Nobody's Family Is Going to Change by Fitzhugh Louise

Author:Fitzhugh, Louise [Fitzhugh, Louise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult, Childrens, feminism
ISBN: 9781939601506
Goodreads: 26591908
Publisher: Lizzie Skurnick Books
Published: 1974-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

When Emma first walked into the park, Willie was on the phone with Dipsey.

“Now look, kid. I can’t get into trouble with your parents. You heard what your father said.”

“Dipsey, you got to teach me!”

“Baby, I ain’t got to do nothing but dance, pay taxes, and die. I know how you feel. It’s rough, but if I were you, I’d go to your old man and have a long talk with him. Maybe this just isn’t the time, you know? Maybe you just ought to wait a few years until you’re older.”

“Aw, please, Dipsey—”

“Don’t go trying to break my heart now. I told you how I feel. Listen, baby, I got to be at rehearsal in ten minutes and it’s way cross town at the Winter Garden. I’ll be talking to you.”

“That’s right next door, practically!”

“Yeah? Well, I forgot. I’ll be talking to you, baby. Hang in there!”

The phone clicked down. Willie stood there holding the receiver. A man in a raincoat waiting for the phone booth hit the glass with a quarter. “Come on out! You finished! Give somebody else a chance!”

Willie hung up, opened the door, and ran past the man. He kept running for a bit, because he wasn’t even aware that he was running. He sat down on a stoop to think.

How could Dipsey say a crazy thing like that? Talk to your father. How could you talk to a mountain? How could you talk to a Boeing jet?

Dipsey knows that’s stupid. He can’t talk to my father either. How come he’s saying that? He knows I can’t do it. He want to get me off his back?

I can’t get down now. If I get down now, I’ll never get up.

He sat on the stoop, unconsciously tapping his feet to the rhythm of the song Dipsey had used as audition music.

An idea hit him. The idea grew and swelled into a beautiful thing in his mind, a thing he couldn’t let go, a thing so wonderful that it filled his heart, moved his body up and off the stoop, pushed his feet along until they had him running down the street.

He jumped onto the Seventy-ninth Street crosstown bus. He rode to Fifth, his eyes seeing nothing but an image. He got on a Fifth Avenue bus and rode downtown to Fiftieth Street.

He started running. He skipped, he hopped, he danced around people, threaded his way through the crowd at the corner of Broadway, ran again until he was in front of the theater.

He tried one door. It was locked. The middle one was unlocked. He was in an empty lobby. He opened a door to the theater.

I’ll do it, he said to himself as he slipped into the dark theater, I’ll do it, I’ll do it.

The stage was bare except for a piano. There were five or six men in the front rows down near the stage. The entire theater, except for one light on the stage, was dark.

“Okay!” yelled one of the men.

The piano player sat down and started a number.

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