by Emma Otheguy
“Why?” Jenn threw her arms up, in general frustration at moms.
Caro shrugged. “Gabriela’s the right—” She was about to say “the right amount of Puerto Rican,” but she corrected herself. “She’s Puerto Rican in the right ways, and my mom likes that.”
Jenn stopped walking. “You never talk about it. About Puerto Rico.”
It surprised Carolina, and she couldn’t respond. She thought about Puerto Rico all the time, thought about it in the cabin and in the woods, and every breeze, every droplet of water was measured against home. But she hadn’t told Jennifer about any of that; she’d kept the thoughts close to her heart and hadn’t said a word. She didn’t know what was stopping her.
“Well,” Jennifer added, “you talk about the trees. The flamboyán trees, with the red blossoms.”
Carolina almost laughed, but then she paused. “That’s because I’m Puerto Rican, or Cuban, or whatever I am, in that way: I like the trees, and the yards. It’s the colors, really. I like how the air felt at home, and how the ocean smelled.” Caro shook her head. “But Gabriela can dance the Fancy, and I can’t.”
“And even if the music is awful,” Jenn finished for her, “my mom would still be thrilled if I were suddenly into Chiquifancy. Almost-middle-schoolers are supposed to like Chiquifancy. We’re not supposed to like elves.”
Carolina agreed almost wholeheartedly, except she didn’t think Chiquifancy’s music was terrible. She liked the music, loved how Chiqui wove in so many different styles, rhythm blending with the Cuban flute, high and sweet. Carolina thought Chiqui’s music was joyous and true, but she couldn’t imagine dancing like that, moving her feet or her hips like Gabriela did, wearing her hair long down her back or up in a side sweep. No wonder Mami sometimes thought she was strange, to be Puerto Rican and Cuban all rolled into one and still too shy to dance the Fancy.
They reached the farmstand on the side of the road. The ground sloped down behind it, and there was a little house tucked away amidst the trees. While Jennifer and Carolina considered the flowers in black plastic containers, a screen door creaked open, and two women came out carrying cardboard boxes piled with vegetables.
“Lizbeth, you know we don’t have that kind of money,” said one of the women. “There’s no way we can compete with the developers around here.”
Carolina looked up from the stand. The woman who had spoken had short hair and skin a little darker than Mami’s.
“Still,” Lizbeth sighed, “if we had our own farm, we could start projects—big ones—and it would be ours, really ours, Alicia. We’ve been saving so long.” She balanced the box on one hip and flipped her ponytail over her shoulder. Her hair was wavy and golden, almost as long as Jennifer’s.
Alicia shook her head. “I think we’re going to be saving a lot longer.”
“We could do it now,” Lizbeth said confidently. “If one of the conservation organizations—” She stopped as they approached the farmstand. “Hi there!” she said to Jennifer and Carolina. She smiled, and the freckles on her cheekbones lifted up.
“Do you have everything you need?” Alicia asked. “Need any help?”
Carolina held up the flowers she had picked up, and noted the price sign taped to the side of the stand. She and Jennifer pulled their money out of their pockets and added up the total. Between them both, they had a little extra. Carolina knew she didn’t need to ask Jennifer before handing all the bills to Alicia.
Lizbeth started to count out change, but Carolina shook her head. “Couldn’t you keep it?” she asked shyly.
“She means for the farm,” Jennifer added. “I know farms cost a lot, but—” She shrugged.
Lizbeth put her hand to her heart. “That’s so sweet.”
Alicia grinned. “We can’t do that, you’re kids!” Carolina noticed now that she wore a tiny sparkling nose ring. “I’ll tell you what,” Alicia said. “Take these too.” She handed Jennifer a set of small white flowers. “They’ll look nice together.”
They waved good-bye, and Carolina and Jennifer headed back down the road, admiring their colorful flowers as they walked.
After a while, Carolina cleared her throat. “Señora Rivón—she was my art teacher—used to tell me that you always have to paint things like they really are, not like you think they should be. She said most of the time we don’t see things right, because we only see what we already think is there.” Carolina noticed now that there were cars zooming past them. “Maybe your mom just hasn’t seen you yet, not really.”
Jennifer walked ahead of Carolina, her chin resolute, perfectly parallel to the smooth blacktop. As they turned onto the back road that plunged into the woods, she said, “I’m not going to be who she wants to see. I’m going to be someone who makes elves even if I’m a million years old.” They paused on the soft gray gravel beneath the shady trees. Jennifer put her hands on her hips. “And that’s final.”
Daniel was under the big oak tree, poking the grass with a stick. There was something clenched tightly in his fist.
“Whatcha doing?” Carolina sat down beside him while Mami locked the car door.
“Nothing.” He opened his hand wide. “Just looking at my collection. Ben and I have been collecting cool things.” In his palm was a tiny pinecone, a twist of green twine from a hay bale, and a downy chicken feather.
“What are you going to do with the collection?”
Daniel stroked the chicken feather. “It could be a little blanket, for someone tiny.”
“Like an elf?”
“It’d be perfect for an elf.”
“I bet the elves could find something useful to do with the twine too.”
Mami interrupted. “Are you kids being silly again?”
Carolina looked up at Mami, into her brown eyes, lighter and more muted than Carolina’s own. The sun brought out highlights of red in Mami’s dark brown hair, and a tiny bit of sparkling silver. Carolina hadn’t realized that Mami had stopped dyeing her hair, not until she saw that bit of gray. “I don’t think it’s silly, Mami. I think it’s cool.”
She turned back to Daniel, conscious of Mami walking past them, leaving them outside as she headed into the house.
Daniel beamed up at Carolina. He stuffed his collection back in his pocket and gave her a big thumbs-up. “I think you’re cool,” he said.
“Wait a second!” Carolina grabbed Daniel by the shoulder. “Your tooth came out!”
Daniel spread his mouth wide with his fingers. “It happened this afternoon! It was really bloody.”
“Ewww.”
Daniel raced to the door. “Mami had to wash it off and put it in a ziplock baggie, but then Tía Cuca left it for the tooth fairy already! Come look!”
Daniel dragged Carolina to the kitchen counter, where the tooth fairy doll was standing. He scrambled up a stool and held open the pouch so Carolina could see his tooth, wrapped in a plastic baggie, inside. He patted the fairy’s skirts. “I know you’re going to bring me something good.”
“I bet she will!” Tía Cuca said from the stove, where she was making dinner.
“I’m going to see what Papi’s doing,” Daniel said, dashing out of the kitchen.
“Carolina, can you go check on Gabriela?” Tía Cuca asked. “She’s been in her bedroom all day.”
“I’m right here, Mom.” Gabriela shuffled into the kitchen wearing her sweatpants, her hair in a messy bun.
“Honey, you need to get outside tomorrow. All this moping—”
“I’m fine,” said Gabriela. “Let’s just eat.”
Tía Cuca looked at Caro, as if to say, Do something.
“We’ll go get everyone,” Caro said quickly.
“They’re all still upstairs,” Tía Cuca complained, balancing a roasting pan with one hand. “But dinner’s ready now.”
In the stairwell, Gabri
ela shook her head. “She won’t stop asking me questions.”
“My mom’s the same way,” Caro said. “I guess it comes with being sisters.” She paused at the top of the steps. “Look, Gabriela. I’m sorry about Alyssa. I’m sorry I wasn’t better at making friends with her.”
Gabriela lightly kicked the banister. “I didn’t mean what I said. It wasn’t your fault.” Then she went on in a biting, bitter tone, “Not that it matters whose fault it is if Alyssa and I can’t be friends anymore.”
Awkwardly, Carolina patted Gabriela’s back. Gabriela stood there for a second, looking small and rumpled, before she shrugged off Carolina and climbed up the last few steps. “Dinner’s ready!” she shouted in the hall.
While they ate, Carolina wondered what Daniel would get from the tooth fairy. At home, Mami and Papi had always left a dollar. But it was Tía Cuca’s fairy doll, and maybe she would want to add something this time. Carolina wanted Daniel to get more from the Ratoncito Pérez than the tooth fairy, but not so much that anyone would notice.
She was going to use her birthday money. She’d turned eleven right before they left home, and her aunts and uncles had given her cash because Mami had said that they could not pack or store one single thing more. Having the money had never felt right: only two weeks before her birthday, she’d seen a set of oil paints that strapped neatly into a briefcase for travel, but Mami had shaken her head and said that they were just making do and couldn’t afford extras right now. The memory had made the birthday money feel tainted somehow, and Carolina wished her family had given it to Mami and Papi and not to her. She’d been saving the cash, thinking that when Papi had a job in New York she would use it to buy the paints herself, that by then it wouldn’t feel wrong anymore, but giving some of it to Daniel would be better. It would assuage the guilt faster.
As soon as they finished dinner, Carolina offered to put Daniel to bed.
“That’s so lovely of you to offer,” said Mami. “I could come up, too, if you want to read together again—”
“No, that’s okay!” Carolina hoped her voice wasn’t coming out too high-pitched. “You should take a break, Mami. I’ll read to Daniel so you can relax.”
Mami had her hands on her knees, ready to get up and come with them. “Wow, I don’t know what to say.”
Papi put a hand on Mami’s shoulder. “Say thank you.”
Carolina took Daniel’s hand and made a beeline up the stairs before Mami could think too much about it. She got Daniel into his pajamas quickly and made him brush his teeth and splash cold water on his face. When she had him neatly tucked into bed, the comforter pulled right up under his chin, she went back to her room and retrieved the tiny mouse that Jennifer had made.
“This is for you.”
Daniel sat up and took the mouse. His jaw was hanging open.
“Do you like it?”
Daniel held his fingers to his nose like whiskers and made kissing noises. “It’s a little baby mouse, and I’m a little baby mouse too.”
“He’s not just any little mouse; he’s the Ratoncito Pérez and he’s going to bring you another treat for your tooth.”
“But I already gave my tooth to that fairy downstairs. I don’t have another for him.”
“That’s okay. He doesn’t mind. It’s just a nice thing he likes to do for Puerto Rican kids who lose their teeth.”
Daniel patted the mouse. “Thanks, Mr. Mousie.”
“You have to call him Ratoncito Pérez.”
“Okay, Mr. Ratoncito,” Daniel went on, “I think you’ve got to go under the bed. Mice don’t sleep in kids’ beds, otherwise people get mousetraps. Tía Cuca told me she can’t stand mice.”
“Good idea.” Carolina could hardly believe her luck. This way, she wouldn’t have to worry about anyone seeing the little mouse.
All that was left was figuring out what the grown-ups would put in the tooth fairy doll. She had hoped she would see them putting it in the doll’s pouch, but they must have done it while Carolina was upstairs with Daniel, because they didn’t mention it, and Carolina thought it would seem suspicious or, worse, greedy if she asked.
So she waited until everyone was asleep, then tiptoed down the stairs.
Nighttime at home had been the sound of the coquís and cars, chirping and passing. At home, the steps were concrete, and made no sound.
Here, in between the air-conditioning’s cycles, there was silence. The stairs were wood, and they creaked as she walked, and so did the floors. The sounds of the night were pushed out, and the only light was the flashing green of the alarm system.
Carolina made it into the kitchen and reached into the pouch. She held the bill up to the green light to see what it was.
Someone flipped on the kitchen light and Carolina’s eyes burned from the glare.
“Stealing from your brother?”
Carolina shrieked and clapped her hand over her mouth. Gabriela was standing there in her pajamas.
Carolina glanced at the five-dollar bill in her hand. “No—it’s just—” Why hadn’t she thought of an excuse in case she was caught?
Gabriela crossed her arms. “I can’t believe you, Carolina. Put it back.”
Meekly, Carolina tucked the five-dollar bill back into the tooth fairy’s pouch. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“You mean you didn’t just reach into the tooth fairy’s pouch and take that money?”
“I wasn’t taking it!” Carolina said in an urgent whisper.
“Yeah right,” Gabriela hissed back. “I’m telling my parents.” She walked away.
Carolina dashed behind Gabriela and grabbed her by the shoulder. “You can’t! Please, let me explain.”
Gabriela paused at the threshold between the kitchen and the living room. She gave Carolina a withering look and flipped off the lights.
The air-conditioning started again, and beneath its rattle Carolina could take the stairs two at a time without having to worry about the squeaking sound. She burst into Gabriela’s room just seconds behind her.
“I’m going back to bed.” Gabriela yanked her comforter and climbed under the covers. “You’ve done enough damage without keeping me up half the night.”
Carolina pulled the door shut behind her, climbed over the piles of magazines on the floor, and sat on Gabriela’s director chair. “You can go to sleep, but I’m going to talk.”
“Fine. I’m not going to listen to you anyway.” Gabriela folded her arms and squeezed her eyes shut.
“I wasn’t trying to take Daniel’s tooth fairy money. I love Daniel. He’s my little brother, remember?”
Gabriela’s eyelids twitched.
“I wanted to see how much the tooth fairy was giving Daniel, because I want to leave him something from the Ratoncito Pérez too.”
Gabriela opened one eye. “The mouse?”
“Yes, the mouse.” Carolina cleared her throat, and now she told Gabriela more—she told her about how the Ratoncito Pérez was fond of taking teeth, and then once she got started she kept going, and told Gabriela the folktale of the Cucarachita Martina, the cockroach who married a mouse. Carolina had always wondered if it was the same mouse or someone else altogether.
“You mean the story doesn’t say? Wouldn’t it mention if the mouse was running off to collect teeth all the time?”
Carolina shrugged. “In my imagination it was always the same mouse.”
“I wish I had learned this stuff when I was little. Like you.” Gabriela pulled a loose thread on her comforter, frowning at how it bunched. In the orange glow of the bedside lamp, Gabriela looked gentler: her hair was a little wavy at the ends, and the sweatshirt she slept in was pilled and fuzzy.
“I don’t think my parents are going to teach Daniel. But I am.” Carolina sat up a little straighter.
Gabriela pursed her lips. �
�At least you lived in Puerto Rico. I don’t even speak Spanish.”
It was as if Carolina was seeing Gabriela for the first time: not her long legs, or her black hair, or her straight and shiny teeth, but her face, the curiosity and sadness in her eyes. “Well, I could tell you about Puerto Rico, if that’s what you want. It’s not like you haven’t been there.”
Gabriela shook her head. “It was such a long time ago, and we were only there for a few days.” She kicked off the comforter. “It’s totally unfair. The Rogans think I’m some kind of sexy-Chiquifancy-nightmare just because I’m Puerto Rican, and then I don’t even know about the Pérez guy! It’s a lose-lose-lose situation!”
“At least you can dance. I can’t.”
“A lot of good that does me if I don’t have friends.”
“I have an idea,” Carolina said. “I could show you my sketchbook. I drew lots of stuff from Puerto Rico, and things for Daniel—like the Cucarachita Martina. It’s not the same as being there, of course, but if you want to see it—”
“Yeah,” Gabriela said. “I’d like that. Sometime.” She slouched down and stared into space, as if she were too tired to move.
Carolina tried to think of things that might cheer up Gabriela, pull her out of this desperately sad state. “I like how you’re never uncomfortable,” she blurted out finally.
Gabriela jerked her head up. “Huh?”
“I mean”—Carolina searched for the words for what she meant—“I always feel awkward. Sometimes when I have an idea or I’m worried about something I can’t stop thinking about it, until it all starts going around and around in my brain and everything I say comes out all clunky. I like how you’re always—I don’t know, graceful. Nothing seems to bother you.”
“Lots of things bother me.”
“Like us moving here?”