Sal and Gabi Break the Universe

by Carlos Hernandez

  Whatever. Classes flew by. Gladis sat next to me at lunch and again at Textile Arts. Turns out she was not a cacanado at all. She wasn’t having as much fun as she thought she would—her friends didn’t seem as friendly to her in this universe—but she was making the best of it. And she was hilarious. People noticed us laughing and having fun together. I think I started getting fewer weirdo-brujo looks in the hallway for the rest of the day, thanks to her. Instead, I started getting Sal and Gladis sitting in a tree! looks.

  Hey, a win is a win.

  I made it to sixth period without any trouble. Just Health and Wellness, Intermediate Theater Workshop, and detention, and then I was home free for the weekend. And Health Science and the Practice of Wellness was just going to be fun. I was getting to the top of the red zone today, no matter what.

  Except when I got there, the red zone wasn’t the red zone anymore.

  I mean, from a distance, I could see the green, yellow, and red zones of the climbing wall. But as I walked up to the crowd of kids lined up staring at it, I realized why they looked so disappointed, arms crossed, hands on hips. The green zone looked the same as it had yesterday, so full of handholds a sandwich could climb it. But now the yellow zone had just as many holds as the green. And so did the red.

  As I joined the line, Octavio said, “Mr. Lynott noobed the wall. Now any filthy casual can climb it.”

  “Hey,” said Mr. Lynott, jogging up to us, patting backs. “Why hasn’t anyone gotten to the top of the red zone yet? I bet someone makes it today. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

  “It’s too easy now,” Octavio said.

  He stopped. His smiling cheeks sank into expressionlessness. He somehow turned even whiter. “Oh. I just saw everybody struggling with it for the past few days. And a little bird told me that maybe it would be discouraging to kids to have a wall this hard.”

  He looked at me when he said that. And that told me everything I needed to know. Papi must have called Mr. Lynott and told him the wall was unfair. So Mr. Lynott had done his best to fix it.

  “This class is so sandwich,” said Octavio. “What are we supposed to do for fun now?”

  Mr. Lynott’s chin hit his chest in defeat.

  I didn’t think. I took a breath, relaxed. And I ran to the center of the room like the showman I am.

  “I know exactly what we should do!” I exclaimed like a ringmaster, spinning with my arms wide to address the whole class. “I know an activity that’s challenging, fun, and that promotes excellent health and wellness. You will love doing this activity. Especially you, Octavio.”

  “Yeah?” said Octavio, taking a step forward, big smile. I could see his yes-and instincts kicking in. “What is it?”

  “We should try to get to the top of the red zone of the climbing wall!”

  “What?”

  I just needed a few more seconds. “Oh, I know, it’s extremely difficult. No one has succeeded so far. But perhaps today one of us will have the combination of strength, flexibility, and grit to succeed. Are you up for the challenge?”

  I could see Octavio wanting to play along, but he was too genuinely disappointed. “What are you talking about, chacho? Anybody could climb the red zone now.”

  I lowered my eyes like a murder clown. “Perhaps you should look again, Octavio.”

  He, and the rest of the class, turned to look at the red zone. And they saw it was back to being just as impossible to climb as it had been yesterday.

  As the class went bonkers, I ran to the wall and on the way grabbed Mr. Lynott’s hand. He, more bewildered than anyone, just kind of hop-ran with me. I turned us to the class with the wall behind us and, still holding Mr. Lynott’s hand, took a big stage bow. When Mr. Lynott didn’t bow with me, I elbowed him. “Oh, come on, Mr. Lynott, don’t be modest! You were fabulous!”

  “I was?” he asked.

  “I never could have pulled off this magic trick without you.”

  “You couldn’t?”

  I gave a big vaudeville laugh. “Wow, Mr. Lynott, you are totally method, aren’t you? But the trick is over. They loved it. Didn’t you love it, class?”

  Everyone applauded. Octavio started whooping and punching the air, and got the whole class doing it.

  Covered by the cheering, I lowered my voice and said to Mr. Lynott, “It was a great magic trick that you and my papi and I set up. Thanks for playing along.”

  He thought. He blinked. He cocked his head at the happy class of kids. And then he got it. Like, I could almost hear his brain go click.

  And now that he had it, he wasn’t letting go. He took a stage bow of his own that seriously was better than mine, and the class clapped with double the strength.

  Then he stood straight, begged with his hands for silence, and said, “Okay, okay. Magic is great, but it’s not going to get you slugs in shape. Let’s beat the red zone for real today. Octavio, you’re first. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

  WHAT THE PANTS was I doing?

  I didn’t have the brains to think about the consequences of my actions for the rest of Health Science and the Practice of Wellness. All my thoughts had been rinsed clean by that sweet, sweet performer’s high that actors know all too well. Octavio and Mr. Lynott and everybody else felt it, too, that goofy-happy-rompy nonstop rush that comes when a show goes perfectly and everybody loves it. No one made it to the top of the red zone, but that was the point! It was really hard! When someone did make it, they’d be a hero! We cursed the wall and made vows to one another like warriors and swore that we would be avenged, all of us, Mr. Lynott included. It was great.

  I didn’t use my critical-thinking skills on myself in Intermediate Theater Workshop, either. Mrs. Waked’s class had worked its magic again. It always felt like playing instead of learning. I spent the whole period having a blast learning how to use masks, learning how to become someone else outside and then, slowly, on the inside, too. It’s funny how the new face on the outside starts to soak you with its spooky new personality, and how eager your body is to sponge it up. It’s almost like sometimes you wish you weren’t stuck with yourself.

  It’s only when I left Mrs. Waked’s class and was heading for detention that my brain started yelling at me. Since I’d just left Intermediate Theater Workshop, I imagined the conversation as a play.

  ALL’S BAD THAT ENDS BAD

  A Tragedy by Sal’s Vidón’s Brain

  Starring Sal Vidón’s Brain as the Voice of Reason, & Sal Vidón as the Sandwich that Destroys All Life on Earth

  SAL’S BRAIN: What the pants are you doing?

  SAL: What?

  SAL’S BRAIN: You traded climbing walls with a different universe!

  SAL: Um, yeah. Mr. Lynott was feeling bad.

  SAL’S BRAIN: [mocking] “Mr. Lynott was feeling bad. Mr. Lynott was feeling bad.” Do you think Mr. Lynott is going to feel bad when the calamitrons you brought in destroy the universe?

  SAL: We don’t know that’s going to happen.

  SAL’S BRAIN: Is your papi a calamity physicist?

  SAL: Yes.

  SAL’S BRAIN: Did your papi tell you that even one calamitron was too much?

  SAL: Papi said a lot of things. He doesn’t even know what a calamitron is!

  SAL’S BRAIN: Oh, and you know?

  SAL: No.

  SAL’S BRAIN: Are you a calamity physicist?

  SAL: No.

  SAL’S BRAIN: Then I ask you again, Salvador Vidón, what the pants are you doing?

  SAL: [In spotlight] I don’t know. I saw a chance to do a good thing. Mr. Lynott isn’t perfect, but he means well. And Octavio wasn’t wrong; he was just upset. Nobody was wrong, but everything was wrong. That’s the worst. But I could fix it all. I saw the way. I have the power. So I went for it. And it worked! Everyone was happy!

  SAL’S BRAIN: And all it cost was the whole universe.

  SAL: The universe is fine!

  SAL’S BRAIN: Is it, Sal? Is it?

  END OF ACT I

&nbs
p; I held the door handle to the library commons for a second. Act I wasn’t looking so good for our hero. But Act II hadn’t been written yet.

  Teresita Tómas handed me her notes as soon as I walked into detention. She slapped them into my hand and told me to tell Gabi that her column was super popular and if she dropped it, well, it’d be the Rotten Egg’s loss, and anyway, she’d taken great notes, it wouldn’t be her fault if Gabi failed, which, by the way, she totally deserved, the way she was acting, but don’t tell her that part, Sal.

  Then she walked away like a huffy supermodel. I did a patented American Stepmom “Phew, baby!” and tucked her notes into my bookbag.

  I went over to Aventura next. She broke away from the cosplay clan, and we sat together for the next twenty minutes, creating a Caesar cipher out of her notes for Gabi. She told me what her notes said, and I rewrote them in code because, no joke, Aventura’s handwriting looked like someone had dipped a mouse in ink, set it down on a piece of paper, and then set its tail on fire.

  But they were really good notes. Just by talking with her, I knew she was smart, but now I knew how smart. Aventura was definitely someone I could work with.

  I promised to text her all the juicy details of Gabi breaking her head against the code, maybe even sneak a pic or two.

  I think I would have just hung out with Aventura for the rest of detention, but I got a text from Gladis, from the new app she gave to me to download during lunch. It was called AnyUni. Apparently I could use it to text from any uni. That sounded…promising.

  Hey Sal, she wrote, do you have the scarf? I have to, you know, BE LEAVING pretty soon

  Too many things going on. It was easy to lose track of stuff. Focus, Sal!

  I went up to Daniel—he was walking around checking in with everybody, being helpful, and marking their progress on his tablet—and asked him if I could leave detention early. “I really need to talk to Principal Torres,” I said.

  Daniel was wearing a tuxedo. I mean, like, a real tuxedo, the kind you’d see on Oscar night a hundred years ago. His red cummerbund looked like the smile of a whale. He had his wavy hair parted down the center, and his fake bullhorn mustache was also parted down the center. He even had a monocle.

  I didn’t quite get why even the teachers at Culeco all dressed up. But I really liked it.

  Just then, though, Daniel didn’t look like he was having any fun. “Sal,” he said, turning to me. “Have you seen Yasmany?”

  Come to think of it, I hadn’t. “He didn’t show for detention?”

  “No. When Gabi told me she was going to be absent, I promised her I would help Yasmany finish his report today. I thought I’d ask you to help, too. Was he absent?”

  “I saw him this morning, in Principal Torres’s office. But I haven’t seen him since.”

  The monocle dropped out of his eye and swung like a dead man on the end of its chain. “Was he in trouble?”

  “I don’t know. Principal Torres wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  Daniel nodded, thinking. “Tell you what. I’m sending you with a pass to ask Principal Torres if she sent Yasmany home. Tell her I’m happy to stay late if Yasmany’s still around. I really want to help him. Text me what she tells you.”

  “Um, couldn’t you just call her?”

  “Probably. But then I wouldn’t have a reason to let you leave detention early to talk to her.”

  “Riiight,” I said. I gave him gun fingers and started for the door.

  But the last glimpse of his sad smile stuck in my mind. I turned around for a second to say to Daniel, “Principal Torres probably just sent Yasmany home. I’m sure he’s fine.”

  Daniel shook his head. “‘Home’ and ‘fine’ don’t always go together.” Then, with a stiff upper lip, he shoved his monocle into his eye and got back to work.

  I texted Gladis as I walked. She met me in Mrs. Waked’s classroom. No one else was there, but it was unlocked. Mrs. Waked said we could use the room anytime we wanted, to practice or whatever. Using an entropy sweeper to check Gladis for calamitrons definitely fell into the category of “whatever.”

  “I’m alive!” said the entropy sweeper the millisecond I stuck its battery pack back in the handle.

  “Oh! Is Rafalito!” said Gladis, running over and hugging the entropy sweeper. “I so gla’ you here, too, mi amorcito!”

  “How do you know my real name?” the entropy sweeper asked her. It was nice to hear it caught off guard for a change.

  I swept her up and down. Guess what? Not a single calamitron anywhere near her. “How in the name of ham-and-mayo sandwiches did that other Sal get you here without making a hole?” I muttered as I checked her a second time.

  “Because is an even tra’e,” said Gladis.

  I hadn’t really been talking to her, but now I was all ears. “What do you mean, an even trade?”

  She shrugged. “Sal tell me. If he jus’ put me here without trady—” She ended the sentence by making an explosion with her hands and puffed-out cheeks. “But if you ma’e an even tra’, Gladis for Gladis, or escarf for escarf, then no trouble. And speaky of that, can we go get my escarf now?”

  “Yeah,” I said, thinking, lost in thought, too full of thoughts. I thoughtlessly went to yank out the battery pack when the entropy sweeper yelled, “Noooo! I want to live!”

  “Be nice to it, Sal,” said Gladis. “Rafalito is my frien’.”

  “Stop calling me that,” the entropy sweeper muttered.

  I checked the power level on its handle. It was at 91 percent, so I shrugged and left the battery pack in for now. Then Gladis and I headed for the principal’s office to try to get her scarf back.

  “So,” I said, sounding like her dad, “how was your first day of school in a new universe?”

  “Sal! I hlove it here. But is so weir’!”

  “Why?”

  “Because is jus’ li’ my universe!”

  I don’t think anybody really does a double take when they’re confused. I think it’s something actors invented so that people in the cheap seats could tell when a character is confused. But I do double takes, because I’ve trained myself to. I like them. They’re funny.

  So I did one now. “What? Really? Our universes are exactly alike?”

  “¡No, Pipo, no todo! Pero, li’, so mush! Culeco is, li’, wa-hundre’ percen’ lo mismo. Gladis and I ha’ all the same classes, all the same teeshers, everything. Is li’ we’re the same person!”

  I shrugged. “I mean, you kind of are.”

  Her head wobbled back and forth, and she turned her hands into scales. “But tha’s the weir’ par’, Sal. Everything is the same, e’cep’ me! Some of my bes’ frien’s arren even my frien’s here. They, li’e, were eshock’ that I was bein’ nize to them.”

  I patted her on the back. “Look on the bright side. At least you’re not her.”

  She smiled weakly. “Is li’e you say before, Sal. I kine of am.”

  We walked the fifteen steps it took to get to administration from the staircase. It looked like pretty much everyone had gone home. Everyone except Mr. Zacto.

  “Well, well, well,” he said, looking up from cleaning his perfectly clean desk. “Can I take this as a sign that you two have patched up your differences?”

  I didn’t know what to say, but Gladis was all over it. “Oh, sure,” she said, with a perfect American accent. Well, it’s Culeco. Everyone can do every kind of accent, I guess. But my eyes almost fell out of my head anyway. “It was all a silly little misunderstanding, Mr. Zacto. I mean, come on. Mal de ojo? I don’t believe in that stuff for real.”

  “Is that so?” Mr. Zacto said, a lot like a detective would say, the sentence before he caught you in a lie. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “I see you’re not wearing your charm.”

  Gladis looked at me. I thought fast. “Didn’t you tell me,” I asked her, “that you left your ojo turco at home by accident?”

  But Gladis didn’t miss a beat. “No, Sal, no, I didn’t forget.
Remember, I told you the reason I didn’t wear it today is because I don’t need it anymore? Because, remember, I don’t really believe in that stuff?”

  We both turned to face Mr. Zacto, smiling like idiots.

  He laughed, and did the oh well thing with his eyes. Then he opened a drawer in his desk. “Well, Principal Torres did leave this for you, Sal. She told me to return it to you”—he pulled out the mal de ojo scarf!—“on the condition that you don’t bring it to school again.”

  “Thank you,” I said to Mr. Zacto, taking the scarf. I looked over to Principal Torres’s office; the door was shut and the lights were out. “Did she leave?”

  “She needed some air,” he said, taking a seat. “Tough day at the office.”

  “Kids these days,” said Gladis, tsk-tsking. “They’re so bad, am I right?”

  Mr. Zacto shook his head, smiling. “No. No such thing as a bad kid, Gladis. Now adults, those are the people you have to worry about.” He looked at the ceiling and decided that his glasses needed wiping. “Sometimes you wonder how people went so wrong with their lives.”

  He clearly had a particular adult in mind. I thought about the way Principal Torres had been making fists earlier, and what Daniel had said about Yasmany’s home. I was starting to get the idea that things weren’t so good for Yasmany in the parent department.

  Mr. Zacto sighed, then tightened his tie and looked at me. “I bet you’ll find Principal Torres in the cafeteria, Sal. And when you see her, do me a favor and tell her—” But he needed a second to find the right words. “Tell her that, if she needs to talk, she has my number.”

  “I will,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “Ciao,” said Gladis, wiggling her fingers.

  Bellowing laughter chased us out of administration.

  That made Gladis giggle. Even the way she laughed told me her Cuban accent was back. “Do jou theen’ Mr. Zacto belief any of tha’?”

  “Nope.” We stopped walking in front of Culeco’s double-door entrance. “So. Do you have to go back, like, now?”

  “Yeah, I better. I’ a leetle escare to fine ou’ what Gladis say to my frien’s. And I don’ wan’ her to talk to my paren’s!” She frowned suddenly. “Oh! Now I feel ba’ for her paren’s!”