Dreamland Social Club(18)
Her father furrowed his brow for a second, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. Why?”
“It’s a club she founded when she was in high school.” She was trying to sound nonchalant but she wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe because this “talking about Mom” thing was still sort of new, skittish.
“Really?” He raised an eyebrow, and Jane nodded and said, “It still exists.”
“What is it?” He opened the fridge and took out a beer.
“I have no idea.”
“Are you going to join?” He took a swig.
“It’s not that simple, Dad.” Not when you considered the cryptic posters and the way Legs and Minnie had seemed so secretive about where they were going.
“Okay.” He squeezed her shoulder as he left the room. “If you say so.”
CHAPTER seven
MR. SIMMONS SAT CROSS-LEGGED in the middle of his classroom on a map of Coney Island in class that Thursday. It was comprised of large wooden puzzle pieces labeled THE GUT, MANHATTAN BEACH, WEST BRIGHTON, and a few more Jane couldn’t read, in no small part because Mr. Simmons was sitting on them. He was a bit kooky, Mr. Simmons, but Jane was already fond of him and knew that, if she ended up in another school next year, she’d remember him and Garth the Human Garbage Disposal (whose class she hadn’t even been in!) and possibly none of her other teachers here.
“All will be explained in time,” he said as students came in and looked confused by the fact that he was sitting on a map and also by the fact that all the desks and chairs had been pushed to the back of the room. Jane waited next to Babette on one edge of the map and studied a bulletin board on the room’s side wall. It was covered with old photos of Luna Park and Dreamland. She stepped up close to a photo of Dreamland’s Creation ride, where an angel carved out of stone stood by the entrance, seemingly holding the weight of the whole building on its wings.
The bell rang and Mr. Simmons said, “The history of Coney Island is, at its most basic, a series of landgrabs. Meaning that whenever it was possible to take land away from someone else and claim it for themselves, that’s what people did. And have continued to do. Over and over again. So!”
He stood and stepped over to his desk, gestured to the map, then held a whistle to his mouth. “When I blow, you grab!”
At the shrill sound, Jane pushed her way forward, dove straight for the piece marked CONEY ISLAND BEACH, and held on tight as people moved and grabbed around her. The bustle died down in a matter of seconds, and a few people shouted out complaints—“I didn’t get anything!” “There’s not enough pieces!”
Mr. Simmons said, “Not destined to be landowners, then.”
He started talking about the different puzzle pieces then, but Jane just wanted him to get to hers. She hadn’t been able to figure out where, exactly, the old parks had been, and she wanted very badly to have ended up with the right piece and for Mr. Simmons to tell her where, exactly, they had been. That way, maybe she’d be able to walk on hallowed ground.
Finally, he said, “And who had the good fortune-slash-misfortune of getting Coney Island Beach proper?”
Jane raised her hand, held up her piece.
“Ah,” he said. “Jane. You hold in your hands one of the most coveted and embattled pieces of property to ever exist in the world.” He strode around the room. “So, what are you going to do with it?”
Time seemed to halt for a moment as Jane’s mind traveled to the attic, so full of amazing old Coney lore, and took a Trip to the Moon, with Selenites singing, and to those grim apartments they’d had in grim cities while her father worked random jobs, and then she was back in the moment and she said, “I’d want to do two things.”
Heads seemed to perk up in surprise that the new girl had an answer—in two parts, no less. “I’d rebuild the old amusement parks, just like they were, and—”
“Dude,” Babette interrupted before Jane could get part two out. “That’s blasphemy.”
Jane turned to her, feeling like one of Preemie’s water balloons that had just popped. “It is?”
“Midget City?” Babette’s eyes sparked with agitation. “Ever hear of it?”
Jane felt foolish but, of course, she hadn’t meant that everything would be re-created. She was pretty sure, for example, that a reenactment of the Boer War would bore people to tears. And shows like Fighting Flames were too gory, too dangerous.
Babette seemed to shiver. “Every once in a while I have a dream that I’m living in Midget City and I can’t get out. That stuff’s best left in the past.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t mean I want the place to turn into a shopping mall, though.”
“Sorry,” Jane said, not knowing what a shopping mall had to do with anything. “I wasn’t thinking of rebuilding Midget City—or a mall. I just think a lot of the stuff that’s here now, on the boardwalk, is so run-down. I think some new rides”—she couldn’t stop herself—“maybe a new roller coaster or something, would be good. That’s part two. A big new ride. A proper theme park.”
Her father could design it!
Leo’s hand shot up, and Mr. Simmons called on him.
For days Jane had been hoping for some kind of sign from Leo, some kind of acknowledgment that he’d found the postcard or at least looked for it, but so far none had come. He said, “I think it’s important to remember that the people who have kept those businesses on the boardwalk alive all these years shouldn’t be locked out of new plans. I mean, what happened to the Go Karts just wasn’t right.”