Lety Out Loud

by Angela Cervantes

  Once Finn quieted and went back to his blue blanket, Alma continued.

  “This is Finn. He was surrendered by his family because they had some sort of medical emergency and could no longer take care of him. He’s five years old, almost sixty pounds, and he goes berserk when people wear hats around him.”

  “Why hats?” Hunter asked.

  “No idea. Dr. Villalobos talked to his former family and they didn’t know. It just started once he arrived here,” Alma explained. “But check it out: The reason I’m bringing you to meet the big dogs is because as you can see, we are jam-packed. As part of the summer camp, you’ll be learning about what we do, but also helping us with different projects to help all of our furry friends. I’ve written up all of the projects in the multipurpose room, which will be our home base for the summer camp. Follow me.”

  Inside the multipurpose room, a group of volunteers stood around in front of large sheets of white paper taped to the walls. The volunteers all wore the same purple volunteer T-shirt as Alma. As they introduced themselves, some explained they were retired grandparents, while others were college students home for the summer. One at a time, each volunteer explained the different projects and tried to convince the campers to pick their project by saying what was so much fun about it. Lety scanned each project: Cat Hero and Dog Hero, Social Media Hero, Food Pantry Hero, and Shelter Scribe. Kennedy and Brisa were excited to serve as cat heroes, but Lety remained unsure until Alma described the role of the shelter scribe.

  “We need someone to write ten animal profiles,” Alma said. “These profiles provide visitors a glimpse into the animal’s life. Where they come from, their favorite activities … stuff like that. We really need someone who likes to write because our shelter scribe, my best friend, Gaby, is gone for the summer.”

  “Is she the one who wrote these profiles?” Kennedy asked, pointing to the bulletin board, where three profiles were pinned up. The profiles were for Coco, a brown-and-white cat surrendered to the shelter by her family; Milagro, a black kitten dumped into the wild with his siblings; and Kiwi, a light gray kitten.

  “Yes, she wrote all of those as part of our school community project this past school year. So while she’s away, we need at least one person to take this over.”

  “Do it!” Brisa whispered into Lety’s ear.

  “You do it,” Lety said, handing Brisa a red marker.

  “No way. You write English better than me,” Brisa said, nodding and shoving the red marker back at Lety. Lety took the marker, knowing that what Brisa said was true. Lety was a better writer in English than Brisa, because she’d had more years with ELL classes, but Brisa could write really well in Spanish.

  When Brisa wrote emails to her family back home in Bolivia, Lety envied Brisa’s Spanish writing skills. Before coming to the USA, Brisa attended a private Jesuit school in Bolivia. She learned to write in Spanish and studied Spanish poems and short stories. Lety had left Mexico when she was in third grade. Now her Spanish writing was stuck at that level. She envied Brisa’s ability to write in Spanish and spell everything correctly.

  “Please take a marker and write your name under the project that interests you and we’ll break you up into those groups,” Alma said. “Whatever you choose will be your project for the next four weeks. Please only sign up for one project. If you have questions, ask any of us.”

  Lety hesitated, holding the red marker in her hand. Writing in English was way better than speaking it. With writing, Lety could take her time, think out the vocabulary, and look up words in a dictionary or online. She could cross things out and revise. With speaking, there was no deleting and revising. What came out of your mouth came out! If the other students laughed at your pronunciation or word choice, there was nothing you could do to shove the words back into your mouth.

  Kennedy signed her and Brisa’s names to the cat hero list.

  “Be a cat hero with us,” Kennedy said. “We get to make cat toys and other crafts.”

  Alma walked up to Lety.

  “Are you thinking of being our shelter scribe?”

  “I don’t know.” Lety shrugged. “How many profiles do I write?”

  “As many as you can in the next four weeks,” Alma answered. “The best part is you’ll get to work with Dr. V. He’ll review all the profiles, so don’t worry about misspellings. He’ll catch them. Then he’ll pass them on to the social media team to post online.”

  “English isn’t my first language,” Lety said quietly to Alma.

  “Then you should definitely do it. It’s a great way to practice.”

  “Do it!” Brisa exclaimed, clutching Lety’s arm. “You are ready for the big time.”

  Lety gripped her marker tight. At school, Mrs. Camacho helped her with all of her writing assignments. She’d always pull a chair next to Lety’s desk and check her writing on the spot. But Mrs. Camacho wasn’t here. She was across town, leading summer school. Right now, Aziza, Gazi, Marta, and Santiago were probably playing word splash or hangman to practice vocabulary. Lety loved playing hangman.

  With marker in hand, Lety stepped toward the paper that said “Shelter Scribe.” Mrs. Camacho wasn’t going to be with her everywhere. At some point, she had to be like rocket-blaster Spike and take off to be a hero. Lety uncapped the marker and was about to write her name on the paper when Hunter slipped ahead of her. With a green marker, he wrote his name first.

  “Hey!” Lety protested. “I was about to sign my name.”

  “Looks like you missed the boat,” Hunter said with a shrug. “I’m shelter scribe now. Sorry, not sorry.”

  As Hunter stepped away with a smug smile, Lety stood there, confused, trying to understand what he meant by missing the boat. What did a boat have to do with being a shelter scribe?

  “What boat?” Lety asked Kennedy and Brisa.

  “It’s a stupid expression,” Kennedy said. “Forget about him.”

  Lety frowned. She felt like she was back in third grade, clueless about English and not understanding anything again. She glanced over at Hunter. He was talking to Mario Perez, another kid she knew from her school. She thought he was nice. Too nice to be hanging around Hunter.

  “Maybe you should change your name to Hunter Fisher if you love boats so much!” Brisa shouted, stopping Hunter and Mario mid-conversation. Hunter glared at her.

  “Nicely done,” Alma said, giving Brisa a fist bump.

  As frustrated as Lety felt, she couldn’t help but laugh at Brisa’s bold comeback.

  “Hunter Fisher.” Lety chuckled. “Because he likes boats.”

  Soon, all the girls were cracking up. A spark of hope warmed Lety. Five minutes ago, she didn’t know what a shelter scribe was, but now that the possibility of being shelter scribe had opened itself up to her, she wanted to prove to everyone she could do it.

  It was like the time in fourth grade when she found Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH at the school library. The ELLs mostly read picture books, but she wanted a book from the fourth-grade bookshelf. She pulled it from the shelf and regretted it immediately. The thickness of the novel made her feel like her head would explode, but once she had it in her hands, she didn’t dare put it down. Plus, a few of her classmates were watching her. As she flipped open the book and browsed through the pages, she spotted black-and-white sketches of a tiny mouse, a crow, and supersized rats mixed in with the story. Books with pictures were always a big help to her, and yet this book wasn’t for babies. It was perfect. The librarian didn’t even question Lety about the reading level. She let Lety check it out and keep it for as long as she needed. When she was done, she decided it was her all-time favorite book.

  Now every book in the school library was a friend to her. When she opened them, the words no longer intimidated her; instead they transported her to new worlds, where lab rats could become heroes, and girls from faraway places (like her) could dream in a new language.

  Lety raised the marker again, stepped toward the paper, and wrote her name direct
ly beneath Hunter’s name.

  “She can’t do that!” Hunter whined.

  “Come here, you two,” Alma said with a roll of her eyes. Hunter and Lety shuffled toward Alma until they were in front of her. “Look, I’m happy to announce that we now have two shelter scribes! Isn’t it exciting?” Alma clasped her hands. Hunter’s face twisted. “You are going to work together —”

  “Augh!” Hunter grunted, interrupting Alma.

  “Don’t be rude, Hunter,” Kennedy hissed. Lety felt like she’d just been tripped. What was Hunter’s problem?

  “Anyway,” Alma continued. “Together, you’ll both write ten profiles. And no pressure, but you should realize that you have big shoes to fill.”

  Lety looked down at her sandals, confused. Hunter caught her doing it and scoffed.

  “Our last shelter scribe, Gaby, was like J.K. Rowling, okay?” Alma continued. “She wrote fast and every story was pure gold. As soon as Gaby created a profile for a furry friend, it was adopted within days.”

  “Not even days, hours!” another volunteer chimed in.

  Alma nodded. “He’s right.”

  “I already read and write at high school level, so it’s no problem,” Hunter bragged.

  “You do not,” Kennedy said, shaking her head. “Stop lying, Hunter.”

  “It’s true,” Mario jumped in. “Our teacher said so. You guys aren’t in Mrs. Morgan’s class, so you don’t know.”

  “Stop taking his side, Mario,” Kennedy snapped.

  Lety swallowed hard as a wave of worry swept over her. Could Hunter really write at the high school level? She looked at Alma, who seemed to be enjoying the fireworks between Kennedy and Mario.

  “Alma, how do we know which animals to write for?” Lety asked.

  “I’ll get a list from Dr. V. I’ll have it tomorrow for you guys, okay?”

  Alma turned to leave. Once she was out of earshot, Hunter adjusted his baseball cap and stepped closer to Lety.

  “I think you should just let me write all the profiles. I mean, I can get them done fast and they’ll be awesome.” Hunter shrugged. “Plus, I know you’re still learning English. It might be too hard for you.”

  Brisa put her arm protectively around Lety’s shoulders.

  “You heard Alma; she says there are two shelter scribes,” Brisa said. “Not one. Two. Dos.”

  Hunter shook his head. “I just want to do what’s best for the animals.”

  “Oh, you just want to do what’s best for the animals? How sweet!” Kennedy mocked. “Give me a break.” She rolled her eyes.

  “I have an idea!” Mario exclaimed. “We can have a contest.”

  Lety’s stomach twisted into a knot.

  “I like it!” Hunter said. “We can prove who the best shelter scribe is.”

  “That’s dumb!” Kennedy said.

  “It’s not about proving who’s the best writer. It’s about the animals,” Mario said in a calm, low voice. “If you really cared about the animals here at the shelter, wouldn’t you want them to be adopted as soon as possible, Lety?”

  “Of course I do,” she said softly.

  “Then shouldn’t the animals have the best person writing for them? The contest is the fairest way to find out who should be shelter scribe. You heard what Alma said. The last shelter scribe was like J.K. Rowling and —”

  “So what?” Kennedy interrupted. “They’re writing animal profiles, not playing a game of Quidditch, Mario.”

  Mario palm-slapped his face in frustration. “Kennedy, you’re driving me nuts. If you’d listen for a minute, you’d see that my point is that the best writer should be shelter scribe. We need an easy and fair way to determine who that is.”

  Lety took a deep breath to suck in the words and process everything Mario was saying. The best writer? Easy and fair? None of it seemed fair to her. She wondered why Hunter and Mario were making this so complicated. Then the answer came to her. It was like everything back at school. The other kids, the non-ELLs, never invited them to birthday parties or to participate in their group projects. This contest felt like another way to exclude her. It made her angry.

  “Fine,” Lety said with more attitude than she wanted. “Who’ll decide on the best shelter scribe? Dr. Villalobos? Alma?”

  “No! We can’t tell them anything,” Mario said. He stepped closer to the group and lowered his voice. “Listen. I heard from one of the other volunteers that their former shelter scribe, Gaby, got in trouble and wasn’t allowed to play with the dogs and cats again. Dr. Villalobos almost kicked her out of the shelter.”

  “Kicked out?” Lety asked.

  “I can’t get kicked out. My grandma will flip her lid,” Hunter said.

  “But Alma said Gaby was awesome,” Brisa added.

  “Hey, that’s what I heard. Anyway, we don’t want that to happen, right? If Dr. V. could do that to the last shelter scribe … I mean, he could kick us out of camp, too, for making this a contest.”

  “We have to agree to keep it just between us, okay?” Hunter said.

  Lety nodded.

  “The winner will be based on adoptions,” Mario said. “Alma said that she needed ten profiles … that means you guys each write five. She also said that as soon as you have them done, the social media team will post them online. I’m signed up for that. I’ll make sure they go up as fast as lightning. Whoever has more dogs or cats adopted from the five by the end of week two is our shelter scribe. The loser has to do something else, like volunteer in the pantry.” Mario gestured toward the Food Pantry Hero sign taped up on the wall. There wasn’t a single name on it. “No one has signed up, so they’ll want the help.”

  “That’s because it smells,” Kennedy said. “Like you guys.”

  “Do we have a deal or not?” Mario said, ignoring Kennedy’s insult.

  “Five profiles?” Lety asked. Mario and Hunter nodded. Lety wanted more than anything to help dogs like Spike and all the rest of the animals find forever families, but five profiles in two weeks seemed impossible. As if sensing Lety’s anxiety, Kennedy blazed her light blue eyes on Mario.

  “Hold your horses! You don’t get to make up all the rules,” she said. “I think we should make this more of a challenge for Hunter since he claims that he writes at the high school level.”

  “Fine with me,” Hunter said.

  “What do you have in mind?” Mario asked.

  “We’ll give you five words that you have to use for the profiles,” Kennedy said. “This will make it more fair since you’re so advanced or whatever.”

  Lety pulled Kennedy’s elbow to whisper into her ear.

  “Kennedy, I don’t know if we should —”

  “Trust me, Lety.”

  She trusted Kennedy with her whole heart, but by giving Hunter an extra challenge, she worried that it made the contest uneven. Now, if she — by some great miracle — pulled it off and won, Hunter would say it was because he had tougher words. She wanted to be shelter scribe fair and square.

  “What do you say?” Kennedy asked.

  “Deal! May the best shelter scribe win,” Hunter said, holding his hand out for Lety to shake. Lety shook it.

  “Tomorrow, bring your five words,” Mario said. “No backing down.”

  With that, the two boys turned to leave.

  “This is going to be like the Hulk versus an ant,” Hunter said loudly to Mario as they walked away. Lety looked back at him. Their eyes met. She wanted him to know she heard him refer to her as an insect. Hunter suddenly stomped on the floor. “Splat! Game over!” The two boys laughed.

  Brisa gathered Lety and Kennedy into a huddle.

  “We need big words, chicas,” she said.

  “High-school-level words, for sure,” Kennedy added, pulling her phone from her back pocket. “I’ll google some and I can ask my big brother. He’ll know …” Kennedy stopped and looked over at Lety, who was silent. “Are you okay?”

  Lety stood motionless as a rush of English words flooded her head
. One word in particular stood out among them all: doubt.

  Doubt was a word she knew well in English and Spanish. In Spanish, doubt was duda. Doubt had followed her all the way from Mexico to the United States. It was there on her first day of school when she couldn’t understand a word the teacher said. It was there when some older boys sent her to the boys’ bathroom instead of the girls’ bathroom and then laughed at her every time they saw her in the hallway. She never thought she’d learn English, let alone make any friends at school. Though she did both, doubt had never left her side.

  A loud commotion of barking and kids rushing to the door snapped Lety out of her daze.

  “Everyone, Spike is leaving,” Alma announced, holding Spike in her arms. “Come and say good-bye.”

  All of the kids gathered around Alma. Hunter leaned in to give Spike a quick kiss on his head. It was hard to stay mad at him when he could give Spike such a sweet kiss. As the group said their good-byes and moved on, Lety approached with Brisa and Kennedy.

  “Let’s make a little good-bye prayer for him. Lety, can you?” Brisa said.

  “That’s a good idea. Spike needs all the prayers he can get,” Alma said, and handed Spike to Lety.

  Lety gave Spike a gentle squeeze and closed her eyes. Brisa and Kennedy followed.

  “Dear Saint Francis, you loved all of God’s creatures,” Lety began. “We ask you to please watch over Spike. He is a hero that saved a baby girl. Now he is going to a foster home and we pray he will be safe, loved, and fed the best —”

  “Real carne!” Brisa interrupted excitedly.

  “Yes, that he will have real steak,” Lety added. “And please make sure he always has a toy to chew. Amen.”

  “Amen,” the three girls repeated.

  Lety gave Spike a kiss on his head. She wished so much he could be her dog. She wished so much that he was going home with her.

  “I can tell already that you’re going to be an awesome shelter scribe,” Alma said with a wink before taking Spike from her and whisking him out of the room.