Step On A Crack
By James Patterson Michael Ledwidge
Little, Brown
Copyright © 2007
James Patterson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-316-01394-9
Chapter One
I'LL TELL YOU THIS-even on the so-called mean streets of New York,
where the only thing harder to get than a taxi in the rain is
attention, we were managing to turn heads that grim, gray December
afternoon.
If anything could tug at the coiled-steel heartstrings of the Big
Apple's residents, I guess the sight of my mobilized Bennett
clan-Chrissy, three; Shawna, four; Trent, five; twins Fiona and
Bridget, seven; Eddie, eight; Ricky, nine; Jane, ten; Brian, eleven;
and Juliana, twelve-all dressed in their Sunday best and walking in
size order behind me, could do the trick.
I suppose I should have felt some privilege in being granted the
knowledge that the milk of human kindness hasn't completely dried up
in our jaded metropolis.
But at the time, the gentle nods and warm smiles we received from
every McClaren stroller-pushing Yummie, construction worker, and hot
dog vendor from the subway exit next to Bloomingdale's all the way
to First Avenue were completely lost on me.
I had a lot on my mind.
The only New Yorker who
didn't seem like he wanted to go on a
cheek-pinching bender was the old man in the hospital gown who
cupped his cigarette and wheeled his IV cart out of the way to let
us into our destination-the main entrance of the terminal wing of
the New York Hospital Cancer Center.
I guess he had a lot on his mind, too.
I don't know where New York Hospital recruits its staff for the
terminal cancer wing, but my guess is somebody in Human Resources
hacks into St. Peter's mainframe and swipes the saint list. The
constancy of their compassion and the absolute decency with which
they treated me and my family were truly awe-inspiring.
But as I passed forever-smiling Kevin at reception and angelic Sally
Hitchens, the head of the Nursing Department, it took everything I
had to raise my head and manage a weak nod back at them.
To say I wasn't feeling very social would have been putting it
mildly.
"Oh, look, Tom," a middle-aged woman, clearly a
visitor, said to her
husband at the elevator. "A teacher brought some students in to sing
Christmas carols. Isn't that so nice? Merry Christmas, children!"
We get that a lot. I'm of Irish American extraction, but my kids-all
adopted-run the gamut. Trent and Shawna are African American; Ricky
and Julia, Hispanic; and Jane is Korean. My youngest's favorite show
is
The Magic School Bus. When we brought home the DVD, she
exclaimed, "Daddy, it's a show about our family!"
Give me a fuzzy red wig and I'm a six-foot-two, two-hundred-pound
Ms. Frizzle. I certainly don't look like what I am-a senior
detective with the NYPD Homicide Division, a troubleshooter,
negotiator, whatever's needed by whoever needs it.
"Do you boys and girls know 'It Came Upon a Midnight Clear'?" the
woman who had latched on to us persisted. I was just about to
sharply point out her ignorance when Brian, my oldest son, glanced
at the smoke coming out of my ears and piped up.
"Oh, no, ma'am. I'm sorry. We don't. But we know 'Jingle Bells.'"
All the way up to dreaded
Five, my ten kids sang "Jingle Bells" with
gusto, and as we piled out of the elevator, I could see a happy tear
in the woman's eye. She wasn't here on vacation either, I realized,
and my son had salvaged the situation better than a United Nations
diplomat, certainly better than I ever could have.
I wanted to kiss his forehead, but eleven-year-old boys have killed
over less, so I just gave him a manly pat on the back as we turned
down a silent, white corridor.
Chrissy, with her arm around Shawna, her "best little pal" as she
calls her, was into the second verse of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed
Reindeer" as we passed the nurses' station. The little ones could
have been life-size Precious Moments figurines in their dresses and
pigtailed hair, thanks to the extreme makeover work of their older
sisters, Juliana and Jane.
My kids are great. Amazing, really. Like everyone else lately, they
had gone so far above and beyond that it was hard to believe
sometimes.
I guess it just pissed me off that they had to.
At the end of the second hallway we turned, a woman, wearing a
flowered dress over her ninety-pound frame and a Yankees cap over
her hairless head, was sitting in a wheelchair at the open door of
513.
"MOM!" the kids yelled, and the thunder of twenty feet suddenly
shattered the relative silence of the hospital hall.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Step On A Crack
by James Patterson Michael Ledwidge
Copyright © 2007 by James Patterson .
Excerpted by permission.
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