Flor and Miranda Steal the Show

by Jennifer Torres

  “Angie, please. You have to let me through. Mr. Barsetti will never know it was you who let me in, and anyway, he won’t catch me. I will only stay for Miranda’s songs. Just three songs. Please.”

  It was more because the line behind me kept growing longer and huffier than because she saw things my way, but Angie finally waved me through the turnstile.

  “Flor, no! You can’t bring that thing in there with you. You’ll block someone’s view!”

  “Just three songs!” I called back.

  I couldn’t leave the gorilla behind. He was part of my new plan. My last-last chance.

  Not to save the zoo.

  Not even to save the show.

  But to maybe save a friendship. To do the best with what I had.

  Randy would not have been able to see me cheering for her in the crowd. She could barely see me when she was at the Family Side Stage.

  But maybe she would see a giant pink gorilla if it was wearing her baseball cap.

  I took a breath, lifted the gorilla high over my head, and plunged into the crowd. Randy and her brother and sister were playing one of those slow-swaying love songs again. People were singing along with them.

  But it was a song like Grandpa listened to while he cleaned the truck. It didn’t really sound like Randy’s song, now that I had gotten to know her a little.

  I couldn’t see much of the stage, but between people’s bobbing heads, I caught glimpses of rhinestones sparkling. With the gorilla on my shoulders, I pushed in closer.

  Miranda

  (7:45 P.M.)

  Junior was right. They ate it up when I sang “My Girl.” They were singing along.

  Well, some of them were. The audience still seemed too far away from us.

  Ronnie knew it. Junior knew it. He had slowly shuffled backward until he was playing not just behind me but behind Ronnie too. Her careful, quick fingers had stumbled over the keys like they almost never did.

  I turned back to look at her again when the applause dwindled. She held up her index finger. One.

  As in, Just one more song?

  Or as in one chance and we were blowing it, just like Junior said?

  Usually we could read one another’s thoughts when we were onstage, but not tonight.

  I wrapped both my hands around the microphone stand and held on like it was the only thing keeping me from sinking. And then I saw a flash of pink.

  I whirled downstage and squinted into the audience. One of the faces below belonged to a giant pink gorilla. Mikey’s pink gorilla, and he was wearing my baseball hat.

  The gorilla, I mean. Not Mikey.

  Only, Mikey wasn’t the one carrying him. The gorilla was balanced on Flor’s shoulders. She was jumping and waving, and she didn’t care who was staring at her.

  I smiled. Not a stage smile, but a crinkly-eyed real one. I pointed at Flor, and she pointed back.

  That’s when everything clicked.

  Miranda y los Reyes had come a long way from our garage back at home, and we would go even further.

  I still had friends. Maybe I couldn’t make everyone like me, but some people did. They liked the real me.

  I could trust myself. My plan was the right one.

  “Thank you, Dinuba! We’ve had a great time with you this weekend. We have one more song tonight. It’s a new one.” I winked. “Rabbits love it, and I hope you do too.”

  I didn’t wait for Ronnie. I let go of the microphone stand and clapped out the rhythm, just like we always practiced, only faster.

  Junior shuffled over to me. He tapped the back of my arm with a tuning peg. No one else would’ve noticed it, but he was asking me a question.

  “Yes,” I answered. “Sí. I’m sure.”

  It was a song about hoping so hard your heart hurts and wondering what will happen next. And when it was over, the audience roared.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To Jennifer Laughran, Nikki Garcia, Annie McDonnell, Sasha Illingworth, Angela Taldone, Erika Schwartz, and Elisabeth Ferrari: Thanks for making this book possible and so much better.

  To the Great Central Valley—the Lodi Grape Festival, the Tracy Dry Bean Festival, the Ripon Almond Blossom Festival, the Linden Cherry Festival, the Manteca Pumpkin Fair, and especially the Stockton Asparagus Festival: Thanks for making room for us. Thanks for loving us back.

  To David, Alice, and Soledad: Thanks for everything, always.