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For Soren, my home
CHAPTER 1
I GRIP DAD’S OLD ARMY COMPASS, willing myself not to launch it at the obnoxious raven heckling me from the bedroom window. I’ve lived in five other places, but the birds in New Haven are by far the most annoying.
“Did you hear the old lady who lives here cooks raccoons and armadillos for dinner?” the raven chirps, hopping back and forth on the windowsill. He bobs his black head at the packing boxes in my room.
“I know for a fact that’s not true.” I kick a large cardboard box labeled NESTOR’S COMIC BOOKS AND DART GUNS under my bed. The springs under the mattress groan as the box pushes against the bed frame. “My abuela is the best cook in Texas.”
“Fine. Don’t believe me. Maybe I’ll visit you in the hospital when they have to remove your small intestine after you eat too much barbecued roadkill.”
I roll my eyes. Sometimes being able to speak to animals is not as cool as you would think.
I clench my jaw and shove another box under my bed, getting down on my knees to push against the straining bed frame. This raven is keeping me from breaking my unpacking record. Moving among five Army bases, I’ve perfected my skills. I hold the record for fastest room packing and unpacking in the entire universe. You can get away with unpacking only one box of clothes for about three weeks before your mom realizes you’ve been wearing your cat-surfing-on-a-piece-of-pizza T-shirt every day. I know sorting through your boxes in front of a curious new neighbor means he’ll see all your underwear and the ratty stuffed bear you still insist on sleeping with.
But the secret to success is not to bother unpacking half your boxes when you get to your new location. That way you’re ready to go when your mom announces the inevitable.
I wasn’t surprised when Mom said, “Nestor, we’re moving to New Haven, Texas.” We’d lived at Fort Hood for six months, I was getting used to my new school, and my classmates were about to earn friend status. My teachers finally started calling me by the right name. I knew that was my cue to get ready to move again.
So two days ago, I set my stopwatch and timed myself as I threw my sketchbooks and pencils into one box, my animal encyclopedia into another, and the remaining dart guns, Legos, and Pokémon cards that had survived the last four moves into a third box. Five minutes and thirty-four seconds!
Although, I forgot to pack my underwear.
The raven pecks at the peeling paint on my windowsill, his thick black feathers shining in the sunlight. He looks like he’s covered with oil, a twisty design of green and purple on his wings. I abandon my unpacking and grab my sketchbook so I can draw New Haven’s annoying wildlife.
“Oh, so you’re gonna make me famous? You even a good artist?” The raven stretches out his feathers.
I consider drawing an enormous black bear devouring the raven, feathers and bird bits flying through the air.
I’m shading in just the right look of obnoxious in the raven’s eye when I hear a soft knock on the bedroom door.
My abuela shuffles in, her curly hair piled on her head. She tried to dye it red to cover her gray, but it’s come out more of a purple. It matches the tiny flowers on her housecoat.
Abuela gives me a hug, and I inhale the scent of lavender. Of the five times I’ve moved, this is the first time someone I know has greeted me. Usually it’s just an empty house with echoing walls and neighbors’ curious eyes. I could stay in Abuela’s hug forever.
“And how is the unpacking?” She scans my new room and pauses when she sees the packing boxes shoved under my bed. She chuckles, giving me a wink.
The raven beats his wings against the window frame. “Oh, you are so busted.”
I shake my head and look at Abuela, checking to see if she can hear my annoying animal companion, too. She’s busy pulling a brown paper bag from behind her back, no reaction on her face. I guess my ability to talk to animals didn’t skip a generation.
“Fine, I guess.” I glance at the boxes in my closet, shoved behind my clothes.
Abuela takes my sketchbook and holds it at arm’s length, admiring my raven drawing. “Ay, mira. Another masterpiece, Joselito.”
Abuela likes to call me Joselito sometimes, after José Nicolás de la Escalera. He was Cuba’s first painter. Abuela tells me she hopes to see my drawings one day in museums around the world, just like José’s. I don’t bother to tell her I don’t think I’m that good. I draw because it keeps me occupied sitting in new classrooms as the teacher drones on about equations I learned two schools ago.
And paper and pencils are easy to pack.
“What’s that?” I ask, as Abuela holds out the brown paper bag to me.
“I have something for you, niño.” Abuela’s eyes sparkle.
I peek inside. A baseball glove rests at the bottom.
“I thought you might want that. I went up to the attic to dig it out of some boxes. Ay, almost broke my hip, esas tontas escaleras.”
I run my fingers over the worn glove, smiling as Abuela curses the attic stairs. The brown leather has cracks in the palm, and a few loose laces hang from the edge. It’s definitely well used.
“This glove was your papi’s. He and your abuelo spent hours out there in the backyard, tossing a baseball back and forth. I had to yell at them so much to stop throwing and come in for dinner. And I’m a good cook. Ya tú sabes.” Abuela chuckles and sits next to me on the bed. She shifts her weight as the boxes crammed under my bed push the sharp bedsprings against the mattress. I hear the cardboard begin to crunch on one of them. I hope that’s not the one with my aquarium.
“Gracias, Buela. This is really cool.”
My dad’s glove. I slide my fingers inside and flex the glove open and closed. I definitely won’t forget to pack this when we move again.
Abuela rubs my back and whispers in my ear. “I have something else, mi niño.”
“What is it?” I wonder how she’s going to top the glove.
She reaches into the pocket of her housecoat and holds out an envelope.
I glance at the white paper in her hand, recognizing the small, all-caps handwriting.
Dad.
My heartbeat pounds in my chest, and I grab the envelope from Abuela.
“No way! Already?”
“I leave you to it.” She kisses the top of my head and pads out of the room in her house slippers.
I have an entire shoebox of letters from Dad. The inbox of my email has its own overflowing folder of messages he’s sent me over the last three months of his deployment. And yet, every time I get a letter from him, my heart beats so fast I can hardly breathe. I always scan the envelope’s return address for some clues about him. Has he moved bases? Is he still in the Middle East? The cryptic combination of letters and numbers on this one tells me he’s at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan.
I tear open the envelope and read.
I know we usually email, but I wanted to have something waiting for you when you got to New Haven. Hopefully, this letter arrived in time.
Specialist Fischer and I played catch yesterday, so I wrote “Kabul, Afghanistan” on your baseball. I’m starting to run out of room on that thing! But I managed to squeeze it in between “Ramstein, Germany” and “Daegu City, South Korea.” You and I will have to toss it around when I get home so we can write “New Haven, Texas” on it.
All right. Here’s your animal question. There’s a species of sheep here in Afghanistan named after a famous explorer. Write me back with the name. I’m pretty sure I’ve stumped you with this one!
Good luck at your new school. I know you’ll do great. You always do.
Love,
Dad
I read the letter three more times, tracing my finger over Dad’s signature. I fold it carefully and tuck it between the pages of my sketchbook. There’s a golf ball in my throat I try to swallow down.
Three months ago, Mom and I stood on a hot tarmac and stared at Dad’s back as he boarded a big-bellied airplane to Afghanistan. It was our fourth time watching him fly away, his shoulders hunched a little more with each deployment. I gripped Mom’s hand, my palm sweaty, and pretended it was the strong sun making my eyes water.
Now Dad is across an ocean, playing catch with someone who is not me. Dad says all this moving, all this being separated, is part of the job. When you’re Nestor Lopez, son of Sergeant First Class Raúl Lopez, every time the Army says “move,” you move.
And it sucks.
I sigh, picking up my charcoal pencil again to continue shading the raven.
“Wait, wait,” he crows on the windowsill. “Get my good side.”
He spins around and lifts his back feathers.
I roll my eyes and turn to a clean page of my old sketchbook, flipping past pages labeled Georgia, Colorado, Washington, Kentucky, and Texas. I write Days in New Haven at the top of the page and make two tick marks underneath. I wonder how many lines I’ll be able to make before we have to move again. I draw a small circle about halfway down the page. That’s my guess for when Mom will sit me down with a big sigh and a rub on the back.
“Hey, if you’re such a know-it-all, tell me about New Haven. They got anything fun to do? Movie theater? Skate park? A teleportation device that takes you to a better town?”
The raven hops and turns around. “Hoo-eee, it’s better than a worm salad for breakfast, I tell you what.”
He cranes his neck toward the skateboard thrown in the bottom of my closet. “Pretty cool skate park. Just behind the abandoned Dairy Queen.”
I raise my eyebrow. From what I’ve seen, I’d be lucky if that skate park is anything more than one concrete block and a piece of plywood. Driving into New Haven, Mom accidentally sailed through the town’s one stop sign. Not stoplight. Stop sign. Several boarded-up windows were plastered with missing-pet flyers on the few buildings downtown. I wonder if the residents of New Haven have forgotten they had formed an actual town and aren’t just living next to one another by chance. My obituary will probably read, “Died of boredom in New Haven, Texas.”
I’ve worn down the tip of my black charcoal pencil and can’t find my sharpener. It’s probably hiding at the bottom of a box labeled MISMATCHED SOCKS or TOYS I HAVEN’T PLAYED WITH IN SIX YEARS. I move through the boxes scattered in my room and start piling them in the closet. I’m stacking a third box on my tower when I notice writing scrawled on the back wall. Raúl Armando Lopez’s secret hiding spot. Trespassers beware. The handwriting is shaky, and a stick figure dog is drawn underneath.
I smile at the thought of Dad labeling a hiding spot that’s supposed to be secret. I hope the Army has taught him better camouflage since.
I take the box and start a new stack, leaving Dad’s message uncovered. I continue stacking my unpacked boxes until they reach the top of the closet. I have to use all my body weight to close the closet doors, the wood creaking against my shoulder as the cardboard crumples.
“All unpacked?” Mom’s head pops around the doorframe, and she scans the room.
I jump onto my bed and move my feet in front of the boxes crammed under the frame. I keep an eye on the closet door, praying it stays shut. “Yeah, sure. Of course.”
“Look under the bed! Look under the bed!” The raven flaps his wings and squawks.
I snap my head toward the raven and swat at him with my sketchbook. He flies away from the window with a screech.
Mom’s tired face doesn’t show any hint of understanding the bird. The dark circles under her eyes match the purple in her shirt, and her black hair has mostly fallen out of her messy ponytail, sticking to the sweat on her forehead. It seems like with each move, she gets slower at packing and unpacking, while I get faster. She always saves a picture of Dad in his dress uniform until last, wrapping it in her green-and-gold scarf and placing it in her purse, removing it only when we reach our next destination.
“Let’s take a selfie for Dad in your new room,” Mom says, sitting next to me on the bed.
Mom is obsessed with taking pictures for my dad. She holds out her phone, and I lean in close to her. Wrapping her arm around me, she taps a button and captures our toothy smiles. I don’t have the heart to tell Mom that her arms are so short Dad won’t be able to see anything behind us. For all he knows, we could’ve moved to the surface of Mars.
Mom stands and inspects the picture. She looks at the boxes under my bed, her hand wrapped around Dad’s wedding band hanging from a gold chain at her neck. She rubs the ring with her thumb. “Nestor, actually unpack this time. I’m serious.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I look down at my bare feet swinging off the edge of the bed. There’s a scar on my right big toe from a bad game of kickball in Kentucky and another scar on my left ankle from a doomed hike in Colorado. “It’s not like it matters anyway.”
Mom gives me a weak smile. “New Haven will be different. We’re not on another military base. Maybe you’ll like it.”
Fort Hood had a Whataburger, a video arcade, and a comic book shop where you could read as long as you wanted if you bought chips or candy bars from the owner. Most kids at school had parents in the military, so everyone understood if you didn’t want to talk in the middle of science because your dad had flown across an ocean the night before. Now Mom’s moved me to a town where I’m a circus freak. An alien from a distant planet. My only comfort is knowing I might not be here long.
“Your dad loved growing up here. I know it will be good for you.”
“Until the next move.” I grip my pencil so hard it snaps in my hand.
Mom sighs and rubs her eyes. “I don’t know what to tell you, Nestor. We’re here with your abuela. You’ll be okay.”
I open my mouth to argue just as the old closet doors give way, revealing an avalanche of crushed cardboard and packing tape. Mom’s raised eyebrows silence me as I sigh and shuffle over to Mount Packing Box, the dart guns, Legos, and old sketchbooks taunting my unpacking skills. Obviously, no unpacking record will be broken today.
CHAPTER 2
“CHAO, PESCAO,” ABUELA CALLS after me as I leave her house.
I wave and shout back, “Y a la vuelta, picadillo!”
I hike my backpack onto my shoulder and head off to school. All I have is my sketchbook, a half-used spiral notebook from my old school, my pencil pouch, and Dad’s compass. Mom and Abuela got a school supply list when they registered me, but I ignored it. I probably won’t be at New Haven Middle School long enough to use all the things on the list anyway.
As I start up the trail into the woods, a black blur sails above me, diving between tree branches.
“What was that all about?” the raven squawks, buzzing my hair.
“What?” I ask, turning to make sure Abuela’s gone back into her house and won’t see me chatting up a bird.
“All that Spanish. Don’t you know how to say adiós?”
“That
’s how Abuela and I always say goodbye. Didn’t matter if she was calling me on the phone or visiting us in Washington or Kentucky or wherever, we’d say goodbye the same way.”
“And what exactly were you saying? You were talking about me, weren’t you?”
I shake my head and laugh. “Hardly. Abuela says it has to do with the ration cards they gave out in Cuba when Castro would let people buy only fish one day and beef the next.”
“That’s not cool.”
“Well, he was a dictator, so what do you expect?”
I take Dad’s compass out of my backpack and clutch it in my hands.
“What’s that?” the raven asks, sailing to the ground and hopping next to me. So much for a quiet walk to school.
“It’s a compass. My dad gave it to me when I was in preschool, before his first deployment.”
I rub my thumb over the face of the compass. When I was little, I thought the red needle pointed to Dad instead of north. I would spend hours staring at the face, willing the tiny red arrow to swing toward me.
I didn’t want to leave Abuela’s house this morning. It wasn’t the usual “I don’t want to go to school” tantrum. I wanted to stay and take in every wall, every corner of the house. There are lines on the doorframe in the dining room marking Dad’s height as he grew up. Abuela has a framed picture of her and Abuelo standing in the living room in their wedding clothes. Her house has a history. It’s a home.
I’ve never lived anywhere like that.
The raven jumps onto a rock and then launches himself into the air. “You know, it’s a lot faster to walk through town to get to school.”
I scuff my feet on the trail. “I’m not in a hurry. Besides, I figured I could sketch some animals or trees out here. I didn’t get to wander much on Army bases.”
“You didn’t?”
“Well, you never knew if you were going to stumble onto some grenade exercises or bazooka practice.” I wink at the raven. “So do you have a name?”
The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez Page 1