"Totally," said C.C. "El Dorado, our major rival, has this Mexican girl who is sooo tiny, but can she fly."
"We need someone like that," Jessie said.
"You have a lot of Mexicans where you live?" Talia asked.
"I'm from Texas. What do you think?"
Josh leaned forward. "Are they all illegal?"
"Some, probably." C.C. shrugged.
"My dad says illegal immigrants are ruining the country," Josh said.
"People complain about that in Texas."
"California too," Jessie said.
"They come here not speaking English and expect us to pay for them."
What were they saying? Right in front of Nando and Alfredo. I mean it's not like I really care or anything, but it's rude. I'd never stand in front of the remedial kids and say they were ruining our school's test scores. Did Nando hear them? I watched him squeeze his eyes shut and roll his hands into fists.
I leaned over. "How come you don't say anything?"
He didn't look at me. "I'll get fired."
"But you don't even seem to like this job."
"My family needs the money." Nando looked down at his balled-up hands.
"I thought you grew everything you needed—that's what you said on the bus this morning. Fruits? Vegetables? Chickens?"
Nando had looked out the window at a hotel emerging from the jungle. "It's not enough anymore."
Everyone laughed at some joke Talia told about Mexicans changing a light bulb. When I glared at her, she stuck her tongue out at me. So mature. Barb bounced on the seat next to her. Oblivious. Who's the one trying too hard to fit in? That joke was so rude! Talia smirked at me.
"Why don't you say anything to her?" Nando said. Why did he have to turn around right at that moment?
I shrugged. I wasn't about to tell him that I never said anything to anyone who teased me. I just went along with it like it was my joke too. I wanted everyone to like me, even stupid Talia.
"You don't have anything to lose by standing up for yourself," Nando said. "But you can lose yourself by trying to please everyone."
I snorted and looked out the window. What did he know? He wasn't exactly standing up for himself, and he didn't know anything about clinging to a popular group of friends by the thinnest thread.
***
I perched on the edge of my beach chair, squishing my feet into the sand, and read my postcard again. Full of lies to make me look good—make them like me. So stupid! My parents would never let me go clubbing in a foreign country; I couldn't even go to the movies on a Friday night. Fiona and the Five would know it too. Why was I trying so hard? I imagined what they'd be doing at mini-camp. Talking about everyone. Talking about me: my clothes, my hair, my height, my grades, and my personality flaws. Just like we all slammed Grace Williams last summer. I felt nervous just thinking about it. And then I remembered how Fiona decided we should all switch out of choir and take the dance elective instead. She didn't tell Grace Williams until it was too late and the class was full. I felt all panicky. I jumped up and ran into the waves to wash the feeling off me.
The water felt so good, so warm. I floated with my eyes closed, bobbing with the swells. Just me and the blue-green Caribbean. I flipped over and swam underwater. When I stood up, I saw the Bronze Sun Goddess swimming with another blond. Maybe her brother?
She saw me and waved.
"Bonjour, Kat," she said with her fantastic accent.
"Hi, Monique."
"Nice water," she said. "Warm." She stood up.
I was looking at her breasts. Naked, topless breasts. Tan Naked Topless Breasts. Big Tan Naked Topless Breasts!
Omigosh, omigosh, I screamed inside my head, but I couldn't say anything.
Monique laughed.
"You're so cute," she said. "See you later, crocodile."
Monique flipped, dunking under the water, and I headed back to the beach as if a shark were after me. I needed a cold drink. My face flamed. Can you really die from embarrassment? On the way in, I noticed all kinds of women splashing around topless—big and saggy, small and perky, old and wrinkly, but none so perfect as what the Bronze Sun Goddess sported. Why did my parents have to book a hotel with a nude beach? New reason, number 46: nude beach at hotel!
After getting my drink, I rubbed an ice cube on my cheeks.
When I got back to the umbrella, Dad laughed. "You shot out of there like a bullet."
"What?"
"You acted like you'd never seen breasts before," he said.
"She's never seen such big ones," Barb said.
"That's not funny." I dropped a piece of ice down her bathing suit. "What would you know anyway, you little traitor?"
"Oooooh," she squealed, wiggling to shake the ice out. "But your face got so red, it glowed." She laughed. "We could see it all the way over here."
"In Europe, women swim topless all the time," Mom said. "It's the custom."
I rolled my eyes. "Thanks for the geography lesson, but we're not in Europe."
"I think it's a great idea." Dad laughed and raised his eyebrows at Mom. "I think you should go European," he said.
"I just might," she said. "I just might."
"Don't you even—" I gasped.
They laughed so hard that Mom choked and spit out her drink. Real classy, Mom.
"I'm glad I'm going on the tour tomorrow," I said.
CHAPTER SIX
The bus came early to drive us three hours through the jungle to the ruins at Chichén Itzá. Mom and Dad were taking it easy for one more day, and I don't even want to think about what that means. Really, their behavior had been disgusting—public kissing, snuggling, all kinds of jokes. If I came back and found my mom topless on the beach, I'd check into a different hotel.
Barb pestered Nando as soon as we picked him up. "What happens next? Tell me, tell me, tell me."
"I don't know if I should tell you now or wait until we get there. Or maybe on the way back." He smiled, actually smiled, a big, beautiful smile: a 10 all the way. He turned to me. "What do you think, Kat?"
I totally blushed. Of course Talia was looking right at me. She leaned forward and whispered something to Jessie and C.C. They all laughed, and I knew I was going to be in for it—all day long.
"I don't care," I said. "Whenever."
Nando looked at me like I should say something, but I slumped down in my seat. Someone had scratched a swearword into the vinyl that pretty much described how I felt.
"Say something." Nando peered down at me. "Be brave like the jaguar in your name."
"I will when you do." What did his name mean? He was probably named after some thorny plant that gave you a rash if you simply looked at it.
"Kat, your face is all red," Barb said.
"Thanks for noticing, Babs." Oooh, she hated that nickname.
"You have to be nice to me. Dad said."
"Whatever." Maybe I could find a way to sacrifice her to the gods.
The bus had turned off the main highway and rattled along a narrow road that was thick with trees and bushes in every shade of green. Thinking of my huge box of pastels, I named the colors: cadmium, emerald, olive ... a patch of cinnabar green. Hot air blew through the windows. Every time I shifted my weight, my sweaty thighs stuck to the seat. And the smell of exhaust made me a little nauseous. The girls in back squealed every time a truck or bus passed, nearly knocking us off the road. I opened my journal to add a new reason, number 47: crazy bus drivers.
"He's driving like we're on the autobahn," Luc said.
Alfredo slammed on the brakes as a truck cut us off. I sat up and gripped Nando's seat in front of me. How many tourists get killed in car accidents? And we didn't even have seat belts. I tried to do some relaxing breathing while I searched out the window for vines like the ones in Muluc's story. I spotted some! Dark leaf green, winding up a pale tree trunk. But then the bus sped up again.
We finally slowed down a bit as we passed a small village of round stick huts with thatched
roofs, built close to the road. None had doors, and in some you could see people swinging in hammocks. Sometimes they waved. The bus stopped in front of a small hut with a rock wall surrounding a lush garden with fruit trees.
"Mi bonita," Alfredo called out. A woman in a white dress with red flowers embroidered at the neck and along the bottom walked out of the hut, smiled, and waved.
"Who's that?" Barb asked.
"Alfredo's girlfriend," Nando said. "You will meet her at my sister's quinceañera."
"I can't wait." Barb sighed. "She's so pretty!"
The girl was gorgeous. Did Nando have a beautiful girlfriend in a white dress somewhere? Why did I even care? I liked Zach B. with his spiky hair and sense of humor, although he didn't quite match Dante or Luc in the body department. And he wasn't nearly as smart as Nando. I reminded myself of Fiona, always comparing, ranking, rating, and assigning numbers to everyone, for everything.
Alfredo's girlfriend watched, waving as the bus pulled away. All of us on the bus turned around to see her as we drove on.
Talia singsonged, "Alfredo has a girlfriend."
Alfredo took his hands off the steering wheel, put them over his heart, and pretended to swoon. "Mi amor," he said. "Quien nunca amó y nunca fue amado jamás nació."
"What does that mean?" Barb asked.
"He who never loved and never was loved was never born," Nando said.
Great—another thing to worry about. Love. Would anyone ever feel that way about me? Zach B. once lent me a pencil in third period, but that probably doesn't count. Fiona had said it was "oh-so ordinary," and nothing like the time Ian Pearl lent her a piece of notebook paper. I sat there fretting about Zach B., not realizing that my hand rested near Nando's neck.
"So, Kat?" Talia called out. "Who's your boyfriend? Is it—"
As girly giggles bubbled throughout the bus, I scrunched down in my seat, got out my journal, and penciled a rough drawing of Muluc riding out the storm.
We drove fast for another stretch and then slowed through a village. Children stared as the bus passed; a skinny dog lay sleeping in the road and almost didn't get out of the way, so Alfredo had to stop. Life seemed so slow out here.
Too slow. All that giggling. I swear I kept hearing my name. Oh, how I just wanted to get this day over with! I pressed my journal to my chest as we passed a small white cement-block building with Spanish words written all over the outside. A sign advertised COLD COCA COLA. Just when it seemed like we were traveling through some ancient period in time, something like that Coke sign would pop up and remind me of home. Would things even be any better at home? Or would I just exchange Talia for Fiona? I shoved my journal into my backpack. My drawings were stupid anyway.
We passed another small building. In the dirt yard, children dressed in blue shorts and white shirts ran around playing soccer.
"What's that?" Barb asked.
"School," Nando said.
Barb crinkled her nose. "It's so small."
"It's a small village." Nando looked back to watch the kids as the bus sped up again. "I went to a school like that."
"Shouldn't you still be in school?" I flew up from my seat as the bus hit a bump in the road. My fingers brushed Nando's shoulder as I grabbed the back of his seat, but I quickly put them in my lap. But not before Talia made some comment about me and amor.
"I had to drop out," he said. "To help my family."
"My dad says we have to go to college," Barb said. "That's like going to school forever." She frowned. "I'd rather go exploring all day like you."
Nando's jaw tightened, so I gave Barb a warning look, but she ignored me as usual.
"You should be a teacher," she said. "You'd be really good at it. I'm learning so much from your story." She clapped her hands together. "Tell us more now, please?"
Nando sighed long and sad. "Where did we leave off?"
"Who cares?" I looked out the window at a tree bursting with orange blossoms—it was pretty, but it totally looked out of place in the mass of green plants. Just like me. Minus the pretty part. "It's just a dumb story, Barb," I said, loud enough for Talia to hear. Maybe she'd shut up about all the boyfriend stuff.
I glanced at Nando, ignoring the hurt look in his dark eyes, and stared back out the window. The orange tree was gone, and the rest of the jungle conformed to green, green, green.
"Don't listen to her. She's just being hormonal. Mom says."
I kicked the seat hard. "Shut up, Barb!"
Nando narrowed his eyes at me.
"Please, Nando. Por favor." Barb actually put her hands on his cheeks and moved his face to look at her. "Muluc had just seen a shimmer of green," she said. "It has to be an island, right? Is it Cozumel? My mom and dad might go there and—"
"No." Nando took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders, and said, "It's just a small island on the Gulf side of the Yucatán. Not a tourist place."
"What's it called?"
"Isla Cerritos."
"Ooh! That sounds so pretty. If I get that stuffed turtle at the gift shop, I'm going to name it Cerritos. Okay, tell the story."
Nando leaned back in his seat with his shoulders slumped. "It was the day called Eb."
***
THE DAY 2 EB
Rain and Storms
White clouds fluttered across the sky as Muluc's canoe landed on an island just off the shore of the peninsula. A flock of long-legged birds flew over the boat in a rush of pink. What strange land had she entered? Canoes lined the beach like big, lazy crocodiles, and crude thatched huts crowded together. In front of one hut, which was piled high with baskets of fluffy white cotton, two men argued. One pulled a flint knife and jabbed at the other man. Other men held them back, and they quieted. The man left without the cotton.
Muluc had never seen so many different kinds of people: men and women with tattoos and different markings on their faces; women with painted yellow skin; men with red skin; men wearing great capes; men with shaved heads; men with long hair; women wearing clothing with unfamiliar patterns in every color. Many wore coarse cloth, but others dressed in colorful stitching as elaborate as a king's tomb! And one woman's dress had been embroidered to look like jaguar spots. The simple shapes woven in Cob´ seemed plain by comparison. Was this the center of the world, where the gods created the different tribes of men?
As Snake unloaded the baskets and jars that had survived the storm, a man with blue streaks on his face came over. "How many captives did you lose?"
"Five or six," Snake said. "Fierce thunder."
"The gods also took three entire canoes filled with captives." Watching Snake grab Muluc's wrists, the man shook his head. "Separate her—she's elite. Look at her long forehead and lip plug."
"Ahh, but she's dressed like a commoner." Snake fingered Muluc's plain white dress, which had only a few embroidered flowers around the neck. "And her hands are rough." He lifted her hand to show the snakelike mark.
"That's a new wound." The man narrowed his eyes. "Only because you survived the storm will I let you keep her, but don't try to fool me again."
Gagging on the stench of urine, Muluc entered a small, dark hut. In the dim light she recognized the embroidery pattern of girls from Cobá, but there were many other girls as well, speaking different languages and wearing heavy fabrics Muluc had never seen before. Some girls collapsed and slept on the filthy sand floor; the others looked frightened, tired, and hungry. Muluc edged toward the back of the hut and reopened the cut on her lip until a few drops of blood fell into the damp, stinking sand. Would the gods accept such an offering, or would the foul surroundings offend them? Muluc licked her dry lips as she watched the other girls from Cobá cling together. How much of the city had been destroyed?
When the sun flew high in the sky, the door opened and a man with fierce eyes entered, holding a gourd. The other girls scrambled for their turns. With a mouth that felt like it had been stuffed with cotton, Muluc eyed the gourd greedily as it passed to the back of the hut. As she gulped the l
ukewarm corn gruel, it seemed like another lifetime when she had drunk chocolate and feasted on roasted meats and fresh fruits. When would the warriors from her village rescue her? She hoped a fierce young warrior would save her, fall in love, receive the king's praise with land and spoils, and marry her. She would raise fierce warrior boys whose images would decorate the murals of Cobá's temples. Muluc fell asleep, feeling foolish for fantasizing about some silly romance when she was in such danger. Men bartered outside the hut.
"I'll give you five girls—strong ones—for the basket of jade," Snake said.
"I'll take six, plus a jar of turtle oil."
"Fair trade," Snake said.
The door opened, and a man with long, braided hair entered, picking through the girls, shoving some aside. Muluc crouched against the back wall as the man chose two older girls with thick arms. He examined another girl's hands. "She knows how to work." He nodded.
He spotted Muluc, pulled her roughly to her feet, and brushed his hand across her forehead. She felt faint as her heart beat like a drum.
"Not her," Snake said. "She's going to Chichén."
The man laughed. "You'll never pass her off as a commoner."
Snake grinned. "She can work for me."
Muluc sat down and stared at her hands—the snake-shaped burn formed a hard crust across her palm, but otherwise her palms felt soft. The other captives looked like the slaves who cooked and washed with her mother and made dyes for her father. Where had they come from? They didn't resemble Cobá's children, and their foreheads had not been pressed. Muluc figured the gods had made them to be workers; she'd never once thought they might be stolen. New girls simply appeared in her compound. Her mother always told her to be kind to the slaves, but to expect them to work hard.
Muluc's head began to hurt with painful thoughts. Why wouldn't someone come rescue her? Wouldn't Parrot Nose come after his brother, if not for her? What if Parrot Nose had been killed? Images of warriors rampaging through her family compound filled her mind, but she stopped herself from completing those thoughts as the door swung open again, filling the hut with light.
Snake shoved Muluc and another girl outside. As her eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight, Muluc noticed that the other girl also had a long forehead and a stone in her lip, proving that the warriors had raided another elite compound. Muluc made hand motions to get the girl's attention, but she stared ahead with wide eyes as Snake led them to a canoe loaded with jars of glittering salt and baskets of jade that gleamed like the green lakes of Cobá. Muluc touched the necklace hanging beneath her dress. What had been traded for the jade around her neck? Cotton? Cocoa beans? Turtle oil? Girls?
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