Finally, Manny said, “I need to, like, hunt or something. You stay here.” With that, he slinked off.
I figured that he probably just needed some time alone, and now that we’d found the town, I didn’t want to risk getting lost. I decided to curl up next to a large stone and wait for his return.
Hours later, Manny’s voice caught my attention. “Put these on,” he said.
A bundle of clothes lay beside me. Button down shirt, jeans, boots, baseball cap—but no socks or underwear.
“Where’d you get these?” I asked him.
“In the desert,” he said.
“Huh?” The clothes smelled like salt and sweat.
Manny stretched his feline body. “Didn’t you see all the trash out here? There’s also plenty of clothes.”
“How come?”
“Most of it comes from people who try crossing into the United States,” Manny told me. “They leave behind their water bottles, along with food wrappers, and get as far as they can with one set of dirty clothes, then ditch them and change to something fresh for the last few miles.”
“They do?” This was all new to me and seemed a little odd, to be honest.
Manny nodded. “Nobody wants to look like they just crossed a desert when they reach the border—especially if they make it to the other side.”
I thought I finally understood. “Because they’ll want to blend in, right? Otherwise, they’ll get caught and sent back.”
“Exactly,” said Manny.
There wasn’t any chance for privacy out in the desert, so we just turned our backs to each other, changed into humans, and slipped on the shirts, pants, and boots. Everything was dusty and wrinkled and a bit too big for my frame, but at least the clothes covered enough for us to pass as regular no-tails.
On the other side of the hills, we found a cluster of boxy, concrete structures along a strip of asphalt that stretched south to north. Among the structures were a gas station and a couple of restaurants, at least from what I could tell at a small distance. The buildings were all painted in bright colors, some with words in Spanish, and the restaurants had signs that read COCA-COLA out front.
“See what I told you?” asked Manny. “I said you’d better learn to drink Coke. Everyone does.”
I didn’t say anything because my attention was too focused on a restaurant with an old-fashioned charcoal grill out front. There was a big tractor-trailer parked next to it, and a man dressed like a cowboy was eating chicken at a white, plastic table.
Roasted chicken. Juicy and brown.
Delicious scents blowing in our direction made my insides beg to be filled, and I heard Manny’s stomach rumble. We headed in like nails to a magnet.
“Are they open all night?” I asked Manny. It had to be past 3:00 a.m.
“Abierto viente-cuatro horas,” Manny muttered on our approach.
“Huh?”
Manny sighed a bit. “That sign says they’re open twenty-four hours. Probably to feed people on their way to the border.”
The woman cooking chicken was definitely surprised to find two boys in filthy rags walking up to her restaurant in the middle of the night, but Manny told her something in Spanish that made her nod, smile, and prepare us two plates.
“It’s going to be ninety pesos,” Manny said once we were seated.
“Ninety pesos,” I echoed. “Is that a lot?” “Not really.”
Moments later, the woman slid two plates in front of us—plates that were loaded with chicken and floppy tortillas. When I opened my wallet, I was surprised to find it packed with a different sort of cash. These weren’t boring green dollars—these bills were shades of red and purple and blue.
“Are these pesos?” I whispered to Manny.
He stared in for a moment, then peered up at me. “How’d you do that?”
I shrugged and said, “I didn’t do anything.”
Manny showed me what to pay, and I watched the woman’s face pucker when she caught a whiff of our clothes.
Wow, we stink so bad that even no-tails notice, I thought.
Fortunately, the food smelled better than we did, and there was plenty of Coke to quench our thirst. This stuff was even sweeter than what I drank in Vermont. Manny said it was because they used real sugar instead of corn syrup. Regardless of the ingredients, I was so thirsty that I nearly chugged the entire bottle. Of course, that made me burp so loud that it echoed off the walls.
The man at the other table and the woman by the grill both jumped after I let out a second, particularly aggressive burp.
Manny slapped his hand on the table and hissed, “Don’t pull that crap around here.”
“What crap?” I asked.
“You know. Don’t burp like that.”
“I couldn’t help it,” I said. “It just came out.”
“You could’ve done it quieter,” he practically growled.
To be honest, I couldn’t understand why he was so upset. Everybody burped like that once in a while, right?
As soon as the man and woman were no longer staring, I grabbed a leg off the chicken and crunched the whole thing at once. It filled my mouth with such an explosion of flavor that I sucked it down instantly and reached for another piece.
“Slow down,” said Manny.
“Why?” I nearly burped again.
“Because here in Mexico, people have manners, okay?”
“But I’m not Mexican.”
“Still, you’re going to have to try to fit in.”
My face scrunched automatically. “You think that’s possible?” Here we were, two kids dressed in dirty, oversized clothes, eating chicken in the middle of the desert at three in the morning. No matter what we did, we weren’t going to “fit in.”
Manny sighed. “Just try, all right? Otherwise, people might start talking—” he lowered his voice—“and other shape shifters might hear.”
Struck by his warning, I nodded and chewed slower. I tried to sit straighter, too. Any encounter with other shape shifters could be dangerous, since we didn’t know whose side they’d be on. Perhaps they wouldn’t like hyenas, or they’d have something against jaguars. Maybe we’d find werewolves or even beasts in cahoots with those birds who took my parents. Thinking of that made me shudder, so when I reached for my next piece of chicken, I actually used a fork. It was frustrating, because I wanted it all in my belly immediately, yet I also didn’t want anybody learning what we were.
Yet even with my improved manners, we still attracted attention from the man at the other table. He was a modern-day cowboy, with worn jeans, a button-down shirt, leather boots, and a wide hat.
Rising from his table, he peered at Manny and asked him something in Spanish.
Manny answered. The man said something else, then motioned toward his truck with one hand.
Manny turned to me. “He says he can give us a ride.”
“A ride? To where?”
“Farther south.”
I’d always been taught not to accept rides from strangers. “Do you think it’s safe?”
Manny raised an eyebrow. “You’re kidding, right?”
From what I could tell, this guy wasn’t a shape shifter … at least not that I could detect. What could one man possibly do against a jaguar and a hyena?
Not much, really. We could take him, no doubt. There were definite advantages to having an animal form. So it seemed like a risk worth taking.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Inside the old tractor-trailer, which was headed somewhere called Puerto Vallarta, the seats reeked of diesel and smoke. The scent made my nose wrinkle.
“Remember,” Manny whispered to me, “no funny stuff, okay? We’ve got to blend in.”
I nodded and forced back a sneeze.
As soon as we rolled onto the highway, the driver lit a cigarette, which attacked my senses a hundred times worse than the rank smell of the trailer. I wanted to lower the window and hang out my head, except I decided that might be consider
ed “funny stuff” that Manny didn’t want. I’d taken the passenger seat, Manny sat in the middle, and the driver puffed away behind the wheel.
He said something to Manny in Spanish, and Manny leaned toward me to say, “He’s going to drive nonstop, so we’ll reach Puerto Vallarta sometime tomorrow afternoon.”
“Tomorrow afternoon?” I tried not to groan. My seat cushion was worn to the springs, which were already poking my butt. It wasn’t a place I wanted to sit for the next twelve hours, especially with the driver smoking like a fire on dry leaves.
“Be grateful,” said Manny. “Here in Mexico, when somebody does you a favor, you don’t complain.”
Conversation continued between the driver and Manny, and I heard that word gringo too many times to count. But I was too exhausted (and full) to really care about what they were discussing. The miles clicked away beneath our eighteen wheels, and I found myself growing more and more tired. Even though my butt hurt, my lungs were burning, and I didn’t have a pillow, I finally managed to wedge my head against the passenger-side window and fall asleep.
Hours later, I was wakened by light stabbing my eyes. When I pulled back my eyelids, I realized the brightness came from the sun.
The next thing I noticed was something wet on my chin. In my uncomfortable, slumped-over sleeping position, I’d drooled down my front.
Turned out I wasn’t the only one, either. Manny’s head was resting on my shoulder and that area of my shirt was slick and damp.
“Ugh.” I tried not to recoil. Manny needed his sleep, and considering how he’d just lost his mother and all, he needed someone to give him a break.
“Buenos días,” the driver said with a broad smile. His front teeth were rimmed with gold, and he was squinting from the light.
“Buenos días,” I answered like an echo. So far, so good. I wanted to know how much longer we had to travel, since my butt cheeks were aching. But I didn’t know how to ask that in Spanish.
Finally, I thought of a word that I recalled hearing Manny and his mother using with Paco.
“¿Tiempo?” I asked. I was pretty sure that meant time.
“Tres horas,” he said.
Three hours, I thought. Would my butt cheeks hold out? I guessed they’d need to.
Out the window, the scenery had changed. Sloping landscape on both sides of the highway was covered by rows of tall, spiky plants.
“Son agaves,” said the driver, pointing at the hills.
I nodded and didn’t say anything else, seeing as how I didn’t know much more than I’d said already. Sensing the awkwardness, the driver also stopped talking. While Manny slept, we drove on in silence.
Three hours later, we arrived at a town near the beach. Manny had perked up by that point, although he never apologized for drooling on my shoulder. I chose to let it slide.
“This is Puerto Vallarta,” he said after speaking with the driver. “End of the road.”
Thank goodness, my mind and behind cheered at once.
The driver pulled his truck into a terminal with a big sign that advertised tequila, which Manny explained was an alcoholic drink. We stepped from the cab, shook hands all around, and the driver said with a warm smile, “Que les vaya bien.”
“He hopes everything goes well for us,” Manny explained.
With a nod, I said, “Yeah … um … gracias.”
Manny said a few more words, and then we wandered off, past a curved road that hugged a beach lined with coconut palms. On the other side, the water gently rose and fell. It was the first time I’d ever seen the ocean.
“That is the ocean, isn’t it?” I asked Manny to be sure.
“The Pacific,” Manny said with a nod. He didn’t sound too impressed.
In town, I was surprised to find the streets filled with gringos. English was spoken everywhere by white people in shorts and flip-flops, and I asked Manny why so many of them were hanging out in town.
“Lots of tourists come here,” he said. “This is a big-time vacation spot.”
We didn’t have time for a vacation, though—our quest could not wait.
Except, maybe, for one quick trip to a bathroom. It had been a long ride, after all.
WE FOUND SOME FANCY-SHMANCY BOUTIQUE ACROSS THE street from the beach and purchased some nicer things to wear.
“You think there’s a river around here or something?” I asked. “Some place we might wash up?” A shower would’ve been nicer, but I didn’t think they had one in the store.
“There’s the ocean,” Manny suggested.
Gazing at the horizon, I wondered what’d happen if the tide dragged me out into the sea. The thought made me shudder, so I said, “I’d rather find a place where I can see the other side.”
Manny flagged down a couple of locals, and they had a brief conversation. When he glanced back at me, he said, “There’s a river north of town.”
It wasn’t exactly in the direction we were headed, yet at the same time, I had this feeling that’s where we needed to go. Something was drawing me there. Was it a sign from the spirits? That seemed to be a possibility. …
Puerto Vallarta was bustling, and the sidewalks filled with more and more people as the sun lowered in the sky. Coconut palms cast wide shadows on the beachside road, and I busied myself counting them, until an unusual shape caught my attention.
“What’s that? A parrot?” I asked.
Manny peered up at the tree to our left and nodded. “It’s a guacamaya—a scarlet macaw.”
“It’s huge,” I said. “For a bird, I mean.”
“They’re not even supposed to be around here,” said Manny. “Must be somebody’s pet.”
I stared at the bird for a moment longer, adjusting my eyes to the sight. I’d never seen any kind of parrot before, and this one was close to five feet in length. Its beak was white on top, black on the bottom, and curved like a thick hook. Feathers on its body were red, while its wings were yellow and blue.
And that’s when it hit me. The bird triggered my shape-shifter sense. It was peering in my direction, as if realizing the same thing.
“I think that bird might be one of us,” I said to Manny in a whisper.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“It’s a shape shifter.”
His eyes bulged wide. “Then let’s get out of here.”
I glanced back at the macaw, which continued staring at me. It didn’t seem hostile, not like those eagles in John’s Gore. But it was still unnerving.
Manny picked up his pace. He moved so quickly, in fact, that he’d gotten twenty feet ahead before practically roaring, “Come on!”
The next few minutes were a confused dash of twists and turns, while Manny tried to throw the parrot off our trail. We turned from the beach road, darted down an alley, turned again two streets over, went back one street to the right, and then ducked down another passageway that was packed with overflowing trash cans and stray cats. While we walked, every last feline watched in stunned silence, as if they were welcoming a long-lost king.
Must be because of Manny’s jaguar nature, I realized.
Once we’d left the second alley, Manny figured it was safe enough to head for the river. But as soon as we reached the riverbank, which was bordered by patches of weeds and tall grass, we spotted a macaw staring down from a tree.
Manny’s response was a deep snarl. “You think it’s the same one?” he asked.
By this point, it was practically nightfall, but my eyes caught enough light to decide. “Yeah. It is.”
Manny growled at the parrot. “¿Qué haces por aquí?”
Startled by Manny’s directness, the bird opened its wings and flapped off to a dense thicket of riverside plants.
“What should we do?” I asked Manny.
His lips curled back, and I saw his teeth sharpening. “Make sure it doesn’t fly away.”
“Huh?” my mouth fell open.
“What if it’s a spy?” he asked.
Whatever he was pla
nning, I was sure it was against The Code.
Before either of us could act, though, a rustling in the grass caught our attention. Manny coiled his body, preparing to strike, though he remained in almost-human form.
A figure stepped from the vegetation.
It was human.
A girl, in fact.
And if you force me to admit it, she was kind of pretty. Her skin was dark tan, her eyes were big and brown, and her hair was jet black. The dress she wore was simple, like something one might find in a thrift store.
As for her shoes, she wore none. Her feet were covered in rags.
“¿Quién eres tú?” Manny demanded.
“Yo soy Rosa,” she answered, placing a hand to her chest. “Rosalinda Lora Juárez de la Cruz.”
I guessed that “Rosa” might’ve been her first name, because it looked like she’d made an introduction—although I didn’t make any sense from the rest of what she’d said.
“Y qué haces aquí?” Manny shot back.
She shrugged and said, “Nada,” in a singsong sort of voice.
Manny shifted his gaze toward me. “She says she’s doing nothing.”
“Well, that’s good, right?” It was all I could think to say.
“Maybe she’s lying,” he said.
Rosa squinted at us. “What? You think I lie to you?”
Our eyes widened with surprise.
“You speak English?” I gasped.
“I speak some,” she said. “The people in the church … they teach me.”
My mind was reeling. I wanted to sound intelligent—or at least make some sense—except nothing came out.
“Must be missionaries,” said Manny. “Lots of gringos come down here and preach.”
After a few seconds of silence, Rosa said, “You boys are animal creatures, too?”
“Why should you care?” asked Manny.
Holding a hand out straight, I tried getting Manny to back off. Maybe this girl wasn’t a danger; maybe some birds could be helpful. Perhaps that’s why we’d met. And since she was talking, we might as well try to get some information out of her.
I asked, “Are there lots of … uh … birds like you around here?”
Earning My Spots Page 11