Chapter 1 I'm supposed to go directly to kolo dance club after school, but it's the first Friday of the month, and that means new books at the penny library. Something I'm not supposed to do is cross Commercial Street by myself, especially considering it means leaving Bohunk Town. Especially considering it means going to the penny library instead of Mother's precious kolo club. It's one of those days in fall where the sky is so blue, it takes your breath away, and there's a bite in the air that reminds you it could snow any day. Cold Creek is high enough in the mountains that it can snow almost any time of the year, but that just makes these blue-sky days all the prettier, being as you're closer to the blue of it. If I hurry, I can still make it to dance club before I'm late enough that Mrs. Kranjec carries tales to Mother. I can explain it away with a vague story about a teacher keeping me after school for some little thing. I'll get an earful if I even hint that dancing kolo is old-fashioned; the stiff, starchy outfit makes me feel like a wrinkled old babica granny, and calling it a club doesn't fool anyone into thinking it's modern and fun. It's bohunk. Plain and simple. I'm across Commercial Street and around the corner, down three blocks, up another, and through the door of the penny library. It's nothing special, just a few shelves against the back wall of the post office, but unlike the bookstore, you don't have to pay a whole dollar for some book you might not even like. Miss Barton might wear tight, unfashionable corsets from last century, but she lets you borrow a book for an entire month if you put a penny in the coffee can and write your name next to the title in the ledger. And once a month, she puts at least one new book out. I wave to Miss Barton as I pass the counter, but she's busy weighing a parcel for a stout housewife who doesn't seem to like the fact that it costs money to mail things. The housewife must be new to Cold Creek because Miss Barton doesn't have any patience for people who think the rules don't apply to them. The shelves look more picked over than usual, and nothing looks new. It must have been a busy day at the penny library. "Ugh," I murmur, but there's no use spending these valuable moments being sorry for myself. One of these books must be worth my money, even if I've read them all at least once. Treasure Island is good, but I reread that one over the summer. Swiss Family Robinson ? Maybe, but I have that one almost memorized. What about-- "Oooh," I breathe, and I pull out Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus . It's too well worn to be new, but I've never read it before. I've never even seen it before. There is nothing better than reading a book for the first time. You don't know what will happen, so anything could happen. This book is bound in blue cloth and feels pleasantly heavy, and it's by a woman . "Oh no. No, no. Not for you." Miss Barton appears by my side and whisks the book out of my hands. "That one is not appropriate for a child. Choose something else." "But I have my penny right here!" I dig through my deep skirt pocket even as Miss Barton is shaking her head, slowly and firmly, like Mother refusing to speak English. "These are my books, so you will abide by my rules if you want to borrow them," Miss Barton replies. "If I decide a book is not for you, that book is not for you." I muffle a groan, but I don't want Miss Barton to tell me I can't come back. As long as I have the penny library, I can board the Hispaniola with Captain Smollett and Jim and go looking for Treasure Island. I can wake up in Oz alongside Dorothy, and I can escape from Farmer McGregor just ahead of Peter Rabbit. I don't have to be anywhere near Bohunk Town in Cold Creek, Colorado. "All right," I mutter, and I pull The Story of King Arthur and His Knights off the shelf and hold it out toward Miss Barton. She's not wearing her spectacles today, so she has to squint, but after a moment she nods her approval. I drop my penny in the coffee can, scribble my name in the ledger, and race out the door. Sure enough, I'm late to kolo, but Father Ignatz has stopped by the Slovenian Home to watch our practice, so while Mrs. Kranjec is flustering around him, I'm able to duck into the rear of our community building, put on my silly embroidered skirt and headscarf, and slip into the group. The only good thing about kolo is the phonograph. Mrs. Kranjec has a single scratchy record that we dance to, and if you're standing near enough, she will let you crank the machine so the fiddle and harmonica leap out like creatures from a trap. Today the lucky girl is my friend Vera. Because we are Catholic and this is Bohunk Town, there are only girls in our club. Soon enough we're moving in our little circle. We hold hands, then we split apart, then we hold hands again. Moving in a circle. Going nowhere. Kolo just might be the story of my life. At the end of the song, Father Ignatz claps wildly while Mrs. Kranjec beams. It's hard to tell whether she's happy because we danced well or because the priest came to watch us. She has us start again, but I'm not thinking about kolo. My feet might be, but the rest of me is already in Camelot with King Arthur and his knights. Mercifully, kolo club lasts only an hour, and soon enough we're putting out folding chairs for the old-timers' accordion circle. I always stay to help because the grandfathers and godfathers usually have candy in their pockets for us, and sometimes they'll give you a penny if you sing an old song in Slovene while they coax a melody from the keys and bellows. I only know a few songs, but the old-timers don't seem to care. They're happy to hear any of them, and I'm happy to have a penny for the library. I do like the songs. They're like little rhyming stories: dead maidens haunting the lovers who rejected them and wives who are sent to Hell for watering down the wine. The sky is fading to a deep, endless blue when I step out of the Slovenian Home. It's the kind of blue I imagine the ocean is down at the bottom, twenty thousand leagues' worth. Before I leave, I tuck my King Arthur book safely into my schoolbag. Next to my arithmetic and history text, it could very well pass as something Miss Clemson assigned. The quicker I can do my homework, the sooner I can start reading. As I'm coming up the street, I can hear both the babies crying. Mari just turned a year old, but she can scream like someone is ripping her insides out. Domen is screeching too, which means something didn't go his way and he's not going to put up with it. I'm standing at the gate, wishing I'd gone to Vera's to do homework, when my sister Stina rushes toward me, holding Mari around the middle, at arm's length. My baby sister's arm up to her elbow is dripping with range blacking. Stina pushes Mari at me and hurries toward the kitchen, where Domen is wailing about how his ball rolled under the rocking chair and he's gotten himself stuck trying to retrieve it. "Ugh, really?" I murmur, but I put my schoolbag down and swing Mari around the corner toward the rain barrel. She is not going to like what's coming, but there's no nice way to do it. I grit my teeth and plunge her arm up to the shoulder in the freezing water. She writhes like a furious cat and screams like I'm killing her. The blacking smears everywhere. On my hands. On Mari's smock. I use my middle to hold her against the rain barrel and scrub us both with handful after handful of sand. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I mutter in Slovene, because this water is cold , and it's not her fault that she doesn't know about things like range blacking. Then I remember that Father wants us to speak only English at home, so I add, "You messy thing." Stina appears at my side with some of the powdered soap that we use to scrub pots. I didn't think it was possible for Mari's screams to get louder, but they do. By the end, I'm drenched, Mari is drenched and shivering and sobbing, and her smock is an absolute ruin, but there are only the smallest traces of range blacking on her arms and mine. Stina blows a stray wisp of hair out of her eyes. She's wearing one of Mother's old dresses. It sags on her, but she hardly goes anywhere, so it doesn't matter. Today her hair is under a kerchief and there's a fresh food stain on her apron. "I can put Mari in something clean and dry before I do my homework," I offer. "No. Eena." Mari struggles and reaches for Stina. Anyone who doesn't know better would think she's Stina's daughter and not her youngest sister. "Sorry, baby, you're stuck with me," I tell Mari. "You can see Eena once you're dry." Mari's whole face crumples, and she starts screaming again like she does whenever Stina puts her down for longer than the count of ten. I ignore her noise and take her to the room the three of us share, which is the little space behind a curtain strung along the back wall of the parlor. Once we're both wearing dry clothes, I settle Mari near Domen, who's playing with blocks. Domen--bless him--offers her one of his cherished arch pieces, which is enough to distract her so she doesn't notice that Eena isn't holding her. The house is chilly everywhere but near the range. Mother's rocker is empty and supper is simmering untended on the back burner. Stina comes up behind me and stirs the soup. With her hair beneath that kerchief, she looks much older than twenty-three. She sinks into a chair across from me with the kind of groan that tells me it's likely the first time she's sat down in a while. Maybe all day. "How was school?" Stina asks in Slovene, because when Father isn't here to insist on English, Mother only wants to hear a language she understands perfectly. Stina always asks about school every day when I get home, but it's hard to talk about it with her. It doesn't seem fair, not when Mother and Father made her quit when I was born so she could help take care of me. She always says she didn't mind. She never liked school, she says, and I was a quiet, happy baby that liked to eat and nap. "It was good." I really want to do my homework so I can get to Camelot, but that feels a little mean. My sister is taking a moment to talk to me when she has so many other things she should be doing. Only, this happens every day, and every day it's hard to find something to talk about. Stina doesn't have time to read. She doesn't have a lot of friends. Mari screeches, and both of us turn to see Domen holding a block just above her grabbing hands. Stina heaves a huge sigh and pushes her chair back. Domen is almost four. He's been waiting a long time for Mari to be interesting enough to play with, but now that she is, he does nothing but torment her by racing ahead, climbing where she can't, holding things just out of reach. Stina calmly removes the block from Domen's hand, gives it to Mari, and marches him into the corner, where she leaves him wailing with his nose pressed against the plasterwork. My sister is very good at wife-and-mother chores. She ought to be, considering it's all she's been doing for years and years. Keeping house alongside Mother as well as being little mother first to me, and now to Domen and Mari. When I was younger, I'd ask Stina why she didn't get married and have babies of her own. She'd tap my nose and smile and tell me it would happen when the time was right. The time wasn't right when Luka Novak asked her to go walking with him after Mass. It wasn't right when Vasily Tenner brought her a jar of golden honey on the bitterest day of February just to see her smile. After a while, the boys of Bohunk Town realized the time would never be right, and they asked other girls to walk with them. They saved their gifts for girls who would squeal and clap and maybe give them a hug when grown-ups weren't looking. "You hush," Stina tells Domen in a firm, no-nonsense voice. "You don't want to disturb Mother, do you?" Domen blubbers a few more times, but swallows down his tears till he's barely snuffling. "Where is Mother?" I ask. Stina tips her chin toward the one room in our little house with a door to close. Our parents sleep in that room, with Domen on a pallet at the foot of their bed. The door is firmly shut, with a color picture of the Sacred Heart torn from a magazine and tacked to the middle. I can't help but sigh, sharp and gusty. If that door is closed, it means Stina has been on her own since dawn, taking care of both Mari and Domen and making the soup and scrubbing the floors while Mother knelt on her bad knees in front of her little handmade altar and wept because Carniola was so far away, and she would never, never see it--or anyone who lived there--ever again. Even though she's been in America for more than twenty years. Even though she's been naturalized a citizen. Even though her six children are here, and they need her to be here too. All of her, not just her hands. Her heart as well. Which means it is a very good thing Stina is here. Otherwise, Mari and Domen and I would have no mother at all. Excerpted from The Unexpected Lives of Ordinary Girls by J. Anderson Coats All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
