“Smulling, will you walk to the Dairy and get me a gallon of milk?” Grandma yelled down to the basement.  Then she yelled again.  Grandpa hid out in the basement when he wasn’t listening to a baseball game. “Smulling? I need it for the gravy and I thought I might make some tapioca pudding. You want tapioca pudding for dessert?”

Grandpa didn’t sound like he was in any mood to stomp up the stairs and go get milk.  He yelled back from the bottom of the stairs.  “Pearl, I’m cleaning off my tool bench. Got a hundred nails need to be sorted in my jars, and I want to scrape the rust off this porch screen. Ask someone else. Let Dale take Bo.”

I’m playing doctor under the table. I’ve scheduled my oldest doll, Tessie, for brain surgery and then I’ll glue her hair back on her head. Dad isn’t home.

“Grandma, Dad went to the hospital to visit Mom. He’ll be home by dinner.” I cut Tessie’s hair, and then scrape her skull with a dull table knife. The procedure is slow going.

“Bo, where in heavens are you hiding? You’re just like your Grandpa.” I’m not anything like my Grandpa. I snicker and Grandma hears me. “What do you think you’re doing under my table?”

“Nothin’, Grandma. Just playing.” I bandage Tessie’s head with scraps of green plaid fabric. (Grandma made me a dress from the material last week, and I’m going to wear it to church tomorrow.) Then I wrap the bandage with cellophane tape.

“Well, Bo, it’s just you and me around. I’ve got dinner on the stove, so I guess I’ll send you to the dairy.” Grandma doesn’t like this idea, but I think it’s keen. “Bo? Your dad teach you to cross State Street? By yourself?”

“Mmm. Dad taught me all right. I never done it without holding his hand, though.”

“Oh shoot, Bo. I’m gonna give you a half dollar and you go get me a bottle of milk. Half gallon, though. Don’t s’pose I should have you carry a gallon. Probably too heavy.”

I throw on my sweater and race down the stairs. No one ever lets me go to the dairy by myself. Once I’m on the sidewalk, I turn past the drugstore, the paint shop and the gas station. Dad says always watch for cars going in and out of the gas station, but no cars are there right now. When I get to the corner, the dairy is kitty corner from me. I get butterflies just thinking about getting past those fast cars.

We live by the intersection of State Street and 18th Avenue. State Street is four lanes wide and is always busy with traffic. 18th isn’t so bad. I cross 18th Street with the stoplight, and then wait for the signal to change. It takes forever. A grandmother pushing a toddler in a stroller waits next to me. Now I’ve got it all figured out. I’ll cross State Street when she does.

The traffic finally stops and the grandma and I step off the curb. A garbage truck driver turning towards us honks. He waves us across the street, and yells words out his window, but I’m not sure what he says. The grandma tells me to never mind.

Then something scary happens. As the truck driver turns, the stroller wheel catches in the storm sewer grate. The wheel spins and settles between the grates. The little kid’s stroller nearly tips over and the kid gets scared and starts crying. The truck driver stops right next to us, and says nasty words that I’m not allowed to listen to or say.

I try to move the stroller, but no luck. “Lady, we gotta get out of the street. That garbage man’s mad.”

“He’ll have to hold on to his horses, little girl. He ain’t gonna hit us. This here wheel’s stuck and I can’t get it out.”

She pulls some and then we pull some together. The baby is screaming in my ear now and I can’t hear that nasty man anymore, but I can tell he’s screaming, too. His face is red and puffy, and he shakes his fist at us. Finally he gets out of his truck and pulls the stroller free.

“Get along, gals. I got haulin’ to do.” He gets in his truck and pulls around us really close. The baby’s still screaming and the grandma gets a pacifier for him to suck. She’s all nervous and she drops it on the street. The light’s changed twice now and I’m in a hurry to get my milk. Grandma will worry.

“Honey, reach down and get the baby’s pacifier. Then I’ll walk you ‘cross the street.”

I think that’s a swell idea. I bend down, but another car comes turning towards me and I freak out and trip on the curb. Grandma’s half dollar slides through the grate.

The baby’s grandma looks at me and shakes her head a little sadly. “I’d give you some money, but I only got a dollar and I got to buy this sweetheart milk before he breaks my heart with his crying. You don’t want this baby a’cryin’ for his milk, do you?”

“No m’am,” I answer is a shaky voice. “I’ll just be getting home.”

challenges, growing upAs soon as the lady turns into the dairy, I sit down against a storefront and sniffle. Then I can’t keep tears from sliding down my cheeks. I’m afraid to cross the street, so I stay huddled against the brick wall.

I’m hiding from the busy traffic and it’s five o’clock and getting busier. Then I most jump out of my skin. Someone’s tapping me on my shoulder. I try not to move. I’m not supposed to talk to strange adults.

“Hey there, little girl. You need some help.” The man laughs and turns me around to face him.

“Oh, Daddy! Oh, Dad! I can’t cross the street and I lost the milk money and a garbage man said bad words and screamed at me.”

‘I say, Bo. You had a rough time.” He puts his warm arm around my shoulder and gives me a squeeze. “Sorry you had to learn the hard way. You aren’t old enough to cross State Street by yourself.”

“I don’t want to try, either, Dad. Never, ever again.”

“Maybe when you’re bigger, it will be easier. Now tell me why you’re out here all by yourself.”

“Grandma asked Grandpa to get her milk for dinner, but he was down in the basement and wouldn’t come up. Then Grandma said for me to go.” I start crying again.

“It’s all right, Bo. Enough crying. Where’s the milk?”

“I dropped the half dollar down the sewer. See, there was a lady with a baby…”

“Bo, enough. We’ll have to go without milk tonight. I spent my last money buying flowers for your mother. Let’s go inside and tell your grandmother.”

When I open the door to the flat, my grandparents are having words. They weren’t happy words, either.

“Bo,” said Dad. “Go wash your face and brush your hair. By then it’ll be time for dinner.”

I sneak under the table to fetch Tessie and then clean up in the bathroom. Dinner is ready when I sit down at the table.

I am mad at Grandpa. He ruined dinner. “Grandpa, we don’t have milk. I was hoping for gravy and tapioca pudding.”

“Hush, girl,” says Grandma. “You’ll have butter for your potatoes and there’s raspberry Jello for dessert. That will do you fine.”

Grandpa gets mad again. “Don’t fret so, Pearl. I’ll get some milk after dinner.”

My mind is still on the raspberry Jello. I hate red Jello. “Grandpa, can I go to the dairy with you. Maybe get an ice cream cone?”

Dad and Grandma both look over at my grandpa. Dad nods his head at Grandpa. “Sure, Smulling. Take her along. She deserves a nice ice cream after her busy afternoon.

“Oh, and Smulling? Be sure you hold her hand when you cross those streets.”

I’m Manda and I write stories about my wacky family. Sometimes they are stories I read to my whole family after dinner. Sometimes, they’re secret stories and I lock them in my diary and hide them in a shoe box under my bed.

So here’s my family.  There are four generations and we live in an apartment in the city.  The street we live on is so busy, the traffic noise never stops.  It’s not so bad though.  You hear the same noise all the time, pretty soon you don’t hear that noise at all.  It’s plenty busy on our corner and I never cross 12th Street without hangin’ tight onto an adult’s hand even though I’ve been crossing streets back in Bowler since I walked to kindergarten.

Used to be it was only my Grandmas and Grandpa living here in the city apartment.  My family – me and Jeff and Ma and Dad – lived on the other side of Illinois in the best town.  Not any longer.  We had to move to the city, so we came to live with Ma’s family for awhile.

It’s plenty busy in my neighborhood. We are surrounded by a gas station, a car wash, a restaurant, a church, a drug store, a dairy and a paint store. Plenty of places for me to walk. I can buy an ice cream cone, a movie magazine, a bottle of soda pop, candy bars galore, a Chicago style hot dog, or six newspapers from all over the world, just by jumping off the stoop of our building’s front landing and walking a bit.

Grandpa says we are dang lucky because we have a yard in back. Big enough to have room for  flowers by the building for Grandma, and a little vegetable patch for Grandpa and a maple tree for me. There’s a shaggy lawn that always needs cutting, too. Mr. Stuckey, our landlord, he hates garden stuff, so Grandpa cuts the grass.  They got some sorts of a ‘rangement.

Now that I’ve told you where I live, I’ll tell you about my family.  Remember I called them wacky? Only because they are. Each and every one of them.

My great-grandma Prudie is really, really old and Dad calls her the matriarch of the family. (I call her Big Mama.) She says she likes being a matriarch, but I’m not sure exactly what the word means.  Something about being old and in charge because she’s a woman, but women aren’t hardly ever in charge.  Maybe in some women’s club.  Prudie is my best friend. My very best friend.

My grandpa is Smulling Reese Howard . (Smulling was his mother’s last name before she got married, when she was still a maid at the King’s Regency hotel.) I think Smulling is a pretty odd first name, but Grandpa would whoop me if I told him what I thought. Everyone who doesn’t pretty well know Grandpa calls him Howard Smulling or Howard Reese. Boy, does that send steam shooting out the bulges in his brain and I can see smoke whoosh straight outta his ears.

He had his eightieth birthday a couple weeks ago, and there was a real ruckus that day.

My grandma is Pearl Lee Howard and she’s married to my Grandpa Smulling. Obviously. They had  their golden wedding anniversary last summer, and it was some big deal.  We came in from Bowler and partied all day long and all night, too.

Pearl is Prudie’s only kid. When Prudie tells family stories about my Grandma being a little girl, she always ends by saying in a kind of singing-songing voice, “and one was enough!” Ha!
My family calls Grandma “Grandma,” even Dad.  Grandpa calls her Pearl or Wife, and Prudie calls her Pearlie (Pearl Lee, get it?) My grandma is sixty-eight. Dad says she got married young and that’s why she’s so young, and Grandpa got married kind of old and that’s why he’s so old.

My dad’s name is Dale Joe Johnstone. And he’ll come straight out and tell you, “My name is Dale Joe, there ain’t never been a Dale Joseph, and if there is one, I hopes I’ll never come face-to-face with the mate.” My dad and my grandpa are pretty particular about their names.

Dad works two jobs so he isn’t around much. Hospitals are really expensive, Jeff says. When Dad is home, we’re good buddies. My dad doesn’t want me to say how old he is, so I won’t. But Dad’s got four younger brothers and my youngest uncle is 36 and they were all born once a year, so you can figure pretty close if you want.

Mom’s name is Jeannie Lee. She was born a Howard, but she married a Johnstone. She’s been married to my dad just about forever. She’s been sick forever, too,  and she stays at the hospital sometimes, but I’m not supposed to worry.

That’s the reason we moved.  So we’d be close to her hospital.  I kinda miss her lots, but my grandparents take good care of me, so I’m s’posed to act grateful.

My big brother is Jeffrey Andrew Johnstone and he’s near 14.  He hates the city and he hates the apartment.  Last night he kicked the bedroom door and screamed, “I hate my whole life.” Boy, I thought he gone and done it, but he didn’t.  My dad stood up slow like his bones were all creaky, and he said, “Come along, Son.  Let’s go for a walk.”

Boy.  Then I wished I’d a kicked the wall and screamed first.  I feel like kicking and screaming, too.  If I’d gone and gotten mad,  I’d been the one out walking with Dad,

Finally I’m at me.  My name is Manda.

My full, entire name is Amanda Suzanne Johnstone, but no one calls me that except for my school teachers. I’m ten years old and I finished fifth grade last week. I got all A’s and Grandpa gave me a half dollar.

That’s all I’m gonna tell you about my family for now.  Jeff and I, we’re gonna walk to the park and feed the ducks. I named the biggest one Peabody. He’s like my pet, ’cause there aren’t any pets in my apartment.  All my grandparents, they all claim they’re allergic. I’ve got my own take on that allergic stuff, but that’s not the sort of think I say out loud. After all, I’m just a kid and I live with 5 adults.