A shatter of a glass tea cup and the piercing cry of a baby drilled through the silence. My eyes fluttered open. Where was I? A dull energy filled the atmosphere as I found myself in a narrow bed. Looking around, I saw I was in some sort of apartment. Not five star, though. I gazed out a nearby window. The sun had barely risen. Cold, bitter air filtered in through slits in the walls. But wasn't it summer?
From what I had recalled yesterday, it was Thursday. I forgot to call Meghan and Kaley! Darn it. I looked around. This wasn't Grandma's room. A great fear swept through me. Had I been kidnapped?
I looked up to see a man with dark hair already roused and dressing. My first impulse was to scream. But I couldn't or wouldn't; I don't know which. As if noticing me for the first time, he smiled. "Buongiorno."
I blinked. Was that Grandpa? "You look so, so,"
The man raised his eyebrows. "Yes?
"So young." I finished. And he did. I've seen black and white old pictures of him in his thirties.
Younger Grandpa laughed. "I wish I was looking in the same mirror you are looking in, Hailey."
I shook my head. "Yeah, I don t really recommend that." I looked at my clothes. They looked a bit old fashioned. "What's going on here?" I clutched the thin sheets tight.
"Are you feeling alright, child?" he asked in his same Italian accent. "Does anything hurt you?"
"Will you please tell me what's going on here?" I asked again, becoming very scared. "What is this place? Where did you come from?"
Grandpa ruffled my hair. "Don't you remember?" he asked like I was insane. Yeah, I was the insane one.
"Remember what?"
He lifts my chin gently. "You were very sick, Hailey. This is your first day out of bed in a while."
I raised my eyebrows. "You gotta be kidding me. I haven't been sick." I looked around at the small tenement. "Where is everybody? Where are my parents?"
Grandpa looked strangely at me. "Do you not recognize your own father?" he asked, gripping my shoulders with concern. I blinked.
"My father? Will you repeat what you just said? No," I shook my head. "No, you don't have to. You should know that you are my Grandfather, and I want to go back to Fallon s Brooke."
"Where?" he asked. "What is that?"
"Fallon s Brooke. I'm from Fallon s Brooke, Missouri." I repeated, getting annoyed.
Grandpa shook his head. "Hailey, you're from Sicily, Italy." He looked at me with concern. "You've been very ill on the boat over here. It's the fever." He took my hand gently. "Let's begin at the beginning. I am your father, Giovanni Contadino, and we share a tenement with Mrs. Rivera and her six children."
"And I'm Hailey Contadino, right?"
Grandpa nodded. "Yes, and you're from Sicily, Italy. And now we live in Brooklyn."
I felt my forehead. "Is it a dream? Is it a bad dream?"
Grandpa also felt my forehead. "Hailey, you're still awake. Calm down."
"Listen, something's wrong. I'm not crazy, Grand-er, Papa," I caught myself. "And I'm not dreaming. Please believe me."
Grandpa shook his head. "You almost left me. You had a high fever for nearly two weeks. You are just recovering, now." He stroked my hair. "Now, up," he said, sharply.
I exalted, bit my lip, and pulled back the covers, exposing myself to frigid air. I slipped on an old pair of boots Grandpa handed me, and decided to play along.
"You'd better not talk about what you have just said to me around my co-workers today." Grandpa stressed. "Siate buoni."
When Grandpa told me to do something back home, he usually said it in Italian, so I knew what he had said: Be good.
Suddenly, a deafening scream interrupted us. I looked over to see a bitter woman with her six children surrounding her. She must be Mrs. Rivera. Mrs. Rivera is lingering close to our side of the room with a whimpering child on her hip. Grandpa closes the curtain that divides our room. I tell myself to call Grandpa Papa as to not trouble him more. Wherever I am, I ain't getting home soon. Which brings me to my other question. "What is the date today, Papa?" I stutter softly.
"June 14, 1899, Hailey," he says. He cuts off a rigid loaf of bread for what I'm assuming is breakfast.
"I think I'm dreaming. But when I pinch myself, I don't awaken. It isn't possible. I can't really be here."
He kneeled down and took my hand in his. "You're starting to scare me. Are you ill? Shall I send for the doctor?"
"It's not that I'm ill; I just can't believe what I'm seeing." I grumble half-heartedly.
"Well that's not good. You will come with me to the railroad today so I can keep an eye on you. There are match girls who work outside the tracks. You will ask them where you can do the same. But don't start talking about all this dream nonsense!" he reprimanded.
The sun was now peeking over the tenement across the street, and the warmth was slinking across the clothes line to our window.
"Come." He lifted me up off the bed and nestled me into his tall frame. My Grandpa was all I had in this strange parallel universe.
"Giovanni, if the girl is to stay today, she should stay here with me and help me with the little ones," Mrs. Rivera demanded.
I cringed slightly. Her glare was more piercing than scissors. "We pay to stay here," Grandpa said. "Unless you wish to pay her for her babysitting?"
Mrs. Rivera scoffed. She probably would never pay me. It almost seemed as if she treated me like a child. I am fifteen, but because I am petite, I look twelve, so people often treated me younger than I was.
"Well, that settles it." Grandpa winked as he whisked me out of the door. I realized instead of my nightgown, I had on shirtwaist and a long skirt. My hair was brushed straight down my back. In the dim hall of the tenement, I treaded over two young street urchins curled up along the wall. They were no more than seven years old and smelled of gutters and sour milk. I tried to sneeze out the smell. Was it the usual smell or the two kids? I couldn't tell.
"Isn't it bad for them to be sleeping here?" I whispered to Grandpa.
"Hush," Grandpa scolded. Okay, so maybe he was right. I shouldn't be looking down on them. But it was something about their insensitive voices and the liberty they flaunted that made me hate them. Back in the future, Grandpa had told me stories about how he used to pay five bucks a month to stay at the tenement, and these two kids were getting lodgings for free.
Speaking of which, we soon approached Broadway and 32nd when I noticed a similar newsie shouting the headlines on the street corner. "Woman murdered by sweatshop. Dented skull! Murderer on the loose!"
I hurried my pace to get away from his loud voice, but being a klutz I tripped and flew hands first onto the pavement, sorta catching myself.
Instantly, I felt myself being lifted back up.
"Thanks, Papa." I dusted off my skirt. However it was not Papa's face I gazed into, but the shouting newsie's wide, satisfied smirk.
"Ya okay there, miss?"
"Yeah."
The boy then chuckled slightly. And darn it, his laugh was footloose and fancy free. I grit my teeth, acted well-mannered, and plastered a strained grin on my lips as I hurried to catch up to my Grandpa who was already a couple steps ahead.
Interested, I glanced back over my shoulder at the boy who was back to hawking the headlines. He wasn't a boy at all, but nearly sixteen. He had a good three inches on me, and messy dirty blonde hair tucked under his cap. His face had soft features, but his irritatingly adorable smirk stood out the most. It really drew customers right to him. He wasn't too dirty like other newsboys, but it was only the morning. The strangest thing about him was a key on a string tucked neatly around his neck, hanging over his chest where the shirt was torn slightly.
Abruptly, he gazed over at me and locked eyes. Caught off guard, I cringed and flinched. As I was just about to turn back around, he flashed me one more wide, sly smirk.
Grandpa was correct about the match girls at 32nd and Broadway: they were infesting the area with their tough attitudes and intimidating glares that read DON'T MESS WITH ME. I gulped nervously as we approached.
"Hey, maybe I can just tag along with you real quick? I've always wanted to see where you work," I offered to Grandpa, which was primarily true.
Grandpa sighed. I had remembered him telling me stories about the Trolley Strike in Brooklyn and how it had effected his work during that time.
"Just for a little while. But be good." he relented finally.
"Yay! I'll be quiet, pinky swear!" I said, grinning and taking his hand.
Grandpa shook his head. "The way you speak, I'll never understand."
Once inside the factory at 32nd, I instantly felt a cool breeze rather than the heat from outside.
My hair brushed in front of my face. Frustrated, I braided my hair in two braids down my shoulders with two makeshift rubber bands. I looked up at Grandpa, but he seemed very concerned. Not with me, but something ahead of him.
"What's up?"
Grandpa's brow lowered. I followed his gaze to a group of foremen that had gathered at the center of the factory. When the group saw Grandpa, they turned and headed for him. As they moved closer, three cops mixed among them drifted to the front of the crowd.
A burly man shuffled close behind them. He gestured the officers in our direction.
"What's your name?" stated the officer to Grandpa.
"Giovanni Contadino," my grandpa mumbled, confused.
The man nodded. "That's him. That's the Italian."
The cop grabbed my grandpa by the shoulder. Grandpa was too puzzled to say anything.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said, crossing my arms. "What's going on?"
I sprinted after the several cops that were forcing Grandpa outside into the heat. His co-workers were mumbling stuff like "murderer" and "immigrant."
Fighting through the crowd, I surfaced in time to see the police place my grandpa in a wagon. The door of bars swung closed, and he clutched them with shaking hands, confused.
They didn't even ask him questions, or gave explanations. I realized that Grandpa didn't know enough English words to argue with them. "Hailey!" he called as the wagon took off. "Hai bisogno di andare ..." he searched for the word in English. "Tenement... Ti amo." But I couldn't go home, I don't care if he insisted.
Panic filled me as I realized the only person I knew in this strange dimsension of the past was being taken away from me. I ran after him, beads of sweat forming on my brow, my braids whipping me in the face.
Tears, actual tears, streamed down my face. "What the hell is this?" I shouted up to the sky. "Am I in some kind of Purgatory or something?!"
My boots killed my feet. There was no way I could catch him, and even if I did, that did nothing. But I kept running over the sewage drains and broken glass covering 32nd Street.
It wasn't long before I lost sight of the wagon. Defeated I dropped to my knees and began to cry. I felt weak and vulnerable. A woman took my hand softly.
"Darling, calm yourself." Her voice was soft and chirped like a humming bird. She gazed at me, and touched my tangled braids. "Young lady, dry your tears!"
"Grand, er, Papa, they've taken Papa away," was all I could say.
"The authorities?"
"Yeah, them. I need to go help him!" I yelled at her, forgetting my manners. I can't exactly remember if it was the emotional trauma of being in a strange time or losing Grandpa.
"Do you have a mother?" she aksed.
I thought. Huh, I didn't know. Where was Grandma? So then I said something that I should've let out of my mouth if only I had known what was going to happen.
"She, uh, died. Please help me find my papa?" I begged, gripping her white silk dress strap on her shoulder. She didn't seem to care; she just let me cry.
"It will be okay, sweetie." she hushed.
Then she released me. She touched my shoulder gently. "Your Papa is the only one left to take care of you?" she asked.
"Yes..." I trailed off. Dammit, I'd made a terrible mistake. I shivered slightly and gazed at the woman nervously. She was a Rehabilitator, one who disinfected the streets from runaways and orphans.
"You're coming with me, young lady," She said, her tone was no longer gentle.
"Wipe your tears." she instructed.
Sheepishly, I wiped my tears from my eyes. I felt ashamed for crying to this woman. She didn't care if I was hurt; it didn't cost her to be harsh. I suddenly felt the urge to live with Mrs. Rivera, but Lord knows she didn't want another mouth to feed.
Cautiosly, I followed the woman as we came across a dark, cold building. I walked quietly, bitterly swearing in my mind. I looked back at the corner of 32nd and 4th. But the newsboy had vanished.
