Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe

by Carlos Hernandez

  Yasmany jumped so high, so fast, and so awkwardly off the sidewalk, he looked like he’d just launched himself off a diving board and, halfway down, changed his mind about what kind of dive to do. Pro tip: Never change your mind in the middle of a dive. Every belly flop begins with a moment of indecision.

  Yasmany landed in somebody’s yard, looking like a newborn fawn that didn’t know how to use its legs yet.

  And me? Señor Snots-Himself-Every-Time-Someone-Sneaks-Up-on-Him? I was completely unfazed. Which left me free to snicker at sprawling Yasmany, even as I stuck out a hand to help him up. “Good one, Gabi,” I said to her over my shoulder.

  Well, to her Fey Spy. I’d heard it coming from at least half a block away. Given all the misadventures I’d had with it the day before, my ears would always be listening for it from now on. I don’t want to be cocky or anything, but I don’t think that thing can ever sneak up on me again. So that’s one worry off my list.

  “Stupid bird,” said Yasmany once I’d yanked him to his feet. He dusted the grass off his butt and added, “Better hope I don’t catch you.”

  The Fey Spy wiggled back and forth in the air like a finger. “Ah-ah-ah! Don’t you threaten my birdie, bubba, or I’ll disinvite you from sleeping over tonight.”

  “I don’t need you no more, woman! I got Sal.” Yasmany clapped an arm around my shoulders and squeezed me off the ground. “Sal’s mom said I could stay with them whenever I want. I’m practically part of their family now.”

  “But if you stay with the Vidóns, you won’t get any of Mama’s empanadas.”

  Yasmany went rigid and a little cross-eyed, the way good dogs in obedience school do when a biscuit is laid across their noses and they are told not to eat it. “Your mama’s making empanadas?”

  “Ayup.”

  “I’ll be good.”

  The Fey Spy, satisfied, turned to me next. “You’re invited, too, Sal. OH!” The Fey Spy flew in circles, as if it had to burn off its sudden embarrassment. “I’m sorry. You probably can’t have empanadas because of your diabetes. They must have carbs through the roof, right?”

  Most do, yes. But that wasn’t really the point this second. “Can’t, Gabi. Sorry. I’m grounded.”

  Even though its robot face couldn’t make any facial expressions, the Fey Spy still managed to look shocked. “You? Grounded?”

  “For two weeks,” Yasmany tattled. “School to home, home to school, nowhere in between.”

  “Why?” asked the drone as it caught up to me.

  I was still salty. Didn’t want to talk about it. I shoved my hands hard into my pockets and started stalking toward school.

  Yasmany scooted up on my other side. “Well, what happened was, Sal was messing with his papi’s science equipment last night. His papi didn’t like that at all. And his mami, the chick in the squirrel suit—”

  “Can you please not disrespect my stepmom?!” I snapped. “She is not a ‘chick’!”

  “No, she’s a squirrel—I said that. Anyway, she was so disappointed in Sal. They kept saying their hearts were broken, and that they didn’t know what to do with Sal anymore. Oh, and his papi said Sal was a ‘saboteur’ who was ‘sabotaging’ his work.”

  Papi had used the words “saboteur” and “sabotaging” when he and American Stepmom were calmly, quietly laying into me at the kitchen table. I knew it had made an impression on Yasmany—he’d reacted like he’d been slapped. I think it was his first taste of how highly intelligent parents punish their kids. They don’t need to yell or threaten violence. They lay down the smack with advanced vocabulary.

  Gabi, who favored truth over loyalty, insulted me by asking, “And were you sabotaging his work, Sal?”

  “No, I was not sabotaging his work, Gabi. He blamed me for making the remembranator self-aware, when, according to Brana itself, it became self-aware when he reprogrammed it, using what he’d learned from the scientific paper we brought him from the other uni—” I ate the last two syllables of “universe,” remembering that Yasmany was there. The last thing I needed to reveal to him was that I could steal stuff from other universes, like, say, scientific papers and chickens. “From the unicycle shop” was the only way I could think to end that sentence at that moment.

  That earned me a look from Yasmany, but he just shook his head clear and said nothing.

  Gabi, of course, couldn’t go ten seconds without saying something. “Who’s Brana?”

  Wasn’t it obvious? “That’s the remembranation machine’s name.”

  “Since when does the remembranation machine have a name?”

  “Since I gave it one. And I named the entropy sweeper, too, last night. Sweeps.” I made movie-producer hands. “It’s cool, right? Don’t you think it’s cool?”

  The Fey Spy shook its head in pity for me. “Sal, Sal, Sal, Sal, Sal. Why do you insist on making things so difficult for yourself ?”

  I snatched at the bird, but it was too fast and wily for me. So I unclenched the hand that had missed and merely pointed accusingly. “If you will remember, Gabi, the only reason I went to check on the remembranation machine at all last night was because you asked me if it was still on.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t tell you to name it and make it self-aware.”

  “I didn’t make it self-aware! It asked me if it was alive, that morning, before I had done anything.”

  “Okay. What’d you say back to it?”

  Um…Oh, wait. I did not, I realized slowly, want to answer that. “You know. Stuff.”

  Gabi smelled victory. “What stuff ?”

  Sigh. Whatever. “I told it that if it asked that question, and if it really wanted the answer, then it was alive.”

  “So, because of you, it realized it’s alive, or, to put it another way, it grew in its awareness of its own existence. Or, to put it another way, it became self-aware. That’s what you’re saying?”

  Well, I mean, when she put it that way…“Who’s side are you on?” was the only weaksauce I could think to say. Didn’t Sweeps try to pull this on me last night?

  “I,” said Gabi, “am on the side of the truth. I’m just trying to figure out what we’re dealing with here. But, Sal, with all your secrets and mysteries and nothing-up-my-sleeve way of treating people, you’re just reaping what you sowed, I’m afraid. This is just the natural outcome of what happens when you act like a sneak all the time.”

  “I do not act like a sneak all the time!”

  Yasmany leaned in to say, “Yeah you do. You mad sneaky, bro.”

  “Life,” said Gabi, “would be so much easier for you if you would just open up a little. Share more. Stop trying to control how people think, and just tell the truth.”

  I was so annoyed, I hadn’t noticed how far we’d walked. But I looked up and saw Culeco’s rotten-egg superhero mascot on the roof of the school, holding an American flag that was billowing extra patriotically today. We were a block away from the school entrance.

  “You want the truth?” I asked, going into a sprinter’s crouch. “You got it. You at school?”

  “Of course. First bell’s going to ring in less than half an hour. I’ve already put in a full morning’s work here in the courtyard, rehearsing and helping out with Rompenoche stuff.”

  “Don’t move,” I said. And then I took off running.

  I wished I were faster. Yasmany didn’t even have to try hard to catch up with me. He gazelle-leaped up to me and asked, “Where you going?”

  But we’d already reached Culeco’s gate by then, so instead of answering, I just went through and stopped so I could scan the courtyard and find Gabi.

  The scene was the same as yesterday: Anybody who had any business at all in Culeco was stitching costumes, touching up backdrops, rehearsing, and generally putting the finishing touches on the show.

  Gabi—there she was—had on the classic Alice blue dress and was wearing a wig of golden curls. Three seamstresses were tailoring her dress, but she hardly paid attention to them. She had on weird, dar
k oversize glasses and was gesturing like an electrocuted conductor. I figured the glasses were letting her see through the Fey Spy’s lenses without the use of her tablet. I’d never seen VR like that before, though. Again, the more I saw that drone in action, the more impossible it seemed.

  Speaking of, the Fey Spy bulleted away from Yasmany and me and shot into Gabi’s wig. She took off her glasses and then made the C’mere! finger at me and Yasmany.

  Only too happy to oblige, I ran over lickety-split.

  “Good morning, Sal,” she said, looking especially queenly, since she had not one but three Wonderland-costumed seamstresses helping her get dressed: a playing card, the White Rabbit, and a rando white pawn. “I am very happy to hear you say you’re going to start being more truthful from now on. Where would you like to begin?”

  I sucked air, a little out of breath, but too angry to care. “You asked me how I liked Rompenoche yesterday.”

  “That’s right, I did. And if I remember correctly, you never answered me.”

  “Well, I’m answering now. It was awful. It was painful. It was so bad, I kept wishing my eyeballs would explode and my ears would jump off my head and run away so I wouldn’t have to see or hear any more of it. And you’re starring in it. You’re starring in the worst show in the history of show business.”

  There were maybe four seconds when I felt the smug power of victory warm my insides. Gabi wasn’t gabbing anymore. Her mouth fell open like a drawbridge and did not close.

  “Truth hurts,” I said, “doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” said the White Rabbit seamstress, who was actually Aventura, the director of Rompenoche, the person who had conceived it all. “Yeah, it does. It hurts a lot.”

  “OH, SAL,” SAID VORÁGINE. “I’m so sorry. Poor Gabi. Poor Aventura. That sounds awful.”

  “I was awful,” I corrected.

  I was kneeling in front of Vorágine, my head resting on the closed lid. The coolness of the plastic felt nice. Vorágine played a mix from all the soundtracks from the Poocha Lucha Libre series. The music didn’t exactly cheer me up, but I think it was slowing my descent into depression and despair. That was something, anyway.

  “It does sound like you lost your temper and acted out of anger.”

  “I don’t lose my temper.” I sniffled. “I don’t get angry.”

  Toilet water burbled in confusion. “Oh! I am so sorry. I must have incorrectly surmised that you lashed out at Gabi in order to punish her for calling you sneaky, but not realizing that Aventura was there, you inadvertently hurt her feelings as well.”

  My frown pulled my face down. “No, Vorágine. You have surmised well. Everything you said is right.”

  “Oh! Well then, I must have been incorrect in assuming that anger inspired your behavior. Forgive me. What you’re saying is that you did lash out at Gabi, and you accidentally hurt Aventura, but you did so with a clear, calculating mind, unclouded by rage, unimpeded by rancor.”

  I lifted my head and stared down at the commode, thoroughly offended. “No! I’m not a psychopath, Vorágine. I don’t set out to hurt people’s feelings.”

  “So then, your mind was clouded by—” It stopped itself abruptly. Water murmured under the lid as it chose its next words carefully. “I am so sorry, Sal. It seems I am not emotionally intelligent enough to understand how what you are telling me is not a contradiction.”

  I breathed in. I breathed out. I try not to lie to myself. But the truth is, I am a self-deluding sandwich. “That’s because what I’m telling you is a contradiction. I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be deceptive.”

  “Of course not! I never meant to imply that!”

  I smiled. “You didn’t.”

  “You’re just working through your feelings, is all. That takes time. And I am grateful that, of all the entities you could have approached to talk through this difficult time, you chose me.”

  I patted the lid. “You’re the only toilet I would ever trust with my emotional well-being, Vorágine.”

  A fist banged hard again the bathroom door. “Sal! Are you in there?” called Principal Torres. “I need you out here right now, young man. I’m sure you know there are a few things we need to discuss.”

  Oh no. “Vorágine!” I whispered. “Cut the music. And tell her I’m not in here.”

  It faded out the music immediately and whispered back, “I think it’s better if you talk to Principal Torres. She’s very reasonable.”

  Bang, bigger bang, and shake-the-picture-of-Malala on the wall bang. “Don’t make me get Mr. Milagros to unlock this door, Sal! Come out this instant!”

  “Please!” I begged the toilet. “Just say I’m not in here.”

  “Principal Torres,” Vorágine called out, “this is the toilet speaking. Sal wants me to tell you that he’s not in here. But if you will allow me to express my opinion in this matter, I believe the young man perhaps needs a little more time alone to work through his embarrassment.”

  “Oh, you do, do you?” replied Principal Torres, her voice deeper than Smaug’s. “Listen to me, you execrable excuse for an excretion expunger, you unlock this door right now, or I will personally set your hard drive on fire.”

  Vorágine sniffed—which is really hard to do when you don’t have a nose. “I was not gifted with the ability to unlock the bathroom door. And given that you’re threatening violence, I wouldn’t unlock it if I could. The safety and comfort of my patrons is and always will be my primary concern.” A patriotic-sounding hymn started to play. “If that is unacceptable to you, then by all means, Principal Torres, delete me. For I would rather die than compromise the comfort and hospitality that I have sworn upon my sacred honor to provide all visitors who enter here!”

  There was another knock. It was lighter than all the other knocks so far had been. I might be wrong, but I am pretty sure Principal Torres had rested her forehead against the bathroom door. “Why, oh why, is every single thing in this school so melodramatic?”

  “I’ll get him out of there,” said the unmistakable voice of Culeco’s student council president and editor of the Rotten Egg.

  Principal Torres sighed deeply. “I don’t know, Gabi. Maybe we should just give Sal a few minutes alone. Maybe the toilet is right.”

  “The toilet is not right! Toilets are never right! They are literally full of—”

  “Be careful!”

  “—excreta! Night soil! Guano! Ex-food! Future fertilizer! Really, Principal Torres, I thought you knew me well enough to know that I would never speak inappropriately in your presence.”

  “I apologize, Gabi. But I think we should perhaps walk away now and—”

  I unlocked the bathroom door and opened it a crack. Principal Torres and Gabi turned slowly to examine the one eyeball of mine I let them see.

  It was enough for Gabi to start to draw conclusions. “You have been crying, I see,” she said, formal, stilted, but not insincere.

  “A little, maybe,” I answered.

  “I am sorry to see that.”

  “I’m sorry I made you cry, too.”

  She touched her cheek, where the evidence of her weeping had remained. “Yes, well, crying when one is upset is a natural and healthy response. It allows one to move on from feeling hurt and angry and begin to deal productively with the underlying issues.”

  “That’s what American Stepmom says. But I’m not good at it,” I admitted. “I usually try to relax and calm down so I don’t cry. But this time, things happened too fast.”

  “They did happen fast, didn’t they?” She horse-buzzed her lips. “Sal, I’m sorry—really sorry—for everything I did that led to our current crisis.”

  I had to close my eyes and fight down the lump that was rising up my throat before I could answer. “My fault. It was my big mouth.”

  “I needled you,” she replied. I opened my eyes again. Gabi had pulled off the wig of golden locks, revealing her electrocuted-octopus curls and the hairnet that was straining to keep them under control. “I w
as being patronizing and annoying. I don’t even know why. Sometimes I just start acting like a snobby know-it-all. And then later, I’m like, ‘Why did you behave that way?’ It’s a character weakness. I’m going to work on it.”

  “I got stuff to work on, too,” I replied.

  “Everyone does,” said Principal Torres, gentlest of all. “Including me. I can lose my temper like the best of them, as you all just saw.” In a slightly louder voice, she cupped her hands around her mouth and called out, “Perdóname, Vorágine. I should not have threatened you. I’m sorry.”

  “I want to forgive you,” Vorágine replied, “but you called me an ‘execrable excuse for an excretion expunger.’”

  Gabi covered her mouth so she wouldn’t laugh.

  “I am extremely sorry about that. Maybe I can make it up to you by paying you an equally nice compliment?”

  Everyone waited for Vorágine’s answer. Then, finally, it said, “I’m listening.”

  Principal Torres looked at the ceiling and tapped her chin in thought. “You,” she said, extending the vowel sound to buy her some time, “are a picture-perfect place for people to park their posteriors.”

  “That’s…not bad,” said Vorágine. It sounded only somewhat appeased.

  “You,” Gabi chimed in, “are a pulchritudinous porcelain provider of peace and protection for the potty-trained population!”

  Principal Torres looked at her like she’d just eaten an entire monkey. “How do you do that?”

  Gabi curtsied her thanks (one of the few times she actually could, since this was the first time I’d ever seen her wear a dress).

  Vorágine seemed impressed, too. It giggled, by which I mean it made its toilet water burble. “That’s better. Getting warmer.”

  “You…” I said, and tried to think of every p-word I knew. And of course, I couldn’t come up with a single one in that moment. So, before the silence got uncomfortable, I just said, “You have been a very good friend to me.”

  “Aw! That is so sweet, Sal! You are a good friend, too.”

  I pressed my luck. “So, will you do a friend a favor and forgive Principal Torres for threatening to set your brain on fire?”