“Sal, get back in here!” 

            My mother was shouting at me, as usual. She wasn’t mean but her voice was probably loud enough to be heard ten blocks away. It was nine o’clock on a Sunday morning, when most 12-year-old boys in my neighborhood were heading out of their homes to meet their friends. 

            I wasn’t any different. I was shorter than average, that’s for sure, and baby-faced, too but I was a regular kid. And on that beautiful spring day, I had one thing on my mind when I woke up. I just wanted to hop on my bicycle and ride. 

            I threw on my favorite pants and headed downstairs, stopping at the front door of our apartment so I could see if my best friend, Frank, was outside yet, waiting for me. 

            “Sal!” 

            My mother was calling me from the kitchen.

            “Be right there.”         

            I looked down the long stairway but couldn’t see Frank. 

            “Salomon, I’m calling you!”

            Rachel Winter, my dear mother, was a force to be reckoned with, especially in her kitchen, also known as her command center, bustling around in her favorite apron, the one with the Dutch tulips printed brightly down the front. With her thick, shoulder-length hair waving around her delicate face, moving swiftly from the stove to the sink and back, her slippers flapping against her heels, she was a sight to behold. 

            And on that day, like most others in 1939, my mother was generating not only breakfast for our entire family but the beginnings of lunch and dinner, too. But none of that kept her from keeping strict track of me, Salomon Kool, her youngest son, known by everyone as Sal. 

            “Where do you think you’re going?”

            I ambled into her headquarters, grabbed a piece of bread, and started toward the door.       “Mama, it’s Easter Sunday. I don’t have gymnastics today. Frank will be waiting outside for me any minute and–” 

            “Since when do you eat standing up, making crumbs on my floor?”            

            “I don’t know.”           

            I stammered, noticing that the bread wasn’t particularly tasty. I was so anxious to get outside I’d forgotten to put anything on it. 

            For a kid growing up in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, riding a bike came with the territory. It was practically a birthright. Everybody had one – kids and parents alike – and they weren’t meant to be stored away in the basement. Bicycles were intended for riding, and that morning I was itching to get outside and blast through my neighborhood, bouncing from one narrow street to the other, over one canal bridge and under the next, racking up a series of stories I could share with my schoolmates on Monday morning. 

            “And since when is that breakfast for a growing boy?” 

            She looked sadly at my lonely piece of bread. 

            “I don’t know. Since, five minutes ago?” 

            I had no idea what I was even saying. 

            “What’s your plan, Sal?” 

            My mother grabbed the bread out of my hand and slapped a fresh, hotly buttered piece of toast in its place. 

            “Uh…”

            “Take this one,” she said. “Toast is only good when it’s hot.”

            “Thanks, Mama.” I smiled. 

            When she was right, which she usually was, you knew it.

            “And drink this, too.” 

            She handed me a mug of hot tea, caressed my cheek, and went right back to her business in the kitchen. She might’ve been annoying sometimes but she sure knew how to make good toast. And the sweetest tea, too. 

            As I strolled to the front door of our apartment, licking the jam off the top of the butter, I looked down the stairway and through the open entryway of the building. I could see my new bicycle, perched against the wall, just waiting for me to finish eating and begin my adventure. 

            The bike itself wasn’t actually new. I had inherited it from my older brother, Louis, but it seemed to me like it came straight from the best bicycle shop in Amsterdam. I didn’t care that it had a worn-down seat, taped up handlebars, and tires as bald as our Rabbi’s head. When my father surprised me the night before with the hand-me-down, I knew right away that I was in a new league. It did not look like a little kid’s bike, and everybody would recognize that. 

            “Sal!” 

            Frank was booming at me from the street. 

            “Are you coming?” 

            His face was poking into the open landing of our building, looking straight up the stairs. 

            “Hold on a second.”    

            I signaled that I’d be down in a minute. 

            “Bye, Mama.” 

            I hoped that if I said it softly and quickly enough that she might not notice. 

            “Salomon Winter, don’t you dare set foot outside my house without permission!”

            “But Mama…” 

            “Sal, don’t try to sweet sweet-talk me; you’re still a child.” 

            “I’m not a kid anymore! I’m almost 12!”      

            I shouted at her to make my point. 

            “Well, that’s true,” she said, standing to her full height of five-feet-four-inches. “But until you can look me in the eye and tell me you’re a young man, you’re still a boy and I still make the rules around here.” 

            With that declaration, she turned back to the stove, leaving me standing there like a short kid without a prayer.

            “And your friend Frank shouldn’t be yelling so loud. He’ll wake up everybody.”

            “Mama, I’ll be 12 in less than a month. Come on, let me go, will you?” 

            I pleaded, trying not to whine but reminding her how important it was that I leave the house immediately. 

            “Frank is waiting. Look out of the window if you don’t believe me.” 

            “Frank! Frank! Frank! All I hear is Frank!” 

            “Mama, he’s my best friend, and together we’re almost 24 years old, so we won’t get in trouble. Promise. Besides, I don’t have gymnastics today, and my coach says I need exercise.”

            “Just a minute, Mr. Young Man with the Baby Face. Let me think. Can a mother have a minute to think, please?”

            “Uh, yeah, go ahead and think.”         

            I was afraid of what that might mean. 

            “Just tell your friend, Frank, that your fair-minded, thoughtful, generous general of a mother is thinking.” 

            And then she went right back to work. 

            I loved my mother. Don’t get me wrong. I mean she was the best but on most Sunday mornings, I would have already kissed her goodbye and been out of the apartment before the rest of my family was even awake. I always arrived at the gymnasium promptly by eight o’clock. 

            “Still thinking, Mama?” 

            “Still thinking,” she said, smiling at me. “Mr. Short Young Man with the big ideas.” 

            I was four inches shorter than my mother, so I had to agree with her on that but I was quick and nimble, if I do say so, myself. 

            “You know I can keep up with all the big boys down at the gym.” 

            I figured that this fact would clinch my immediate departure.

            “Hmm, so I’ve heard from Mr. Koen.” 

            “And now, with my bike from Louis, I can go with Frank, and you don’t have to worry, okay?”

            “Sal, it’s 1939. Last time I checked, that makes you still a boy. In one year, when you have your Bar Mitzvah, you can ride on your own.” 

            “Oh God! Mama!” 

            No response.

            “God!” 

            I repeated it for effect but it didn’t work.

            “Watch your mouth, Salomon.” 

            I stared.

            “What?” 

            She said it as if I had something to say. Of course, I didn’t, because how could I explain that although I was taking the Lord’s name in vain, in this case it was okay because it was a matter of life and death? 

            “Sal? Are you coming, or what?”

            We both heard Frank, still waiting for me.

            “Okay, Sal, it’s such a nice day I’m going to let you go for a little ride with your lovely friend, Frank.” 

            I started jumping for joy.

            “But!”

            “But? How come there’s always a ‘but’?” 

            “Why? I’ll tell you. Because I’m your mother, and you’re to go no further than three blocks from this apartment, in any direction. And don’t think for a minute I don’t have people watching who will tell me if you go even one block past that.” 

            I chewed on the last corner of my toast and thought long and hard about her offer. The rules basically left Frank and me the chance to play ring-around-the-rosy on our bicycles, not an especially adventurous prospect for two (almost) 12-year-olds. I knew my mother worried about me riding around on the busy streets but I wished she might’ve loved me a little bit less that morning and not cared so much about my every move. 

            “Mama, I have an idea.” I was stalling until I could think of one. 

And then Louis staggered right by me on his way into the kitchen. He patted me on the top of my head and swiped the last piece of toast right out of my mouth. 

If I hadn’t admired my brother like I did, I might’ve been really upset at losing my last bite of breakfast. But Louis had appeared at the perfect moment, and I wasted no time seizing the opportunity. 

“Hey Louis,” I whispered. “What are you doing today?” 

            “Uh, I don’t know. Nothing planned.”

            He greeted our mother with a kiss on top of her head. Louis was already 13, and at five-foot-nine, he towered over her. 

            “Morning, Mama.” 

            “You’re up early. Feeling energetic today?” 

            “I feel fine but Frank woke me up, yelling like a sick dog for Sal to come downstairs.” 

            “See what I told you?” Mama said.

            “Hey Sal!” 

            It was Frank. Again.

            “See you later!” 

            What was I going to do? Frank’s mother was letting him ride around on his own. He was three months older than me. I needed another plan. 

            Louis took my mug of tea, downed a gulp, and handed it back to me like we were a comedy team from the Dutch Variety Theater.       

            “Thank you, Sal.” 

            He was so cheerful he just sounded dumb. 

            “What delicious tea you’ve made this morning.” 

            A light bulb went on[AP1] . Louis was the key to getting my mother to let me go for a real bike ride. If he agreed, how could she say no? 

            “I have an idea.”

            “You and your ideas, Sal.” 

            She turned to me with a pot in one hand and half a chicken in the other. 

            “I just said you could go with Frank. What now?” 

            “Frank’s probably far away by now.” 

            I stepped toward the refrigerator. My mother cut me off. I froze. She saw me staring at the chicken in her hand, as if I was waiting for her to slug me with it. Then, Louis made these chicken sounds and she laughed. 

            “Okay, okay, the two of you can go ride together. That means you, too, Louis. You get to ride the brand-new bike your father just bought you. And don’t forget how hard he worked to buy you that bike.” 

            Louis nodded, knowing she was right.

            “But!”

            “But? Again? Another but?”

            “Sal, you can go with Louis, provided he never lets you out of his sight.”

            I hugged my mother really hard and pulled Louis out of the kitchen toward the front door. He pretended to protest.

            “Shut up, Louis; you’re dressed, let’s go.”

            “Wait a minute.” 

            He was laughing as I kept trying to push him out the door. Louis pointed back in the direction of our mother. We ran back into the kitchen, grabbed some more toast off the counter and shoved a couple of apples into our pockets. 

            “Bye, Mama!”            

            Louis and I ran down the steps.          

            “See you when we get back!” 

            I felt like we had to get out of there before she changed her mind. 

            “Don’t hurt the chicken!” Louis screamed, as he jumped on his bike and sped off. 

            I rode off as fast as I could, bouncing down the famous cobblestone streets of Amsterdam. Louis was already half a block ahead of me but I didn’t care. I wasn’t exactly on my own but it was the next best thing. 

 [AP1]? off?