We don’t say much. I feel humiliated by the whole volleyball slap incident and Vanessa’s feeling stood up by her parents.
My dad usually likes the peace and quiet, but for some reason, he’s feeling chatty tonight.
“Ah,” he says in a dreamy voice, “nights like this remind me of that Robert Frost poem, ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.’”
“It’s not snowing, Dad. It never snows in Corpus Christi.”
“Is that a sour mood I hear?”
Vanessa says, “Can you blame us, Mr. Flores? We got creamed.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he says. “From what I hear, Hamlin makes worms’ meat out of everyone.”
“Worms’ meat?” I ask. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Mercutio. Before he died, he said, ‘They have made worms’ meat of me.’ Get it? Because when you die, you become food for
the worms.”
“Who cares?” I say. “I don’t even know who Mercutio is.”
“He’s from
Romeo and Juliet.
His name comes from the word ‘mercurial.’”
Vanessa says, “You mean like mercury, the stuff in old thermometers?”
“That’s it exactly. A person who’s mercurial is a person whose emotions are constantly going up and down. Very unpredictable,
just like the weather.”
My dad never stops, I think to myself, getting angrier by the minute. Why does he have to turn
everything
—even a volleyball game!—into a vocabulary lesson?
“Guess what, Dad? I don’t care about worms and mercury and thermometers. We lost our game. And then I got hit in the face.
Why don’t you define that?!”
“Someone hit you?” he says, surprised and protective-sounding.
“Not
someone.
The volleyball. But you wouldn’t know, would you? You’re too busy reading stupid books.”
“Give him a break,” Vanessa tells me. “At least your dad came to support us.”
“You call that ‘support’?” Then I turn to my dad and say, “You like make-believe people more than real ones. More than your
own daughter!”
With that, I run home. I want to hide in my room and cry, but since I don’t have the key, I sit on the hood of the car and
wait. My dad and Vanessa are a few minutes behind, and I watch as he sees her safely home and accepts a dozen
cascarones
from Ms. Cantu. Then he crosses the street to our door. He knows I’m there, a few feet away. I can
feel
his eyes on me, but I don’t look back.
“I won’t take a book next time,” he says. “I promise.”
It’s his apology, but I’m too mad to accept it. After a moment, my dad unlocks the door and goes in, leaving it open behind
him. I keep waiting. I wait a long time. I don’t go in till I get sleepy and cold.
Buñolero, ¡haz tus buñuelos! –
Buñuelo maker, make your buñuelos!; in other words, mind your own business!
T
he next morning, I’m still upset about the volleyball game, so when I grab a pair of socks, I don’t notice that they’re slightly
different shades of blue till I’m ringing Vanessa’s doorbell. As I wait for someone to answer, I hear Ms. Cantu shouting.
Vanessa opens the door, ignoring her mom. Then she gets her things, slams the door, and almost runs down the sidewalk.
“Wait,” I say, rushing to catch up. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she says.
“Is this about last night’s volleyball game?”
“No. Maybe. Just leave it alone, okay?”
I know better than to bug her when she doesn’t want to talk, so I change the subject.
“Why are you carrying that eight-pound bag of potatoes?” I ask.
“Homemaking,” she says. “Mrs. Rumplestine asked us to find a partner. I hooked up with Carlos. I’m bringing potatoes and he’s
bringing cloth napkins.”
“You’re working with Carlos again?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Vanessa, every time you work with Carlos something bizarre happens, and the bizarre thing is always your fault. Remember
last month and your famous pot holder cake? The whole school heard about it.”
Vanessa and Carlos had baked a double-layer cake for Mrs. Rumplestine’s class. Carlos turned over the first layer to frost
it. Then Vanessa took charge of the second layer. She got the pot holder mittens, grabbed both sides of the pan, flipped it,
and somehow sandwiched the pot holder between the two cakes. The whole class cracked up.
“I was so embarrassed,” she admits. “Carlos must think I’m silly. I can tell by the funny way he looks at me.”
“That funny look is called love.”
“No it isn’t,” she says, but I catch her wondering about it.
We’ve known Carlos for years and mostly ignored him. He still wears high-tops and basketball jerseys, his style since the
third grade, but over the summer, he got really cute and more interesting, even though he acts the same. Only now, since he’s
so cute, we
notice
and we
listen
when he talks about the NBA or tries to reenact scenes from his favorite comedy shows.
“Back to the potatoes,” I say. “What are they for?”
“Who knows? I guess we’re going to make potato salad and learn how to fold napkins the fancy way.”
We spend the rest of our walk inventing potato recipes. When we get to school, we go in separate directions. I won’t see Vanessa
till our third-period class, science. I bet Corpus Christi is the only city that teaches marine biology as part of a science
class. That’s the best thing about living by the sea.
Luckily, the first two classes fly by, and before I know it, I’m with Vanessa again.
“Guess what?” she says. “Luís and I passed notes in history.”
“You did?” I try not to show it, but I’m jealous. She knows I like him, so why does she torture me?
“About you, dummy,” she says. “Look.”
She hands me a folded paper. I open it up.
Hi, Vanessa,
it says.
Sorry about last night’s game. Is Lina okay?
Then I see Vanessa’s handwriting.
Yes. Thanks for asking.
Then there’s a smiley face with Luís’s curly hair and glasses.
“That’s it?” I say.
“It shows he cares.”
“No it doesn’t. It shows he saw the most embarrassing moment of my life.”
“Shush!” she says, grabbing the letter. “Here he comes.”
Luís walks in and sits sideways in the desk in front of me. I say hello, and he waves back. I ask how he’s doing, and he nods
and smiles as if to say “okay.” That’s it. The same routine every day. I don’t have a chance. That note was about pity, not
love.
“Okay,” Mr. Star says. “For your semester project, you’re going to do a five- to ten-minute presentation on some aspect of
the Gulf Coast. And since most of you think the coast is only about fish, I’ve put some interesting topics on note cards.”
He fans the cards, hiding the topics, and then he goes around the room and tells us to pick one. I get whooping cranes. Vanessa
gets sand dune plant life. Carlos gets coastline trash. I ask Luís about his topic. He shows it to me—sand dune animal life.
Others get oil rigs, sea turtles, brown pelicans, hurricanes, and barnacles.
“Hey, Luís,” Carlos says after class. “Want to trade topics?”
“Sure,” Luís says.
“Did you hear that?” Vanessa whispers. “Looks like Carlos wants to work with sand dunes, too. I guess we’ll be doing two projects
together.”
After science, Vanessa and I go to English class. Mrs. Huerta likes her students in alphabetical order, so we don’t get to
sit together. Lately I’ve been sleepy in English. Fourth period is the most boring hour of my day.
Near the end of class, Mrs. Huerta says, “We’re starting a new book,
Watership Down.
” She hands out copies of a paperback with a picture of a rabbit on the cover. “Read the first four chapters tonight,” she
says as we walk out.
I practically sleep through my afternoon classes. Soon the final bell rings. Laughter and slamming locker doors echo through
the hallways. In ten minutes, the building clears except for the “Hollywoods” of the school, the stars of the Baker Show.
Every school has them—a handful of students that go for the extracurricular activities or make the honor roll or act like
class clowns. Everyone else is a “Hollywood extra”—nameless, faceless, background noise, sofa slugs at home.
Dr. Rodriguez, the principal, has asked all club officers to help plan the annual Halloween carnival, so I head to the cafeteria.
Vanessa and I are the captains of girls’ athletics. The position was offered to the older girls first, but none of them wanted
to deal with the extra work. I guess the same thing happened with the guys since Jason’s the captain of boys’ athletics.
When I walk in, I see a couple of Windsors from the pep squad and all the smart honors kids or “eggheads.”
I take a seat as far from Jason as possible, but he sees me anyway.
“So what’s it like to spike a volleyball with your face?” he says. Everyone laughs. All I can do is sink in my chair, but
I’m too tall to hide.
A few seconds later, Luís, who is the student council treasurer, enters, looks around, and sits beside me. Love or convenience?
When Vanessa walks in, everyone starts laughing again. Her eight-pound bag of potatoes is wearing a diaper!
“Teen pregger!” Jason says, and a few others join in.
Fortunately, she’s not alone. Some other students, including a boy, come in with potato babies, too.
“Can you believe it?” she says, taking the seat across from Luís and me. “Mrs. Rumplestine wants us to treat the potato bag
like a baby. She says eight pounds is the average weight of an infant. It doesn’t sound like much, but try carrying it around
for an hour.”
“And Carlos is the father?” I tease.
She blushes when she nods a yes.
Luís says, “Is i-i-i-it a-a boy or a girl?”
Because he’s usually so quiet, I forget that he gets stuck on a syllable sometimes, most of the time. Then when he gets past
the hard part, the rest of his words come fast, too fast. So he’s embarrassed to talk, especially around bullies. But Vanessa
and I, and a few other enlightened people, don’t care.
“A girl,” Vanessa says. “Her name’s Duchess.”
“Duchess?” I can’t help laughing. “Does Carlos know that his ‘daughter’ is named after your dead dog?”
Luís shakes with the giggles.
“No,” Vanessa says. “As far as he’s concerned, she’s royalty.”
Dr. Rodriguez walks in and starts the meeting. I like her. She’s tall like me and has a no-nonsense discipline style. Miss
Luna should take lessons.
“We need to sign up for booths,” Dr. Rodriguez says. “I’ll give you a few minutes to brainstorm. Then we’ll make a list. If
two groups want the same booth, we’ll flip a coin to see who gets it. No food booths, please. Your teachers will be selling
the refreshments because they have food-handling certificates. Any questions?”
She answers a few while Vanessa and I list our top three choices: the jail, the Coke bottle ring toss, and the face-painting
booth. When it’s time to regroup, we discover that we’ve tied for them all! To make matters worse, we lose the coin flip every
time. I should have worn my lucky socks today.
“What are we going to do?” I say. “I’m all out of ideas.”
Whenever Vanessa needs to problem solve, she looks up and touches her chin. When I look up, all I see is the ceiling or the
sky or the roof of the car, but when Vanessa looks up, she sees answers.
After a second or two, she waves her hand to get Dr. Rodriguez’s attention. “Girls’ athletics,” she announces, “will sell
cascarones.
Dozens and dozens of
cascarones.
”
Dr. Rodriguez raises a curious eyebrow, then writes “Cascarones Booth” by our names.
“That’s a great idea,” I tell Vanessa.
“Just killing two birds with one stone—raising money
and
getting rid of all those eggs.”
“It’s perfect.”
She puts a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Lina. For our next fundraiser, we’re having a book sale.”
Another genius plan. It’s great having a brainiac for a best friend.
Quien bien te quiere te hará llorar –
Those who love you the most will make you cry
O
n the walk home, Vanessa says, “Will you carry Duchess for a while?”
She hands me her potato baby, and I take hold right above the twisty.
“Not like that!” she says. “You’re swinging her by the hair. You’ve probably disconnected her neck or something.”
“It’s a bag of potatoes, Vanessa.”
“That bag of potatoes is my homemaking project, and I plan to get an A.” She carefully takes the “baby” from me. “Now make
a cradle with your arms,” she says.
I make a cradle, and she gently places the baby there. It’s a lumpy thing, and since the potatoes are in a mesh bag, dirt
gets on my arms.
“Your baby needs a bath,” I tease, but she ignores me.
We get to her house and enter through the kitchen door.
“It’s me,” Vanessa calls to her mom in the other room.
Then she runs to the restroom, and while she’s gone, I hide the potato baby in the fridge. She comes back and searches all
over the kitchen, begging for clues.
“Lina!” she scolds when she finds Duchess. “Babies
die
in the cold.” She grabs the baby and holds it against her chest as if to warm it. “Wait till I get my hands on
your
next project,” she says.
Vanessa’s only pretend-mad. First chance I get, I’m going to kidnap her baby and send a ransom note for ten bucks. I might
even put a French fry in the envelope the way real kidnappers put thumbs, little toes, or ears to show they’re serious.
“Let’s go tell my mom about the carnival,” Vanessa says. She wraps the potato baby in a towel and carefully puts it on the
table. I guess Duchess is asleep. Apparently, leaving a baby on the kitchen table is not as bad as carrying it by the hair.
As soon as Vanessa’s satisfied, we head to the living room, where her mom’s watching TV.
Ms. Cantu always gets home before we do. She used to be a stay-at-home mom, but after her divorce, she became the odd-job
queen. She’s a part-time office assistant at Ray High School, where my dad teaches. She sells Avon. And two or three times
a month, people rent her decorations and hire her to set up dance halls for their weddings or
quinceañeras.