Over the second drawing with the creature near the cactus, the caption read, “At last! Food!”
Ay no, Jaime could see where this was going, and liked it. His eyes shifted over to the final, close-up drawing. “Ouch, it hurts! Save me, Mommy!”
Jaime laughed. He gave Seh-Ahn a thumbs-up, who returned it with a grin and thumbs-up of his own. Jaime flipped to the other side of the page and began the next comic strip panel. Like a manga, they worked the story from the back of the book and by the time they got to school, Jaime had drawn and Seh-Ahn had written two full pages of their comic.
What do you want to call our story? Seh-Ahn wrote on the sketchbook.
Jaime looked out the window. The bus had just pulled into the parking lot, leaving about fifteen seconds before they stopped and had to get off.
The aventurs ov Seme Jaime wrote quickly.
Seh-Ahn started correcting his spelling, but then wrote back, What is Seme?
The bus slowed down. How could Jaime explain? And in only a few seconds before it stopped and they had to get out?
Sean + Jaime = Seme
Jaime presented it like a math problem just as the bus hissed to a stop, and said the word out load. “Seh-Meh. Yes?”
Seh-Ahn read his formula and gave him another thumbs-up.
• • •
After school, Jaime had the sketchbook out by the time Seh-Ahn sat next to him. He drew the next installment on the right page and then balanced the book between them before moving to the left side while Seh-Ahn added the text to the pictures on the right. The collaboration worked well—Jaime being left-handed and Seh-Ahn right, they were able to draw and write simultaneously, frequently pausing to see what the other had done to influence what they would do themselves. By the time the bus stopped in front of Meester George’s ranch road, the creature (Seme) still hadn’t learned how to eat cactus, hadn’t scared off the deadliest rattlesnake (though Jaime already had plans to bring the rattler back for a rematch), and Seme’s greatest wish was to learn to ride a stallion even though his wheels prevented him from sitting astride anything.
With Jaime’s mind preoccupied with Seme’s further adventures, the walk to the trailer went by in an instant. He barely noticed he was back until a voice called out to him in English.
“Hi there, son.”
The red-faced cowboy loomed in front of him in a way that made Jaime feel extra short. The gray felt hat cast a shadow over the cowboy’s face. Broad shoulders turned into a bigger belly, accented by narrow hips with a massive, shiny silver belt buckle holding up his jeans. His small flip phone was clipped onto his belt next to a revolver. Jaime forced his eyes off the gun and focused on the rancher’s boots, which were not only the size of Vida’s body but were made from some scaly leather that could very well have been rattlesnake.
Jaime took a couple of steps back.
“Do you have a name?” Meester George asked in his loud, booming voice.
“Jaime,” he said in a whisper.
“Well, Jaime, when someone says hi to you, the polite thing is to say hi back.”
Jaime scanned the area for Tomás but couldn’t see him. He hadn’t understood a word Meester George had said but it couldn’t have been good. He heard the scolding tone of the man’s voice and knew he was in trouble.
“Sorree,” he apologized without knowing what he was apologizing for (he had learned people up here liked that word), and then retreated as fast as his legs could carry him into the trailer.
He glanced out the window. No Meester George. And still no Tomás. Jaime could only hope that whatever he’d done wrong wouldn’t cost Tomás his job. According to the request Meester George made to Tomás yesterday, he obviously thought Don Vicente was replaceable, even after centuries of working for him. Which meant that Tomás, having worked for the rancher only eight years, could likewise be replaced.
Heavy boots stomped up the metal steps and Jaime was sure Meester George would burst into the trailer. But when the door swung open, it was Tomás with Vida.
“Come, Mr. George wants to meet you.” Tomás stood in the doorframe and motioned outside with a jerk of his head.
Jaime crouched down to greet Vida. At least she didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. “I don’t like him. He scares me.”
“Doesn’t matter, you still have to treat him with respect. He’s my boss and has been very kind to let you and Ángela live here.”
“He hates me.”
“No, he just thought you were rude for staring at him and not saying hi back.”
Really? That was it? Jaime straightened up and brushed off his school uniform, making sure there was no dust from the walk to the trailer and that his shirt was tucked in nicely.
The cowboy leaned against the corral fence. He turned at the sound of their steps and Jaime had to stop himself from running away again. The rancher looked even bigger and more intimidating than he had minutes before with the sun now shining on his large red face. He let his hand hang for another reassurance from Vida, but the dog had trotted off to socialize with the ranch dogs.
Jaime took a deep breath, squared his narrow shoulders, and held out a hand instead to the rancher.
“ ‘Ello, Meester George. My name ees Jaime.”
Meester George nodded slightly before swallowing Jaime’s hand with his own beefy paw.
“Hello, Jaime. Nice to meet you, son.”
Okay, now what? There wasn’t much more he knew how to say in English, and even if he did, he had no idea what to say. What did grown-ups talk about anyway? He looked over at Tomás for help but his brother was just staring at the cows. That could work.
“Cows nice?” Jaime wanted to ask if the cows were healthy but that sentence would have been too complicated. “Cow babies good?”
That was apparently the right thing to ask. Meester George responded at length about how pleased he was with the herd this year and a bunch of other stuff Jaime didn’t understand. When Tomás responded, he spoke in perfect English that also didn’t help. At some point the men switched the conversation from the cows to the new ranch hands. Jaime only understood that because Tomás pulled out his phone and showed the owner e-mails with the subject “RE: Ranch hand wanted/Se busca ranchero.”
“¿Pero solamente hasta que regrese Don Vicente, verdad?” Jaime asked his brother, but it was Meester George who answered with a stern look.
“You’re in the United States, son. Speak English here.”
Jaime felt himself shrinking even smaller than his regular short height.
“Sorree.”
Meester George shook his head. “Don’t be sorry, just learn what’s right.”
His words pricked like cactus needles embedded up and down his spine. Who’s to say that English was right and Spanish wasn’t? Had he misunderstood when Meesus said Spanish was the second official language of Nuevo México? At any rate, he remembered his teacher back in Guatemala saying that Spanish was the second most popular language in the world after Chinese. If there was anything that wasn’t right, it was everyone thinking that people who didn’t speak English were inferior.
Meester George’s stern face muscles relaxed a fraction, but just a fraction. “If I visit your country, I’ll try to speak to you in your language. But here, I want you to speak mine. Understand?”
“Yes,” Jaime lied. He hadn’t gotten half of the words. Instead, what he understood was that Meester George liked things done his way and his way was in English. Part of him wanted to forget what he had asked and just return to the trailer, where he could try calling home for the millionth time. But what he had to ask was more important. “Don Vicente—”
Meester George interrupted with the answer to the question he thought Jaime had tried to ask. “Cente never would learn English, no matter how hard my father and I tried. And now look where it got him. Old bastard.”
Again Jaime didn’t understand Meester George’s meaning. The words indicated that Don Vicente was detained for not speaking Engl
ish. At the same time, the tone implied that the rancher cared, but didn’t know how to show it.
Even more reason Jaime had to ask his question. Make Meester George understand his concern. “Rancheros, uh, ranchers no stay. Leave. Don Vicente come . . . ?” He waved his arm as if beckoning someone closer.
Under his breath Tomás muttered, “Back.”
“Ranchers leave when Don Vicente come back?” Jaime finally asked what should have been answered ages ago if Meester George hadn’t been such a snob.
Meester George removed his hat and wiped his brow even though it wasn’t hot enough today for him to sweat. He explained the situation in a sad tone, but his words were too complicated for Jaime to understand.
A blank gaze on Jaime’s face must have told the rancher Jaime didn’t understand, because he sighed and nodded at Tomás to translate.
“We don’t know how long the new ranch hands will stay. Mr. George hired an immigration lawyer for Don Vicente. They have a trial date set in three weeks.”
“¡Fantástico!” Jaime couldn’t believe the great news. “So why is he upset?”
Tomás turned away but not enough to hide his sad face. “I haven’t met her, but the lawyer isn’t optimistic of his chances. A couple of years ago it wouldn’t have been a problem, but now she says everything has changed and judges are almost impossible to persuade.”
“But she’s still going to try, right?”
“That’s what he’s paying her to do.” Tomás nodded over to Meester George, who nodded back as if he understood what Tomás said. Maybe he did. Jaime’s respect for the red-faced cowboy rose a little. Maybe he wasn’t as pompous as he came across.
Jaime turned back to Meester George and searched his brain for the right words. “I go see Don Vicente?”
But it was Tomás who shook his head, replying in English. “No way. You’re illegal. I don’t want you anywhere near there.”
Jaime caught the word “illegal” like a stab to his heart. Sure, he entered this country without permission, swimming across the Río Bravo that separated México from El Norte. The act might have been illegal, but as a person, he was no different than any other human. How could anyone actually be “illegal?” How could his brother say that? But in front of the boss man wasn’t the time to debate that with Tomás.
He tried a different plan. “I write he—”
“Him,” Tomás corrected automatically.
“I write him . . . paper?”
“You mean a letter?” Meester George raised his thick gray eyebrows.
“Yes,” except Jaime thought “letter” meant letters of the alphabet. Well, he was going to write alphabet letters on a piece of paper so he guessed it made sense. So then why was Tomás shaking his head slightly no?
Meester George didn’t notice and placed his beefy hand on Jaime’s shoulder. For the first time the rancher’s defenses came down. “I think he’d like that.”
Meester George told Tomás to contact a couple of the guys who’d e-mailed about the job, and then walked to the big house, where scents from Doña Cici’s open kitchen window were making even the cows hungry.
“So he’s not even going to wait to see what happens in court?” Jaime asked once he knew the rancher was too far away to scold him for speaking in Spanish.
Tomás turned to head back to the trailer with Vida now at his heels. The lines around his eyes deepened with worry and lack of sleep. “The court date is not for another three weeks and we still have a couple hundred cows ready to pop. Each calf has to be tagged, dehorned, and castrated if they’re boys. Don Vicente did the work of two men, and even then, whoever we hire won’t do half as good a job. Let’s keep praying for a miracle and that the new hands are temporary.”
“I can help.”
Tomás draped an arm around his shoulders and drew him close, half affectionately, half teasing. “Sure, but you still have to keep going to school.”
Oh well, it was worth a shot. “Why did you shake your head when I mentioned writing Don Vicente a letter? I know my English is bad but I didn’t say anything wrong, did I?”
The sad look returned to Tomás’s eyes as he opened the trailer door for them. “Of course not. It’s a very sweet and thoughtful idea. Except that Don Vicente doesn’t know how to read. He never went to school.”
Jaime should have guessed—that was often the case for older people in Guatemala as well; Abuela had only attended school until she was nine. Still, a smile crossed Jaime’s face. He reached into his backpack, remembering the bus rides with Seh-Ahn and the story they had created without saying a thing to each other, and pulled out his sketchbook. “Then it’s a good thing I know how to write him a letter without any words.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sunday breakfast wasn’t Sunday breakfast without Don Vicente. And having Meester George sitting at the head of the table while on the kitchen phone with his wife, who was still visiting their new grandchild, made things even more awkward.
Doña Cici hid her worry by fussing over Meester George, Tomás, Jaime, and Ángela more than usual. She outdid herself by adding thick pancakes, fresh strawberries, poached eggs, and steak (actual steak!) to her already enormous buffet of tortillas, chorizo, beans, cheese, fruit, and other kinds of eggs.
“Eat some more, Ángela,” Doña Cici whispered so as not to interrupt Meester George’s phone call. “You’ve only had a tortilla and one egg.”
“It’s delicious, but I’m not very hungry.” She forced a smile and took another bite of egg.
“How can you not be hungry?” Jaime asked between a mouthful of pancake, eggs, and chorizo. “We barely ate anything last night.”
“You’re out of food?” Doña Cici exclaimed loud enough to cause Meester George to give her the stern “I’m on the phone” look.
Tomás gave Jaime a look of his own that said “don’t go there” before reassuring the chef. “Of course we have food. Jaime’s just exaggerating.”
What had really transpired was that Tomás had come in late, crashed on the bed, and told them to scrounge. The only thing Jaime had found was a packet of microwave popcorn and some goat milk Doña Cici had left. Even Tomás’s trusty cans of beans were all gone.
Meester George hung the phone up back in the kitchen and spent the rest of the meal talking with Tomás about the cows and the status of the new ranch hand applications. Everyone else chewed their food without comment. Except for Ángela, who stopped eating completely. On her plate remained half a tortilla and some egg. Abuela would have never allowed it.
“You don’t have to starve yourself to prove Tomás wasn’t lying about no food,” Jaime whispered as he helped clear the table.
“What do you know?” She left through the kitchen door without scraping off her plate or putting it in the dishwasher. The men left to get back to work (so much for Tomás’s day off) and only Jaime helped clean up.
“Are we watching another movie with that handsome Bond man?” Doña Cici asked once everything looked clean enough to serve a king.
Jaime shook his head. Without Tomás and Ángela, and even Don Vicente sleeping through the opening credits, movie day had lost its appeal. “I have homework to do.”
Not completely a lie. He still needed to practice the recorder and come up with a topic for a research project he would have to write in English. Meesus insisted.
Doña Cici nodded her understanding and proceeded to fill two large canvas shopping bags with leftovers. Jaime knew he should refuse and not betray Tomás. But last week he had accepted the leftovers gladly, and they really didn’t have anything to eat in the trailer. Besides, Doña Cici wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I’ll carry them over myself if I have to.”
“Gracias.” The bags threatened to pull his arms out of their sockets.
“Your brother is not used to caring for people other than himself. You being here is good for him.” She opened the kitchen door and watched Jaime waddle under the weight of the bags.
“No ma
tter what, this kitchen door is always unlocked.”
• • •
Jaime had just set his backpack and lunch (a feast of leftover egg, steak, and cheese in a tortilla with strawberries for dessert) in his cubby and sketchbook and homework folder on his desk, when Meesus looked up from writing on the whiteboard.
“Jaime, come here for a second, please.”
Something about her determined and no-nonsense face put Jaime on guard. He went through a mental check. He’d said good morning to her just a minute ago with a shake of her hand, as she liked, and he’d done all his homework (math, which he continued to be surprisingly good at; reading for fifteen minutes a book Meesus had chosen, The Magic School Bus, which was for little kids but still interesting; and had chosen manga for his research project).
So why did she have that look that said he wasn’t going to like what she had to say?
Meesus set down the marker she was holding to look at him above her thick glasses. “Would you be interested in sharing a little bit about your immigration story in social studies today?”
Jaime gulped as he reached for her desk to steady himself. His legs began to shake. Why didn’t he realize it before? With her stern face and her passion for order and rule following, maybe Meesus had a secret life as a migra officer. She’d been sent to schools to find out exactly how immigrants continued to infiltrate the country despite all the border surveillance and guards.
“I no understand,” he muttered. Freddie entered the room, smiled at Jaime, and shook Meesus’s hand in greeting.
When Freddie sat down, Meesus returned to Jaime as if they hadn’t been interrupted. “The correct phrase is, ‘I don’t understand.’ ”
“I don’t understand,” Jaime repeated and he still didn’t. He knew Meesus wasn’t really a secret agent. For one thing, he didn’t think secret agents took the time to correct poor English.
“You know we’ve been talking about the impact of immigration on our country, and I’d like to move on to discussing real refugees and immigrants,” Meesus explained.
The Crossroads Page 10