A Harbor Seal Puppy Grows Up s1

A Castle on Viola Street Sometimes my mother would flip By DyAnn DiSalvo through a magazine. She’d show me In the old days, before I was ten, we pictures of houses with gardens and rented an apartment on Emerald Street. It porches. They all looked like castles to was a small place to live for one whole me. I’d puff out my cheeks when I looked family, but somehow we made the room. at our place. It was old and peeling and There always seemed to be enough to go sorry. around even with five people at our table. That’s when my mother would hug me Every morning my father would get up and say, “Our family is rich in more ways even before the sun. “Someday things will than we can count.” change around here,” he would whisper to On Saturday mornings my mother me. He usually said this during the winter would weigh my pockets down with when the house was beginning to feel quarters for the Laundromat. chilly. Then he’d kiss us good-bye, tuck “Hold Andy’s hand,” she’d tell my up our blankets, and leave for his job at sister. the diner. Then my mother would slip two My mother worked part-time in the brown-bagged lunches in the wagon with downtown bakery while my sisters and I a dollar for a treat. My sister and I would were at school. After school she’d sit on bump our cart to the Soap & Go on Viola the stoop and watch us play. Street.

1 Now, across the street from the Soap & scrambled eggs with extra zest, and my Go were three boarded-up houses. My mother put ice in our water. father said it was a shame. “Somebody “There’s a meeting tonight,” I said. should do something about that,” he’d say “Seven o’clock at the school.” whenever he saw them. So when a truck Later on, when my parents came home, pulled up and workers unloaded they were just as excited as I was. equipment, I started to pay attention. “This organization buys empty houses “What’s going on over there?” a lady and fixes them up like new!” said my at the Soap & Go asked. mother. Mr. Rivera pointed to a flier that was “And if you’re interested in helping to posted up front. fix up a house for other people,” my father “I’ll bet it has something to do with continued, “then one day other people will this,” he told her. The flier had a picture help fix up a house for you.” of a house and said YOU TOO CAN That sounded like a good plan to me. It OWN A HOME. would be nice to live in a house that After laundry was dried and folded, I wasn’t so chilly in winter. took my sister by the hand and rushed our “So we signed up,” my father told me. wagon back to Emerald Street. “Can we count on you to help?” At supper I told my parents all about I hugged them so tight I almost fell out what I had heard and seen. My father of bed. I think they knew my answer.

2 Well, you know how sometimes, when Most people on the block were happy you never believe that anything will ever about the project, but other people were be different, then one morning you just not. The lady next door said, “No banging wake up and nothing is the same? That’s before nine o’clock!” Some people what happened to our family that spring laughed and said out loud, “Who would when the project on Viola Street began. want a house in a neighborhood like this?” Cling! Bang! Bang! Smash! Those But my father would smile and whisper workers started early. to me, “Sometimes new things are hard to “Take a good look,” my mother told get used to and people are slow to us. “That’s what we’ll be doing soon.” change.” “Are all those people getting a house?” On the weekends, when our family I asked. showed up, a leader called out the “Some of them will,” my mother said. assignments. “But anyone who wants to can help. It’s “Everyone here will have a special job called volunteering.” to do,” she said. Piece by piece, the inside of the first My mother scraped wallpaper off house came apart—one old bathtub, some crusty walls that crumbled like toast. My cabinets, sinks. Slats of wood and piping father and I worked together. He lifted up piled up like a mountain full of junk in the old linoleum tiles by sliding a cat-hammer Dumpster. underneath. My job was to carefully

3 hammer down nails on the floorboards whenever they saw me wearing a safety when he was through. mask. Some volunteers, like us, hoped to On Saturday nights I’d be so tired, I’d have a house one day. practically fall asleep right after supper. “We’re looking forward to living in a “You’re doing good work,” my father place without broken windows and leaky would say. And he’d thank me for helping pipes,” Mr. and Mrs. Rivera said. our family. He’d say, “Big dreams are My father said he couldn’t wait to have built little by little, and we are making a a house that would have heat all winter. start.” My sisters were still too young to help In those four months I learned a lot with all the construction. But mother told about putting things together. Once I even them, “Being little is no excuse not to found a piece of wood that my father said pitch in.” She had them squeeze juice I could keep. I thought that maybe I could from bags of lemons to make fresh use it to make something on my own. lemonade. Then they took turns pouring One day Mr. Tan gave everyone some and passing the cups all around. news. The new house would be theirs! “I’ve never seen so much dust in my “Everything is beautiful,” Mrs. Tran life,” Mrs. Tran said, covering her nose. said. She stood smiling inside the framed My mother held a dustpan while I front door. She watched her daughter pushed the broom. My sisters giggled paint the big front room. The kitchen had shiny linoleum floors and brand-new

4 appliances. There even was a washing Trans next door didn’t mind when we machine! Upstairs was a bathroom and wanted to get to work early. three carpeted bedrooms. Out back there This fall our family was notified that was a place for a garden. we’d be working on our own house next When the Tran family moved in, they spring—number one-forty-six Viola threw a potluck supper. My father and I Street. Whenever we pass it, my mother took care to make something extra special says, “I can imagine it finished already.” that night. I’ve already got my bedroom picked out. “Since I’ve been promoted to cook, I It’s the one with the window by the yard. like to whip up a storm,” he said. During the winter, I made a birdhouse We not only celebrated the Tran from my piece of wood and gave it to my family’s being the owners of their new mother. My mother was more than home, but we also celebrated because we pleased about that. She said, thanks to me, knew we were one house closer to our now even birds would have a nice little dream. place to call home. Things were really changing on Viola I used to dream that we had a million Street now. “This neighborhood looks like dollars to buy a house of our own. But in it’s shaping up,” the lady at the Soap & real life all it cost us was a lot of hard Go said. Volunteers were working on two work. Anyway, it seems to me like all the more empty houses. And of course the money in the world couldn’t buy us what we have now on Viola Street. It’s just as

5 my father says: Big dreams are built little by little, and we have made a start.

Comprehension Questions

1. Why does the mother look at pictures of 4. What kind of person is Andy? How houses? does he feel about his sister? How can you tell?

2. Who is the narrator of the story? 5. Why does the family sign up to work on old houses?

3. What events take place on Saturday morning? Tell them in the order they 6. What is the author’s message, or the happen. theme, of the story?