STERLING CHILDREN’S BOOKS and the distinctive Sterling Children’s Books logo are registered trademarks of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

© 2020 Fracaswell Hyman

Cover art © 2020 Frank Morrison

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4549-3396-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Hyman, Fracaswell, author.

Title: Summer in the city : a Mango Delight story / by Fracaswell Hyman.

Description: New York : Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., [2020] | Audience:

Ages 8-12. | Summary: Mango is invited to star in Yo, Romeo! in New York

City, but must struggle to balance the opportunity of a lifetime with

homesickness, insecurity, and staying close to her best friend

long-distance.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019055923 | ISBN 9781454933946 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781454933960 (epub)

Subjects: CYAC: Theater—Fiction. | Musicals—Fiction. |

Homesickness—Fiction. | Aunts—Fiction. | African Americans—Fiction. |

New York (N.Y.)—Fiction.

Classification: LCC PZ7.H9848 Sum 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019055923

For information about custom editions, special sales, and premium and corporate purchases, please contact Sterling Special Sales at 800-805-5489 or specialsales@sterlingpublishing.com.

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To Jamaya,

who inspires me to write books

about girls who look like you.—Papa

CHAPTER ONE

School’s Out for the Summer!

BZZZZZZZZ! BZZZZZZZZ! BZZZZZZZZ!

The buzzing in my head woke me with a start. What was going on? Were there bees in my room? On my bed? On my head? I sat up, swatting the air around me, and then I realized it was my phone that was buzzing! I must’ve fallen asleep with it right on my pillow—again. I grabbed the phone. It was Izzy face2facing me.

“Hey, girl, hey! Good morn-ting!” she announced.

“Hey. What time is it?”

“Time to wake up!”

“You know, Izzy, one of the best things about summer break is NOT having to get up until you just naturally wake up.”

“So wake up naturally then. It’s almost eleven. We got things to do, chica!”

Almost every day since summer break started, Izzy and I would meet up and do something. She got me into paddleball, and we were a pretty good team. There was a court in the park close to her house, so we’d spend the afternoon playing or just hanging by the courts to practice flirting with the cute guys playing basketball across the way.

There was this one guy, Hector Osario, who really got Izzy excited. She thought this brown-eyed, bronze-skinned, shaved-head, six-footer was perfection, but he already had a girlfriend, Marcelle, whose mother owned a beauty parlor and had trained Marcelle to do mani-pedis. Marcelle had fingernails so long they curled at the ends! We couldn’t imagine how she managed it, but she was known to be the best teen manicurist in town, and one of the toughest girls in the city. I told Izzy to quit batting her eyes at Hector, since he was taken, but she couldn’t help herself. Whenever he was on the basketball court across from where we were playing, her eyes followed Hector instead of the paddleball, and we’d lose every game.

“Izzy, Mom, and I were up really late last night.”

“Doing what? Wait, don’t tell me, bingeing a TV show. Right?”

“Yeah, Horror High School. It was so good. You need to watch it!”

“Girl, you know me, I can’t watch anything scary. I’d never get to sleep.”

“Well, we watched all nine episodes and then I still wasn’t sleepy, so I started reading Beyonce and Bey-ond.”

“The new biography? OMGZ! Can I borrow it when you’re done?”

“It’s on my phone. Maybe that’s why my phone was on my pillow . . .”

“Cool. You have an hour, then meet me at my house. And bring my number one fan. I’m making my super special tres leches just for him.”

On the days that Mom and Dada both worked, I was in charge of Jasper. It was not a duty, it was a pleasure for me, because I just loved that little chubby-bubby so much. Yes, sometimes toddlers got cranky and cried, and it was impossible to figure out how to calm them down, but I didn’t mind with Jasper because most of the time he was just a happy clown who could always make me laugh.

I wasn’t the only one who admired Jasper. Izzy was in love with him too, mainly because my little teddy bear brother had a huge crush on her! Whenever he saw Izzy, he would toddle up to her, hold his arms high to be picked up, and then plant a kiss on her cheek, wrap his arms around her neck, and lay his head on her shoulder. This thrilled Izzy to no end. She declared Jasper her number one fan and favorite boyfriend—at least until Hector Osario saw the light and realized they were destined to be together forever.

Izzy had even autographed one of her 8x10s, framed it, and given it to Jasper. We thought it was so funny, until one night when Mom took it out of his room and he screamed bloody murder! The photo became a sort of security blanket for Jasper. He’d carry it from room to room, wherever he went in the house. Mom thought he was becoming obsessed with the photo and kept trying to wean him off it by offering more appropriate treasures like a teddy bear, a blanket, or a framed photo of his mother, but nothing worked. Dada thought it was funny and no big deal. He’d say, “Margie, leave the boy be. Just because she’s his crush doesn’t mean Mommy won’t always be number one.”

Izzy loved the idea of being idolized, even if it was by a toddler. She started sending me selfies several times a day, urging me to show them to Jasper. I never did. I was afraid he’d become obsessed with one of her selfies and never let me take my phone away from him.

“Okay, Izzy, I’ll bring him over, but it’s gonna take more than an hour for me to wake up, wash up, eat, and get Jasper ready to go.”

“Fine. See you in an hour and fifteen! Bye!” She clicked off, and I dropped back onto my pillow. I wanted to get a little more snoozing in . . . but my bladder was urging me to get up. I stumbled out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

After showering, I pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and brushed my hair into the usual grapefruit-size Afro puff on top of my head. In the kitchen, Dada was feeding Jasper his homemade baby food: mashed up yam, cinnamon, and coconut milk. It made the kitchen smell great—and it was really yummy. Whenever I fed Jasper, I’d help myself to some, too—a spoon for him and a spoon for me.

Dada smiled and looked at me with pseudo-astonishment and said, “Mango gal, since when ya legs get so tall and ya hair reach the sky so?” I stuck out my tongue at him, then laughed and poured a bowl of cereal.

“Any big plans today?”

“I’m taking Jasper over to Izzy’s. She’s making him a special treat. Then we’ll probably go to the park.”

“Sounds like the perfect summer day. I’m gonna change my little homie here, and then I have to get downtown and meet a couple about catering their anniversary party.” He lifted Jasper out of the high chair and headed out of the kitchen.

“Good luck with that.”

“Who needs luck when you’ve got mad skills?” I heard him laughing all the way down the hall.

Anywho, the day my perfect summer took a sharp left turn off Right Street, I was pushing Jasper in his stroller out of our apartment building. Who should be standing out front next to the skinny tree dogs used as a pit stop? Bob! My teacher from Trueheart Middle School. It took me a moment to recognize him, because . . . well, number one, he was not in school where he belonged. Whenever I run into someone who is not in the place where I usually see them, it takes me a few moments before I remember who they are. I bet I wouldn’t even recognize my mother at first if I walked into my classroom and saw her there. The second reason I didn’t recognize Bob is because he was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Now Bob, who insisted all of his students use his first name, wasn’t the type of teacher to wear a shirt and tie, but cutoff jeans and a New York Knicks T-shirt? This was totally out of character, even if he was the most fun teacher I’ve ever had.

I was pushing Jasper’s stroller out the front door, when I heard . . .

“Mango! Heeeeyyyyyy!”

I turned, and someone started walking toward me. Immediately I took a step back, because like I said, for a few moments there I’d been about to shout out, “STRANGER DANGER!” But then I saw jazz hands and open arms and a shock of red hair that stood up like a cockatoo, and I realized it was just my favorite teacher in the last place I would expect to run into him.

“Bob? What are you doing here? Do you know someone in my building?”

“Yeah. You.”

“You came to see me?”

“Right again.”

“Well . . . why didn’t you ring the bell and come up?”

He wiped the beads of sweat streaming down his forehead with the back of his arm. “I had your address on the contact list from the play but not your apartment number. I tried to call, but the phone was disconnected.”

“Oh, yeah. Since my mom, dad, and I all have cell phones now, we decided to cancel the landline.”

“Right. I get it. So, I thought I’d just come stand out here and wait until you came out.”

“Suppose I didn’t come out?”

“Then I guess I’d get a worse sunburn than the one I’m working on right now.”

He did look a little hot pink on the verge of scaly-flaky-itchy red, and I felt sorry for him, so I said, “Wanna come up?”

“Are your parents at home?”

“No, they’re both working.”

“Well . . . I think it would be more appropriate for us to hang out here. What are you up to today?”

“I’m on my way to Izzy’s. She’s Jasper’s favorite star and she made a special tres leches dessert just for him, so he can fall more madly in love with her.”

“Huh? Uh . . . never mind. Can I walk with you? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

I shrugged. “Okay, but maybe we should find some shade in the park and sit down. You look like a showerhead someone forgot to turn off.”

He put his hand over his heart pretending to be offended. “Heeeeyyyy, big guys drip in the heat, what can I tell you?”

I laughed and he tickled Jasper under his chin, and then we started walking. When we got to the park, Bob bought three cones of shaved ice from the Icy Man, and we sat on a bench under the shade of a big, leafy tree. The Icy Man had given me extra napkins because Jasper was drooling red juice all down his chin and onto his clothes, but it was so hot out, I didn’t care and let him enjoy himself.

Bob held the paper cup of shaved ice to his wrist. “This cools your temperature down. Did you know that?”

“No.”

“Well, now you do. Learn something new every day, and you’ll always be smarter than you were the day before.”

Bob wiggled his eyebrows as he laid his line of wisdom on me, and I was reminded of how funny he was in class and how much fun it was being directed by him in the school play. He was the best director ever. I truly believed that, even though he was the only director I’d ever worked with. He had taken a girl—me—who had never done any acting or singing in front of anyone before and made me a star . . . at least in my school. Because of how Bob encouraged me, boosted my ego, and even kicked my butt a little when I needed it, I was actually dreaming of having a career in show business as a singer and actress.

Bob asked me how I was doing and how the summer was treating me and blah, blah, blah, until I raised my hand and said, “Aren’t you the one who told us all good writers cut through the small talk and get to the meat of a scene as quickly as possible?”

“Why yes, I do believe that sounds like something genius I would say.”

“Well . . . cut to the meat!”

He laughed and slurped a big chunk of his green ice, before starting again. “First of all, I want to let you know that Larry and I—Mr. Ramsey to you—we’re not coming back to teach at Trueheart next year.”

Whoa! Cutting to the meat is one thing, but dropping a bomb like this? This truly did call for a setup, some idle chitchat, laying some groundwork before dropping the big KA-BOOM! If he and Mr. Ramsey, the music teacher he collaborated with on our school musicals, were not coming back to school, would we even get to do a play at all the next year? I’d been so looking forward to doing another show and getting back together with all my dramanerd friends.

I had to admit it, I was hooked on theater, and this was the worst news EVER. Yeah, maybe Principal Lipschultz would hire another teacher who would want to direct the school play, but it wouldn’t be the same. No one was as much fun as Bob. What if it was a teacher who insisted we call them by their last name, and it was something like Knucklebacher or Bumplehurst or some other weird name that would make everything so formal and yuck? Even worse, what if he or she didn’t think I was talented and I didn’t get a part in the show?

“No, Bob, noooo! You can’t leave Trueheart! We love you and Mr. Ramsey. We need you!”

“Heeeyyyy, we love all of you too, but we have an opportunity that’s impossible to pass up. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

At that moment, Jasper dropped his shaved ice on the ground and began to wail. I gave him mine, and he quieted down the minute he stuck his tongue on it. I couldn’t eat anyway. This news was the most devastating ever.

Bob put a hand on my shoulder. “Listen to me. Larry and I have found a backer who wants to put up the money for us to do a summer showcase of Yo, Romeo! in New York. Off-Broadway. Actually, off-off-off-off-wayyyyyy-off Broadway.”

I gasped. “That’s like, uber-crisp, right?”

“So crisp it’s downright crunchy! We’ll get all kinds of people to come see the show, especially people who invest in theater. If they like the show enough, they could move it to Broadway. I mean, the real Broadway. And then Larry and I would be on our way to fulfilling our dream.”

“That’s great. Really great, but are you sure you want to leave Trueheart?”

“We’re sure. We can’t do both. If the show gets picked up, we’ll have to be available. Larry and his wife, Stephanie, have already packed up and moved to Harlem. That’s in New York City. His family has a brownstone there, and I’ve been camping out in their basement. Once she gets a leave of absence from her job, my girlfriend is going to join me and we’ll rent our own place.”

“You have a girlfriend?” I shouldn’t have sounded as surprised as I did, but, well, to be honest, I wasn’t sure Bob liked girls . . . you know?

“Yes, I have a girlfriend. Her name is Raven. We have a daughter together, Josslyn. She’s four. She’ll be coming up to New York, too.”

“Wow!” My head was spinning from all this new information. Also because it was amazing that I was having a conversation like this with a teacher! It was like we were just, you know, friends and he was sharing his life with me. Bob had always been the coolest of all my teachers, but we’d never talked like this. It helped me focus less on what I was losing and more on how this would be life-changing for Bob and Mr. Ramsey. I couldn’t expect them to put their dreams on hold because a bunch of middle school kids and I would be lost without them. I produced my biggest smile and held my arms open wide for a hug. “Come here, you!”

He held his hands out in front of him. “Sweaty! Excessively sweaty!”

Ew. So I just took his hands and squeezed them as tightly as I could. “I really am happy for you. And it was so cool of you to come and tell me. Who else knows?”

“No one.”

“Oh.” That was a surprise. “Why tell me before anyone else?”

“Mango, you don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“The reason I was standing in front of your apartment building like Frosty the Snowman in July?”

I screwed up my face and shrugged. Whatever he was pitching, I wasn’t catching.

“We want you.”

“Me? For what?”

“To come to New York and star in the show, of course! Who could possibly be a better Juliet than you? You’re perfect!”

And that’s when Jasper decided to throw his arm up, launching what was left of his shaved ice and red syrup into the air. It all came down on my head like a cherry ice shower, but I didn’t care, I was too busy imagining myself going to New York to star in a show!