by Anna Meriano
Again, Leo found herself wishing that Caroline was here to help with the plan. The two of them could definitely cook up a way to get Mrs. Morales’s note without raising any suspicions.
Leti Morales giggled as she and Abuela climbed into the back of Mamá’s van. “Lucy, do you remember when we used to get rides with Miguel Antonio and his sister? The one with the hair?”
Abuela laughed loud and sharp, but she fell silent when Marisol shot the two old women a reproachful look from the driver’s seat.
“This isn’t a field trip,” Marisol barked.
Abuela nodded. But after a few moments had passed, she leaned to her friend and whispered, loud enough for Leo to hear, “I was thinking more of you driving in Alfredo’s convertible.”
Marisol didn’t respond to the hushed giggles except by pulling out of the driveway with a squeal of tires. Leo gripped her seatbelt tightly with one hand and typed a message to Isabel with the other, her pulse racing faster than the car as she imagined her oldest sister reading the message. Like Abuela had told Mrs. Morales, some news just didn’t seem appropriate to deliver in writing.
She finally sent a message using Marisol’s wording to let Isabel know that “a magical problem” was afoot, without specifically mentioning the spirits.
Mrs. Morales rolled down the back window, her eyes closed and smile wide as the wind rippled her curly hair and sent marigold petals flying out to float on the puddles left from yesterday’s rain.
“Stop that,” Marisol snapped, rolling the window back up and punching the child-safety lock button sharply. Silent laughter from the back seat shook the van.
Leo tapped her own window, wishing the spirits would help her plan instead of being silly. Would Tricia be home? It was still early, so she might be asleep, but could Leo make it into the house without waking her friend? And how would she explain herself if she got caught?
They pulled onto Tricia’s block before she could come up with satisfactory answers. Marisol stopped the van on the curb and Abuela and Mrs. Morales fell silent. Leo gulped.
The Moraleses lived in a one-story beige brick house with azalea bushes along the front wall and the blue triangle of a Puerto Rican flag hanging in the window. Mr. Morales’s repair shop and used-car lot, which was a few blocks away on the road toward Main Street, also had US, Texan, and Mexican flags in addition to Puerto Rican ones, the four symbols circling the fence and beckoning customers in with their friendly waves.
“What now?” Marisol asked. “Do you think anyone’s home?”
“There’s no car in the garage,” Leo pointed out.
“I saw Freddy and Olivia leave for work,” Mrs. Morales added.
“What about Tricia?” Marisol asked.
Mrs. Morales bit her lip and shook her head.
Marisol raked a hand through her hair. “Well, where did you leave the note?”
After a quick bout of bickering and glaring, Marisol convinced Leo that it would be less weird if she just knocked on the front door. “If she doesn’t answer, then we can assume she’s asleep or out of the house, and we can start considering how best to try sneaking in. But if she answers, you can still make this work. Pretend you have a question about school or something.”
Leo nodded. It didn’t sound so hard when Marisol said it. Get into the living room where Mrs. Morales had left the note, grab it before Tricia could get a good look at it. Simple.
“She might see me grab it,” she thought out loud. “So I should have something to replace it with.”
Marisol nodded. She flexed her right hand a few times and then pinched her fingers together and plucked them backward. A sheet of notebook paper emerged from thin air, and Marisol repeated the motion to produce a pen, which she used to scribble a list of groceries.
Leo tried not to envy her sister’s easy use of her birth power. She took a deep breath, stashed Marisol’s list up the sleeve of her green hoodie, and hopped out of the car. Her stomach twisted in knots and her brain swirled with everything that could go wrong, but she marched up to the front door anyway and knocked.
Nothing. She knocked again, waited another minute, and then knocked a third time, softly. Maybe Tricia wasn’t home. She glanced over her shoulder at the van. If no one answered, she would return and ask Marisol to use her power to make a lock pick or something to help her get inside the house. Except Leo didn’t know how to use a lock pick, so maybe that wasn’t a great idea. Before she could make up her mind, though, the door rattled and creaked open just an inch.
Tricia squinted through the crack, brown eyes fluttering to stay open.
“Leo? What are you doing here?” She opened the door all the way, revealing fuzzy pink pajama pants and a dark brown ponytail that puffed in several different directions. “What time is it?”
“Hi,” Leo said. She smiled wide, but her face began to heat up as she realized she had no idea what to say next. “Um . . . Hi. It’s, like, eight thirty, I think.”
“Okay.” Tricia rubbed a hand over her face. Now that she knew Mrs. Morales, Leo could see how Tricia resembled her grandmother, with the same round cheeks and arched eyebrows. “So . . . what’s up?”
“Nothing much,” Leo responded automatically. Tricia tilted her head. “Oh, I mean, actually, I came here to ask you about . . .” School didn’t even start up again for another four days. What was Leo supposed to pretend to need? “I just wanted to . . .” She searched her brain for a lie, any lie, and came up empty.
Tricia frowned. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” Leo answered too quickly.
“So you knocked on my door first thing in the morning in the middle of winter break to tell me the time and say that everything’s fine?” Tricia asked skeptically.
“I . . .” Leo opened and closed her mouth. She couldn’t do this. She needed Caroline to be here, coming up with creative lies.
She needed Caroline.
That was it.
“I got in a big fight with Caroline yesterday,” Leo blurted. “My family thinks she hangs around the bakery too much, and so I was a jerk to her when she came by and I hurt her feelings really bad, and I’m scared she hates me now.”
“Oh no,” Tricia said. “I’m sorry! Do you want to come in? I’ve got Froot Loops.”
Leo followed Tricia inside. While her friend closed the door, Leo caught a glimpse of the van, which Marisol had backed up so it was parked several houses down. Marisol raised a hand in a thumbs-up. Leo’s stomach flipped over guiltily. She was getting to be a pretty good liar on her own.
“So what happened?” Tricia asked, walking to the kitchen and offering a bowl and a box of cereal.
Leo wished Tricia’s house was laid out more like Caroline’s, with the living room connecting all the other parts of the house. But maybe it was lucky that Tricia’s house had the kitchen at the center of everything instead, since it meant Tricia might not have seen the note yet.
Now Leo just had to get to it.
She poured herself some Froot Loops but left the milk on the counter, popping a few of the dry rings into her mouth. “Thanks,” she said. Buying time as she worked out how to tell the story of her fight without mentioning magic.
“No worries. I’m sorry everything’s a mess.” Tricia swiped a pile of white paper bags and plastic bottles off the kitchen table and into a drawer next to the sink. “This week’s been really . . .” She shrugged and poured milk over her cereal.
Leo crunched more Froot Loops, her mind flashing through possibilities. The bathroom was on the other side of the house, opposite the living room. Could she pretend to be using it, sneak past Tricia, and get to the note without getting caught? It seemed risky.
“Leo?” Tricia waved a hand. “Earth to Leo?”
Leo swallowed her mouthful of dry cereal and coughed. “Sorry, what?”
“Do you want to talk about Caroline?” Tricia asked. “It’s okay if you don’t, but you seemed like you wanted to.”
/> Leo nodded. “Right. Um, can I just use your bathroom first?”
“Of course.” Tricia picked up her bowl and walked Leo to the hallway.
“I know, I know. Second door on the left,” Leo tried to assure her friend, but Tricia followed her anyway. Leo closed the bathroom door and waited, but instead of footsteps she heard the crunch of Froot Loops. No chance of sneaking into the living room while Tricia waited in the hall.
Okay. Leo met her eyes in the long bathroom mirror. You can do this. Tricia hadn’t seen the note yet. Everything was absolutely going to work out.
Her face in the mirror didn’t look so certain.
Being in the bathroom made Leo need to go to the bathroom. She turned away from the mirror—and jumped about three feet in the air. Orange petals littered the sill of the frosted-glass window above the toilet, and fingers slipped under the crack to wiggle open the window latch.
“Mrs. Morales?” Leo climbed carefully onto the toilet seat to open the window. “What the heck are you doing?” she whispered. “Get back to the van!”
“What’s taking so long?” Mrs. Morales asked. “Did she see the note? Can I talk to her now?”
“No!” Leo scowled. “Go away! I’m working on it.”
“I have to talk to her,” Mrs. Morales said. “It’s very important. I have to tell her—”
“Hey!” Marisol stomped through the side yard, heading straight toward Mrs. Morales. “Get back here right now!”
Leo slammed the window shut, leaving Mrs. Morales to deal with Marisol’s rage. She fake-flushed the toilet, real-washed her hands, and found Tricia eating cereal in the hallway.
“Thanks,” she said as Tricia walked with her back to the kitchen. A frustrated scream built up behind her smile.
“So you know my mom’s been letting me work more in the bakery?” she asked when they sat back at the kitchen table. She shoved a handful of Froot Loops into her mouth, grinding them between her teeth.
Tricia nodded. “You mentioned it when you bought the marranitos for snack club. You said you baked them yourself.”
Leo smiled. “Yeah, exactly. So I’ve been working there after school, and Caroline comes to hang out sometimes, but my mom and my sisters have been really annoyed by it. They think she’s, I don’t know, a distraction. And they don’t want her to help me study, um, baking techniques.”
“Why? Are they, like, afraid she’s going to steal secret recipes and open her own bakery?” Tricia asked.
Leo laughed weakly. “Yeah, I don’t know. They’re being so annoying about it, like I have to choose between my family and—” A flash of orange derailed Leo’s train of thought. “And, um . . .” She watched the kitchen window carefully, and sure enough, Mrs. Morales’s head soon popped over the ledge. Leo fake-coughed to cover up a shooing gesture.
“That sounds so unfair,” Tricia said. “Your family should never make you feel like you’re not allowed to have friends.”
“Well, they’re not saying . . . it’s a little bit complicated.” Leo struggled to defend her family without explaining the secrecy of magic.
Mrs. Morales waved her hands and pointed through the window. Leo flapped her hand back, shaking her head.
“What’s wrong?” Tricia turned just as Mrs. Morales ducked out of sight.
“No, nothing. There was a mosquito.” Leo fumed. “Um, you’re right. My family is the worst.” She raised her voice, hoping it could be heard through the window. “I can’t believe they would do this!”
She didn’t know how Mrs. Morales had escaped Marisol. She didn’t know why the spirit was so determined to talk to Tricia. But Leo wasn’t going to let anyone jeopardize her family’s secret.
“My parents are the worst too,” Tricia said, stirring green and blue milk at the bottom of the cereal bowl and watching the colors swirl. “I don’t know if I told you, but . . .”
“Do you want to watch TV?” Leo asked. She needed to get into the living room, now, and get out of here before Mrs. Morales ruined everything.
“What?” Tricia looked more confused than ever. “Uh, sure, I guess.” She picked up Leo’s empty bowl and turned toward the sink, which was right in front of Mrs. Morales’s window.
“I’ve got it!” Leo snatched both bowls out of Tricia’s hands and dropped them in the sink. From where she stood, Mrs. Morales was clearly visible, ducked just under the windowsill. The old woman waved sheepishly when Leo saw her.
Leo ran water over the bowls and took advantage of Tricia’s turned back to give Mrs. Morales her worst glare. Go away!
Mrs. Morales just pointed, again, at something to the left of the sink.
“You can leave them there,” Tricia said. Leo spun around and stepped away from the sink so her friend wouldn’t come any closer. “We can go to my room and watch something.”
Leo had totally forgotten that Tricia had a TV in her bedroom.
“No, um, that’s okay,” she backtracked. “We don’t have to . . . Never mind.” She plopped back into her seat at the table.
Tricia watched her with narrowed eyes, moving slowly back to her chair like someone approaching a wild animal. “That’s fine,” she said. “So . . . what happened yesterday?”
“What?” Leo watched the window carefully. “Yesterday?” After a short pause, Mrs. Morales’s hand rose above the windowsill and pointed again.
“Yesterday. You said Caroline came by the bakery?” Tricia prompted. “What are you . . . ?” She turned to look over her shoulder, following Leo’s gaze.
“Nothing,” Leo said. “Yes. I said that. Um, I didn’t stand up for Caroline when my family was telling her, basically, that she should go home. And then she stormed out, and I haven’t, um, I haven’t talked to her since. . . . Did you put something in that drawer?”
Leo had finally realized that Mrs. Morales was pointing to the half-open drawer by the sink, the one Tricia had moved things into when Leo arrived.
White paper bags with long labels. Orange plastic bottles. Leo had seen piles like that before.
“Oh, yeah, it’s just some of my parents’ stuff.” Tricia jumped up and slammed the drawer shut. “Are you sure you don’t want to watch TV?”
Leo had spent a lot of time lying and hiding things lately, so it wasn’t hard to recognize Tricia’s quick, breathy voice. “What’s going on?” she asked. The drawer was full of prescription medicine, just like when Caroline’s mother had first been diagnosed. “Is someone . . . sick?”
Tricia’s face collapsed like a ruined soufflé. “It’s nothing,” she said in a tiny voice. “You don’t have to . . . You’re already upset.”
“No.” Leo shook her head. She wasn’t upset, not like Tricia. She was a faker, a sneaky jerk who was scheming while it became clear her friend had real problems. “I’m fine. I’m listening.”
Listening. That was what she hadn’t done since she first knocked on the door. Not since Caroline had gotten back from Costa Rica. Guilt made her squirm in her seat.
“It’s my dad,” Tricia said. “Something with his blood pressure, and his heart. . . . He and Mom won’t tell me exactly what’s happening, they just say everything is fine, but I’m not dumb, I can tell it’s serious. He found out recently, except he keeps pretending like it didn’t happen. And my mom says he needs to take his medication or else . . . But he doesn’t listen. And I’m scared.”
While Tricia talked, Mrs. Morales stood up, her hand pressed to the window as she listened. Her mouth was squeezed shut, her shoulders pulled tight together, her eyes hurting. She and Tricia looked more alike than ever, now.
“I’m sorry,” Leo said. She didn’t know which one she was speaking to. “I’m really sorry.”
Tricia shrugged. “It’s not your fault. My dad just . . . he’s acting so weird about all of this. I don’t know what his problem is. It’s like he doesn’t care about being healthy. I just wish someone could tell him to listen to his doctors and stay on his medicine and take this seriously!”
Leo
hadn’t asked Mrs. Morales what her note said. She had never wondered what was so important for her to tell her son. But now she suspected she knew exactly what advice the note contained.
Was she doing the wrong thing? Should she turn Tricia around, let Mrs. Morales come inside? Leo didn’t want to lie and keep secrets anymore. She was tired of being a good bruja and a bad friend.
“Tricia.” She tried to think of the right words. “Maybe . . . maybe there is someone who could tell your dad what to do so that he would listen.”
“I know, I know.” Tricia buried her face in her hands. “I just . . . I can’t, Leo. I know I should, but . . . he’s my dad. He always says he should be the one taking care of me, not the other way around. And every time I try, I get so nervous and awkward and—”
“Wait.” Leo stopped worrying about her own guilt and focused on Tricia’s words. “You haven’t talked to your dad about any of this?”
In the window behind Tricia, Mrs. Morales nodded her head, rolled her eyes in a huge circular motion, and pointed wildly.
“He hasn’t even talked to me about his medication,” Tricia said. “I obviously know about it, because it’s right here on the table. He and my mom argue about it all the time, and they’re not very good at hiding their fights. But . . . he never officially told me.”
“But that’s . . .” Leo frowned. Mrs. Morales circled her hands to encourage her to keep talking. “You should tell him all of this. He can’t just act like everything is fine.”
Mrs. Morales raised her hands in the air, triumphant petals circling her head.
“Leo . . . you’re right,” Tricia said. “I’ll make him listen. He should know how I feel, that I know what’s going on. I’m going to tell him to cut it out already.” Tricia slammed her fist on the table. Mrs. Morales danced happily behind her.