Ding!
The last ding! echoed over and over the room, quieter every time, so silent had everyone fallen.
Gabi walked downstage to stand right next to me. I kept facing the audience, smiling like a jester, but she looked at me when she asked, her voice thick with wonder, “Sal, what did you have for breakfast today?”
I pretended to think for a second, but I already knew my answer. “Hippopotamus burgers.”
Blatt! went the computer. Because my PANTS were totally ON FIRE!
Mrs. Waked snorted louder than a lawn mower starting. A second later, the classroom exploded in laughter and even louder clapping. The class didn’t stop whooping and yelling “Bravo!” until the bell sounded.
“Okay, my lovelies,” said Mrs. Waked. “We’ll have to save Sal’s magic trick for tomorrow. Unless that was your performance, Sal? Did you and Gabi set this up together?”
I was about to answer truthfully, when Gabi slapped her hand over my mouth. “Yes, it was his performance, Mrs. Waked. He’s pretty good for a new kid, isn’t he?”
Mrs. Waked hugged herself. “You were both incredible. What timing! What panache! And, Sal, that soliloquy! Where in the world did you learn so much about parallel universes?”
Gabi removed her hand slowly from my mouth, but her eyes warned me against exposing her lie about our collaborating on the act. I was still wearing the helmet, after all. I blinked at Mrs. Waked and answered, “My papi’s a calamity physicist.”
The lie detector detected I told the truth.
“Splendid, just splendid,” said Mrs. Waked, golf-clapping. “I have absolutely no idea what that means. Okay, well, tomorrow, my butterflies, we begin our unit on acting with masks. You’re going to love it. It’s my favorite class of the entire year ! But for now, my dear geniuses, I must bid you adieu. Class dismissed!”
I HAD A FEW questions for Gabi Reál—like Why did you just lie about us to Mrs. Waked?—but they would have to wait. It had been way too long since I’d eaten. “We need to talk later,” I whispered to her as we made our way through the crowd of our adoring fans.
Well, they definitely adored Gabi, anyway. They kind of looked at me like a mutt who’d snuck into the dog show and accidentally got second place.
“We do?” she trolled me, at full volume, no less. “About what?”
Whatever. Had to go. I was the first kid to bust through the doors of the prop room. I practically ran for my locker, where my emergency food stash awaited.
This time, as I dodged like a running back through the hallways, nobody pressed themselves against the walls and stared at me like I was going to eat them and their families. A few people snuck looks like I might munch on their cat or their annoying baby brother—but not their whole families.
It was progress. For now, I’d take it.
I sprang up the stairs to the third floor (yes, my knee was just fine, thanks for asking), sliding past the flood of people heading down. I reached the top and turned left for my locker.
And then instantly hid myself in the stairwell again.
There was exactly one kid left in hallway 3E: Yasmany Robles.
I peeked out to spy on him. The heavy, bulging duffel bag hanging off his shoulder looked like it had a dead elephant stuffed inside. While I watched, he tried twice to open the lock on his locker. Twice he failed, and twice he punched the locker door.
I winced both times. He hit the locker so hard. How was he not breaking fingers?
It didn’t matter. What mattered was that a bad-tempered bully was getting angry. Not exactly the right time to show my face in hallway 3E. I turned around to head down the stairs again.
It’s not like I’m afraid of him or anything, I explained to myself. It’s just that I’m afraid of him.
I stopped one step down. What did you just say, brain?
Nothing, said my brain, slowly eating an imaginary sandwich.
I got defensive. I’ve already handled him once today, brain. I can handle him again. And if he messes with me one more time, Principal Torres will expel him for sure.
So why are you panicking?
Why did my brain suddenly sound like Gabi Reál?
I’m not panicking.
Don’t lie to me, Sal. It demeans us both.
My brain was right. I was scared. And being scared is not allowed. No way was I going to let myself run, or even wait until Yasmany was gone before going to my locker. I needed to get to my locker right away. It was practically a medical emergency. That’s how bullies win: They make you scared to live your life.
So I was going to walk past Yasmany Robles, take out my food, and eat it right there in front of him. I’d eat it nice and slow, really enjoy it. I’d offer Yasmany none of my Skittles, and if he asked for some, I’d tell him to get his own. Then I’d take out the books and stuff I needed for homework, close my locker, and leave. Slowly. Maybe I’d skip.
And if Yasmany dared to mess with me—well, I had six pairs of handcuffs on me that I hadn’t gotten to use today. I’d truss him up like a calf at the rodeo and leave him in front of Principal Torres’s door.
A deep breath for courage. Then I turned around and walked into the hallway. Past Yasmany. To my locker.
Yasmany pretended not to notice me. So I pretended not to notice him. So far, so good.
I dialed the combo into my lock, zip-zip-zip, and was about to pull it open, when I noticed that Yasmany had grabbed his lock. He was trying to copy me as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast: zip, ziiiipppp, and zizizpizzizppppip. Then he grabbed his lock the same way I was grabbing mine now, ready to pull it open.
But he’d done it wrong. He hadn’t squeezed the top part the way I had told him to this morning, before he went full sandwich on me. The kid doesn’t listen, I thought. He must drive his teachers crazy.
So I tried a little experiment.
I faked pulling on my lock and pretended I couldn’t open it. And then I said, in my hear-me-in-the-back-row stage voice, “Oh, how stupid of me! I forgot to squeeze my lock while entering the combination. Now I will have to start all over again!”
I glanced over. Yasmany held his lock and stared up at the ceiling like he was minding his own business. He almost busted his neck straining not to look at me.
I spun the dial of my lock to reset it; Yasmany spun his. “And now,” I said to the air, “for the secret trick that will allow me to open this lock: I will squeeze the shackle as I input the combination!” I squeezed it so hard my hand shook and, ever so slowly, started dialing. “Left twenty-three, right fourteen, left six.”
The numbers I said didn’t match the numbers I was dialing. I was inputting my own combination but saying Yasmany’s combination. You know, to be extra helpful to him.
I flicked my eyes Yasmany’s way to see how things were going. He was squeezing his lock! His fingers were white from the effort! Finally.
I watched him input his combination. He mouthed, Left twenty-three, right fourteen, left six as he did. If he realized how weird it was that I had said his combination out loud instead of my own, nothing in his body language let on.
Once he had the third number showing on the dial, I said, “And now, to open the lock!” I yanked on mine dramatically, and of course, it opened.
Yasmany yanked on his lock, too, just as dramatically as I had. And, wonder of wonders, his lock opened, too.
What happened next I was not expecting. Yasmany danced.
Well, first his fists shot up in the air. He woo-woo’ed while stepping away from his locker like he’d just won every medal in the Olympics. Then, letting his duffel bag slide off his arm, he spun on the ball of one foot so fast and so many times he could’ve drilled for oil. He exploded out of the spin into a jump, and the split he did in the air made me promise myself I’d never break a wishbone at Thanksgiving again. When he landed, he started popping and locking and plié-ing and jeté-ing like the fancy-pantsiest B-boy ever to hit the streets. He ended by spinning on his back like a turtle sl
apped by a hockey stick and tied off the move with a pilot freeze. You know, when you tangle your legs up and throw them in the air and hold the pose like you could stay like that forever and you wouldn’t mind, no biggie, just chillin’?
He held the pilot freeze for so long I started to get uncomfortable. Were we done pretending we couldn’t see each other? Should I, like, throw him a quarter or something?
A blink later, Yasmany rolled and did a kip-up and was standing again. “Oh [cussword], I gotta get to detention!” He wasn’t looking at me when he spoke, and he didn’t even glance my way as he clawed his duffel bag off the floor and ran down the stairs.
While leaving his locker unlocked.
Kid was a piece of work. I went over to his locker, shaking my head like an adult who was wondering what was wrong with kids these days. I had every intention of closing his lock for him.
But then I remembered that I’d made a chicken appear—and then disappear—in his locker earlier today. I’d made a pretty big rip in the universe inside that locker. I wondered if it was still there.
Yasmany hadn’t acted like he’d seen anything unusual, but he wouldn’t have. He couldn’t see the hole. I’d never met anyone else who could see them.
And maybe it had closed by now anyway. All the holes I’d made so far usually didn’t last long. Most healed themselves within a few minutes—a few hours, tops. There was only that one time when a hole didn’t close. My whole family had had to move out of our house in Connecticut because of all the weird stuff that kept emerging from another universe (PS: Unicorns are real, and they are just as unhousebroken as regular horses), but like I said, it was only that one time.
Still, better to be sure. I opened Yasmany’s locker and looked inside.
Annnnnnnd snake eyes. The rip was still there.
The entire back of the locker had become a portal into another world. I could see across dimensions into a whole new reality. Who knew what bizarre aliens lived there, what strange lives they led, what mind-blowing powers and technology they had?
But I didn’t see any strange and powerful aliens just then. No awesome futuristic gadgets, either. What I did see was a chicken-processing plant.
From where I was standing, I watched plucked poultry carcasses, hanging from their legs on a metal conveyor belt, zooming by at a thousand miles an hour.
I shoved my head into the locker for a better look. The portal was high on the wall of the Chicken Plant from Dimension X, because I had to look down to see the work floor. There, employees wearing smocks and gloves and protective eyewear and hairnets hung out along the conveyor belt at different stations. They pressed buttons and made check marks on clipboards and basically made sure the chickens flying by on the conveyor belt kept on flying.
I pulled my head out of the locker for a think. The hole wasn’t gone yet. That was bad. Until a hole closed, there was a risk that stuff I didn’t intend to bring over from the other universe would come through on its own. The bigger the hole, the longer it lasted, and the higher the chance that something would mosey out of it. Also, a bigger hole meant that a bigger object, animal, or smelly unicorn could squeeze through.
This hole was not small. I’d dragged a chicken out of it and then pushed a chicken back through. Oh, and I’d had to trade Yasmany’s bloody shoe for a clean one. This portal was going to stick around for a while.
So I decided four things then and there:
1. No more dragging stuff either way through rips in the universe until this hole closes.
2. Keep an eye out for anything weird that might have already come through.
3. If something has come through, SEND IT BACK!
4. If you can’t send it back…Um…
Well, okay, so I decided three things, and I really, really hoped I wouldn’t have to worry about a fourth.
I was about to close the locker, when I noticed what was actually in the locker. I mean, besides a wormhole to a different universe.
There was a big stack of books on the left, and stuck to the front of them was a sticky note that read TAKE THESE HOME! A small stack of books on the right had a sticky note on them that said LEAVE THESE HERE! And there was a note, folded in half, that had written on it READ ME!
Far be it from me to disobey an order. I took the note—two pages, front and back, written in big, bubbly letters—and read it.
Dear Yasmany,
I have taken the liberty of organizing your life for you, since you obviously need my help but don’t have the good sense to ask for it.
Take the books on your left home with you and DO YOUR HOMEWORK! I can tell you from experience that it is easy and very interesting. You will love the Phoenicians as much as I did, promise! I wish I could take World History again.
I will quiz you on your homework tonight. And because I know you will ask: NO, YOU CANNOT COPY MY ANSWERS.
Once we have finished with your regular homework, I will help you get started with your essay on diabetes. I’ve done some preliminary research. It’s a fascinating topic! The hardest part of this assignment will be keeping it under five pages.
To thank me for helping you with your homework and essay, you can quiz me on my homework tonight using the questions written on the other side of this letter. All you have to do is read them to me.
Also, because boys can have trouble understanding friendship, I will once again remind you that I am not in love with you. I do love you, as a friend, and I don’t want to see your great talent go to waste or your good heart fill with poison. I’m going to make sure of it, even if it kills you.
I also need you to understand what a special present you were given today by Sal Vidón. I don’t know if I could have convinced Principal Torres to give you another chance. And, while I’m being honest, that’s partly because I kind of believe she shouldn’t have given you another chance. Yes, I defended you to the best of my ability, just like I said I would. But maybe I shouldn’t have. You acted like a bully, Yasmany. It’s pretty unforgivable.
But, for whatever reason, Sal did forgive you. Well, at least enough to speak up for you. He could have walked out of the principal’s office without saying a word, and you could be looking for a new school right now. But instead, he turned around and asked Principal Torres to give you another chance.
Why? I’m not sure. Sal’s very hard to read, and he is pulling tricks all the time. I think all that hocus-pocus magic stuff has gone to his head a little.
But I know this much. He was kind to you for no reason except that he wanted to be kind to you. That means he’s a good person. And thanks to him, you got a second chance.
And you’re not going to waste it—I will see to that. You are going to start acting like the person you are with me. You are never, ever again going to act like you did today. Especially not to Sal. Or, I swear to you, Yasmany Robles, THERE WILL BE A RECKONING.
That’s a literary reference you won’t get. You need to read more. But don’t worry about that for now. For now, just DO YOUR HOMEWORK, and when I call you tonight to go over it, pick up on the first ring.
I probably can’t call before 8 p.m., because I’ll be visiting my brother in the hospital. It’s his one- month birthday, so we’re throwing him a party. I will try to call as close to 8 as I can. That should give you plenty of time to DO YOUR HOMEWORK. Expect a late night. We have a lot to do.
Your friend,
Gabrielle Reál
Student Council President
Editor in Chief, The Rotten Egg
“Love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear.”
—e. e. cummings
I reread the letter twice, juicing it for info. Then I started to read it a third time, focusing especially on the parts about me.
“¿Bueno?” asked Mr. Milagros from behind me.
Have you ever spit out your entire skeleton, watch it do a dance in front of you, and then swallowed it back down after it dove into your throat headfirst, so it
is upside down inside you and your hand bones are your feet bones and your feet bones are your hand bones and your skull is in your butt and you have a pelvis for brains?
Yeah, I hate being snuck up on, too.
Mr. Milagros calmly watched me freak out and collapse on the floor. He just leaned on his mop like he’d seen it a million times before. Yes, he had a mop, and a mop bucket full of soapy water with him. How the heck had I not heard him slopping up behind me? Either I’d been concentrating so hard on reading the letter that I’d turned off my ears, or Mr. Milagros can miraculously move without making a sound.
He offered me a hand. I took it and got up off the floor.
Before I could come up with even a poor excuse for opening another student’s locker and reading the private correspondence I had found inside, Mr. Milagros said, “Me? I like a clean school. Todo limpiecito. When things are clean, it’s easier to enjoy life. But when things are dirty, you feel wrong all over. No one likes to feel dirty, and no one”—and here he pointed at the ceiling with his mop handle, and for the first time, I noticed a security camera, a big black dome the size of a whale’s eye staring at me—“likes to see dirty people doing dirty things. It’s important to be clean, don’t you think, Sal?”
Sal and Gabi Break the Universe (A Sal and Gabi Novel) Page 6