Not a Chance

by Michelle Mulder

  Not A Chance

  Michelle Mulder

  Text copyright © 2013 Michelle Mulder

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Mulder, Michelle, 1976-

  Not a chance [electronic resource] / Michelle Mulder.

  Electronic Monograph

  Issued also in print format.

  ISBN 9781459802179(pdf) -- ISBN 9781459802186(epub)

  I. Title.

  PS8626.U435N68 2013 jC813'.6 C2012-907457-8

  First published in the United States, 2013

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012952943

  Summary: Dian is outraged when her fourteen-year-old Dominican friend announces that she is engaged to be married.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Teresa Bubela

  Cover photo by iStockphoto.com

  Author photo by David Lowes

  In Canada:

  Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 5626, Station B

  Victoria, BC Canada

  V8R 6S4

  In the United States:

  Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 468

  Custer, WA USA

  98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

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  For Maia

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  One

  “You’re here!” I sit straight up in my metal bunk bed, yank at the mosquito netting and wrestle my way out.

  Aracely stands in the doorway, laughing at me. “Of course I’m here. I live here, remember? You’re the one who takes off at the end of every summer, Dian.”

  I ignore that comment and zigzag between suitcases and boxes to hug her. She doesn’t have to know that I didn’t want to come this year. She’s the only person who might make this summer bearable, and I don’t want to hurt her feelings.

  She kisses my cheeks, tucks her black hair behind one ear and surveys my baggy, tie-dyed shorts and red polka-dot blouse. “It will never get better, will it?”

  I clench my teeth and shake my head. The clothes are one of the reasons I didn’t want to come. Every summer, my parents bring suitcases full of donated stuff to wear while we’re here and leave behind when we go. The outfits are almost always awful, and they’re never anything I’d choose. This spring, when I realized that my parents weren’t going to let me stay home with my grandmother while they came here, I lobbied for them to at least let me bring my own clothes to wear. (They’re secondhand too, because according to my parents, buying brand-new clothes exploits poor workers in other countries and impacts the environment. But at least in Canada I get to choose my own clothes.) Mom asked if I planned to leave most of my own clothes behind at the end of the summer, and when I said no, she and Dad looked at me like I was dumping toxic waste into the village stream. They gave me a long lecture on compassion being more important than vanity. I shot back that they should have some compassion for me for once. They hit the roof, and here I am, at the end of June, in polka dots and tie-dye. At least they promised not to take any pictures of me this summer. That’s their grand gesture at understanding what it’s like to be me.

  Aracely shakes her head. “If you were my size, I’d give you half my clothing. You know that, don’t you?”

  I smile because I know she’s trying to help. Last summer, out of pity, she dressed me up like the other girls our age in Cucubano, in a tight pink top and a short skirt. She said I looked hot, but I felt like a Barbie gone horribly wrong—too tall, too flat, too skinny. Aracely is only a year older than me, but she has curves in all the right places, and at fourteen she could pass for sixteen.

  The only sad thing is that big scar on her cheek. A donkey bit her when she was four, and someone stitched it up for her, but not well. It’s not like people here get free plastic surgery after an accident like they do in Canada. The scar takes up most of her cheek—a jagged line, rough around the edges where the donkey’s teeth scraped over the skin before biting through.

  The first time I saw her, I was terrified. Then again, at five I was terrified of most things, and it didn’t help that my parents had brought me to a tiny settlement in the Dominican Republic where the ground was orange and everyone lived in wooden huts and spoke a language I didn’t understand. I remember hiding behind my mother in the schoolyard, with all the local mothers and their kids watching us. The adults were smiling at each other, and the kids stared at me, wide-eyed. My mother had a firm hand on my shoulder to keep me from bolting, and her grip tightened when the little girl with the horrible scar marched over to me. The girl took a pink hibiscus flower from behind her ear and placed it behind mine, then took my hand and led me off to play. She taught me how to pick the sweetest oranges, where to find the best climbing trees and how to catch a butterfly. Along the way, she taught me Spanish.

  The priest who invited my parents here hired Aracely’s mother to do our laundry, cook our meals and look after me. I spent most of that first summer at Aracely’s house, and that suited me just fine; I loved feeling like part of a big family. As we got older, Aracely and I would take off on adventures of our own. My parents would assume I was with Aracely’s mom, and Aracely’s mom would assume I was fine because I was with Aracely. It worked out great, because no one would have let us do half of what we did if we’d actually asked permission.

  “Sorry I couldn’t meet the truck when you got here,” Aracely says now, smoothing her skirt. “Abuela needed to find periquito for my sister’s cramps. Abuela was convinced that some still grows over by Beto’s field, but it doesn’t, and by the time she believed me, we were too far away to get back before the aguacero, and we had to wait until the rain stopped.”

  “No worries,” I lie. I’m not going to tell her how I freaked out when I didn’t see her with everyone else. A lot can happen here between summers, and it’s not like she and I can text each other our news. Even if my anti-cell-phone parents would let me have one, Cucubano doesn’t have cell reception. Or reliable electricity. Every time we come back here, we have no idea who’s been born or died since the summer before, and this afternoon Aracely’s mom must have seen the panic on my face, because she cut through the crowd to tell me my friend was only away for the morning.

  I should have guessed, of course. Aracely and her grandmother—her abuela—often take off on expeditions to find some plant or another. Her abuela is a healer, and Aracely is learning. Last summer, Dad saw some of Aracely’s drawings of medicinal plants and asked her family if she could come to Canada to study someday. He says that with her knowle
dge of traditional medicine, she could make a great academic career for herself and then come back here and really help the community. Her parents were thrilled. Aracely is terrified, but she’s willing to do it if it’ll help. Now that’s courage. She’s never even been as far as Ocoa, the closest city, a two-hour bus ride away, but in a few years she’ll be living in Canada, which is so different from here that it might as well be on another planet.

  “Do you want help putting stuff away?” Aracely scans my family’s makeshift bedroom. Before we arrived, Aracely’s mom cleaned it within an inch of its life. The concrete floor shone, the bunk beds were made up as well as any hotel’s, the chalkboards were a spotless black, and not a speck of dust remained on the teacher’s desk shoved into the corner. (It’s like this every summer. Being invited here by the priest in Ocoa means people treat our arrival like a royal visit.) In just a few hours, my parents and I have managed to track in big clumps of the inevitable orange dirt, and we’ve strewn our things all over the place.

  I should clean up. Mom and Dad are in the other classroom, unpacking boxes for their summer medical clinic, and I came back here to organize but decided to take a nap instead—not that I had much success. Whoever thinks roosters only crow at dawn has never met Rafael’s roosters, and why our neighbor has to keep his snorting pigs and braying donkey right outside our window is beyond me. If I were at home this summer, I could sleep whenever I wanted—not that I would, of course. I’d be working at the bike shop, or lying on the beach, or going to the movies with Emily. In other words, doing what any normal Canadian teenager has the right to do in the summertime. Unless you’ve got parents like mine, who expect you to spend every waking moment saving the world.

  “The mess can wait,” I tell Aracely. “Let’s go somewhere.”

  “To the river,” she says.

  “Yes!” I flip open a suitcase to find my bathing suit. Two years ago, Aracely announced that she was too old to swim in the river. I thought that was hilarious, since she was only twelve, but she said, I’ve got boobs. I get my period. I’m a woman now, and respectable women don’t run around half naked and jump in the river. That’s for boys and marimachos.

  I asked her what a marimacho is. It means something like “butch woman” and is a big insult. No matter how much she tried to stop me from swimming, I kept doing it. She stayed on the shore while I swam. “So glad you’ve come to your senses about the swimming thing,” I say now. “How can you live so close to a fantastic river and not swim in it?”

  “I don’t, and I won’t.” She leans back against the bunk bed, arms crossed. “I have to get some berro, and I’m asking you along.”

  Berro. I rack my brain, trying to remember what that is. Every year, between summers, I forget way too much Spanish. A few times at home, my parents tried to speak it with me to keep theirs up, but it just felt silly. But when we’re here, they insist that I speak Spanish, no matter what. I spend the start of each summer rummaging for words I used to know or trying to understand things I probably understood the year before. I think berro is a little, flat-leaved plant that grows in clusters by the river. Aracely’s abuela collects it for one of her remedies.

  I unearth my swimsuit and stand up. “I’ll let my parents know where we’re going.”

  “I already told them.” Aracely links her arm with mine, pushes open the door and leads me into the sunshine. A dozen kids are playing in front of the school, on a patch of ground just big enough for a game of catch. Adults lounge along the wall, talking with each other or calling to my parents, who try to arrange boxes and socialize at the same time. The day we arrive is always like this, with everyone stopping by to say hello. Every other day is pretty similar too. The school is smack in the middle of the settlement, and anyone going anywhere usually stops in to chat.

  “Come on.” Aracely tugs on my arm. “Let’s go. It’s not just berro I want. I want privacy. I’ve got something important to tell you.”

  Two

  All the way down the long orange-dirt road to the river, she keeps me in suspense. “Too many people around,” she says, which would seem funny to anyone who doesn’t know Cucubano.

  By the looks of it, this road cuts through virgin jungle. Two kilometers down the hill, by the river, a minivan or guagua goes by twice a day, bringing people to nearby villages. But on this particular road, the priest’s pickup truck that brought us here was probably the first vehicle in a week, and it might be the last for the next month. Still, if you look closely, you’ll see small gaps in the plants—narrow footpaths that lead to little huts where people live. Houses here are small, and families are big. Lots of families of eight live in one room, and until someone pops out of the bush and onto the road, you’d never guess they were here.

  About thirty families live on this hill. Everyone knows everything about everyone, and anything overheard on the road is fair game for gossip. I remember the summer I walked down to the river with my mother and admitted I was constipated. I knew she wouldn’t tell anyone, yet within days the whole village was talking about my blocked bowels, and seven women came by with homemade remedies.

  So I can understand why Aracely won’t mention anything until we get to the river, where the sound of the water will drown out our whispers and we’ll be able to see anyone who might be listening in. What I don’t understand is why we’re going to the river if she’s not going to swim. She could pick berro another time, and we could go to last summer’s hideout instead. It’s a lot closer.

  A few weeks before I left last year, she took me to her uncle’s old house. He left it behind, along with his tomato field, when he moved to the city. Aracely said no one was using it, so we cleared away the vines and the bugs, swept out the dust, brought bottles of water and food, and spent most of our free time there, talking about things we didn’t dare say aloud anywhere else. I told her all about life in Canada. I ranted about how my parents never focus on good things and only see what needs improvement. Aracely ranted about how her mother wants to start her own business but never does and how her father can never save money because he is always giving it to his drunken older brother. In our hideout, I felt closer to Aracely than I’d ever felt to anybody.

  “What happened to our hideout?” I ask her now, and for some reason Aracely looks surprised.

  “Oh, it’s still there,” she says, avoiding my eyes. “I’d just rather go to the river.”

  I imagine the place is covered in vines again. It’s a shame, but it’s not like I expected Aracely to keep it all clean until I got back. We have a whole summer ahead of us to clean it up anyway. Before I can ask any more about it, though, she asks about Emily, my best friend back home.

  “Oh, she’s fine,” I say. “My parents don’t want me hanging around her so much anymore though.”

  Emily loves buying clothes, and my father thinks she’s vain. (More specifically, he complains about her “corruptive consumer mentality.” Like hanging out at the mall makes her the devil’s spawn. I don’t explain any of this to Aracely, because how do you explain consumerism to someone whose family barely has money for food and who’s never heard of malls?) “Emily’s gorgeous, and she’s totally in love with this guy at our school,” I tell Aracely. “Not that she ever talks to him though.”

  “Of course not,” Aracely says. “She can’t show too much interest.”

  I blink. How is it that every other girl my age seems to know these things, and I don’t have a clue about them? A guy talks to me, and I get tongue-tied. I don’t know how I’ll ever figure out what to say and when to say it. “I just don’t get it. How will Cody know she likes him if they never speak?”

  Aracely frowns. “You mean, he doesn’t speak to her either? Not even when he brings her flowers, or dances with her?”

  “He doesn’t do those things,” I say. “He doesn’t know she exists.”

  Aracely waves a hand like she’s swatt
ing Cody away. “What does Emily see in him? No one should go for a guy who can’t tell right off how amazing she is.”

  I wonder what Emily would say to that—or what Emily would say to Aracely about anything, for that matter. I can’t imagine the day they meet. Emily’s as shy as Aracely’s outspoken. Sometimes I can hardly believe I’m friends with two such different people. But that’s what my life is like. The person I am in Canada has nothing to do with who I am here.

  At home, I’m the serious kid. The one who was on the debating team, the president of the Enviro Club and a founding member of Kids 4 Social Justice. Even though I quit all that, kids at school still think of me as a freak. No cell phone. No new clothes ever. No dreams of driving one day, because bicycles and buses are the only vehicles my parents believe in. (When we fly, my parents get rid of their guilt by paying for thousands of trees to be planted somewhere in the world and by spending weeks telling me that the potential good of our trip outweighs the environmental destruction that our flights will cause.) Here in Cucubano, I’m the childish kid. The marimacho. Every other thirteen-year-old girl is making meals, sewing, cleaning and looking after brothers and sisters. I’m the only one who wants to climb trees, swim in the river, chase fireflies and watch the clouds roll by. If I’d stayed home this summer, Grandma wouldn’t have cared how many movies I went to or how many times I hung out with Emily at the mall. She knows that’s what normal Canadian teenagers do, and she knows that the only way I’ll ever be allowed to do that is if I’m in Canada while my parents are running a medical clinic in a different country. But here I am, in a place I’ll never belong.

  We round the last curve before reaching the main road. “You sure you’re not going to swim?” I ask.

  “Nah,” Aracely says. “I’m not a kid anymore.”