by Meg Medina
IT’S LUNCHTIME, BUT I’VE COME to the science lab instead of the cafeteria, even though they’re serving free Halloween cupcakes decorated with spiderwebs for dessert. As we get closer to Halloween, the chefs try to get creative. Yesterday, they arranged black olives on little balls of white cheese to look like creepy eyeballs staring out from the tacos. But I’m not hungry now, and even if I were, I wouldn’t want to sit at a lunch table with Edna.
Maybe Roli can tell me what to do.
I find him at one of the lab tables with Bilal, hunched over stacks of bubbled answer sheets, sorted by class hour. As soon as Roli looks up at me, everything wells up. My eye cuts loose, and my bottom lip starts to quiver, even though I’m trying my hardest not to cry.
“What’s wrong?” he says.
I swallow hard. I can’t talk.
Bilal gets up. “I’m going to start these at the Scantron,” he says, scooping up a stack of tests.
When he’s gone, I start to cry, explaining the costume catastrophe.
“I think it was Edna who ruined it,” I say. “She’s been mean all week.”
“You’re probably right, but what proof do you have?” Roli asks.
“Who else could it be? She’s the only one who was mad about me working with Michael. I’m going to tell Ms. Tannenbaum.”
Roli shrugs and hands me a tissue. “Do what you want, but it might not go your way if you snitch. For one thing, you’re jumping to conclusions without evidence. But more important, you’re accusing Dr. Santos’s kid. Who’s going to believe you, Merci?” he says. “Without proof, it’s your word against hers.”
I glare at him, knowing that, as usual, he has a point.
“Look, I’ve got to get Ms. Wilson’s quizzes checked before the end of the period.” He grabs his stack and walks me to the door. “We’ll talk on the way home.”
There are still ten minutes left to my lunch period, but I don’t have it in me to be in the same room with Edna. So I walk across to the courtyard, where it’s always quiet. Only a couple of kids are out here, including Lena, who’s reading as usual. She looks up at me and smiles. I wave, but I don’t join her. Instead, I find a bench by myself in the shade and try to eat some of my sandwich.
When the bell rings, everyone files out of the cafeteria. I ball up my lunch bag and toss it in the trash bin.
“Hey, Merci!”
I turn to see Michael jogging over. A piece of the broken mask is sticking out of his backpack. The sight of it makes me want to cry all over again.
“So what happened to this thing?” he asks.
“I told you. I left it on Ms. Tannenbaum’s desk this morning and it was fine. Somebody wrecked it.”
Michael frowns. “On purpose?”
I look at him, trying to keep my gaze steady. I could tell him that I think it was Edna, but then I’d also have to explain why she’s mad at me. And what if I’m wrong like Roli says? It could have been somebody else, maybe someone just looking to do something stupid.
“I don’t know for sure who messed it up,” I tell him. “Maybe you can put it back together with duct tape or something.”
“I’ll try, but it’s going to be tough,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s pretty wrecked. Now I don’t have a costume for Edna’s party either.”
I blink.
“You’ll be able to fix it,” I mumble, and then I hurry away from him, wondering if he’s being mean or if he just doesn’t know I’m not invited.
Up ahead, Edna and the others are walking, boys and girls together. They’re laughing and talking as if nothing is wrong at all. They’re probably all planning the fun at her house tomorrow night.
“Hey, wait up!” Michael calls. I turn, but it’s not me he means.
I watch as he dashes after the others.
ONCE EDNA PROMISED TO TAKE me to Coral Cove on her boat.
It was last year, my first week, so I didn’t know her very well. We were walking to class that day and had stopped to look at the glass display outside the art room. The fourth-graders had taken photographs of sea creatures during a class trip to go snorkeling at MacArthur Park. I’d only seen pictures like that in magazines.
“You’ve never snorkeled?”
“Not off a boat.” I didn’t mention that it was a long time ago, near the water’s edge, when I was little and Lolo bought us those cheap masks and flippers from Walmart.
“I’ll take you sometime,” she promised, showing me some pictures on her phone. “It’s so fun. We can go to Coral Cove.”
I was so excited; I told Mami I needed a new mask and everything. Well. I waited, and I even hinted to Edna a couple of times, thinking she forgot. But the invitation never came. Mami told me I shouldn’t mention it anymore. “People say things to be polite sometimes,” she told me. “She was trying to be nice.”
I thought about that last night as I tossed and turned. It was hard to wait for something that never came, but this feels even worse.
I’m picking at my breakfast when Abuela comes over, carrying the bag with my costume.
“Here you go! The best demon costume just for you!”
“Thanks,” I say.
“¿Qué pasa?” She frowns at me. “Are you coming down with the same thing your mother had?” She puts her hand on my forehead. “You look terrible.”
“I’m not sick,” I say.
“What’s the matter, then?”
I don’t have the heart to tell Abuela what happened to Michael’s costume. I don’t even want to mention Edna’s party. I know Abuela won’t understand. She’ll just say it’s not important to be friends with someone who’s rude to you. It makes me ache for Lolo even more.
“I just get stage fright in front of people,” I tell her. “And we have to give our oral reports today.”
She waves her hand. “¡Qué bobería! That’s nothing to worry about. With this costume, you’ll be the best-looking demon in school. Now finish eating. Your brother’s waiting in the car.”
So here I am sitting in social studies, still mad. We’re in our costumes, buzzed on Halloween candy and trying to sit through our presentations until it’s time to go to the festival.
“I am Isis, queen of all gods, but you may call me the Divine One.”
It’s Edna’s turn to present her costume to the class. She’s wearing a short black wig with straight black hair and bangs, shiny and fake like a Barbie’s. Her eyes are rimmed with liquid eyeliner. She’s wrapped tightly in a white bedsheet and has a carpenter’s square on her head. Shiny bracelets decorate her arms. She looks pretty in the way that older girls do. Wonderful report, very detailed, according to Ms. Tannenbaum, and it’s true that Edna delivers it like she’s in a school play. People clap when she’s finished.
But not me.
I doodle in my notebook, trying not to get nervous.
Michael is next. He was right; he wasn’t able to do a very good job of fixing the mask. The duct tape shows everywhere, and the jaws don’t move anymore. Lucky for him, Ms. Tannenbaum isn’t grading hard on the costume portion. It’s mostly about the quality of your report. He has a lot of interesting things about Anubis in his speech. If he’s lucky, maybe he’ll still get that A and go to Disney after all.
“Lena Cahill? You’re next.”
Lena cracks all ten fingers and walks to the front of the room. Then she turns around to face us all. She’s wearing a blue top that matches her spiky hair. Sheer scarves are pinned to it. She takes three deep breaths before plugging her iPhone into a portable speaker that she props on Ms. Tannenbaum’s desk. The sound of flutes fills the room. Lena closes her eyes and concentrates. In a few moments, she starts to sway to the odd music. It’s almost as if she can’t see any of us anymore.
“I am Nut,” she begins.
A few kids snort. “No kidding,” someone whispers behind me.
“Mother of Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys.”
She moves each of her arms and legs in slow arcs, her eyes following them, like
a dancer in slow motion. “I am everywhere: north, south, east, west.”
“I am the sky over the whole world.” She bends forward and puts her hands on the floor. Her hips jut high, so she looks like a mountain. “At night, I swallow the setting sun. I give birth to the light each morning.”
The music finishes and she lifts herself out of her pose slowly.
We all sit there blinking as she unplugs and sits down.
“Lena, that was amazing,” Ms. Tannenbaum says in the quiet that follows. “I didn’t know you were a dancer.”
“Everyone is a dancer,” Lena says.
“Well, you gave an absolutely brilliant interpretation. Excellent! Thank you!”
Finally, Ms. Tannenbaum checks her grade book and turns to me.
“Last but not least, Merci Suárez. You’re on. It’s a tough act to follow . . .”
I slide on my mask. At least it will stop people from staring at my eye. Oohs and aahs follow me as I go to the front of the class in my costume. It’s hard to walk in a big hippo booty. My rump bangs into people’s desks and knocks their books to the floor.
I turn around and take a deep breath. Behind this mask, I’m willing myself to be someone else, someone braver.
“My name is Ammut, and I’m a demon, devourer of the dead.” My voice echoes in here. “I have the head of a crocodile, the body of a lion, and the bottom of a hippo.
“You will all meet me when you pass into the afterlife. But you don’t have to worry — unless you have been evil. That’s because I work with my friend, the goddess Ma’at. After you die, your sins will be put on one side of a scale, and Ma’at’s feather will be put on the other.” I hold my hands like a seesaw. “Beware: If your bad deeds outweigh the feather . . .” (here I look straight at Edna and snap my jaws hard) “I’ll make a meal of you. You have been warned.”
I waddle back to my desk, tears welling up, wishing I really could be brave without a costume, wishing I really could chomp Edna to bits.
I sit at my desk, but I keep my mask on for a few minutes longer until my tears go back to where they belong. When I finally pull it off, Lena turns around and smiles.
That afternoon, the quad becomes a fairway with the booths made by all the classes. Our stall looks the best, I think. Just as I predicted, the yellow paint is so loud, you can’t miss it. And Ms. Tannenbaum brought in temporary tattoos of the Eye of Horus to use as prizes, so lots of people stop at our booth to get one.
But the festival isn’t fun, at least not for me. I’m too busy thinking about everyone going to Edna’s house afterward without me.
I roam around for a while, eating kettle corn and playing a few games at the other booths. Roli told me what to guess for Mr. Dixon’s boring estimation jar, so I drop in my prediction, knowing I’ll win all the candy corn at the end of the festival. Then I wander over to the fields and watch the fifth-graders play their kickball game. Miss Miller is dressed in jeans and a striped shirt like Waldo, and she’s pitching for both teams. I pull out my camera and take a picture of her as she plays, although something about the sight makes my heart squeeze. She’s not my teacher anymore. Now I have lots of teachers — a whole collection of people who somehow know me less. Miss Miller always said she loved having us. Does she love these new kids as much as she loved us, I wonder? Nobody says gooey things like that to sixth-graders, not even Ms. Tannenbaum.
I steal another glance at Edna. I hate myself for it. Her group — which includes Michael today — looks like they’re having a great time. They laugh and play all the fairway games, and then I see them slip off to hang out near the football bleachers. It’s where the varsity cheerleaders shake their pom-poms during Friday-night football games and make their human pyramids.
I wonder what would happen if I told Michael that I think Edna ruined his costume? Would he believe me? Or would her mojo still win out?
“Enjoying the festivities?”
Miss McDaniels’s voice makes me jump. I almost don’t recognize her without her blazer and pumps. She’s wearing jeans and sneakers, and a headband that has springy bats wobbling from it.
“Yes, miss.”
“And where is your Sunshine Buddy? I’d think this would be the perfect opportunity to spend time together.”
I swallow hard. “Oh, he’s having fun around here somewhere.”
“Oh?” She gives me a doubtful look and then glances past me. It doesn’t take her long to notice what I’ve been looking at. Her eyes narrow, and I can see she’s thinking.
I pretend to check my phone. “I have to go, miss. It’s almost my volunteer time in the booth.”
She nods at me and reaches for her walkie-talkie. I hear her voice as I move away. “A PTO volunteer is needed to supervise the bleachers, please. I’m on the way to retrieve some students now.”
After the festival, while I’m waiting for Roli in the parking lot, I see Jamie and Rachel pile into Mrs. Santos’s minivan (license plate: FUT–Z 2). I can’t see who’s already inside. Probably everybody in the whole world, all jammed in like one of those clown cars. Then Michael comes up along the path.
“Hey. You won the candy corn?”
I hold out the bag and he takes a handful.
“Thanks! My favorite,” he says, digging in. A car horn beeps. It’s Edna signaling to him. “Oops.” He starts to jog away. “See ya, Merci,” he says. “Watch out for zombies!”
WE’RE A FEW BLOCKS FROM our house, just across the road from the strip mall that has El Caribe and the big Walgreens. It’s right by the bus stop where Lolo and I rested after his fall.
“Good song,” Roli says, and turns up the volume. We’re tossing back candy corn and blasting music. The bass is making the car shake and buries anything you’re thinking about except the beat. At each light, people stare in a way that for once I don’t mind.
I check my phone for the fourth time since we got in the car. But there’s no message bubble. No one has tried to reach me to say, Hey, Merci, where are you? You were invited, too! There’s not even a prank message. There’s just a stinging quiet.
I close my eyes and listen to the music. Maybe I can talk to Lolo about it in the morning. He’s clearest then. Don’t worry about Miss Santos, Merci, he’ll probably say, and he’ll make me forget all about dumb Edna. We’ll take a walk or share a tropical smoothie. He’ll tell me an old story or we’ll bat some balls across the yard.
At least there’s trick-or-treating to save the rest of this day. I’ll walk around the neighborhood with Roli and the twins as soon as the sun sets. Those two are probably foaming at the mouth about now. They hate to wait for anything, much less trick-or-treating. It’s not that I blame them. Everybody knows that you get the best candy early. Plus, the older kids come out with eggs and shaving cream when it’s late, so Tía likes us to be home. Lolo might be able to help Tía keep them calm until it’s time to go. He’ll pretend he’s a hypnotist, opening his eyes wide and lowering his voice the way he used to do with me. He’ll move his long fingers in a pulsing motion like sea anemones. Look deeply. Nos concentraremos . . . You will do as I say . . .
I’m thinking of all that and watching the rush-hour traffic on Military Trail when I spot something strange up ahead. At first I think it’s a mirage, just my thoughts mixing up my eyes. But no. Through the three lanes of traffic moving in each direction, I see Lolo. He’s standing on the median that’s perpendicular to ours, and he’s holding a plastic shopping bag from Walgreens with what looks like bags of Halloween candy inside.
But where’s Abuela?
“Look.” I nudge Roli and point.
Lolo isn’t crossing the street. In fact, he looks uncertain, as if he can’t decide what to do next in the heavy traffic. It’s the same look he wore at the pier, and suddenly my stomach plunges.
“What’s he doing out there?” Roli asks. He lowers his window. “Lolo!” He waves. “Over here!”
Lolo turns, but he doesn’t smile or even look like he recognizes us. His worried frow
n is still there.
“Wait there!” Roli calls out. “We’re coming around.”
But just then the light changes, and the traffic starts moving in the through lanes near Lolo. We catch glimpses of him as he paces back and forth on the median, impatient.
A driver waiting in the turn lane closest to him looks like she’s trying to talk to him, but he doesn’t answer her either.
“He’s in trouble, Roli.” My hand goes to the door.
“Stay in the car,” my brother snaps. He checks his rearview and side mirrors, trying to edge out safely. He’ll need to move us way over to the right lane to turn around.
“Let me in,” Roli mutters. Sweat is beading on his top lip. Drivers lay on their horns, and one guy leans out his window and shouts at us angrily.
Meanwhile, Lolo is still pacing. He’s wringing the bag’s handles as he walks back and forth. The bass in our car is still boom, boom, booming.
I keep my eyes on him like a hypnotist, willing Lolo to stand still with my mind.
I force myself to believe it will work the way I used to believe in unicorns and Santa Claus.
Concentrate. Wait there. Don’t move, I say over and over in my mind, even as my heart pounds.
But it’s no use.
Everything happens in a flash. Lolo steps off the median, and Roli lurches us out of the lane. Tires screech as cars swerve to avoid us. And then a huge jolt sends me forward as we’re hit from behind and go spinning across the lanes like a top.
THE BASS OF OUR RADIO kept thumping.
Every time I close my eyes, I hear the pounding beat and then the ambulance sirens from far away. I hear the shattered windshield crunching under my sneakers. I smell the burned tires and gasoline. I can see people staring, their mouths hanging open the way Rachel’s does.
The back end of Mami’s car was crushed into the back seat. At least no one was sitting back there. Not like the day we had Michael.
“You’re lucky,” one of the nurses said as she picked glass out of my curls in the emergency room. “God was looking out for you today.”