On These Magic Shores

by Yamile Saied Méndez

  Mrs. Santos nodded slowly, turned on her heels, and left, followed by her perfect students, Bailey Cooper among them.

  What had I gotten myself into?

  I turned around and left the auditorium. Maverick followed me.

  When I reached the cafeteria, though, I kept walking. Not even the decadent smell of pizza could stop me. I walked past the English classroom. I crossed the hallway, went down the stairs into a part of the school I’d never been to, and crossed to a door, walking all the way to the sunshine outside.

  The crisp mountain air cleared my thoughts a little. What had I done? Maverick stood next to me, as if I needed another shadow.

  “Can you believe how ridiculous the stupid play is?” I asked. My voice shook. “And my line? How. That’s all Tiger Lily says. Indians don’t talk like that. It’s so wrong!”

  Maverick, his face flushed, his longish hair falling over his eyes, shrugged one shoulder. “Mrs. Santos was interested in what you said. I saw it on her face. Could you tell she actually heard what you had to say? If you find a solution, this could be historic.”

  “It was all rigged. The tryouts, you know?” That was the only explanation for the stupid casting choices. “Why even bother with tryouts if she already knew who should play what?”

  “Blessings got Peter Pan. No one saw that curve ball coming,” Maverick said.

  I had no idea what a curve ball was, but even then, yeah. I didn’t see that coming. Blessings as Peter?

  “Maybe she had, like, a diversity quota to fill and by picking Blessings she thought she was doing her part to be fair to humanity. But guess what? I won’t have it. I won’t be part of her quota!”

  Maverick picked a blade of grass and chewed it. Didn’t he know they sprayed the fields with insecticide and fertilizer?

  Before I could enlighten him, he said, “Last year a white girl played Tiger Lily. She reminded me a little of you, the way she acted. But anyway, her parents almost ate Mrs. Santos alive. So, I can understand why this year she chose you because you were the only one who fit the physical description. I think her choosing Blessings as Peter is going to be a kick in the you-know-what for the PTA, but what are they going to say if they don’t want to come across as racist? The bravest thing she could have done was pick up a girl to play Peter, but I’m afraid our school isn’t ready for that yet. Even though girls have always played Peter in the big shows.”

  As he talked, the nebula of an idea started forming in my mind. It was almost there. I could feel it, but just as I tried to grasp it, it vanished. I needed silence and time to think. “Is our school ready for a Peter Pan without Indians?” I wondered. “That’s what I want to know.”

  “No Indians? But they’re part of the tradition. Peter Pan’s a classic,” he said, sounding just like all those people complaining.

  “No representation is better than harmful representation, my mom always says.”

  Maverick didn’t argue. Maybe the words of a mom had more power than tradition. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know nothing. I’m a coconut: brown on the outside, white on the inside. That’s what Blessings says sometimes, anyway.”

  My anger cooled to a simmering broth. Oh, Maverick. A coconut? I would have laughed, but he sounded so, so sad.

  “Blessings is a cool name,” I said, because I hated the pressure in my chest when the silence rang around me again. “How loved would a person feel if they were called Blessings?”

  “His parents are from Ghana, and those names are common there,” Maverick said in a soft voice. “His older brother died in a four-wheeling accident right before Blessings was born.”

  A blessed baby after losing another. Such sorrow. I imagined losing either of my sisters. No name would ever make up for their loss.

  Maverick’s comment reminded me I wasn’t the only one who went through hard things. I’d only been thinking of my situation, without looking around, which wasn’t what a good president-of-the-country-in-training should do.

  I needed a break. I needed to recoup, calm down, and analyze the situation before I let myself be ­governed by emotion. The grass on the soccer fields was still damp and moisture seeped through the sole of my shoes.

  I couldn’t go back to class and face everyone. Feeling rebellious, I left the school. Maverick followed me.

  How long did he plan on walking with me?

  “What does your name mean?” I asked to redirect the conversation.

  Maverick ruffled my hair. “Look it up, goddess. You must feel pretty special knowing your mom named you after the goddess of wisdom.”

  First of all, I didn’t know if I should pulverize him on the spot for daring to touch my hair or for making a stupid comment about my name.

  But poor, clueless Maverick. He had no idea. My story and the story of my name weren’t as inspiring as Blessings’s. I laughed.

  According to my mom, my dad had named me because he had a girlfriend before Mamá who was named Minerva. Mamá hadn’t known until a friend of his broke the news after Papá left us, but the damage was already done. I’d already been Minerva for six years by then.

  My name reminded Mamá she hadn’t been Papá’s first pick. That made me feel awesome.

  I couldn’t tell Maverick all this, and he just smiled, maybe wondering what I was thinking about. His braces had green bands.

  Lucky. I’d have to do something about my overbite before I ran for president of the country, that’s for sure.

  “My name means free spirit,” Maverick said, circling with his arms open wide, as if he were hugging the world. I watched him until he stopped, and then he wobbled to my side. I groaned, but secretly, I wished I had the guts to be silly in public. Like him.

  “Who named you that?”

  His smile flickered a little, and he lowered his eyes. “My birth mom. Her one condition was that my parents would keep the names she’d chosen: Maverick Leonel. Maverick after a character from a movie she liked, and Leonel after her favorite brother.”

  At birth mother, I went cold, like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on me.

  Maverick didn’t notice I’d frozen, and ­continued, “I know nothing else about her besides that she insisted on my name, and the fact that she was Latina. But I don’t know anything about what kind of Latina, or even what country she came from — if she was even from another country. My parents are awesome, but . . . sometimes I wonder if I’m missing a side of me, you know? I can’t even speak Spanish.”

  He kicked a ball that had been forgotten on the field. The ball landed on the white line, waiting there like it didn’t want to break the rules, teetering on the verge of obedience and truancy.

  Was that why Maverick hung out with me? Because I was a Latina?

  Maverick and I looked at each other. He gave me a crooked smile, but his eyes were so deep and sad. Like Kota’s. He and I crossed the white boundary of the soccer field at the same time.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, changing the subject.

  Alarms went off in my mind. “We?”

  He shrugged. “Yep. Where are we heading?”

  “I’m getting my little sister from day care,” I said. I hadn’t left the school with the intention of rescuing Avi from the evil Mirta, but now this seemed like the only thing to do.

  “Cool,” he said, “I have tons of older sisters but not little ones.”

  “They’re a pain.” This was the worst lie I had ever told. Horrible, untrue words, but there was no way to take them back.

  Apparently, I was such a bad liar, Maverick waved off the lie like a fly. “No, your sisters are too cute to be a pain. They look like you.”

  We were almost at the day care place, and I didn’t have time to analyze his ridiculous words. This boy! Why did he say the things he said? I didn’t know how to talk to him.

  Right then, my stomach rumbled wit
h hunger, reminding me that today I hadn’t especially demonstrated the best judgment. I should’ve taken advantage of the school lunch, at least to bring something for Avi. I had fifty dollars in my backpack, though.

  Fifty that could have been one hundred if I hadn’t wasted half on the play fee.

  If I explained the situation to her when I was calmer, would Mrs. Santos give me back the fee money? She had to.

  But I’d worry about that after I dealt with Mirta. The evil witch.

  “Wait here,” I said.

  Maverick stood in the middle of the sidewalk like there was nowhere else in the world he’d rather be. A police car cruised by and Maverick saluted insolently. The officer waved coolly.

  The door opened before I knocked. Mirta stood there, crossing her arms and tsking at me. I checked my watch. Mickey Mouse’s arms were pointing exactly at noon. I was three hours early.

  “She’s being a stinker today,” Mirta said. “She won’t stop crying. She’s been in the time-out chair for a long time, but she doesn’t get the message.”

  The time-out chair? Toddlers can’t learn anything from a time out! They’re too little. I clamped my teeth tightly so the bad words wouldn’t escape. But I hoped Mirta could see how I imagined her like a cockroach, stomped to smithereens. Just the same size as her soul.

  Before I could give her a piece of my mind, Avi ran and hugged my leg. I bent down to pick her up. Her hair reeked of cigarette smoke. Swear words in both English and Spanish crowded in my mouth.

  Without a word or a second look at the evil witch, I turned around, hating the fact that tomorrow, I’d have to swallow my pride and come back. Leave my sweet Avi, again.

  But, no. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t do it.

  “Let’s go, baby,” I whispered in her ear. I must have tickled her because she shrugged and smiled the tiniest smile I’d ever seen, even for her tiny face.

  From behind me, Mirta called, “Tell your mom your sister needs more diapers. We’re out!”

  I didn’t deign to turn around and acknowledge the fact that she’d talked to me. If anything, I wanted to do a rude gesture with my fingers. But what would we do then? What would Mamá say if Mirta went to her with the gossip that I had cut school and then come to her house to disrespect her? Better to ignore her, even though my anger level was volcano-­eruption high.

  “Everything okay?” Maverick asked.

  I so wish I could talk to him like he’d talked about his birth mother before, but I didn’t really know him. I couldn’t trust him yet.

  “It’s okay,” I just said.

  “Hi, beautiful!” he said to my baby sister in a tone of voice that shouldn’t be allowed. Did boys take lessons for this?

  Avi’s face lit up at the sound of his voice. She squinted her eyes and smiled, showing teeth and all. The little stinker was a flirt.

  Maverick, the king of flirts, batted his eyes at her. “She likes me,” he said. “Can I hold her?”

  By the time I was halfway through saying, “Nah, she never goes with strangers,” she’d practically jumped off my arms and nestled in his.

  Maverick and I laughed. “Let’s go to the gas station,” I said. “We need milk and bread.”

  I was usually really good at hiding the fact that I was an adult hiding in the body of an under­developed, badly dressed twelve-year-old. Something about Maverick made me wish I could just act like a kid, just for a little while. So at the gas station, I bought milk, peanut butter, bread, and a small bag of gummy bears. For the girls, I told myself. They deserved a little sweetness.

  When I paid, though, I was still surprised at the total price and regretted the decision to buy candy. It was too late now. The gas station wasn’t the cheapest place, but it was the only one I could walk to.

  “Where to now?” Maverick asked, letting Avi play with his hair while I fought with the milk jug that didn’t want to stay inside my backpack.

  “It’s Kota’s early-out day. Let’s go get her,” I said, ignoring my grumbling stomach.

  Technically she could walk home by herself, but what if something happened to her just because I wanted to go home and eat something?

  “Let’s wait here,” I said, stopping on the corner right next to the kindergarten playground so Avi could have a go or two on the slide.

  She ran ahead, like a puppy with two tails. “A fairy!” she exclaimed.

  “What fairy, baby?” I glanced quickly at Maverick, worried that he’d think Avi was a little cuckoo.

  She pointed at something. There was only a beam of sunshine playing tricks on the transparent plastic that connected two sections of the slide.

  “Where?” I squinted, but whatever she was pointing at was invisible to me.

  “There, Minnie. Fairy!”

  She squealed in delight and ran with her little arms in the air, an expression of complete joy I didn’t want to ruin just because I didn’t see the fairy.

  Inside the plastic tunnel, Avi mumbled in a language all of her own.

  “What’s she saying?” Maverick asked.

  I shrugged. “Avalonish, I guess. It’s not Spanish, in case you’re wondering.”

  “What I was wondering is more along the lines of who she’s talking to,” Maverick said. He looked at Avi with longing. “When do you think we grow out of that? I used to be just like her. I don’t know when I changed.”

  I’d never been like that. I’d always had someone to take care of. When it wasn’t the girls, it had been Mamá.

  Like now. Where was my mom? “I guess we grow up when we need to take care of ourselves. I don’t know.”

  Maverick shook his head as if saying not that.

  “Do you cut class a lot to take care of your sisters? What about your parents?”

  “You don’t understand,” I said, standing with my arms crossed like a shield between me and this boy who’d never known responsibility in his life. “My mom’s a single mom and she works full time. I have to help out. Don’t you?”

  He laughed. “Are you kidding me? I’m the ­youngest of seven. The only boy. The dream son my parents prayed to God for for years until He sent me. I rule the world. At least the world in my house.”

  I closed my eyes for a second trying to imagine what that kind of life must have been like. But I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of an alternate-world Minerva, one that didn’t have to worry about where her next meal was coming from.

  “The dream child, huh?” That’s all I could say.

  “I’m adopted — I told you before. My parents chose me, and my birth mother chose them.”

  Two mothers who loved him. And then all of those sisters. Talk about luck.

  “You’re lucky. You have a wonderful life.”

  He looked up at me and his eyes were shiny. “I do. I also lost a lot, you know? I know nothing about my culture. I can’t speak Spanish. My parents try, but . . . it’s just too hard.”

  “But they try,” I said, feeling like I had to defend his parents, because at the end of the day, they were there for him. Where was my mom?

  “Won’t your mom wonder where you are right now?” I asked, remembering that he’d cut school to be with me. Would I get into trouble because he’d followed me?

  “Nope!”

  “Don’t you have places to be? What about sports?”

  “Nope and nope. Not on Tuesdays.”

  This wasn’t working. But before I got rid of him, I had to ask. “Why didn’t they cast a Tinker Bell in the play?” Before Tiger Lily, I’d happily be Tinker Bell a million times over.

  He swiped his hair to the side and went all business mode, apparently happy I’d changed the subject. “That’s what’s so cool about being in the tech crew. We are Tinker Bell.” He looked at me, waiting for me to get it. But I didn’t get it. Did he want to dress up in pointy slippers and a skimpy
green dress?

  “What? All the kids are Tinker Bell?”

  He laughed, slapping his leg as if I had told the joke of the century. “No! Tinker Bell is too magical to be played by a person. She’s light and music. We create her — the tech crew, I mean.”

  “But why?” I didn’t see Avi from where I stood, but she was still blabbering and giggling.

  Maverick was oblivious to my sister’s imaginary talk with a fairy. Now that he was talking about the play, he was all worked up. “Magical things happen when people use their imaginations. We don’t even practice Tinker Bell’s parts during rehearsals, but every time, things come out beautifully. At least they did last year, when I was in seventh.”

  Avi ran to Maverick right then and hugged his legs. I was a little embarrassed and I don’t know why. She was three years old, after all.

  “Mavvy nice. Fairy nice.”

  “Okay, say goodbye to my friend, Avi,” I said before she invited Maverick to come over to our house.

  But he tickled Avi until she belly-laughed.

  “I can hang out,” he said.

  “Well,” I said, “my mom doesn’t let me hang out on school nights. See you tomorrow.”

  He stood up, holding Avi with his left arm, and placed his free hand over his heart, taking a step back. “Ouch,” he gasped, “are you trying to shake me off? This hasn’t happened to me since . . . since . . . since I don’t know when.”

  “How tragic. Sorry,” I mumbled, taking Avi from his arms. “See you tomorrow.”

  Kota was running our way. Her eyes went huge when she saw Maverick by my side.

  Maverick saw her too, and winked at her. “Cute little sisters. This one looks just like you.” He patted my shoulder like I was a guy, one of his friends. “Before you kick me out again, I’ll save my feelings. See you tomorrow, Tiger Lily.”

  And he left. Left me speechless on the sidewalk.

  “Was that a guy?” Kota asked, as if she had never seen a boy in her life. For us, boys were strange creatures, more mythical than unicorns.

  Like she was telling me off for being rude, Avi whispered, “Minniiiie . . .”