Merci Suárez Changes Gears

by Meg Medina

  Finally, the drop-off area comes into view.

  “Brake,” Mami warns, but it’s too late. I have no choice but to brace for impact.

  One of our front tires scrapes the curb before Roli manages a full stop. I toss off my helmet and hop out fast in case he forgets to throw the gear into park like last time.

  “Gotta dash!”

  Mami looks a little pale as she switches back into the driver’s seat. Her patient notes flutter out to the sidewalk. “Pull up your socks!” she calls after me.

  But who’s got time to worry about saggy socks, even if it is a uniform violation? I have to make a run for it if I’m going to get to Miss McDaniels’s meeting on time. She can’t stand excuses. You’re supposed to plan for setbacks, she always tells people, not react to them. Lateness is a symptom of poor planning and all that.

  Luckily, I’m up to the challenge. I didn’t win every field-day footrace back in elementary school for nothing. I dodge through the sea of red blazers like a running back, my arms pumping, head tucked. It doesn’t take long for me to feel drenched in the armpit region thanks to the heat, even at this hour. I can’t even remember if I put on deodorant, and now it’s too late to worry about it. Tía Inés will have a fit if I come home smelly again, though. She’s the one who does the laundry for the whole family and is always complaining about my stinky stuff. This summer she made a big deal of taking me shopping at Walgreens because Roli made repeated complaints about my so-called bromhidrosis. (It means BO, if we’re speaking, you know, like ordinary people.) Thanks to him, the very next day, Tía Inés dragged me up and down the drugstore aisles as she filled a plastic basket with sprays and powders for places I didn’t even know needed them. Meanwhile, the twins were in the candy aisle sampling their favorites.

  “You’re not supposed to smell good when you’re playing outside,” I grumbled, but Tía Inés wouldn’t listen. She dumped the whole basket of powders, razors, and deodorants at the cashier’s counter just the same.

  “Merci, a young lady takes care of herself,” she said, handing over her two-for-one coupons. “Like it or not, it’s time.”

  Time for what, exactly? I wanted to know, but I didn’t dare ask.

  I round the corner and charge toward the front office. It’s exactly seven forty-five when I reach the door nearest the bike racks. I suck in gulps of air to ease the stitch in my side, but I still feel like I’m being knifed. My socks are puddled down around my loafers, and my headband has slipped back on my head. It is very apparent that, no, I did not use the frizz tamer that Tía bought me.

  That’s when I hear a familiar voice in my ear.

  “Move it, please, Merci.”

  Edna straddles her flashy bike, obviously waiting to park in the spot that I’m blocking. I can’t help gawking at her ride in admiration. She’s on a hot-pink Electra with brightly colored stencils on the fenders that remind me of one of the modern art paintings we saw on our class trip to the Norton Museum last year. Edna’s bike has hand brakes, a silver headlight, and whitewall tires, like those old-fashioned Cadillacs Lolo loves so much. I hate how much I love it. My bike at home is a heap. It’s Roli’s old ten-speed, which is (unfortunately) just my size now and in working order, thanks (or not) to Lolo, who can fix anything, even our old washing machine from 1996. The handlebars are speckled with rust (ferric oxide, per Roli) and stuffing flies from the seat when I pedal hard. The twins say that it looks like I’m farting cotton.

  Edna’s eyes trail over me. She takes in everything from my hair all the way down to my scuffed shoes. It’s like I’m getting a primer coat of ugly for the day.

  “No offense, Merci, but you’re a wreck.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, trying not to let my eye stray. It’s only Edna being Edna. I should be used to it by now. No offense, Merci, but you’re singing off-key. No offense, Merci, but I want to study my spelling words with somebody else. It took me a while to figure Edna out last year, but I finally got wise. No offense is what Edna says right before she takes a hatchet to your feelings.

  “Give me a break. I just ran across campus,” I say between gasps.

  But she doesn’t seem moved.

  Edna swings her leg over her seat and slips her bike past me to get into an empty slot. Jamie is with her, too, and — surprise — she has almost the exact same bike, only hers is pale yellow and the stencils are paisley. It’s Edna’s mojo again, I suppose, that dark magic that can turn perfectly ordinary people into mirrors. Jamie always gets bewitched. If Edna wears her hair in a high bun, Jamie wears one, too. If Edna gets mad, Jamie tosses in an ugly look as backup. If Edna is going somewhere, Jamie is always invited, even if no one else is. Last year, when Edna got the flu and was absent for a week, I thought there was some hope to break the spell. Jamie sat next to me and Hannah at lunch and played kickball on my team at recess. I thought we were becoming friends. But when Edna came back a few days later, pale and chapped at the nose, it was the same old same old. “Move over, please, Merci,” Jamie said. “Edna wants to sit there.”

  Thank goodness Lolo gave me an azabache to protect me. Mami says mal de ojo is nonsense, that no one can hurt people with just an evil eye. But I believe. The world isn’t all logic the way she and Roli think. It’s got mystery the way Lolo says. So I wear my protection on a chain next to the gold cross I got for Holy Communion. It may look like an ordinary black rock, but who knows what would have happened to me at Edna’s hands without it? Lolo says no evil gets past it.

  I decide to ignore her and walk toward the glass doors, but just as I start to open them, Edna reaches for the handle, too, and she and Jamie barge in ahead of me. There’s no time to argue, of course. A group of kids — the other Sunshine Buddies, I guess — has already gathered around Miss McDaniels’s desk. The office is a beehive all around. Teachers are signing in. Kids wait to get new schedules, and a few parents who’ve signed up for tour appointments are chatting on the sofas while they wait. Kids apply a whole year in advance to go here, so people are always touring, even on the first week of school.

  The flower stench socks me in the nose so hard that I start breathing through my mouth. I wander around to find a spot that’s far from the vase.

  “Good,” Miss McDaniels says over the din. “The Sunshine Buddies for the sixth grade have arrived at last, so we can get started.” Her voice is sharp, like high heels clicking on tile floors.

  Edna snaps her head in my direction. Jamie turns, too. I swear it’s like I can see the thought bubble forming over their heads, clear as day.

  “You’re a Sunshine Buddy this year?” Edna asks.

  Miss McDaniels steps in. “Indeed, she is. What better kind of buddy than someone who knows what it’s like to be new at our school?”

  I may not want to be part of this club, but it’s almost worth staying a member just to see the look on Edna’s face. If only I could whip out my phone camera right now to capture Edna’s mouth hanging open. I’d find a face filter to turn her into a green chameleon with its fleshy pink mouth wide open in shock.

  Luckily, Miss McDaniels stays mum about how it’s part of my required community service. That’s all I’d need — another reason for Edna to think she’s better than me. She isn’t here on scholarship, of course. Her dad is a podiatrist, not a paint contractor like Papi, and she never lets us forget it. “My-dad-the-doctor this. My-dad-who-saved-a guy’s-toe that.” I’m pretty sure he mostly clears up athlete’s foot and plantar warts. Why is that so great? I mean, Mami helps people learn how to walk again after they’ve had strokes or terrible accidents. I mentioned that to Edna once, but she wasn’t impressed. “No offense,” she said, “but she’s still not a doctor.”

  Miss McDaniels hands bright red folders to everyone.

  “I trust that you all had a fine first day back yesterday, and that you’re ready for a productive school year, especially as part of the Sunshine Buddies program.” She glances at me and, if I’m not imagining things, frowns a little. I straighten my ski
rt, noticing that the seam got turned.

  “Inside these folders, you’ll find your buddies’ schedules, as well as a paragraph with a little bit about the person assigned to you. I’d like you to make your first contact this week, please. You’ll need to check in every Friday for the remainder of the semester to give me updates on how things are going. Remember, you are ambassadors for this school. It’s your job to make our new students feel welcome and comfortable in their surroundings.”

  Just then, the phone rings, and Miss McDaniels turns to answer it. “Excuse me.”

  Everyone opens their folders. I shouldn’t even care because I’ve already decided that I’m going to ask Miss McDaniels to switch me to some other community service. I’m barely comfortable at this school myself. How can I help anybody else? Still, I can’t help being curious. I mean, does Miss McDaniels really know what she’s doing with this matching stuff? For starters, Edna is going to be someone’s buddy again, which is like pairing a baby mouse with a boa constrictor. I should know. She was my buddy last year.

  I still remember our first day. At lunch, she told me stories about her family’s cruise to Newport, Rhode Island, and how she slept in a real lighthouse where they told scary ghost stories and everything. “Where do you vacation?” she wanted to know. “North or south?”

  I could have told her the truth. We don’t vacation. But I’d been watching Roli go to school here for a while, so even as a newbie I knew that wasn’t the right answer, not at Seaward. “East,” I said, dressing up our day trips to the beach. I told her about our favorite bonfire at Lake Worth, where we go on spring and summer nights after Papi gets off work.

  “Oh,” she said. “We don’t go to that beach.”

  We ate at the same lunch table for a while. Our cubbies were near each other. We were in the same class all day long. But somehow, we didn’t start to share secrets or do sleepovers the way she does with Jamie. Which makes me wonder: maybe this matching business is a sham? It could be sort of like that dating service that introduced Tía Inés to the guy with the pinkie rings and toupee. It might have looked good on paper, but —¡Ay, chihuahua!— what a mess.

  Edna and Jamie start reading about their new buddies. I don’t want to raise suspicions, so I fish through my papers and read the name inside. It says Michael Clark. Well, now I’m positive that Miss McDaniels doesn’t know what she’s doing. He’s the new kid from Minnesota, a cold place — and I hate the cold. He likes ice fishing. He has no favorite color (suspicious). We only have social studies and PE together. Absolutely nothing about him makes a good match to me, except both our names start with M.

  A hand snatches my paper. Before I can stop her, Edna is reading my stuff and grinning stupidly.

  “Gimme it,” I say.

  She arches her eyebrow. “Ooooh . . . you have Michael Clark.”

  “You got paired with a boy?” Jamie asks.

  “No offense,” Edna says, handing back my sheet, “but that’s awkward.”

  I could tell her that I’m probably not going to pal around at all, but I’m still enjoying her shock over the fact that I’ve been chosen.

  “What’s the big deal?” I say. “We play with boys at recess all the time, don’t we?”

  Edna gives me a look of pity. “This is sixth grade, Merci,” she says, as if I don’t know. “We don’t have recess anymore like in the lower school.” Baby, she wants to say, and just like that my eyelid starts to feel heavy, and I feel the drift.

  Miss McDaniels hangs up the phone and turns back to all of us. “So. Where were we? Are there any questions or concerns?”

  No one says anything, but I can feel Edna watching me, like a not-so-friendly dare.

  “All right, then; if there’s nothing else, you’re dismissed.” Miss McDaniels checks her watch. “First bell is in exactly three minutes, and I have no plans whatsoever to write tardy slips for any of you. Good day.”

  Everyone hurries out, but my feet have somehow turned to deadweight. I stare at the walls and baseboards, noticing that they’ll need a fresh coat soon, especially that scuffed spot near the copier. Maybe I could do paint for community service on a Saturday when no one is here.

  I wait for the others to leave before I inch a little closer to her desk. It takes a second for Miss McDaniels to look up from her paperwork to see me still standing there. She peers at me over her half-moon glasses. “Yes, Merci? Is there a problem?”

  I try not to breathe through my nose. The stink of dying flowers is making me queasy. My mind spins with all the ways I could answer her. Roli says you should always build a case carefully, cool and logical, like a Vulcan. So I take a deep breath and start slowly, the way I’ve been practicing.

  “There are so many problems, Miss McDaniels,” I say, trying to warm up. “Word problems, social problems, money problems . . .”

  She crosses her arms and gives me a stern look. Miss McDaniels doesn’t like nonsense. Not one bit. There’s never any time for nonsense.

  “Merci Suárez, take your fingers off your nose and tell me why you are still standing here.”

  I have no choice but to knuckle right down on the tough negotiations. I put the folder on her desk. “I’d like another community service assignment, please,” I say.

  “I see.”

  “Something that will take less time during soccer season. Maybe some painting or . . .” My eyes slide over to the wicker basket in the corner. Last year, I helped clear out the lost-and-found bin after every quarter. Quick and easy. That’s how I scored several unclaimed gel pens and a necklace that I gave Abuela for her birthday, too.

  She cocks her head. “Are you aware that it’s an honor to be selected as a Sunshine Buddy ambassador?”

  “So you’ll have no trouble filling my spot,” I tell her, smiling. “That’s good.”

  She shakes her head. “It’s not everyone who is lucky enough to be picked to represent our school in this way,” she says.

  I feel my cheeks getting red. Lucky? Is that how I should feel? I think back to Edna on the first day we met. “You’re lucky to be here,” she’d said, showing me around the cafeteria’s salad bar. Matching chairs were arranged around maple-colored tables in the middle. “You could be at a school that has a drug dog and smells like mold.” She made a face and giggled.

  And it was true: I could have been, which is always what worried Mami and Papi, too, especially after what happened at the middle school that I was zoned for. A boy brought a knife because another kid liked his girlfriend. Luckily, somebody saw it in his locker and told before anybody got hurt, but the story made the evening news.

  Still. It would be easier to go to school right down the street, and plenty of the kids from my old elementary school go there and they’re just fine. Mold couldn’t smell any worse than rotting flowers.

  And, most important, no one would tease me about being Sunshine Buddies with a boy.

  The warning bell startles me. I don’t have much time.

  “It’s not that I’m not grateful,” I begin. “I am. For everything.”

  Miss McDaniels eyes me and considers things. “I should think so. Let’s give this a few days. Check in with me on Friday after you’ve interacted a bit. We can make any necessary adjustments after that.”

  She sits down and gets back to work to let me know that the conversation is over. When I don’t move, she taps her watch and frowns.

  I’m down to a minute and a half by the time I tuck the folder in my backpack and walk outside. Everyone has scattered to the four winds, as Lolo says. I hurry toward language arts class, reading the names in the bricks as I go past the girls’ restroom. Our family name is not there, of course. You’ve got to give a lot of money to be chiseled into something permanent around here.

  I try to think of some non-dorky way of officially introducing myself to Michael later. Maybe I’ll take a picture of myself and send it to the phone number listed in his folder.

  Hi, I’m your fake friend for a couple of weeks. />
  Hi, I’m here to make sure you don’t barf because no one is talking to you.

  Hi, did you go to a moldy school in Minnesota?

  Unfortunately, I don’t get far before I hear giggling right behind me. Someone has stepped out of the girls’ bathroom.

  “Ooooh, Michael, let’s be buddies.”

  I don’t turn around. I already know who it is.

  LOLO’S NEW GLASSES ARE ROUND and enormous, but they seem to have cheered him up. He got them this morning with Tía Inés, who’s still mad that she had to get time off work again to take him. It was Papi’s turn to drive Lolo to an appointment, she claims, which is one of their favorite sibling arguments. I don’t get it. If it were up to me, I’d take off every chance I got to hang out with Lolo. But with them, it’s always a fight.

  Anyway, the thick lenses magnify Lolo’s eyes, so they look really big and green from some angles.

  “You like them?” he asks.

  His voice sounds so peppy that I don’t have the heart to say the truth.

  “Circles are my favorite shape,” I say.

  “He insisted on getting the largest pair in the shop,” Tía Inés says, as if he isn’t sitting right there at the luncheonette counter she’s wiping down. “It’s the exact same prescription as last time, but he swears that he sees better.”

  “And I do,” Lolo says. “Nothing is going to get past me now. You’ll see.” He takes another loud slurp of the tropical smoothie he’s drinking. The pineapple chunk from the rim of the glass has already been reduced to rind. “Sit down and have a snack, Merci,” he says.