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INTERROBANG FARM

April is definitely turning into a month of surprises. It's like every day is April Fool's Day. Any moment, Tyler is ex-pecting someone to jump out and say, SURPRISE! APRIL FOOL!

Take all the surprises that have come with his new job.

First of all, who would have thought he'd end up working for Mr. Rossetti? And then, who would have thought that Mr. Rossetti wouldn't be so cranky after all? Or that after losing Gramps, Tyler would find a grandfatherly friend again?

Not that Mr. Rossetti will ever replace Gramps. What Tyler feels toward the old man is probably similar to what the three Marías feel toward his grandmother. They already have a real grandmother back in Mexico, whose picture Alyssa brought back from her spring break. And yet, all three girls still call Tyler's grandmother Grandma, and they love visiting her. A lot of times, when Grandma picks up Tyler from work, she brings the girls along. Grandpa, they've started calling Mr. Rossetti.

Talk about surprises: Mr. Rossetti with Mexican granddaughters!

“They aren't Mexican. They were born here, fair and square!” Mr. Rossetti will correct anyone who gets it wrong. No one has corrected him on this point. Ofie and Luby are under strict instructions not to let on that Mari was born in Mexico. For that matter, they're not supposed to admit that their father and uncle don't have the permission papers they need to be here legally. “The least said the better,” Mom has instructed Grandma and the girls.

“Nonsense,” Grandma says under her breath.

According to Grandma, friendship—and that's what she has with Mr. Rossetti—means you help your friend become a better person. “How else are we supposed to improve our-selves?” she explains to Tyler and the girls. Slowly but surely, Grandma has been working on Mr. Rossetti's improvement, and that involves a lot of baking, visiting, and taking him to church on Sundays.

“It won't kill you, Joseph,” she tells him when he grum-bles. Mostly, Mr. Rossetti loves any excuse to get to see more of Grandma, whose sad spells seem much improved.

At school, Tyler learns about a new punctuation mark, which Mr. Bicknell calls the interrobang.

“The what?!” Kyle calls out.

“You just used it in your voice.” Mr. Bicknell laughs. Now there's someone who loves surprising his students. “An interrobang is a double punctuation mark: a question mark followed by an exclamation point. When you're surprised but you're not sure it's an April Fool's joke. ‘The what?!’ as Kyle just said. Any other examples?”

Tyler can come up with plenty of them. In fact, April is turning into a whole month of interrobangs.

Mr. Rossetti attending church?! Grandma going to the beauty parlor again?! Tyler headed for the nation's capital after being told by his parents that there was no way they could afford it?!

The girls’ mother, lost for over a year, finding her way back to the family again?!

This last surprise begins one spring evening when Mr. Cruz and Mari come to the Paquettes’ back door. Can her father have a word with the
patrones?

Tyler tags along as they all head for the den. But before he goes in, Mr. Cruz says something to Mari, nodding in Tyler's direction. Mari looks suddenly uncomfortable.

“My father says this is private.” Mari shrugs as if to say this is not her idea.

Tyler is not surprised. Recently, he has noticed how Mr.

Cruz—it's not exactly that he's unfriendly, but he seems to be watching Tyler closely as if he thinks Tyler is going to sur-prise him in a way he doesn't want to be surprised. It makes Tyler feel bad that Mari's father doesn't fully trust him for some reason Tyler is not even aware of.

As soon as he hears the back door bang shut, Tyler heads toward the den, where his parents are having a serious discussion. “This is one time when I do think we should call Homeland Security!” his mom is saying.

“What?! So they can track the husband back to our farm?!”

“Well, what do you propose to do?”

“I don't know.” His dad sighs. “I sure can't spare him even if it's just for a week. And how's he going to get there and back? I mean, it's not like he can hop on a plane. And as I told him, I don't have that kind of money lying around to loan him.”

“Tyler Maxwell Paquette!” His mother's voice startles Tyler. But she can't very well accuse him of eavesdropping. After all, Tyler is standing in the doorway with his mouth wide open.

“I only came back when I heard them leave,” Tyler de-fends himself. But both his parents are too upset to have the energy to scold him.

Tyler must look worried because his father says, “It's okay, son. Just your mother and I have a private matter we need to settle.”

“Up to your room, Tiger,” his mom adds.

Tyler interprets the order liberally as his mother just wanting him to go away and heads over to Grandma's house. It turns out that Mr. Cruz has already been by to ask if the girls can stay in Grandma's care while he travels to Texas. Their uncle will be staying on, but Tío Armando will have his hands full with what used to be a three- man job.

“But why's Mr. Cruz going to Texas?” Tyler wants to know.

Grandma closes her eyes as if she's hoping that it's all a nightmare that will disappear when she opens them again. “You might as well know because María will tell you any-how. Mr. Cruz has to go buy his wife back from some sleazy guys who are holding her hostage.”

“Buy her back?!” Tyler can't believe it. This is the kind of surprise that happens in the violent movies that his par-ents won't let him watch.

Grandma nods gravely. “I wouldn't go telling your par-ents, as I don't think Mr. Cruz gave them all the details. He's afraid of losing his job, poor man.” Ever since the Cruzes took her in when she ran away from home, Grandma has felt a special closeness to them.

“The little ones don't know, either,” Grandma adds. “Except for María, who has to translate for her father. Poor María.” Grandma sighs. “What a burden on that sensitive girl.”

“How much will it cost to buy her mom?” Tyler asks.

“Three thousand. Dollars, that is.” Grandma shakes her head as if she can't believe it.

Tyler can't either. Three thousand dollars is more than the $500 he has put together for his D.C. trip. More than the $860-plus he found in the boys’ bathroom. Now he can see what his parents mean about “that kind of money.” But then, his grandmother doesn't have that kind of money, either.

“Maybe we can raise it?” Tyler wonders aloud.

“That's more bake sales than I've got left in me.” Grandma smiles for the first time this evening.

The next day, Mari and her sisters are not at school. As he sits in class, Tyler worries that he'll get home and find them gone. The heaviness in his heart surprises him. It's the same feeling as when Gramps died, compounded by the fact that this is a whole family, and it's not heaven they're going to if they get deported.

After school, as he gets off the bus at Mr. Rossetti's, Tyler's surprised to see his grandmother's car in the driveway. Just inside the back door, Tyler finds Mr. Rossetti and Grandma sitting at the kitchen table. His grandmother has her checkbook open like when she's home paying bills.

Mr. Rossetti is as agitated as he was on town meeting night. There's a kink in his eyebrow and a frown on his forehead. “I disapprove wholeheartedly, Elsie, and I'm not going to be a part of it!”

“Who asked you to agree to anything, Joseph? You're just lending me the money, okay? Let's see … I'll need—”

“But I know what you're aiming to do with it.” Mr. Rossetti's voice sounds trembly and truly torn apart. “Sit down, son,” he says to Tyler. “Your grandmother here's being un-reasonable.”

“Unreasonable?!” Grandma puts a hand on her hip. “Wouldn't you move heaven and earth to get back someone you love?”

“Elsie, you haven't changed a bit since you were young! Always a dreamer.” Mr. Rossetti is shaking his head at her. “And I'm still trying to move heaven and earth to get you to notice me!”

Grandma's face softens with surprise. She sets her pen down and tucks a stray gray curl behind her ear. “Joseph Rossetti. I had no idea.”

“Precisely,” he says gruffly.

Tyler feels suddenly uncomfortable, like when he hap-pens into the den and Sara is “entertaining” her new boyfriend, Hawkeye. Arms wrapped around each other, they look like they are wrestling.

His grandma sighs, breaking the spell. “So what are we going to do to help out those poor girls and their father?”

Mr. Rossetti agrees with Mom. These smugglers are in Texas. That's American soil under the rule of law. Homeland Security can stand by, and just as Mr. Cruz goes in with the money, boom, they descend on the place. Maybe seeing how he has helped them round up criminals, Homeland Security will reward Mr. Cruz with a visa.

“And you call
me
a dreamer?!” Now it's Grandma shaking her head at Mr. Rossetti.

Tyler and Grandma swing by the trailer on their way home. Tyler has told her that the girls were not at school today “I haven't seen hide nor hair of them all day long, either,” Grandma remarks. “I don't know what we'd do without them,” she adds, mirroring Tyler's thoughts. “I know I've become so attached to the whole family.”

The men are still milking, but the girls are in the trailer, sitting in front of the TV. Instead of their silly
Dora
cartoons, they're watching a news special about all the protest marches going on in support of immigrant rights. “Papá wants us to tell him in case something is announced,” Ofie explains.

Mari accompanies Tyler and Grandma to the door, then slips out after them. “I don't want my sisters to hear,” she whispers. There are some new developments. Mr. Cruz phoned back the
coyotes,
which is what he calls the smugglers. He pleaded that he hasn't been able to come up with that kind of money. According to Mari, the
coyotes
lowered the amount to half! Her father and Tío Armando have come up with most of the money. Mari's uncles in California will put in the rest.

“My father thinks that maybe with all the demonstrations, the
coyotes
are all getting nervous to unload their cargo,” Mari adds.

Cargo?! Tyler can't believe a human being would think of another human being that way! But he knows what Mari means about the demonstrations. It's all over the news. In cities around the country, there have been big marches by people in favor of changing the laws to help immigrants. Just in Los Angeles, thousands upon thousands of people took to the streets. Then, a week before Tyler's 4-H club is supposed to go on its trip, there's a national strike. People who sup-port immigrants are asked to stay home from work. In D.C. there's a huge protest march. The camera sweeps over the crowd waving American and Mexican flags and chanting
“¡Sí, se puede!”
which Tyler proudly translates for his family. Yes, we can! Yes, we can!