carmen of that terrible day that Papa got sick. She remembered those strange noises she and Tony had heard, how they'd run away in fear, and then fallen down laughing. It amazed Carmen to think of how carefree she'd felt on that bright September day. She'd had no idea that Papa was sick. That the Spanish influenza had already sunk its fangs into Boston. That they would all soon find themselves caught in the middle of one of the deadliest disease outbreaks in history. The epidemic spread through Boston and across the country—and the world. Tens of millions had died so far. Mr. Lawrence told them it was even

more deadly than the Black Death, the plague that struck Europe during the time of the knights. Here in Boston, hospitals ran out of beds. Schools and theaters and movie houses were shut down to slow the spread. But nothing helped. Bodies piled up in the streets. There weren't enough gravediggers to bury the hundreds dying each week. Carmen wasn't the only kid at school who'd lost a parent. Some lost two, and brothers and sisters, too. So much had changed since she and Tony stood together in the shadow of the molasses tank. But that tank hadn't changed at all. It was still huge and ugly and leaking. Carmen sat on the edge of the lumpy mattress to button up her brand-new boots. The Grassos had given them to her for Christmas. Her last boots were so small her toenails had turned black. Carmen stood up and wiggled her grateful toes.