Marcus Vega Doesn't Speak Spanish

by Pablo Cartaya

  VIKING

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  First published in the United States of America by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2018

  Copyright © 2018 by Pablo Cartaya

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Ebook ISBN 9781101997277

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Cartaya, Pablo, author.

  Title: Marcus Vega doesn’t speak Spanish / by Pablo Cartaya.

  Other titles: Marcus Vega does not speak Spanish

  Description: New York : Viking, [2018] | Summary: After a fight at school leaves Marcus facing suspension, Marcus’s mother takes him and his younger brother, who has Down syndrome, to Puerto Rico to visit relatives they do not remember or have never met, and while there Marcus starts searching for his father, who left their family ten years ago and is somewhere on the island.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017052895 | ISBN 9781101997260 (hardcover)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Families—Fiction. | Puerto Ricans—United States—Fiction. | Down syndrome—Fiction. | People with mental disabilities—Fiction. | Middle schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Puerto Rico—Fiction. |

  BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / People & Places / United States / Hispanic & Latino. | JUVENILE FICTION / Family / General (see also headings under Social Issues). | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Special Needs.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.C24253 Mar 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017052895

  Version_1

  A la gente de Puerto Rico,

  This story is for you . . . Pa’lante siempre.

  Also by Pablo Cartaya

  The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Also by Pablo Cartaya

  Epigraphs

  One: Monster Business

  Two: Crosswalks

  Three: Pure Imagination

  Four: Trigger

  Five: Trouble with a Capital T

  Six: The If Factor

  Seven: Pressing Send

  Day OneEight: Travel Day

  Nine: Layover and Touchdown

  Ten: Old San Juan Has Wi-Fi

  Eleven: Relative Distance

  Twelve: Fireworks

  Day TwoThirteen: Finca Vega

  Fourteen: Getting Good Darma

  Day ThreeFifteen: Echoes of the Mountains

  Sixteen: Chinchorros

  Seventeen: Moonlight Pernil

  Day FourEighteen: Pisa y Corre

  Nineteen: Hotel Maravilla

  Twenty: Familia Monstruo

  Day FiveTwenty-One: Like All Things

  ReturnTwenty-Two: Questions and Answers

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  MISUNDERSTAND

  verb: to fail to understand (someone or something) correctly

  FAMILY

  noun: any of various social units differing from but regarded as equivalent to the traditional family

  “The monsters of our childhood

  do not fade away,

  neither are they ever

  wholly monstrous.”

  —John le Carré

  ONE

  MONSTER BUSINESS

  Most kids clear out of the way when I walk down the hall. They’re like campers in a forest who spot a grizzly and scramble up a tree to hide. (Or, in this case, climb into a locker.) I’ve been called the Mastodon of Montgomery Middle, the Springfield Skyscraper, the Moving Mountain, the Terrible Tower, the . . . You get the idea.

  These names bothered me in sixth grade when I was excited to start middle school and make friends. But now, in eighth grade, my size has become a profit center. And business is booming.

  Take these two kids sitting down in the back corner of the library (my office), fidgeting like I’m going to eat them or something. One has practically chewed off his fingernails, and the other one’s leg won’t stop bouncing.

  I hear them whispering.

  “What?” I say.

  “Is it true?” the kid asks. “That you carried forty-two chairs to the auditorium? By yourself?”

  I stare. “Yes.”

  Actually it was only eight chairs, but these are the kinds of rumors that are good for business.

  “Incredible.”

  They start whispering to each other again.

  “We’re wondering if we could procure your walking services, Mr. Marcus?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  At the start of the school year, a bunch of sixth graders confused me for a teacher while they were trying to find the auditorium. I told them they’d better figure out where they needed to go or I was going to collect a tax from them for getting in the way. They ran. Soon a rumor started spreading that I was really an undercover assistant principal hired to keep kids in line. It’s kind of ridiculous, but things at Montgomery often are.

  The rumors about me have gone from fantastical (Godzilla with a crew cut) to realistic (assistant principal). It’s really annoying. But like I said, I’ve found a way to make it work for me. These two kids are here for my walking service, the crown jewel of my business.

  “Five bucks a week to walk each of you to school,” I say. “And five bucks to get you home. Your total invoice is ten per week.”

  “Each of us?” The kid seems surprised.

  “I could walk you halfway for half the price.”

  They look at each other a moment.

  “That’s my blue-plate special,” I say.

  “No, we’ll take the whole service. Thank you.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “I live on Maple and Vine,” one kid says.

  The other kid chimes in with, “I’m on Vine and North Cherry Hill Drive.”

  I already walk four other kids who live in the Cherry Hill neighborhood, so two more isn’t a big deal. I can’t charge them more than ten bucks, or parents will start to wonder. The way I see it, it’s a win-win for everyone. I’m making some money, and these kids are getting protection from bullying on their walks to and from school. I’m doing a service. People pay for bodyguards all the time. That’s what I am to these kids—a big, bad bodyguard.

  “Hey,” I tell them before they run off to class. “There’s a deposit. Five bucks each.”

  I always take a deposit for my services. It’s like insurance money. They both pull out fives and hand them to me. Then they quickly get out of my office.

  Most of my business transactions happen in the small cubicle located behind a shelf at the far end of the library. The school librarian lets me hang there whenever I want. I usually take a stack of books to read while I wait for my “clients.” In exchange for the office
space, I help the librarian shelve books.

  I carefully fold the cash into my pocket and pull out my business spiral from my backpack to write down the names of my new clients. I check my CELL PHONE STORAGE tab before I close it. I need to pick up the slack on that. I’ve only collected two cell phones today. That’s just three bucks.

  Here at Montgomery, there is zero cell phone use during school hours. Kids were getting their phones stolen and/or thrown into the lunchtime garbage can by older kids. (Trust me, you don’t want your cell phone tossed in there. I don’t even put my own garbage in there.) Besides all of that, Principal Jenkins said students were “spending too much time texting and using social media.”

  Some parents cheered Principal Jenkins’s decision. Others, not so much. In the end, a compromise was made. Kids could have a phone in their lockers but were not permitted to carry them around, and they definitely could not have them in class.

  Around mid-September, two seventh graders bumped into me because they were texting each other while walking to class. They tried to apologize, but I saw an opportunity. I decided to take their phones and charge them a “storage fee” until school got out. I let them come to my locker, send a text or two, then return the phones until they left school. I’ve collected phones one hundred and twenty-seven times since school started. That’s almost two hundred bucks.

  I look at another tab in my portfolio.

  GARBAGE TAX COLLECTION (YEAR TWO)

  WEEK 25 = $2

  Business is way down. I started collecting a garbage tax last year when kids kept dumping stuff on the floor, leaving empty soda cans in the library or crumpled paper in classrooms. It became so bad, Principal Jenkins said he would give detention to any student caught littering on school grounds. That’s how the garbage tax was born.

  The idea came to me when I was sitting in my office and I heard a couple of kids chatting. I stood and peeked over the shelves to find a boy and girl had sneaked two sodas into the library. They finished, left the cans on a shelf, and took a few books to the circulation desk. I walked over, grabbed the evidence, and waited for them outside.

  The girl was surprised to see me standing there. She stepped back and tried to smile. “Hi,” she said.

  I showed them the cans. “Know what this means?” I asked.

  The girl looked worried. “Please don’t tell,” she said. “My parents will kill me if I get detention.”

  “We can pay you!” the boy blurted out.

  “How much?” I said.

  “Um . . .” The boy looked at the girl.

  “Twenty-five cents,” the girl offered.

  “Fifty,” I said.

  They looked at each other again.

  “Fifty cents to save our butts from detention?”

  “How do we know you won’t tell?” the girl asked.

  “Because I would have already told if I didn’t think there was something I could get out of it.”

  “Fair enough,” the girl said. “Here you go.” She shook my hand and gave me a dollar. “For me and my friend.”

  I took the money and threw the cans into the recycling bin. I wrote in my spiral the date I collected the tax, the reason for collecting it, and how much I got for it. After that, I started watching for litterbugs. Most kids wanted to avoid detention, so to them, fifty cents was an even trade for my silence.

  Recently, business has really dropped off. Hardly any kids leave trash behind now. Principal Jenkins thinks his policy is what turned the school around. The threat of detention was one reason. Paying my tax to avoid getting caught was a bigger one.

  I do some stuff for free, too. (Cuz, you know, I’m not a monster.) I carry equipment to school rallies and assemblies, I move desks for teachers, and I help out the maintenance staff with stuff like moving bleachers or rolling out the big garbage bins on trash day. I like the maintenance people. They treat me like a normal kid just helping out.

  But I guess I’m not a normal kid. I was born eleven pounds, twenty-six inches. Doesn’t seem big until you consider that most babies are more like seven or eight pounds and nineteen or twenty inches when they’re born. You get the idea. I was a big infant. Ninety-seventh-percentile big.

  While most kids just stare, the only kid who never misses a chance to tell me I’m not normal is Stephen Hobert.

  Stephen pronounces his name like he’s French, but his family is from Springfield and I know for a fact he’s never been to France. His mom is the head of the parents’ association. She doesn’t like students who stand out for “all the wrong reasons.”

  Stephen has a crew. I’ve seen them pick on kids. Sixth graders are especially afraid of him (in a different way than they are afraid of me). They don’t want to get on his bad side.

  He draws pictures of people he doesn’t like and sneaks them into their backpacks and lockers. I caught him once putting one of his masterpieces inside a girl’s backpack. At lunch later that day the girl was crying with her friends as she showed them the drawing. I happened to see it as I walked to a lunch table. Stephen drew her like a stick figure with a big round head, bulging eyes, short hair, and a tie. Above the drawing, he wrote, “Is it a boy or a girl?”

  Stephen uses words like someone throwing punches. Only it’s nearly impossible to find the bruises. He’s never been caught.

  I don’t collect garbage tax or cell phone storage fees from Stephen. I’ve thought long and hard about it. Sure, he had made a monster out of me by spreading rumors and just being his terrible self. But in a way, he’s responsible for my biggest source of income—keeping kids away from him.

  TWO

  CROSSWALKS

  When school is over, my four regulars plus the two new kids are waiting anxiously by the school entrance. They see me coming and light up with excitement. They know walking with me is saving them from a lot of torment.

  “Let’s go,” I say. They all gather around and walk with me. They look like those ducklings from the picture book I used to read to my brother when he was little.

  First, I drop off the curly-haired kid whose glasses are way too big for his face. They look like giant see-through dinner plates sitting on his nose. He’s about a foot shorter than I am and as scrawny as a broomstick. As we approach his house, the kid high-fives the others. He turns to me and waves.

  “Thanks, Marcus,” he says as his front gate opens and he walks inside. The gate closes and I continue to walk down the sidewalk.

  The other kids are bouncing around me like remoras swimming under a great white. Occasionally they spot a fresh patch of snow, scoop some of it, and toss it at each other. They’re careful not to hit me, and never walk too far behind.

  When we reach the second kid’s house, he runs inside without saying good-bye. He knocks on the front door, and his nanny opens it. She’s got a baby in her arms. She pats the kid on the shoulder and ushers him inside. Then she waves at me and I nod.

  Three more kids to drop off, then I’ll walk back to the school library to finish my homework and wait for my brother.

  “Hey, Marcus,” one of the new kids says. “I used the map on my phone to find out exactly where Alex lives.”

  “Who?” I ask, not slowing my pace.

  “Alex,” he says, catching up and wagging his phone at me. “We procured your services earlier today?”

  I stop.

  The kid shows me his phone. He’s mapped out walking directions to the other kid’s house. It’s about half a mile away, according to the map. I speed up and turn down a side street. The shuffling behind me tells me the kids are surprised by the sudden turn.

  “Um, Marcus?”

  I keep walking. “What?”

  “Um, that’s on the way to Cherry Hill Park,” the kid says.

  “So?” I tell him.

  “So, that’s where Stephen Hobert hangs out. His house is right next to it.”r />
  “So?”

  “Um,” he says, trying to keep up. “I just thought because, you know, we’re trying to avoid—”

  “We’re not trying to avoid anything. It’s a shortcut.”

  It’ll take an extra twenty minutes if we follow the phone route. Add another ten to drop off the last kid. Then another ten minutes to walk back to the school library. That only gives me an hour to do my homework.

  My brother is done with therapy at five. If I’m back later than five, he starts to get nervous. And his occupational therapist, Grace, has other patients to see.

  I continue down the road toward Cherry Hill Park. It sounds like the kids are slowing their steps. I can tell by the way they’re moving behind me that they’re watching the park for Stephen and his crew. I walk past the snow-covered trees on the corner of the sidewalk. One of the kids rushes over to me and practically hugs my leg.

  “Get off.”

  He does and we keep walking.

  I can’t blame them for wanting to stay clear of a punk like Stephen. He knows how to put a spotlight on the things kids worry most about themselves. At lunch, I hear him make comments about a kid’s lisp, or say a boy will probably work in a gas station because he can’t spell, or make fun of a kid’s acne by calling her Crater Face. He makes fun of kids who have outdated clothes and phones. If a kid cries or threatens to tell on him, he says he’s only joking and invites them to hang out. Most kids just try to stay away. But that doesn’t always work. These aren’t really things that teachers notice. Teachers don’t know that he makes it a point to pick on the younger kids walking home. He doesn’t take their money and usually doesn’t shove them, but he ridicules them. Sometimes that hurts more. Sometimes that hurts longer.

  I don’t say anything the rest of the way. I drop the other two kids off and head down North Cherry Hill Drive to the final kid’s house.