Have you ever been to New York City? It is hot and smelly


in the summertime. Our street smells like dog pee and garbage. Everything bakes on the pavement, and there are so many tourists you can’t take a step without someone asking you for directions.


I love to walk around and look at everything and everyone. I


love to ride the subway, especially the 7 train because it pops above ground in Queens. We live in Chinatown, on the corner of Orchard and Hester. The F train on Delancey is very nearby. Every Friday afternoon, I take the laundry to the Suds-o-Rama in my neighbour Mrs Lau’s red cart. She gives me quarters for the machine, and in trade I do her laundry with ours. She is seventy-two years old and has hard times getting up and down the stairs.


My mum takes care of two little children, one boy, one girl, on


the Upper West Side. She is their nanny. Our family doesn’t have a nanny or a maid, so I do our laundry. I hate dragging the big bag up and down the stairs, but if I didn’t do it, none of us would have clean clothes. This is what I tell myself every Friday. I do the laundry on Friday afternoons before Mum comes home so that we have time for fun on the weekend when she does not have to go away.


Daddy works at a big restaurant in New Jersey. It is thirty


miles away from here, but in NY it takes two hours to go thirty miles because of all the traffic. Daddy rides a bus home one weekend a month, and even then he is tired but he tries to pretend that he isn’t and he takes us out someplace nice to have a good time. Mum always cries when he packs. And when it is time for him to go, he has to pull her fingers away from his arm and rush out the door.


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