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Parked
2020
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May 8 Jeanne Ann I don't mind the nights. I stay at the library until it closes, which is ten o'clock on weekdays, eight on weekends. After, outside, it's mostly dark. I slouch on my bike seat and read by the light of the Food-Mart sign next door. Tonight it's Hatchet . I've read it a couple times. I like that one tool saves the kid's life in all these ways, and that his biggest threat is his weird mom, not the moose that charged him, or the bloodthirsty mosquitos, or the tornado. I think about this as I wait. Someone on the library staff stays with me out front till Mom shows. Mrs. Jablonsky made it a rule. Mom usually arrives out of breath, running from the L. I swear the ground shakes as she gets near, like an earth-moving machine. Her shift at the restaurant technically ends at nine on weekdays and seven on weekends, but since her boss is a poisonous Hydra in track pants who inherited the restaurant from his dad, Mom oversees everything, including the other cooks, most of them Hydras in training who leave for the night without shutting the walk-in fridge or noticing the meat order for the next day never arrived. Mom is always running somewhere to fix everything for someone who doesn't appreciate it "so I can get to you, kid," she reminds me. We walk the same twelve blocks home every night. Mom carries my bike on her wide shoulders and sort of tilts over me like the teapot in the song. My book rides in the front pocket of my overalls. It's nice on spring nights like this. We can take our time. The air smells like burnt toast. It's warm. If either of us has breaking news--a guy cooking oatmeal on a camp stove in the library bathroom (really happened), a customer at the restaurant stuffing an entire steak in her purse (really happened)--we share it. But usually we're quiet. That's because I feel like a squeezed-out sponge after a day of sixth grade and just as many hours at the library. And Mom feels way worse after a day at O'Hara's House of Fine Eats. It's nothing special, but I love this walk. If we stop on the way home, it's super fast, and almost always to look in the window of the travel agency at the foot of our apartment building. The store there has been vacant since somebody invented the Internet in 1990-something, Mom says, but no one ever took down the posters that are taped to the inside of the glass, facing out. There's one of the Eiffel Tower and one of the Taj Mahal. And one of the Golden Gate Bridge. They're all faded like everything else on this block, but Mom likes to tap the glass over the Golden Gate Bridge poster like she's got a plan. Which she does. I know she does. She just hasn't shared it with me yet.   June 1  Cal I can do this. I have to do this. Maybe I should've asked to do this. Just climb, I tell myself. The bricks are easy once I find the handholds. The wall is only about six feet high. I've studied it for two weeks, after school. The tree growing out of the sidewalk on the street side boosts me past the three-foot mark. Thank you, tree. The harder part is climbing with the paint cans. I need to get up and over quick to not be seen, but the cans in my backpack are like carrying another person. At the top, I know I'll have to jump. I pull myself up. Look down. Tug at the knot of my bow tie. I imagine the sound of bones breaking and then someone drawing the outline around my dead, twelve-year-old body. Then I hug the backpack, open my eyes, and leap. I wish I didn't have to do this alone. That thought slips in uninvited as I fall, air whooshing past me--seaweed, sour milk, pine needles--what a San Francisco scratch-'n'-sniff would smell like if cities had scratch-'n'-sniffs. Then: Fwump! I'm on the ground and on my feet. It's not graceful, but I'm alive. Now the good part. I lay out my panels. The work will cover most of one wall, five feet wide by six feet high. I dig for my brushes and rollers at the bottom of the backpack. I have about eight hours, the length of Mom's shift--if no one catches me. It won't be my best stuff--I don't have enough time--but it will be the most public. The four-panel pencil sketch I've put together tells me what I have to do and where, like a map. I've practiced all this in my head and on variously sized pieces of cardboard a hundred times. I dip a brush into the green. If this were a school day, there'd be a roar of kids behind me--yelling, trading cards, candy. Looking past me. But it's Sunday. The courtyard is still and quiet. I touch the brush to the bricks. They can't look past this.   June 1 Jeanne Ann Mom's beside me on the stoop, leaning over to peek at the note I'm transcribing for her. "That's it. Read it out loud," she orders, and closes her eyes. "Please," she adds. I read: " Dear Mr. O'Hara, I quit. The green beans with gorgonzola would've been great on the menu, if you'd had the guts to let me make them. And the lamb croquettes. And the duck legs. You could've just called them 'Specials of the Day.' People would've ordered. Good luck finding another cook with a brain in her head. You're a terrible boss. --Joyce" "What do you think?" Mom says, opening her eyes again. I think duck legs and croquettes sound disgusting, but I've never tried them. Has Mom? I think everything is moving too fast, that we are playing in quicksand. She scoots toward me, so we're hip to hip. She's pulled a piece of paper from her back pocket. I sit up straighter. It used to be milky blue, this paper, two months ago when it arrived in the mail, but now it's turned kinda gray. She's read and refolded it so many times, it's got tears along all the creases. I've never read it. And I'm not sure if seeing it again makes me feel left out or just wound up. I lean in to see, but she tsks playfully and tucks it back in her pocket, like always. Fine. "I dunno," I say about the note she's asked me to help her write. It's not the sort of thing you can apologize for later. I take a deep breath. "It's really final." Mom nods vigorously. Final is what she's after. "I don't like the dear and Mr. parts," she says. "Cross those out. They make it sound like I respect him." I cross out dear and Mr. "What's gorgonzola?" I ask. Mom peers at me briefly, then grabs the note and crumples it. All the worry lines in her face have worked themselves out. "You know what?" she says, ignoring my question. "He doesn't deserve an explanation. Come on." And that's it. She tugs me gently but steadily toward the van parked illegally at the foot of our crumbling stoop. The van matches our apartment building: They both look patched together by Dr. Frankenstein. That's our nickname for it, our building, with the eight-lane expressway running past, and the heat that comes on in summer instead of winter and the showers that leak through the floors: Frank. Mom's already got a nickname for our van: the Carrot. It's orange. Two taped-up seats in front, curtains that might be cut-up bedsheets over half the windows, aluminum everywhere else. We spent almost our entire savings on it today, my last day of sixth grade. I think a better nickname might be: Rash. As in: bought without thinking. "Why are we doing this again?" I ask. Mom's opened her door. She swings her thick arm around me and squeezes. I can smell kitchen grease in her hair. "Dignity, kid, dignity." And I go to my side and climb in, for that reason only.   June 2 Cal I was eight the first time. I walked out our front door and handed a man at the corner a loaf of Mom's prizewinning lemon-pistachio bread. "Here, sir." I'd seen the man through the living room window, pacing in his usual spot by the stop sign, clutching his knitting needles. He was talking to himself when I reached him--"an invasion of Alexas," I heard him say--but he stopped long enough to look at me and nod. He had black oceans for eyes. And puffy scabbed hands. And he shivered. I was cold too, even in my footies. This was the closest we'd ever come, but I'd passed him in the neighborhood dozens and dozens of times. On benches and stoops, inside doorways when it rained. He wore a yellow raincoat and red rain boots every day, just in case. I thought that was smart. He accepted the loaf. I returned his nod. "Bye, sir." Back in the house, I tucked myself into the warm spot on the couch I'd left a second before, next to Mom, who was prepping a menu. She patted my head without looking up. I love Mom, but she hardly ever looks up when prepping a menu. I thought about telling her what I'd just done--I thought about the man's face, his shivering, his hand taking the bread--but I wanted this, whatever it was, for myself. A project that was mine. Mom, of all people, understood about projects. My mistake. The conversation on the other side of this door would be going differently, I think, if I'd told her about the first pistachio bread four years ago, and all the others. Because now I'm stuck in the Point Academy office. It smells like cream of tomato soup, and the school's secretaries are sneaking looks from under lowered eyelids. Like lizards. I wish it were still yesterday. If it were yesterday, Mom and I would be eating early-bird takeout and watching Julia Child French Chef reruns like usual. She'd load up on hot sauce and I'd load up on soy sauce. I'd eat with a fork and she'd eat with chopsticks. After, I'd locate her purse, and we'd cross the street to Greenery, where Mom would ref the dining room like a major-league ump, and I'd settle into a bottomless pineapple juice and my sketchbook at the corner of the bar. We'd wink at each other between "customer relations." But it's not yesterday. And nothing is usual. Today is the second-to-last day of sixth grade, and the dean of the middle school has just asked my mom what could "possibly be going through" my head. Like I'm a mystery. They're on the other side of this door. I can picture Mom at the edge of her chair, whapping the toes of her clogs together, waiting for Dean Cappo to take a breath so she can pounce all over him with my defense. "Cal is a very good boy," I hear Dean Cappo say. Mom knows that. "The teachers all agree. But they also tell me he spends all his time alone--at lunch, at recess. Not talking. Drawing those . . . wings. Kids find them in their books and backpacks. He doesn't seem to have his friends around him anymore." I hug my backpack tighter. "Oh--" Mom starts. I hate how surprised she sounds. "And you've likely noticed the brown. And the bow ties." Beige, not brown! "I, uh, yes," she says. "We see this all the time with kids. Just a phase, a dip between peaks," Dean Cappo rushes on. "Cal's got so much going . . . He's, well, he's a wonderful artist." Mom must be silently nodding. Must be. She's offered to hang my work in the restaurant. "If it weren't technically graffiti, I might even like his"--the dean clears his throat--"alterations to the school." A chair scrapes, like someone's standing. "If I could give you one piece of advice, Lizzie: Get him out of the house, new scenery, a chance to see himself from a different, better angle." Dean Cappo sounds wise, with his deep voice and personalized "Lizzie," but he doesn't know what he's talking about. Don't be fooled, Mom! Our house is great. The scenery is great. "This all would've gone much differently if he'd spoken to us first," the dean continues. "We don't want the other students getting ideas. The janitorial staff has already begun scrubbing, but we may have to invest in special supplies to complete the job. It's our policy to bill the student's family . . ." I rise so fast, my chair tips over. Scrubbing? "You can't!" I've flung open the door. "It's not graffiti!" Dean Cappo is standing with his nostrils squeezed together like he'd rather not breathe this in. Mom jerks around in her chair, a fluff of blond hair catching in her eyelashes, making her blink rapidly. "Cal," she says, sizing me up in a way she's never done before. "He can't," I plead, all of me turned toward Mom. I swipe my bangs off my forehead, but they swing back over my eyes. She should be on my side, but she's shaking her head. She's turned down her mouth, like a crescent moon that's slipped its axis. This can't be. This is the opposite of what was supposed to happen. Mom should be . . . We should all be gathered in the courtyard right now, admiring the . . . "I'm not the problem," I say. "The problem is--" I can't find the right words. I don't want to find the right words. This is why I draw. "We will call you in when we're ready, Cal," Dean Cappo says, eyebrows up like arrowheads. If it were yesterday, the paint on the courtyard would still be drying, and Mom and I would end the night with the classifieds from the free newspaper that gets thrown in our driveway. She'd whisper them in my ear while I'm half asleep, head on pillow: "For sale: partially eaten duck, ten days old. Twenty-four dollars or best offer." We'd laugh so hard, we'd cry. I'd fall asleep smiling.   June 5 Jeanne Ann It's dumping snow when we reach the Beartooth Pass in Wyoming, with winds so strong, the van is rocking side to side like it's in an automatic car wash. Mom's got the windshield wipers flailing, but we still can't see the road in front of us. I'm wishing I'd said a proper goodbye to my bike. And Lake Michigan. And that I'd written a real letter to the librarians. And to the other volunteers. No one was there but the cleaning crew when we swung through on our way out of town. Now I may never have the chance. A blizzard in June? This is bad. We don't have four-wheel drive or chains. I lean closer to Mom. Turtling at five miles per hour, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on my knee, she looks at peace, like this is exactly how she imagined our trip to San Francisco would go. Like this is the perfect start to our new life. If we get stuck here, she's probably strong enough to lug me twenty miles on her back through the snow. But still . . . "What are you looking in the side-view for? Keep reading. Does she get the guy? Will there be kissing? Don't stop for the snow." Mom picks up her hand from my knee and snaps her fingers at the book in my lap. Then she tugs gently on one of my curls. I've been reading to her since we peeled out of Chicago. "Maybe we should pull over?" I say, but even as the words are coming out, the snow begins to thin, first to a spray, and then a dust, and then--gone--just blue, lunchtime sky with thin wisps of cloud. I can see the road again and the giant trees ushering us along like very tall butlers. "Well, that was fun," Mom says. She rolls down her window, wipes off her side-view mirror, and wags a finger at the sky. The gesture translates roughly to: We're not turnin' back, no matter what you throw at us. Excerpted from Parked by Danielle Svetcov All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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Trade Reviews
Publishers Weekly Review
Svetcov's pertinent debut is alternately narrated by two introspective 12-year-olds living radically different lives near San Francisco. Cal and his mother, a successful restaurateur, live in a giant glass "Rubik's Cube" house overlooking both the Golden Gate Bridge and a row of illegally parked vans. One of those vans belongs to book-obsessed Jeanne Ann and her mother, who journeyed west from Chicago after Jeanne Ann's mom quit her job as a cook. As the summer progresses, the girl is increasingly concerned that their stuffy orange van has become their new home indefinitely. When Cal knocks on the van to warn of an impending parking ticket, a strained friendship is launched. But despite Jeanne Ann's myriad difficulties living without an address, she rebukes Cal's persistent attempts to "rescue" her. She offers honest insight into today's affordable housing crisis--her independence and keen observations ("Hunger is like a rug burn on the inside") are communicated frankly. Though the alternating narratives can bog down a lengthy story that feels primarily like Jeanne Ann's, uplifting final pages and the awkwardly cautious cementing of an unlikely friendship offer a fresh look to an ongoing social issue. Ages 10--14. Agent: Kerry Sparks, Levine Greenberg Rostan. (Feb.)
Kirkus Review
Two white preteensone nearly homeless, one affluentconnect in San Francisco.Abruptly quitting her Chicago restaurant job, Jeanne Ann's single mom, Joyce, drove the van they now live in to California and parked among the line of vans blocking ocean views for affluent residents, including Cal and his single mom, Lizzie, owner of a trendy vegetarian restaurant. With her prison record and refusal to compromise career goals, Joyce can't find work. When money runs out, Jeanne Ann sells her beloved books. Hunger sets in; the public restroom's cold-water tap serves for bathing. Meanwhile, socially awkward Cal pays a price for painting an unauthorized mural at his private school: working at his mom's restaurant and attending public school. A neighbor, aware that Cal sketches the van dwellers and feeds their metershelps him slip Jeanne Ann snacks and money. A wary friendship grows. Joyce takes a dishwashing job, Lizzie's chef takes an interest in Jeanne Ann, and some mansion dwellers plot to evict the van-dwellers. Though Jeanne Ann's description of food insecurity is haunting, the rambling, far-fetched plot often resembles a clever, extended elevator pitch. Despite manifestly good intentions, little light is shed on income inequality; events are too unlikely, characters too exceptional for readers to recognize or identify with. While "good" adults are interchangeable paragons of quirky wisdom, grumpy-but-interesting Joyce remains frustratingly underdeveloped.Intermittently intriguing, this overlong, high-concept debut mostly plods. (Fiction. 10-14) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Summary
For fans of Rebecca Stead and Joan Bauer comes a scrappy, poignant, uplifting debut about family, friendship, and the importance of learning both how to offer help and how to accept it.

"A big-hearted novel with characters I wish were my friends in real life." -Gennifer Choldenko, author of the Al Capone at Alcatraz series

Jeanne Ann is smart, stubborn, living in an orange van, and determined to find a permanent address before the start of seventh grade. Cal is awkward, sensitive, living in a humongous house across the street, and determined to save her. Jeanne Ann wants Cal's help just about as much as she wants to live in a van.

As the two form a tentative friendship that grows deeper over alternating chapters, they're buoyed by a cast of complex, oddball characters, who let them down, lift them up, and leave you cheering. Debut novelist Danielle Svetcov shines a light on a big problem without a ready answer, pulling it off with the perfect balance of humor, heartbreak, and hope.

"Insightful and touching...Not to be missed." -Karen Cushman, author of The Midwife's Apprentice
"For readers of Dan Gemeinhart and Katherine Applegate." -The Children's Book Review
"You won't be able to put it down. Trust." -ScaryMommy.com
"Relatable and beautifully told." -Commonsense Media
"Pertinent....Honest...Uplifting...Fresh." - PW
"Utterly of this moment." -Jack Cheng, author of See You in the Cosmos
"Absorbing and warmhearted." -Annie Barrows, author of the Ivy & Bean series
"Realistically hopeful...Recommended." - SLC
"Sharp...Perceptive." - BCCB
"Unforgettable." -Brightly
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