Chapter 9
Doing Something Important
It was a few days past my birthday, and a brain surge hadn’t hit me yet. I was beginning to wonder if I would come up with an important thing to do. Would my twelfth year come and go as quiet as the other years? Would there be nothing special about it?
While I was trying to figure out this huge problem, Neli bounced around as happy as can be. Every day she changed her mind as to where she wanted to go for her birthday. The latest place where she wanted to celebrate was the water slides. I was too scared to go on the big ones, but Neli loved them. Except for creepy crawly things, there was very little that scared that girl.
Meanwhile mama started getting us prepared for school. It was sad that summer was almost over. She got all our pencils, paper, and organizers. The fun part came when we got to go clothes shopping. Neli hated that activity. Every year she’d do the same thing.
“I’m seeing pink spots on the wall, Mamita!” she’d moan. “Is there an elephant next to you?”
“Neli—”
“I’m so sick, Mami! Just buy me jeans and T-shirts. I’ll stay home and get well.”
Mama would force her to come along. Like every year, Mama would make her get at least one dress. This year, Neli surprised me by not complaining about it. Mama tried to push her luck by trying to get her some more dresses. Neli’s face twisted as if it was in a lot of pain.
“”Pleeeeeeeeeease, Mamita,” she cried. “Please, please, please don’t make me wear those ugly things.”
Neli then fainted to the ground. Mama and I didn’t fall for it. My sister had done that before. People were gathering as mama pulled her up. It was so embarrassing.
“It’s a miracle!” Neli exclaimed. “I can stand up! It’s a miracle!”
Mama was so embarrassed that we left the store without buying any of the items we had already chosen. At the next store, she told Neli she’d better not pull anything. Mama bought her jeans, T-shirts, and one dress. Neli didn’t cause any more trouble. I got several dresses and a pair of jeans.
Anai was home when we arrived from shopping. She loved the clothes—especially my colorful dresses. People often told her what good taste in clothing she had, so I felt complimented.
“You don’t look very excited about your new clothes, Miranda,” Anai commented.
“She’s worried that she hasn’t thought of anything important to do for her twelfth year,” Neli shot out, bored. I had made the mistake of telling her my birthday wish. She thought it was lame to aspire to something like that.
“We’re kids—we can’t do great things until we grow up,” she had retorted. I didn’t agree.
“I want to do a great thing,” I told Anai. “Is there anything wrong with that?”
Anai then explained to me that most important things done in life are about helping other people. I asked her if that’s what good warriors did.
“That’s exactly what good warriors do,” she gushed. “Good warriors are concerned for other people. They don’t do things just for themselves.”
I was surprised that while Anai was sharing this with me, Neli hadn’t left. She looked as if she was actually listening. I thought that like me, she liked the idea of the warrior.
Anai told us about warriors for good—hero warriors who cared for others with their big hearts. There was Emiliano Zapata who had helped liberate campesinos in Mexico during the revolution. There were soldaderas like my great great grandmother who didn’t have to fight because she was a woman but did anyway. She did it because her heart told her to do it.
Selena Quintanilla Perez not only was a great singer, but she encouraged kids to graduate from school. There was Cesar Chavez who organized farmworkers in California. Anai told us that there were many, many more heroes—too many to mention in the hour she had before having to leave.
These heroes weren’t perfect. But they had big hearts. They were in all different shapes, sizes, and genders. Different types. They helped people in different ways, and they didn’t do what they did by themselves. They had family members, friends, and others with them. The people who encouraged and helped them were heroes too. We just didn’t know their names. Because someone isn’t famous doesn’t mean that person isn’t a hero.
Today, we still have a lot of heroes. Anai wanted us to know that heroes weren’t just people who had already died. There was Dolores Huerta who stood side by side with Cesar Chavez and continued working for field workers. There were actors like Eva Longoria, Salma Hayek, and Edward James Olmos who helped others.
“Anybody can be a hero,” announced Anai.
“Aren’t we too young to be heroes?” Neli questioned with a ton curiosity.
“Do you know Miriam?” asked Anai.
“The girl who lives across the street?” I asked.
“Every night she reads to her blind abuelita—she’s certainly a hero to her grandmother.”
I think I understood what Anai was trying to tell me. After she left, I trekked into my bedroom and gazed out the window. It was beautiful outside.
“I’m here!” announced Coralita who jumped on the bed with me as soon as she had come into the room.
“Hi, kiddo,” I returned, kissing her forehead. Neli stepped into the room.
“What are you doing?” questioned Coralita, her voice thick with curiosity.
“She’s thinking.” Neli made a funny face.
“What are you thinking about?”
I smiled at her. “Different things.”
“Why don’t you go to your treehouse to think?” Coralita asked .
I suddenly realized I hadn’t been in the treehouse much. I had dreamed about having my own space to think in, but now I would hardly visit my own enchanted treehouse. In fact, the only times I went in was when Bonita or Kitty came by to leave birdseed for Cantinflas. As much as I tried to bring him into the house, he liked the treehouse.
“I don’t go there much, kiddo,” I said.
“Why not?”
I sighed. “It’s a lonely place.”
This was the first time I had said it out loud. I finally realized I didn’t like going there. Nobody was at my treehouse. I liked to be alone sometimes, but there was something missing in my house on a tree.
It was this precise thought that had been going over and over in my head the next day. Kitty called me to ask if I wanted to eat lunch at the elementary school. During summer, there was free food for students. Adults only had to pay a dollar.
Neli wanted to come. I let her, but I made sure to warn her that if she called Bonita a Chupacabras or Kitty an ugly cat, I’d never let her come with us again.
As we walked to the school, Neli was thankfully quiet. All of us were thrilled that the cafeteria was serving pizza. I grabbed my chocolate milk and picked an apple from the serving line. Neli, Bonita, and Kitty picked oranges. The lunchroom was full, but we still found where to sit.
We sat across from Juanito. Neli didn’t want to sit there, but there was no other space. Poor Juanito had a crush on my sister. Her smell didn’t seem to bother him at all. Today, he just stared at her through his thick glasses. I could see that Neli was getting super annoyed.
“Did you get a new haircut?” I asked Juanito. The way I saw it, maybe if I could get him to talk to me then he wouldn’t be gawking at Neli and upsetting her.
“Yeah,” Juanito answered, not taking his eyes off my sister. “I got a buzz cut. Want to feel?” He stood up and put his head close to Neli while looking deep into her eyes.
“Stop staring at me, porcupine!” snapped Neli.
Juanito slumped down and stared forlornly at his food. The poor boy looked as if he wanted to cry.
“What did mama say about calling people names?” I whispered sharply to Neli.
“But he does look like a porcupine,” she muttered.
The bad part was that Juanito did actually look like a porcupine with glasses. Even his eyes were small and round. I had been able to convince Coralita
that it was okay to have a big head. I wouldn’t be able to do the same with poor Juanito and his buzz cut because Neli would have to be the one to make him feel better since it was her he had a big crush on.
“Neli, you can’t be a hero warrior if you’re mean,” I whispered to her.
Neli’s eyes shot to Juanito as she turned pensive. “Okay,” she muttered to me. “Porcupines … Porcupines …,” she stumbled. “Porcupines eat food.”
Juanito jerked his head back up and stared at Neli. So did the rest of us.
“Porcupines eat food,” Neli repeated. “I like that.”
Juanito’s eyes became happy again, and he grinned. Then he stuffed his mouth with pizza. I guessed he was trying to show Neli that he could eat like porcupines. The rest of us also started our meal.
I was about to take another bite when the Valdez sisters, Rebecca and Raquel, shyly ambled in and sat close to us. They didn’t look anything alike but were still twins. In school, they were the quietest girls in class. They almost never talked to anyone. Other students made fun of them because their clothes were always old and with holes. I had never seen them with anything new.
Rebecca and Raquel started eating fast. They didn’t even talk to one another. I wondered if the food they ate here was the only food they’d have all day. Certain kids wouldn’t eat the fruit that was given to us. They would leave it on the table. I noticed that the twins would take the ownerless fruit and hide it in an old purse Rebecca always carried. I pretended not to notice. I think they wanted it that way.
I had heard that the twins’ father had left many years ago. Their mother was always working trying to make ends meet. Because their father had been building a house when he had left, they lived in an unfinished home of two rooms.
I ate the rest of my pizza, and then I put my apple to the side. I wouldn’t be eating it today. Neli did the same thing with her fruit. I knew she loved oranges. Could it be that Neli had seen the twins take the fruit and wanted them to have her own contribution? Was my sister doing something so unselfish? It warmed my heart.
An awful boy named Clint suddenly strutted into the cafeteria. Finishing my chocolate milk, I almost choked. Clint was one of the meanest boys I had ever known. The twins seemed very nervous as Clint walked straight to them. He didn’t even get any food—he just stood over them with a smirk.
“Hi, ugly and uglier,” he sneered at the twins.
The twins’ faces dropped down. I could see tears slipping to the table. None of us wanted to talk since we were afraid of Clint’s horrible mouth.
“Are you starving?” he asked them, guffawing. “You’re so poor that you eat cats and dogs, right?” His cackling filled the cafeteria. Some kids laughed at his cruelty.
I just couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “Clint, why are you so mean?”
He turned his scowling eyes at me. “Are you talking to me, ugly number three?”
“Who are you calling ugly, you bonehead?! My sister’s pretty!” Neli hissed, shooting up from her seat. Her twisty eyes glared at him. She didn’t seem afraid of him at all.
“She’s mega-ugly!” Clint burst. “And you’re fu-ugly too!”
Neli’s twisty eyes wouldn’t stop glaring at him. “Thank you so ginormously much for your compliment,” she smirked.
“What?”
“What some jerk like you thinks is ugly must be beautiful!” she proclaimed matter-of-factly. “If you knew what ugly really was you’d never look in a mirror.”
“You’re calling me ugly?!” he snapped, his face in a twisted knot.
Neli grunted. “You’re a bully—it makes you uglier than Frankenstein.”
Clint stomped his fist on the table. “You’re going to get it!”
“I’m not afraid of you,” responded Neli, smirking.
I stood up. “I’m not either.”
Kitty and Bonita shot up. “Us neither.”
Juanito popped up. “Me neither.”
Clint glared at us, but we mad-dogged him right back. We wouldn’t sit back down. Finally, he shifted his eyes and gave a snort. As he left the cafeteria in a huff, we didn’t get back to our seats until we were sure he wasn’t coming back. I breathed out. He had tried to make us feel small. He had tried to make us feel bad about ourselves. I looked at the twins and knew in my heart that he had made them feel as tiny as insects.
The biggest wars are fought inside.
I told Rebecca and Raquel not to feel bad about what Clint had said. He was a horrible person.
I left the cafeteria with Bonita, Neli, and Kitty. I thought about us being like the four musketeers. I was proud of us, especially Neli. She had been awesome when she had stood up for me. I still felt worried for Rebecca and Raquel who didn’t look like they felt any better after Clint had left, and I had talked to them.
I was still thinking about it for the rest of the day. The twins made me feel sad like my treehouse did. Maybe because they seemed as alone as my treehouse.
Brain surge! Brain surge!
It hit me—the big idea. Finally! I was sure that Rebecca and Raquel weren’t the only students who were bullied into feeling small. I thought about the girls in school who seemed out-of-place and miserable. Maybe they didn’t have anyone to tell them they were special like my mama would tell Neli and me. Maybe they had been told they were awesome but didn’t believe it. They believed the bullies who said ugly things to them.
Maybe they were lonely in their sadness.
“I’ve got it!” I exclaimed. “I’ve got my great idea!”
“What?” asked Neli from her place on the sofa.
I decided not to tell her yet. Calling Kitty and Bonita, I told them to meet me at my treehouse. Neli and I took Coralita up.
I wouldn’t say anything until Kitty and Bonita showed up. It was hard because I was so excited. When they climbed up, I told them right away.
“We’re going to form a club of warriors!” I burst. “That way we can protect each other from the Clints out there. We’ll convince the Valdez twins to join, so they don’t feel so small anymore. We’ll work together!”
Everyone applauded. They seemed to love my idea. Cantinflas sat on my shoulder. Sunlight shone happily into my treehouse. I think my new clubhouse knew it wasn’t going to be alone anymore. I smiled at everyone, and they grinned right back.
And that, my new friends, is the whole story of how I thought of my Warriors Club.
Chapter 10
Warrior
At night, I took out my journal. Only a short time ago I hadn’t known what to write in it about growing up. Now my pen wouldn’t stop.
History
Heroes
The biggest wars are fought inside.
I am a warrior.
The Warriors Club Page 9