Sal and Gabi Break the Universe (A Sal and Gabi Novel)

by Carlos Hernandez

  I pulled the battery pack. Why did everything need a brain these days?

  I counted to five, then pushed the batteries back into the slot in the handle.

  No whining AI, which was good. But no noises at all. No lights. No readout on the handlebars. Had I broken it or something?

  “Oh no,” I said, and gave the sweeper a little shake. “Why aren’t you working?”

  The lights came on. “Oh, I’m working,” said the AI, loud and triumphant. “But you couldn’t tell, could you? Because I wasn’t responding. See? Perhaps now, rude human, you understand my point!”

  I didn’t have time to fight with an AI. More importantly, I needed it to be my friend so it wouldn’t narc me out to Papi once I returned it. Time to change tactics. “Entropy sweeper, I need your help. You are my only hope.”

  “I am here to serve!” the sweeper said happily. It started cycling through colors with joy.

  I started talking fast, hoping it wouldn’t interrupt me anymore. “I need to conduct a silent scan of this hallway. What’s the best way for us to do that?”

  “Hm,” said the AI. “I think”—and now, thank everything, it was whispering—“perhaps we should communicate through color?”

  “That sounds smart!” I said encouragingly.

  Oh, the AI liked that. It started whispering a mile a minute. “Great! So, red means ‘no,’ green means ‘yes,’ yellow means ‘maybe,’ blue means ‘I’m still working on it,’ orange means ‘thank you,’ indigo means ‘no thank you,’ chartreuse means ‘Are you insane? Pedro Martinez is the greatest pitcher ever. From 1999 to 2003, he outperformed—’”

  “Perfect,” I whisper-rupted. Man, this was the most opinionated entropy sweeper I’d ever met! “When can we start?”

  “Right away!” said the AI. And then, without another word, it turned blue all along its edges. It was working on it. Finally.

  I raised the entropy sweeper so its propellers could get a good, long taste of Yasmany’s locker. After several seconds, I whispered, “Any calamitrons?”

  The machine turned even bluer all over. It was thinking. Blue, it pulsed. Blue. Blue. Blue.

  Then green.

  Stay calm, Sal. “How many?” I asked it.

  “Oh no!” the sweeper burst out. “We forgot to assign numbers to any colors. Okay, teal is ‘one,’ puce is ‘two,’ ochre is ‘three,’ magenta is ‘four,’ gamboge is—”

  “Or maybe,” I intruded, “you could just display the number on the screen on your handlebars?”

  “Oh yes!” the AI said happily. “Good idea. You’re all right, human.”

  “Thanks, entropy sweeper.”

  It cycled through colors like a chameleon in love and displayed the number of calamitrons in the hallway: thirty-seven.

  “Thirty-seven,” I repeated to help me think. If I could somehow fit the remembranation monitor in this hallway, I would be able to see the calamitrons on its screen. But the entropy sweeper’s screen could barely display emojis. I knew there were calamitrons here, but that’s all. And knowing that much only made me feel scared and uneasy. It didn’t really help anything.

  “You okay, buddy?” asked the sweeper, using its lowest volume setting. “Your pulse is rising.”

  “Yeah,” I answered. I tried to be nice about it. It wasn’t the sweeper’s fault that the hole I’d ripped in the fabric of the cosmos was leaking calamity into the universe; it was mine. “I just wish I could make the calamitrons disappear.”

  I stood holding the sweeper, not knowing what to do next. Well, for one thing, I had to figure out where I could hide it—it was way too big to carry around all day, and way too big for my locker. Maybe in the prop room? Mrs. Waked would let me, and people would think it was just another—

  “Woah,” said the entropy sweeper. I could literally hear it misspelling “whoa.”

  And now its screen was displaying an emoji with its mouth hanging open.

  “What?” I asked.

  “How’d you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Hang on,” it said, turning blue. “Let me check something.” It pulsed light and did whatever entropy sweepers do, its propellers spinning thoughtfully. “Yep, I was right,” it said a few seconds later. Then a number appeared on its display.

  Thirty-six.

  “Huh. Are you saying one of the calamitrons went away?”

  “Don’t play coy with me, buster! I saw what you did there.”

  “Keep it down!” I said. I looked around for any sign of Mr. Milagros, but I was still alone in the hallway. “I seriously don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Come off it!” the machine said, but at least at a low volume now. “You ate that calamitron!”

  “What?!” I whatted. “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well, okay, I guess since you stuck it up your nose, it isn’t technically eating. I was being metaphoric.”

  “I am telling you,” I said, getting harsher, if not louder, “I didn’t eat, sniff, inhale, ingest, or do anything to any calamitron.”

  “Hey, I wouldn’t have believed it, either, if I hadn’t detected it with my own seventy-five distinct entropy sensors! You wished that you could get rid of the calamitrons, and the closest one in the hallway, like you had hypnotized it, drifted over to you, slowly, slowly, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream, and then, snort! You vacuumed it into your nose and out of this universe.”

  I stood there looking like that openmouthed emoji. It took ten seconds before I could even make sense of what the sweeper had said to me. Finally, I squeezed my brain like an orange to get a question out. “I snorted a calamitron?”

  “Yep.”

  “And it’s gone?”

  “Yep.”

  “But where did it go?”

  On the display the shrug emoji appeared. “You’re the one who snarfed it. You tell me.”

  And of course, just then my alarm went off. Half hour to homeroom. I’d have to figure out if inhaling calamity was bad for your health later.

  I BOOKED IT to the prop room. Mrs. Waked wasn’t there, but I was sure she wouldn’t mind if I stowed the entropy sweeper between, say, some poofy-skirt medieval costumes, which is exactly what I did. Then I headed downstairs for Culeco’s courtyard.

  Before school started, I needed to find all the girls Gabi wanted to take notes for her and deliver her messages to them, complete with bribes and/or veiled threats. As I made my rounds, I definitely saw some worried, Poultrygate!-inspired stolen glances. Whenever I caught someone’s eye, I nodded at them, nice ’n’ friendly, polite as a tipped cowboy hat. But for a few people, a nice ’n’ friendly howdy-ho from a possible brujo is a reason to grab your bookbag and head to class early.

  Great. And now I had to talk to Gladis.

  Well, there she was, texting against a tree. Now or never.

  She looked up from her phone and spotted me when I was twenty feet away. I waved weakly and, inside, braced for impact.

  She waved back. Nicely. Like, one of those wiggle-finger waves. Her head dipped sideways as she smiled at me. And then, then—what the pants was happening?—she winked and waved me over.

  Now I was even more scared. But I still walked up to her.

  “Hola, Salvador Vidón,” she said with a thicker Cuban accent than she’d had yesterday. She was smiling the way bank robbers do before a heist, all sly and excited. But then she became suddenly worried. “Oh, tha’s you name, righ’?”

  “Yeah,” I said, my suspicion level rising fast. “We have a class together. Textile Arts?”

  “Oh, we do? Here, too? Oh goo’. Maybe my whole eschedule will be the sa’e. Tha’ woul’ ma’e things heasy.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. My face showed it, too.

  “Oh, don’ worry,” she said. Then she stuck out her hand. “Me llamo Gladis. Gladis Machado.”

  “Um, I know?”

  She laughed. She was having the time of her life. The more excited she got, the thicker he
r accent got. “No, Pipo. No’ your Gladis. Ella está en el universo mío. And oh my Gah. She is such a san’weech. I’ kinda gross’ ou’ tha’ I’ can even ha’ sush a terrible personality.”

  “She’s in my universe” this Gladis had said. The Gladis I knew had gone to another universe. Which could only mean…“Holy hot pants! You’re the Gladis who knit the ojo turco scarf, aren’t you?”

  She tapped her nose.

  I got as paranoid as a shoplifter pocketing hand grenades. I peered all around. No one seemed to be paying us much attention. But middle schoolers are experts at looking without looking.

  I leaned in and whispered to Gladis, “What are you doing here? How did you get here?”

  She fluttered her eyes at me, exactly the same way an evil fairy would, just before it stole your youth. “Why, you brough’ me here, Sal.” And when she saw the look of horror on my face, she added, “Well, no’ you you, bu’ my you. The you tha’s in my universe? I was jus’ texting you—I me’ heem—to tell heem I an here, buena y sana y brinca la rana.”

  I just needed a little extra time to process her words. There were a million unbelievable things I wanted to ask her to explain to me.

  But the one I couldn’t believe the most was: “Your phone gets bars across universes?”

  She nodded philosophically. “It pay’ to buy the righ’ plan, Pipo.”

  I shook my head clear. “But why are you here in the first place?”

  She became even more excited. “Oh, fue mi eedea. I ask’ Sal how he ma’e my escarf disappear, and he say I woul’ not believe him, uh-un, and I say, ‘Try me, Pipo!’ An’ thain he tell me, and I said ‘¡Qué mango!’ and he said, ‘You belief me?’ and I said, ‘¡Quiero ir!’ and he said, ‘No way!’ because you know how you get sometimes. But I was like, ‘I wan’ my escarf back, I’ going!’ And so he was like, ‘Okay, I’ eswitch you with the Gladis over there.’ An’ now I’ here!”

  I was noticing that, if I waited three seconds, her words would kind of sink into my brain, like fish food sprinkled into a fishtank, and by the time they hit bottom, I understood what she had said. Well, as much as anybody can understand the multiverse. I was already used to the idea that there were a million billion different Sals out there, thanks to Papi. Here, I was feeling kind of “woah” and kind of competitive with that other Sal. He had switched two Gladises, from two different universes, just like that? I couldn’t do that. Also, I probably wouldn’t—not with what I knew about calamitrons now.

  Except—this was just a feeling, but you know how I feel about feelings—I didn’t think Gladis was leaking any calamitrons. Calamitrons make you feel like you’re being watched by tiny sparkling eyeballs floating all around you: queasy and uneasy, like enemies are coming. I could feel them when I had cooked with Mami Muerta. I could feel them when I got near Yasmany’s locker. But off this Gladis? Nothing.

  Hmm. I’d have to check her with the entropy sweeper later.

  When I finally replied to Gladis—she smiled and waited patiently; she was having a very good day—I asked, “And the other Gladis? How is she doing?”

  She looked a little guilty and also very pleased with herself. “Well, she wa’ acting li’e la última Coca-Cola en el desierto at first. Bu’ then I yell a’ her for beyee rude, an’ she call’ me a ghos’ and casi se tenía que cambiar sus Pampers. Bu’ maybe she better now. Le’ me ask Sal.”

  Gladis took out her phone—people, it was clearly not from this universe!—and texted her Sal in perfect English. She even used punctuation. Hey Sal, Sal wants to know how Gladis is doing.

  The reply, from someone named Sal in her message app who looked pretty much exactly like me (except my hair is better), came a few seconds later. You tell me

  Very funny. The Gladis OVER THERE, you sandwich.

  Yeah shes having like fifteen heart attacks

  Gladis gave me an oops-did-I-do-that? giggle before she replied. She going to be okay?

  That Sal didn’t miss a beat. Oh yeah definitely I think shes faking like six of them

  “She’ fine,” said Gladis, fooling not even herself.

  Gladis and I checked her schedule online, even though I didn’t think it would work. I mean, what were the chances that two Gladises from two different universes would have the same username and password?

  Turns out, the chances are 100 percent.

  She also had the exact same schedule in this universe as she had in her own. So she would happily take good notes and share them with Gabi—if I would get her mal de ojo scarf back from Principal Torres.

  “Deal,” I said. We shook on it.

  Maybe if I were a better person—more like Gabi—I would have worried about all the chaos this Gladis could cause. I mean, I’d seen what my previous Mami Muertas had done. I knew Gladis had the potential to descend on Culeco like a cacanado. But to be honest, that would be interesting. I guess once you’ve broken the universe more than a half-dozen times, your tolerance for craziness goes way up.

  And anyway, this Gladis seemed nice—way nicer than my Gladis. Everything would be fine. “Ciao, pesca’o,” she said, giving me another one of those wiggly-finger waves. I waved back.

  One note taker down, two to go.

  I found Teresita Tómas next. She panicked when I gently implied that the continued existence of her fashion column depended on the quality of her math and history notes. She quizzed me for five minutes about exactly what Gabi had said, and was she joking, and was she mad, and oh my God this was so unfair and, fine, she’d give Gabi her notes, but Gabi’d better hold up her end of the bargain.

  I promised her she would. Just one more person to talk to.

  Aventura Rios stood in the shade of palm trees with the cosplay contingent. There were a half-dozen kids wearing costumes that ranged from just begun to almost finished. Aventura was dressed up as a Latina Karin from Street Fighter, fake blond curls and everything. She and the other cosplayers stood around studying the stitching on their costumes and trading sewing tips.

  When I told her Gabi would be absent today, she instantly jumped in with “Happy to share my notes with her.” And before I could say anything else, she asked me, “Did Gabi tell you to browbeat me, the same way you manhandled Teresita?”

  “You saw that?” I asked guiltily.

  She laughed—“Oh, ho-ho-ho-ho!”—and shook her head. “Girlfriend needs to lighten up. She’ll get her notes. But maybe I’ll put them in code first or something.”

  I laughed. “Caesar cyphers are easy to code, and pretty easy to break, too,” I offered. “It would be just enough to annoy her.”

  “Ooh, that sounds perfect! Will you be in detention again today? You can teach me.”

  We high-fived. The deal was done.

  “You know,” she added as I started to walk away, “any time you want to dress up, you just walk your pretty little self right back here.”

  “Um, sure?” Yeah, time to disappear. I waved good-bye and hustled off.

  With my neck still blazing, I headed for the entrance. That’s when I saw Principal Torres walk-stomping into the school entrance, unstoppable as a train. Behind her, walking hangdog slow, Yasmany followed.

  “The last straw!” she yelled loudly, straight ahead. She and Yasmany disappeared inside.

  I checked the time: five minutes to homeroom. Whatever Yasmany had done was none of my business. All I wanted was a nice, normal day of school. After the week I’d had, hadn’t I earned it?

  I sighed. And then I booked it over to the principal’s office.

  When I walked into administration, I saw Mr. Zacto standing, not sitting, at his desk. He wore a three-piece suit with creases so sharp it looked like it had been made in a lumberyard. He stared down at his desk like he knew something was off about it, but he couldn’t figure out what. “Good morning, Mr. Vidón,” he said to me, only reluctantly raising his eyes from his desktop. “May I help you?”

  “Gabi’s going to be absent today,” I blurted.

&nb
sp; “Yes, I know. She contacted the entire administrative staff early this morning. That girl is a true professional.”

  “Yes, well, since she’s not here, I’m serving as Yasmany’s lawyer today.”

  Mr. Zacto took off his glasses and shook his head as he polished them. “Yasmany has a team of lawyers now, does he? Well, the poor boy seems to need it, the amount of trouble he gets himself into. Go on in. See if you can be of help.”

  I considered knocking on Principal Torres’s closed door before entering. But then I asked myself, “What would Gabi do?”

  So I barged in. “Sorry I am late, but I only just realized my services would be needed,” I said.

  Yasmany sat in a chair in front of Principal Torres’s desk, hunched like a gargoyle. He turned to look at me with a face that was half-stunned, and the other half more stunned. Principal Torres locked her high-beam glasses on me. “Sal! What are you doing here?”

  I hustled over to the seat next to Yasmany and—courage, Sal, courage!—said, “Gabi cannot be at school today, so I am serving as Yasmany’s representative in her place. Now, what seems to be the problem?”

  “It’s my mom,” said Yasmany. “She—”

  “This is between Yasmany and me, Sal,” Principal Torres cut in, softly. She kept making fists and releasing them, but I didn’t think she wanted to use them on either of us. I sensed she wanted to punch someone—someone who wasn’t in the room. “You need to head to class, Mr. Vidón. You’ll be late for homeroom.”

  “But—” I started.

  “Now,” Principal Torres finished.

  Yasmany looked down. Principal Torres folded her hands on the desk and waited. The mal de ojo scarf lay curled like a cobra on the corner of her desk.

  But this was not the time to ask for it. “Sorry,” I said, and got out of there as quickly and as quietly as possible.

  I had trouble concentrating all day. At first I thought it might be low blood sugar, but nope. I guess I just had a lot on my mind, what with Iggy in danger, and my snuffling a calamitron, and a visitor from another dimension, and that scene with Yasmany in the principal’s.