The Skirt

HOW TÍA LOLA CAME TO
VISIT
STAY,
Julia Alvarez

THE ELEVATOR FAMILY,
Douglas Evans

THE INK DRINKER,
Éric Sanvoisin

A STRAW FOR TWO,
Éric Sanvoisin

THE CITY OF INK DRINKERS,
Éric Sanvoisin

LITTLE RED INK DRINKER,
Éric Sanvoisin

A
fter stepping off the bus, Miata Ramirez turned around and gasped, “Ay!” The school bus lurched, coughed a puff of stinky exhaust, and made a wide turn at the corner. The driver strained as he worked the steering wheel like the horns of a bull.

Miata yelled for the driver to stop. She
started running after the bus. Her hair whipped against her shoulders. A large book bag tugged at her arm with each running step, and bead earrings jingled as they banged against her neck.

“My skirt!” she cried loudly. “Stop!”

She had forgotten her
folklórico
skirt. It was still on the bus. She and her best friend, Ana, both fourth graders, had been bothered by boys. The two girls moved from seat to seat. The boys followed and taunted them with a rubber frog. Giggling, the girls moved away from Larry and Juan. They especially moved far away from Rodolfo, a boy with green eyes and hair so shiny black that it was nearly blue. He was trying to write his name on their arms and asked them to play basketball with him after school.

“Come on,” he had argued. “It’s Friday. There is no school tomorrow.”

But Miata and Ana had ignored him as they moved from seat to seat. They looked out the window and nibbled secretly on animal crackers when the boys weren’t bothering them.

“Please stop!” Miata yelled as she ran after the bus. Her legs kicked high and her lungs burned from exhaustion.

She needed that skirt. On Sunday after church she was going to dance
folklórico
. Her troupe had practiced for three months. If she was the only girl without a costume, her parents would wear sunglasses out of embarrassment. Miata didn’t want that.

The skirt had belonged to her mother when she was a child in Hermosillo, Mexico. What is Mom going to think? Miata asked herself. Her mother was always scolding Miata for losing things. She lost combs, sweaters, books, lunch
money, and homework. One time she even lost her shoes at school. She had left them on the baseball field where she had raced against two boys. When she returned to get them, the shoes were gone.

Worse, she had taken her skirt to school to show off. She wanted her friends to see it. The skirt was old, but a rainbow of shiny ribbons still made it pretty. She put it on during lunchtime and danced for some of her friends. Even a teacher stopped to watch.

What am I going to do now? Miata asked herself. She slowed to a walk. Her hair had come undone. She felt hot and sticky.

She could hear the bus stopping around the corner. Miata thought of running through a neighbor’s yard. But that would only get her in trouble.

“Oh, man,” Miata said under her breath. She felt like throwing herself on the ground and crying. But she knew that would only make things worse. Her mother would ask, “Why do you get so dirty all the time?”

Miata turned the corner and saw a paper plane sail from the rear window. It hung in the air for a second and then crashed into a ragged rosebush as the bus drove off. She carefully plucked the plane from the bush. When she unfolded it she discovered Rodolfo’s math quiz. He had a perfect score. A gold star glittered under his name.

“He’s smart,” she said. “For a boy.”

She crumpled the paper plane and looked up. The bus was now out of sight. So was her beautiful skirt.

“Darn it,” Miata muttered. Shrugging her book bag over her shoulder, she
started walking home. Miata wanted to blame the boys but knew it was her fault. She should have told the boys to leave Ana and her alone. She should have snatched that frog and thrown it out the window.

What am I going to do now? she asked herself. She prayed that Ana would find the skirt on the bus. She’s got to see it, Miata thought.
It’s right there. Just look, Ana
.

As Miata rounded the corner onto her block she saw her brother, Little Joe, and his friend Alex. They were walking with cans smashed onto the heels of their shoes, laughing and pushing each other. Their mouths were fat with gum.

Little Joe waved a dirty hand at Miata. Miata waved back and tried to smile.

“Start us?” Joe asked. “We’re going to have a race.”

Miata stopped and said, “Okay, but make it fast.”

Little Joe and Alex lined up. Bodies leaning, they were ready to race. She counted,
uno … dos …
, and on
tres
they were off. Miata pressed her hands to her ears. The racket of the cans was deafening.

Her brother was the first to touch the tree.

“I won,” Little Joe said.

But Alex argued because one of Little Joe’s cans had come off his shoe. “You cheated,” Alex yelled.

“No, I didn’t,” Little Joe yelled back. His hands were doubled into fists.

Miata left them arguing. She climbed the steps to her house. She was troubled. If Ana doesn’t pick up the skirt, she
thought, I’ll have to dance in a regular skirt.

It was Friday, late afternoon. It looked like a long weekend of worry.

M
iata’s family had moved from Los Angeles. Their new home was in Sanger, a small town in the San Joaquin Valley. Her father had gotten tired of the bad air and the long commute to his job at an auto-parts store. One day when he returned home, he called his wife and children to the kitchen table. He asked what
they thought about moving to a different place.

At first Miata didn’t like the idea of moving. But now she was living in a house, not an apartment. Now she was in the dance club at school. Now she had a best friend, Ana. The move had been good for Miata.

Her mother, Alicia, came into the living room just as Miata was throwing her book bag onto the floor. The book bag landed with a crash.