“Hey! There you are!” the boy said.
He was sprawled on the ground, dry leaves sticking to his hair. Estrellita stood on his chest, barking. He laughed like he’d seen the most wonderful thing in the world, then rolled to the side to stand up face-to-face with me.
“You stole my dog!” Donovan said in Spanish.
“I didn’t steal your dog!” I replied in English, the words coming out with such force he seemed stunned into silence.
I gathered Estrellita up into my arms so he couldn’t take her away. She couldn’t be his puppy. There had to be a mistake. She was affectionate and friendly. That was all.
As if she could read my thoughts, she started licking my face, and the thought of her having licked Donovan’s made me flinch.
A cloud passed over Donovan’s eyes when he saw Estrellita snuggling up to me.
“If you didn’t steal her, why is Cookie here?”
“Cookie?” I spat back. “You’re confused. This is Estrellita.” I knew I was being unreasonable, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Donovan took a deep breath as if he were arming himself with patience. “I know my dog, and she knows me too.”
My blood froze in my veins. “Why would you name her Cookie?”
“Because she looks like a snickerdoodle. But Snickerdoodle was too long for such a tiny dog.”
“Cookie,” I muttered. Wasn’t it obvious that she was an Estrella, her eyes sparkling like stars?
She licked my face again as if telling me everything was going to be all right.
Donovan showed me the crumpled poster in his hand. “I found this on Main Street over the weekend, but I didn’t have the chance to stop by until today.”
I had never regretted doing the right thing more than now.
“How did you lose her?” I asked.
Donovan sighed. “I didn’t lose her. She ran away. She likes music. A car full of teenagers drove past my street, and she followed them. When she realized I was chasing her, she thought we were playing tag, and she kept running.”
“She does like to be chased,” I said, thinking of my brothers running circles around the yard with her until the three of them got dizzy and collapsed.
“I’ve been looking for days. Julián left for college last weekend. He asked me to watch her for him, and I failed him.”
I was silent, taking in how much he seemed to care about his brother.
Donovan’s eyes were brimming with tears. “It’s the only thing he ever asked of me, and I couldn’t even do that, you know? After looking at the shelter, and everywhere else I thought she could be, I saw a shooting star and made a wish. When I went into the gas station to ask if they’d seen her, I saw the poster. It was literally a sign from the universe.”
He looked around and his eyes stopped at the stuffed deer on the wall. “This place is—”
“Weird?”
Donovan laughed.
I realized we’d been speaking Spanish and English—Spanglish—the whole time.
“Weird like my Argentine accent that doesn’t match your expectations from TV shows?”
He bit his lip and shrugged. “Wow. You do know how to keep a grudge.”
“No, I don’t!” I protested, vowing never to forgive him for this. When I realized what I was thinking, I fidgeted.
“I’m so sorry about that day, okay?” he said. “I didn’t know. I’ve only ever met Argentines from Buenos Aires or Rosario, and they have the same accent.”
I was offended on Papi’s behalf. “No, they don’t!”
Donovan looked at me with disbelief. “Of course they do!”
“And how do you know? You’ve met a few random Argentines, and all of a sudden, you’re an expert? My dad is from Rosario, and I tell you, he speaks nothing like a porteño.”
Estrellita seemed to be listening to us, gazing at Donovan and me like she didn’t really know what to do, who to comfort first. But couldn’t she see I needed her the most?
Maybe it would’ve been better if I’d never—
I brushed away the thought before it was fully formed.
If it hadn’t been for Estrellita, life would’ve been too hard.
The sun was going down. How would I face another day without even Estrellita’s company to give me strength?
Estrellita whined as if she knew what I was feeling.
“She’s good at comforting people.”
Donovan scratched behind her ear. “You know? She was meant to become an emotional support dog, but she never passed the test.”
“An emotional support dog?”
I’d seen working dogs around with their cute official-looking vests. The one who’d sat next to Francisco on the airplane had worn a red one.
“How come she didn’t pass the test?” I asked, ready to fight the world for her.
Donovan smiled as if the story was the funniest thing in the world. “She’s smart. But she’s too hyper to sit still for a long time. She never did what the trainers expected her to do, but she always went above and beyond. In her own way, you know. Like I told you she heard music and ran after the kids. Maybe she thought they needed help.”
Estrellita had heard me crying and had come to comfort me …
“She likes it when I sing to her.”
He rubbed his neck. “She has great taste in music.” He winced although I was the one blushing. “Everything seemed to stop to hear your voice. You sounded magical.”
Emotion overwhelmed me, but for the first time since I’d been here in Red Ledges, it wasn’t sadness or loneliness.
“At least my voice survived the trip here …”
“What do you mean?”
“I feel like I lost a bunch of things on our plane ride,” I said, surprising myself. “Not just my luggage. I seem to have lost my ability to speak English. I was the best one in my class back home. School used to be my favorite, but now I hate it. My cat, Estrellita, died the day we left …”
Estrellita’s ear went up like an antenna detecting a crisis. She licked my hand and wriggled until I put her down. She dashed straight out of the shed.
“Cookie, no!” Donovan yelled, but he wasn’t quick enough to stop her.
I ran after him.
Cookie/Estrellita hadn’t gone far. She was running in circles around Mateo, who’d left the car door open.
My brother rubbed his eyes as if he were still sleepy. “Estrellita, I’m too tired to chase you. Give me a break.”
He threw himself on the lawn. His face was red and sweaty.
“Mati, are you okay? How did your game go?”
My little brother looked at me with surprise, as if I’d just materialized. “Oh! I didn’t see you, Mimilia.”
“Mimilia?” Donovan asked.
I sent him a don’t you dare look, and he had the good sense to clasp his lips shut.
Mateo’s white uniform was completely smeared in reddish mud.
“Are you okay?” I asked, brushing my brother’s hair from his face.
He sighed. “I guess, but … what’s an alien number?”
“Alien number?”
He sat up, propping himself with an elbow. “Yes, at the game, when the ref was checking our roster, John-William asked me if my alien number was legal. Everyone laughed. Even his dad, but a mom shushed them. And I think it’s something bad. Are we aliens? I thought Utah was on planet Earth …”
He looked so worried, like everything he’d believed about himself teetered on my reply, that I didn’t have the heart to laugh at him.
“If you’re anything other than human, then that’s because you’re an angel. Don’t worry about it, okay?” But I still wondered how our six-year-old neighbor knew what an alien number was, and why his father had laughed instead of correcting him.
Apparently Mateo had already moved on from the problem because he grinned and said in English, “I don’t know if I’m an angel. But I played like a pro today. It was amazing.”
“You did?” Donovan asked.
Mateo puffed up his cheeks, and in a failed attempt at being humble, he said, “I slid-tackled this kid? He was like a giant next to me, Mimilia. I took the ball away from him … But I broke my tail when I fell.”
“You broke your tail?”
He rubbed his backside, and I understood.
“Oh! Your bum you mean!”
Mateo flashed me a grateful toothless smile. “Yes, that. My cola.”
He clambered back to his feet and walked into the house, where Papi and Francisco were resting on the cool floor.
Donovan and I looked at each other and broke into laughter.
“He. Broke. His. Tail!” he said between hiccups, clutching his stomach.
I couldn’t catch my breath. The tears of sadness and loneliness I’d been containing for so long broke free and mixed with the sublime joy of how my brother had translated literally. But then, when he was corrected, he hadn’t reacted badly at all.
I wanted to be unselfconscious like him. When had other people’s opinions started dictating how I felt and how I reacted?
“Your brother is awesome,” Donovan said.
“Wait until you meet Francisco.”
As if she agreed, Estrellita barked and ran around Donovan and me. I knew I should call her Cookie, but the habit would be hard to break.
There was a charged silence between Donovan and me. The time had come for him to go, taking my dog.
“In case you don’t know,” I said, “she likes cheese snacks. Let me give you the ones we got her yesterday.”
Donavan hesitated, but I could see the warring emotions on his face.
“Wait,” he finally said. “I have an idea.”
My heart jolted, and I tried not to jump to any conclusions. I didn’t want to be disappointed. But his next words caught me off guard all the same.
“Tirzah, Beto, and I have a rock band.”
“A what?”
He pointed at his black T-shirt. It had a logo that said Maná.
Maná is one of the most popular bands in the Spanish-language music world. They’d been around when my parents were teenagers, and although I didn’t usually love the old stuff my parents listened to, some Maná songs were timeless.
“You’re part of Maná?”
Donovan grinned again. “Not Maná. Los Galácticos.”
“I thought Los Galácticos was a fútbol team.”
Donovan shook his head. “Yes, the Real Madrid, but that’s not why we chose that name.”
A car drove down my street and stopped by the Bodens’. Ashley Jane and her friends got out, sounding like a flock of parrots, wearing their little volleyball uniforms.
Donovan’s face hardened at the sight of those kids.
“In any case, we have a band,” he said. “And my dog happens to be our mascot. How come you didn’t recognize her from our logo?”
He showed me the back of his phone. He had the same sticker that he, Beto, and Tirzah had placed on their school T-shirts on the first day of school. Now that I could really look at it, I recognized Estrellita—Cookie—immediately.
“Seeing this logo, I insist: Estrellita fits her better,” I said. “She’s an astronaut dog!”
He sighed, but my shoulders sagged. It was his dog after all.
To avoid the inevitable, I turned the conversation back to the band. “What do you play?”
He shrugged. “Covers of popular songs from the radio. From the nineties all the way to modern times. I’m the guitarist. Tirzah plays the drums, and Beto is on keyboard and synthesizer.”
“Who sings?”
“That was Lucas Anderson. But his family moved to Salt Lake at the end of June.”
“Salt Lake’s not that far,” I said. Although the four hours from the Salt Lake airport to Red Ledges had seemed eternal.
Donovan’s mouth twitched. “It’s not if you can drive yourself around. His parents promised they’d come visit every other weekend, but Lucas only came down for a fútbol tournament and we didn’t even have time to practice once. I tried singing, but the truth is, my voice isn’t very reliable at the moment.” Right on cue, his voice squeaked.
“You need a singer?” I asked, to make sure I understood what he was saying.
“Yes, we need a singer,” Donovan said. “And have I told you how awesome your voice is? It’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before.”
My cheeks burned with the unexpected compliment. I’d sung all my life. Even before I knew how to speak, I’d sing to myself in my crib in the mornings before my parents picked me up.
“I thought it was the radio when I first heard you,” he said.
“Now you’re exaggerating, Donovan.”
He laughed.
“Red Ledges’ Battle of the Bands competition is coming up soon. It’s at the end of the term right before the holidays. We’ve been signed up since last year. We worked for months to get the fee to get in, and finally my brother chipped in the rest before he left for college. In any case, no matter how much we paid for it or when the competition is, we don’t have a singer. I’d love to have you be part of the band.”
“Don’t you have to talk to your friends first?”
“Of course,” he said. “But once they hear your voice? They’re gonna be thrilled to have you.”
I looked down at the ground. The leaves crunched under my feet when I shifted. I didn’t know what to say.
When I didn’t reply, Donovan added, “It counts as one of the school clubs.”
I bit my lip as I considered, and he added, “We practice at my house every night at seven. You could come and see Cookie, or Estrellita, or whatever you want to call her. It’s a win-win, see?”
I wasn’t convinced. “What’s the Battle of the Bands exactly?”
I only knew the term from the shirt that Ashley Jane—well, her mom—had given me.
The girls across the street were still on their front lawn. Kel had started singing about someone sitting in a tree. I didn’t understand the rest of the lyrics, but Donovan was blushing bright red.
“Let’s go inside the shed and you can tell me more about it,” I said.
Donovan followed me, and in the meantime, he explained, “The Battle of the Bands is a competition that takes place right before winter break. It’s part of the Bring on the Light celebration for the winter holidays. There are plays, a winter craft market, and a silent auction. When my brother was in school, he and his friends, the first Galácticos, entered the battle to win stuff for different projects they really cared about. One year it was the veteran museum. There was no recognition of our Hispanic, Black, and Native American veterans, so Los Galácticos earned money to include a display in their honor. Then it was the animal shelter and the kitten and puppy rescue society. That’s where Julián found Cookie.”
“What is it going to be for this year?” I asked.
Donovan shrugged. “We haven’t come up with something we all agreed on yet. With Lucas gone … I don’t know. I was starting to lose enthusiasm for the whole thing. But if you joined the band, our project could be modernizing the book mobile collection.”
“What’s a book mobile?” I asked, pacing the shed, ideas buzzing in my mind.
“It’s an old van that goes from town to town with free books for people.”
Like the book cart that stopped in Celestina’s town when she was little! “I didn’t know those existed.”
Donovan nodded. “They go to mobile home parks, camping spots, and RV parks … All the books are super old though. Some are classics, but you know some classics can contain all this outdated language, super-harmful stuff. There’s nothing a kid our age would fall in love with. I mean, Tom Sawyer might have been fun and exciting fifty years ago, but can you imagine Mateo reading it?”
“Never,” I said. “He’d run back to his game on Mami’s phone.”
“Exactly. There are so many amazing things out there, but we’re still reading things from two centuries ago. No offense, but when was the
last time you read something about a beautiful girl who had to leave her homeland and start from scratch in a new place?”
Had he called me beautiful? My cheeks burned. Was this the same boy who’d made fun of my accent not too long ago?
His excitement was catching like a wave of light and energy that turned everything brighter. Up until now, I’d felt like a little piece of driftwood bobbing over giant ocean waves. Here was an option to grab ahold of a buoy.
There had to be a reason why I was here in this moment in this period of my life. We’d moved because of my mom’s work, and my parents’ dream of a better future for our family, but there had to be a reason for me to be here. For me to have all these talents and all this time to use them to help someone else. Maybe in the meantime, I’d be helping myself too.
Donovan must have seen that I was leaning toward accepting.
He pointed at Estrellita, who was back and dozing at my feet, and said, “I mean, even if we don’t win, you can, you know, hang with Tirzah, Beto, and me. And you can see my dog. We can even call her Estrellita—when you’re around.”
What would Celestina do?
Celestina would jump at the adventure.
“I’m in,” I said.
Donovan stretched his hand out to me, and we shook. “Deal.”
The first thing I did the next day at school was look for Los Galácticos. I found them in the music room.
Beto was playing the piano, a melody so upbeat and happy, my mood spiked instantly. I knew this song. Tirzah clapped the beat with her hands, and Donovan played an invisible air guitar.
This song needed a voice. Could I find mine?
My heart was beating so hard. What if I started singing and ruined the moment?
But I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I took a big breath and let the song free.
Beto’s fingers stumbled on the piano, and my voice hitched like a question mark. But when he saw it was me at the door, his eyes widened, and he continued playing.
Tirzah smiled radiantly at me. When I reached the chorus, she joined an octave lower. Our voices matched smoothly. I had yet to cross the threshold, but Donovan waved me in from his spot next to the piano. Once I was side by side with them, Donovan joined Tirzah in the chorus. The harmony of our three voices was perfect.
Wish Upon a Stray Page 11