I chewed on my bottom lip and whispered to Josefina. “This could mean we might get back outside sooner than we thought. Let’s work on changing Colonel Franco’s mind while he’s in a good mood.”
“I don’t want to have to go back outside,” Casey said. She pointed to her thick neck. The brace was off, but she wasn’t forgetting.
“Shush it. She wasn’t talking to you. She was talking to me,” Josefina said. “Besides, you barely even got your hands dirty.”
“Yeah,” I said.
Colonel Franco grabbed his clipboard from the top of his desk. He rapped the wall with it. “Let’s not argue, girls. Let’s focus on moving forward here. Work on your letters. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Colonel Franco returned after a few hours and announced that we were done for the day. I stood up and stretched. “I unloaded ten bags of flour this morning, and I feel great,” I said as loud as I could.
“Man, my muscles are bigger than Marcos’ now. I’m stronger than any of these boys,” Josefina played along. Obviously. I’d seen her brother lately.
Colonel Franco didn’t even look our way. He kept his eyes on the stack of papers on his desk. We were going to have to try harder.
“We need to come up with a better plan,” I said to Josefina as we walked home.
“You’re right,” she said. “We’ll think of something. We’ll get it right. He can’t ignore us forever. Don’t worry.”
Chapter 10
Josefina stumbled into me. “Watch it,” I said. We stood at the south edge of the park and stared. Colonel Franco and four men in matching Johnson Construction company T-shirts gathered around a crane and a flatbed truck.
Peregrino’s donors hadn’t wasted any time.
“You girls stand back,” Colonel Franco yelled at us. He made a sweeping motion with his hands.
“We just can’t catch a break,” Josefina said.
“He didn’t say to go back to the basement,” I said. Josefina smiled. “Do you think that boy will show up here?”
“Anything is possible,” she said.
We walked a few feet back. We stopped just short of the sidewalk and gawked. Colonel Franco pulled a roll of paper from his cargo pants. He flattened it against the door of the truck. He pointed to the paper and gestured toward the taped-up area. The workers watched and listened. They blotted sweat beads off their bearded faces with their T-shirts though it wasn’t even nine in the morning yet.
One of them grabbed hold of the crane’s side view mirror and pulled himself into the driver’s seat. He pulled a red handkerchief from his pocket and tied it around his head. “My mom wears one of those to cover her hair when she dusts and sometimes when she mops. Hers is pink.” Josefina giggled.
Casey and Stacey Sanchez crossed the street in our direction. “What’s all this?” Casey asked. She pulled the ends of the straps of her backpack between her fingers, adjusting the fit and shifting the weight. “What’s with all the lumberjacks?”
“They’re construction workers, genius.” Josefina rolled her eyes. “Can’t you see they’re carrying metal beams, not axes?”
“They’re building the frame,” I said.
“When did they get here?” Casey asked.
“They must have pulled up early while we all were sleeping.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” she said.
“Maybe you’re too far from the park.” I hadn’t heard them either, and I lived right across the street. I’d slept through the parade of trucks.
“How did they even get their trucks in?” Stacey asked.
“Good question.” Our streets were narrow and difficult for any outsider to navigate. It was a constant source of complaints before the American Lard Company closed down. “How DID they get in?” I echoed Stacey.
“Very carefully,” Marcos answered. I turned around. The boys—Marcos, Pedro Wong, Iker and Frank and Freddy Fernandez—had all infiltrated our gawkers’ circle.
“Funny,” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to help them?”
“No one told us,” he said.
Pedro Wong cleared his throat. “Let me talk to Colonel Franco for a minute.” He walked toward the men. He pointed at us and said something that we were too far away to hear. Colonel Franco shook his head. Both of them walked back in our direction.
“You kids go home for now,” Colonel Franco said. I put my hand on my hips. No one in the group moved an inch.
“We want to stay,” Marcos said.
Colonel Franco rubbed at his knee. He looked at us. He looked at the men. “Fine. Stay, but keep out of the way. I don’t want anyone getting hurt, and I don’t want any complaints.” He walked back to the truck.
The crane’s arm swung down and one of the men grabbed hold of the giant hook dangling from a cable.
I smiled at Marcos. I plopped down on the grass. Marcos sat beside me. Casey pushed up next to Marcos on the other side. She sat down. Her long shorts inched up, exposing her chubby knees. She removed her backpack, laid it on the grass and opened it. It was a treasure chest of junk food. She pulled out a couple of two liter bottles of sodas and several large bags of potato chips. “Want some?” she asked Marcos. His eyes opened wide.
“Careful, she’s gonna give you cooties,” I said.
“Jealousy doesn’t suit you, Masi,” he said.
“Ugh. You wish.” I shook my head. Maybe Marcos was right. Maybe I felt a little pang of something. But I shook it off. I just wanted to enjoy the feeling that something was happening and that I was outside. I moved over by Josefina and sat down. I imagined we were at one of those long ago movie nights in the park.
Marcos took a bottle of root beer from Casey and chugged. He grabbed a bag of chips and passed it around to everyone. I stuck my hand in and grabbed a fist full of the lime chips. They were tangy, salty and not the kind of breakfast food my mom would approve of.
We sat there and watched the men tie the metal hook around one of the beams. The crane lifted the beam into place inside the trench along the taped off area—then another and so on. They poured concrete into the trench. They manipulated the steel, tilting it inward, at which point the slanting vertical beams met in the center at about sixty feet in the air. Four additional beams were lifted and bolted horizontally to these, ten feet off the air. They repeated this process at twenty feet, thirty feet, and so on.
The whole thing went up like they were playing with Legos. The men walked up and down the length of the beams, testing for stability.
I was glad Peregrino had pulled some strings and gotten us some professional help. There was no way we could’ve pulled off that kind of job on our own. Despite Colonel Franco’s experience, none of the rest of us knew what we were doing.
“Pretty fantastic,” I said. I lay back and stared at the lone white cloud in the sky.
It was something like how I’d imagined my summer with my friends. Lying in the grass, toasting in the sun like a tray full of ginger pigs sitting in the oven. I wanted to lay in the grass forever.
Chapter 11
The following morning the construction workers packed up their tools, their crane and their other equipment. They jumped in their truck. Colonel Franco walked across the park and into the middle of the street. His hands flew high in the air like a symphony conductor’s, and he directed them out.
There was honking, a little bit of cursing, and all around more noise than when they’d arrived. They squeezed out in reverse. Iker stood at the edge of the street waving them off.
I looked past Iker at the brand new beacon of steel at the end of the park and smiled.
Colonel Franco rubbed at his knee and walked in our direction. “You girls go back to the basement. You boys stay here with me,” he said.
I dragged my feet down into the dungeon. The Sanchez sisters plopped down on the couch. They shared a magazine and took naps. They scrambled to look busy when Colonel Franco walked in to check for mail and make a phone call on his old land line. “Cell phones give y
ou brain cancer,” he said. And, of course, the company’s compound of abandoned buildings pretty much blocked off any signal. Most of Pig Park had given up on cell phones long ago. It was a dumb thing to spend money on.
Hours went by.
Then days.
Lying in the grass eroded into a distant memory. The frame of the pyramid hovered above the trees, casting a tall shadow. It was an ever-present reminder of that one great day outside.
Colonel Franco placed a box of envelopes on the table in front of us. “Seal, address and stamp these,” he said and walked out.
I grabbed a stack of envelopes and fanned myself with them. I flipped through them, looking at names I didn’t recognize. My foot tap-danced against the linoleum under the table.
“Who’s paying for all these stamps?” I asked. It was the kind of thing my mother might burst out with. I jumped out of my seat and paced the short length of the basement. “Can’t we just send emails? These might as well be smoke signals.”
“Relax,” Josefina said. “I’m going to take those envelopes and smack you if you don’t quit fidgeting.”
“I’ve had it with this. We could be outside. We could be doing so much more.”
“Stop whining, you’re starting to sound like the rest of us. We just have to keep trying like we did before.”
“You’re right. I don’t know what came over me.”
“I think it’s called cabin fever.” She grabbed a scrap of paper, scribbled on it, and slid it over to me. It read: Meet me at the construction site tomorrow at sunset. Bring some cookies.
Tomorrow is the 4th of July, I wrote back. I looked at the clock. “Time to go.” I grabbed my water bottle. I took the paper scrap, tore it into a hundred pieces, and tossed it in the trash can.
Josefina followed me outside. We walked toward the park. Marcos ran toward us. The bricks we’d hauled that first day now lay in color-coded piles beside the steel frame.
“Are you done for the day?” I asked.
“Almost.” Marcos panted. “We’re sorting bricks so we can start setting them around the frame tomorrow.”
“How are you going to get them to slant along the frame without toppling.”
“Same way the ancients did, layering, physics, military secrets.”
“We’re in the middle of something, Marcos. Shoo now,” Josefina said.
“So were we.” He winked at me, then stuck out his tongue at Josefina. He ran back to the park.
The sun burned high in the sky. “Doesn’t he get hot in that?” I pointed at the long sleeved shirt that barred me from looking at Marcos’ well-formed biceps.
“Whatever. Don’t change the subject. Tomorrow. There.” She pointed past Marcos, at the pyramid in progress.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. No one will be around tomorrow. It’ll be the perfect time.”
“The perfect time for what?”
“The perfect time to get our minds off everything. Just trust me.”
I sighed and walked home.
Leave it to Josefina. Colonel Franco didn’t care what we said. We needed to find his weak spot. Distractions weren’t going to cut it anymore.
Chapter 12
Josefina stretched her arms from side to side, and then reached up into the dusk. “Help me,” she said.
“Help you what? Do jumping jacks?”
“Get a closer look.” Josefina grabbed hold of a steel beam with one hand and my shoulder with the other. She propelled herself up. Once on the beam, she braced herself from her sitting position and helped pull me up. She climbed up the slanted side beams. I struggled behind her until we were just below the tip of the pyramid. We slid onto the top horizontal beam. We faced east, above the treetops, with our legs dangling over the side. We were high enough above the trees to make it hard for anyone to see us.
There were a million lights.
“Wow,” I said.
“I told you. Look at all those buildings—and lights.”
It was indeed something to behold. We could see everything. Sleek high-rise buildings hovered like monsters just a couple of miles away in downtown. Nice new mid-rise condominiums lined up along the neighborhood east of us. We were the sore at their side. Abandoned buildings jutted out like weeds throughout various other sections of the city. I wondered if each of those had once had their own American Lard Company.
It made me sad for more than my friends. I was sad for Pig Park. I missed the old Pig Park. It dawned on me that I’d never given myself time to be sad about that before. “Thank you for bringing me here,” I said.
“No problem. It’s the perfect place to watch the city fireworks,” she said. “Did you remember to bring it?”
“Yes,” I said. I handed Josefina a small plastic bag full of red, white and blue sugar cookies my dad had made special.
“I brought something too.” She pulled two cartons of milk from her purse and set them on the beam.
I grabbed one and shook it. I opened my own small bag and put half a cookie in my mouth. I washed it down with the milk.
“It’s like we’re at the top of the Eiffel Tower,” Josefina said. I imagined the Eiffel Tower right smack in the middle of Pig Park instead of the pyramid. The corners of my mouth slowly pushed against my cheeks.
“The Eiffel Tower,” I repeated. Was that more or less ridiculous than a pyramid? Milk made its way out my nose. Laughter came like a painful infection, and Josefina wasn’t immune either. I bordered on a medical emergency. I was laughing so hard that I had to wrap my arms around the beams to keep from falling off.
“I don’t even know why we’re laughing,” Josefina said.
“You have some funny ideas!”
She pointed to the buildings downtown. “That’s where I’m moving. Marcos and my parents can fend for themselves.”
Josefina’s comment killed the laughter. I didn’t understand. Just the day before, she’d said we needed to keep trying. We were going to save Pig Park and our friendship.
“You can’t talk like that,” I said.
“Sure I can.”
“No. Quit it.”
I looked at my hands. I looked at the steel that would be a pyramid. I stuck my fingers through the beam’s stud holes, but I couldn’t look at her. Josefina didn’t say anything.
“I’m coming up,” a familiar voice bellowed from below.
Marcos climbed to the top beam. He squeezed in between us. I was never so grateful to see him. He pulled out a paper bag with some kind of bottle from his backpack. He twisted the cap off and held the bottle with the bag still wrapped around it out in the air in front of us.
“I don’t even want to know what’s in that,” Josefina said. “Who invited you anyway?”
Marcos ignored Josefina. “Happy Birthday, America.” He took a swig.
“Happy Birthday, America,” I repeated after him.
”You want some?” he asked. He pushed the bottle in my direction.
“What is it?”
“Does it matter? Sometimes you just got to live a little, Masi.” He took another swig.
Josefina rolled her eyes. I pushed the rest of my cookies at him, having lost my appetite. He devoured them in two bites. Marcos pulled a bag of bbq chips from his backpack.
“Casey must be rubbing off,” I said. I looked past him at Josefina.
A manmade fireball flew high and burst in the sky, followed by silence. Josefina was like that fireball—ready to shoot into the sky. The silence was unbearable. “I wonder if the people in those buildings up there get scared when those things come so close,” I said.
Five more fireballs ripped into the sky like gunshots.
Josefina’s face softened. “No, I bet those sound like bells and look like flower-blossoms up there. I bet you never worry about a single thing when you live in those fancy buildings,” she said. Then…I almost understood her. I sometimes found myself wishing I didn’t have to worry about a thing either. But it wasn’t so easy for me.
&nbs
p; “I don’t know if it’s the ‘juice,’ but I find it hard to worry about a thing up here too.” Marcos tilted back the bottle and guzzled.
I grabbed the bottle from Marcos. If it was all going to crap anyway, then maybe I needed to find a way of making it easier too. I took a giant swig and watched from the corner of my eye as Josefina’s jaw nearly separated from her face. It was tart. I brought it to my nose and sniffed it. I handed it back. “It really is just juice,” I said.
Marcos laughed.
Josefina raised an index finger to her lips and shushed us. “Did you hear that?” she asked. Marcos and I shook our heads side to side.
“We were careful,” I whispered.
“You weren’t exactly invisible when I found you,” Marcos whispered back. “And we haven’t been particularly quiet.”
Clink, clink, clink.
There it was. Someone was tapping one of the beams with a coin—or maybe a fingernail.
We edged closer to the beams, then sat as still as possible. I hoped it wasn’t Colonel Franco or either set of parents. My heart went bum, bum. BUM, BUM, BUM like a madman with a drum.
Chapter 13
I held on tight. I sat as still as the beam. I looked downward without moving my head. My eyeballs inched from one end of my face to the other. It was impossible to see anything.
The figure below turned his face upward. A low flying manmade fireball illuminated the sky behind him.
It was Felix. He waved. We were not invisible.
I’d been more or less holding my breath. I exhaled. I inhaled. My lungs filled. It was as if I’d been running.
“What do you think he’s doing here?” Josefina asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll ask him.” Marcos volunteered.
“We’ll all go talk to him.” Josefina undraped her legs from the beam and started down.
Marcos went next. I went last. Going down wasn’t any easier than going up. The beams below seemed to shift under my sneakers. I slipped on the last beam. Felix and Marcos both reached out to steady me.
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