Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe

by Carlos Hernandez

  “I thought you’d say that. You know why?”

  “Why?”

  She walked over to Aventura and bent toward her, hands behind her back. “Because you’re a real artist.”

  Aventura smiled.

  “An artist,” Principal Torres said, straightening, hands on hips, “who must be punished for putting her hands on another student. Luckily, during our conversation the absolute perfect punishment has occurred to me.”

  “Okay,” said Aventura, standing at ease, hands behind her back, like a condemned soldier facing a firing squad. “Whatever you think is fair, ma’am.”

  “Well, I think it’s more than fair to make you finish what you started. Your punishment is that you have to stay on as the director of Rompenoche.”

  “Okay. Yes. That’s more than fair.”

  “I am not finished!” Principal Torres resumed her strolling around the office. “I also believe it’s important that you learn how to negotiate and compromise by using words instead of violence. So that’s exactly what you’re going to do: with the very person that you hurt, and who hurt you. Therefore, I am making Sal Vidón codirector of Rompenoche.”

  “Whatnowwaitnowhat?” I jumbled.

  Principal Torres leaned against her desk and crossed her arms. “You heard me, Sal. The beauty is, this will be your punishment as well, for performing an unauthorized magic trick that threw the whole school into a tizzy for a solid twenty minutes, as well as for the rudeness you showed Gabi, which led to our current crisis.”

  “Oh,” I said. Because, what else could I say?

  “Now,” Principal Torres continued after she made good and sure I wasn’t going to sass her back. She turned around, grabbed a pad and pen off her desk, and scratched out a note. “Aventura, take this to your homeroom teacher and have her excuse your absence”—she ripped the page off the pad and started scribbling on a new sheet—“and then take this to your first-period teacher to excuse your absence from their class today. Come back here after you’ve delivered those, and we’ll start discussing how we can fix as much as we can in the time that we have. I’m thinking we will convene an emergency school assembly at fifth period to inform everyone and prepare them for some big changes. Okay?”

  Aventura grabbed both notes and took off like she was late for a very important date. “See you in a minute!” She left, but then opened the door again, sticking only her bunny head back inside. “And thank you, ma’am. You’re really good at tough love.”

  Principal Torres leaned against her desk again and looked at Aventura over her glasses. “No has visto nada todavía. Wait until I sic Gabi on it. Then you can talk to me about tough love.”

  Aventura laughed. Then, after one last smile, she was gone for real.

  Yeah, time for me to get gone, too, and quick. “Well,” I said, still facing the door, “that all worked out all right, didn’t it?” I got up, stretched. “Life lessons learned, apologies accepted, and maybe, just maybe, a few friendships deepened.” I clapped once and rubbed my hands together. “So I guess I should be going to homeroom, too. If you’ll just write me one…of…those…passes…”

  Principal Torres was behind her desk, sitting in her office chair again. How had she even gotten there so fast? Hands folded on the desktop, staring at me like she’d just caught me feeding laxatives to her dog.

  “We have unfinished business, Mr. Vidón,” she said.

  OKAY, SAL, EASY. DON’T overreact. You’ve gotten this far. Just play along, see where she’s going with this.

  I sat down again, cool as the drool of a long-dead ghoul. “We do, Principal Torres?”

  We stared at each other, eye to unblinking eye. We both smiled patiently, utterly pleasantly, unshakably agreeably. She was waiting for me to crack. She could wait until the sun went red and I wouldn’t.

  She moved first. Ha. I won.

  But then I lost. Her movement consisted of her reaching over to the computer screen on her desk and rotating it around so I could see it. She typed an address in the search bar, and a web page came up called Tomorrow’s Physics Today! It looked like an online fashion magazine, full of flashy clickbait headlines on the front page. Well, clickbait for nerds: “The TRUTH about Sub-Atomic Teleportation that the Scientific Community DOES Want You to Know About!”; “This ONE WEIRD TRICK Will Teach You How to Understand How Light Is BOTH a Wave AND a Particle!”; “Meet New Single Stars Just DYING to Hook Up with ROGUE PLANETS for Some HOT ‘N’ HEAVY Solar-System Formation!”

  But those were just links to articles. They weren’t the headline. The headline of Tomorrow’s Physics Today! was “These Super-Genius Scientists Are Quietly Keeping Our Universe from ANNIHILATING ITSELF!”

  And beneath the headline was a picture of Papi and Dad: The Final Frontier, smiling like idiots.

  I turned into an ice sculpture of myself.

  While I was frozen solid, Principal Torres walked around to the front of her desk and leaned against it as she spoke to me. “For the parent-teacher conferences I conduct during Rompenoche, I try to find out a bit about the parents, get to know them a little before we talk about their kids. That’s what led me to find this article about the amazing scientific work your papi is doing. I mean, I’ve met the man before, of course, but I had no idea the extent to which he was doing cutting-edge work in…what is his specialty called again? ‘Calamity physics’? What a name, right? ‘Calamity.’ Pretty scary-sounding, if you ask me.

  “So after I read the article, I had to find more. I read everything about calamity physics I could grab. Oh, a lot of it was well over my head. But still, all those articles got me thinking. I couldn’t help but remember the story Mrs. Waked told me a few weeks back about your performance in her class for show-and-tell. Do you remember, Sal? How you told the whole class that you had the ability to grab things from other universes? Oh, they all thought you were joking! That you had found a way to fool Gabi’s lie detector! I mean, everybody knows you can’t just reach into a whole other universe and pull out, oh, I don’t know, a whole raw chicken. That’s impossible. Physically impossible.

  “Or maybe not, for the kid of a calamity physicist. I started having these wild thoughts that maybe, somehow, you had told the truth that day. That you had reached into a different universe and yoinked poultry right out of it.

  “But I didn’t have any proof. I hadn’t seen it happen myself. There was no physical evidence. It was all just wild speculation, sensational articles by Gabi in the Rotten Egg, nothing I could act on. Y yo no toco mentiras sin guantes.” I hadn’t heard that old saying before; she noticed, and added in English: “I don’t get my hands dirty, messing around with lies.

  “But now. Now, Mr. Vidón. Now, I have personally witnessed you go into a bathroom with my own two eyes, and I saw you not come out of it again. Once we unlocked the door, I scoured every inch of that room myself, and I had Mr. Milagros check for any conceivable way you could have gotten out. Nothing. Nada. Impossible. You couldn’t have escaped.

  “But what’s even more impossible is that, when you reappeared, you reappeared inside the very same locker out of which you were said to have planted a chicken from another universe. What. A. Coincidence!

  “But maybe you planned it that way, right? All part of the show? According to Aventura, you even got Yasmany in on the act, and possibly Gabi. This is all one huge misunderstanding! You were just putting on another performance! Isn’t that right, Mr. Vidón? You’re going to try to convince me this was all another magic trick, right?”

  Chacho, there weren’t enough Sal-size diapers on the planet. I said absolutely nothing.

  Something about my face must have shown her how hard she was coming at me. She dialed her expression back from “executioner who loves her job” to “exterminator who secretly loves bugs more than people.” She sighed and slid her back down the desk until she was sitting crossed-legged on the floor in front of me. I had to look down to meet her eyes.

  “When I talked to your parents over the
summer, before school started,” she said—serious still, but minus the acid—“they told me they were worried about you adjusting to a new school. They told me about your diabetes. They explained how you’d been affected been by the death of your mami. They didn’t know if Culeco would be the right place for you.

  “But then they told me you are a magician. And I was so happy! ¿Sabes lo que les dije? I said, ‘I love magicians! We need him! Culeco needs more magic.’”

  “Bet you’re regretting saying that now,” I said. There was no need for me to speak in circles or try to misdirect. She’d seen through all my tricks.

  But I guess I hadn’t seen through all of her tricks, because she surprised me again. “No, Mr. Vidón. I don’t regret it at all. Because in the three and a half weeks you’ve been here at Culeco, I have come to understand that you are a wonderful young man.”

  She smiled an actual, unironic smile, the first one in a long while. “Don’t look so surprised, Mr. Vidón. I have evidence. You know I don’t draw conclusions without evidence. Do you know the best proof I have that you are a wonderful person?”

  “What?”

  “A chicken.”

  I couldn’t help it—I laughed. I made What?! shoulders. “How does a chicken prove anything?”

  She stood and resumed her leaning position against the desk. “I’ve dealt with a lot of bullying cases in my day. Easily one of the worst parts of the job. A bully can destroy a kid. Leave permanent scars, and not just on their skin. They can even turn other kids into bullies. It’s the worst. I hate bullying.

  “So here you are, third day of school, when Yasmany comes after you. But you have a secret no one knows about. Maybe you picked up a very special gizmo off your papi’s workbench before you left for school, eh? That was show and tell day in Mrs. Waked’s class, wasn’t it? Maybe you were going to show the kids something really amazing. At any rate, when Yasmany started threatening you, you remembered the very special gizmo in your pocket. Fear as much as anything else made you flip the switch.”

  What the heck was she talking about? What gizmo?

  But she was on a roll, excited by the story she was spinning. So I didn’t let my face say a thing. I just let her go.

  “You flipped the switch,” she said, looking up and making her fingers explode, “and the possibilities of the multiverse opened up to you. The many worlds became your banquet table. You could have brought in anything from anywhere to help you. You could have done some stupid, dangerous, hurtful things in that moment.” Her face hardened. “You could have been extremely destructive, if you’d wanted to.” And then it lightened again. “But instead, you brought in a chicken. A chicken! Somehow, you figured the best way to get a bully to stop bullying you was to put a chicken in his locker!”

  I shrugged. “Worked, didn’t it?”

  “Splendidly. Marvelously. And, looking back on it now—hilariously. You chose a chicken because it was funny.”

  “People like funny.”

  She started counting on her fingers. “And then, in my office, you asked me not to expel Yasmany. You wanted to show mercy to the kid who, just a few minutes ago, had threatened you. And when Gabi’s little brother was in the hospital, you brought Gabi her homework, and then you spent a weekend there, working with her on your project for Mrs. Waked’s class together. Oh, by the way, how’s little Iggy doing?”

  “Oh. Um…Fine!” I said, and that’s all I said, nothing at all about why he seemed to be doing pretty okay these days, nothing to do with me. Zip my lips and call it quits.

  “You know about Iggy because you and Gabi are friends now. And so are you and Yasmany. When I asked you to be Yasmany’s friend and help him out—well, look at you now! You’ve got him performing ‘magic tricks’”—she made the biggest air quotes in the history of air quotes—“with you!

  “And just now, Aventura Rios, who has one of the best heads on any pair of shoulders of any middle schooler in the country, thinks you’re ‘decent.’ I mean, the fact that you became so upset when you accidentally hurt her feelings shows what a big heart you have. I believed you when you said you couldn’t face her. I think the only reason you used your papi’s calamity gadget today was because, well, you really couldn’t face her. I think most people would have done what you did, if they could have. But unlike most people in that situation, you had a trick up your sleeve that would allow you to make an absolutely spectacular escape. And let’s face it, Sal. You like spectacular escapes. You are a showman, after all.”

  I stuck my tongue in my cheek. Gonna have to watch how much I say that from now on. At least out loud.

  She leaned close enough to me that her huge hat eclipsed the ceiling lights. “My point is, Mr. Vidón, that you’re good. You make mistakes, but you’re a good person with a big heart. You’ve proven it time and again, and I’ve been keeping the receipts.”

  She was being so nice to me. So why did it feel like my heart would burst?

  “But,” she went on, “you have a lot to learn. I’m pretty sure your papi didn’t create his scientific apparatuses so you could use them to pull chickens out of other universes.”

  I almost said Why do you keep saying I’m using a tool of some kind to break the universe? I’m not! I can do it just by relaxing! But I caught myself in time and thought about exactly what she had said. Papi had not created scientific apparatuses so I could pull chickens out of other universes. So I wasn’t lying when I answered, “That’s true, Principal Torres.”

  (And look, I’m not an idiot. The Goody Two-shoes part of my brain—it’s very small, but very shrill—started yelling, This is another lie of omission, Sal! You’re falling into your old bad habits again, of treating every conversation like a fencing match instead of a way of sharing and communing with other people. When are you going to start talking to people like someone who wants real human relationships?

  When the universe is fixed, I replied to my brain. And then I gave the signal, and the rest of my big, fat brain lobes dogpiled on the itty-bitty nagging part, and I couldn’t hear it anymore.)

  “You still with me, Sal?” asked Principal Torres, a smidge of concern wrinkling her forehead.

  “Yes,” I replied, returning to her.

  “Good. Because this is the most important part. I’m asking you to leave Culeco—”

  I literally physically startled. “What?! You’re expelling me?!”

  Eyebrows up. “No, Mr. Vidón. You’ll know when I’m expelling you, cross my heart. I am asking you to leave Culeco, go home, empty your pockets, and then return to school.”

  “Empty my pockets?”

  She pushed her glasses up her nose with one meaningful finger. “Here’s the deal. Until further notice, you are to come to school with empty pockets. No tricks, no gags, no props, no toys, no gadgets, nada nada limonada. If you do, it will be hasta luego, hechicero. I mean it. I would hate to expel you, but I will expel you, Sal Vidón.”

  I had four thoughts at once fighting to get out of my mouth, like four actors and one door in every sitcom ever. The one that finally made it out first was “My diabetes stuff.”

  She looked up. She’d forgotten about that. “Right. Okay, well, of course, you may bring everything you need to manage your diabetes. Don’t you have a fanny pack where you keep it all?”

  “No.” I showed her my medically approved tactical all-weather medical transport system. “It isn’t a fanny pack.”

  Her eyes said, Chacho, that’s a fanny pack, but her mouth said, “Whatever that is, can you keep everything you need to manage your care in it?”

  “Yes. Except my smartwatch. The padres want me to wear the smartwatch now.”

  She nodded. “So you can bring your smartwatch and you can bring your tactical smack-tical whatever-you-said. But your pockets must be empty.”

  “Wallet? ID? Books? Protractor? Colored pencils? Gym clothes? Scientific calcu—”

  “Whatever school supplies you need,” she interrupted, “must be in your backpack
. I will periodically ask you to empty that backpack and your pockets to make sure you’re following the rules. And I’d better not ever find anything that looks like your papi might have invented it.”

  “My GOTCHA! stamp?”

  She tilted her head, then shook it.

  “But how will I get Gabi?”

  “You’ll have to get creative, I guess. Can we stop playing games now? You know what I am asking you to do, why I am asking you to do it, and the consequences if you disobey me. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please explain it back to me loud and clear so we can be sure.”

  “You are going to expel me if you catch me with any of my papi’s calamity physics stuff at school.”

  “That is correct. I would like you to give me your word that you will not bring any of your papi’s equipment to school. Will you do that?”

  I did not want to give her my word. “I give you my word.”

  She liked that. She relaxed a little. “Okay. You’ve given me good reasons to trust you so far. So I am going to trust you now. Do you need me to call your parents to come pick you up and take you home?”

  “No,” I said, and didn’t add no another forty times in a row, even though I wanted to. “It’s fastest if I walk home.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But do me a favor: As you’re walking, take a little time to digest what we’ve talked about. If you do, I think you’ll understand that I’m not punishing you for the sake of punishing you. Sometimes, we have to deny ourselves things we want for the sake of the greater good. I’m trying to teach you to look at the bigger picture.”

  It hadn’t been half an hour since I’d been on a space station, watching an alternate Earth spin beneath me, terrified that this Earth, too, could lose half of Florida and all of Cuba and the Bahamas if I didn’t play my cards right. But please, Principal Torres, tell me more about the bigger picture, I thought, imagining those words on the Willy Wonka meme.

  But out loud I just said, “Okay.”