by Diana Lopez
“Be quiet!” I said as I shut the bedroom door.
Poor Jimmy. As soon as the door closed, he gave up bawling and started to sob, his cheeks all wet with tears. He looked like one of those sad-eyed puppies on the Adopt-a-Pet commercial.
“Want to pillow fight?” I asked, hoping to cheer him up.
He stomped. “No!”
“Want to jump on the bed?”
“No!”
“Want to color? Want to take pictures with my iPhone? Want to play hide-and-seek?”
“No, no, no!”
I made one last effort. “Want to try on my shoes?”
He hushed, glanced at the closet door, then at me, and then at the closet again.
“Gimme shoes!” he announced as if it were his idea in the first place.
“Sure thing,” I said. “You can try on all my shoes if you want.”
We went to the closet. First he put on my tennis shoes, then my sandals, then the dress shoes I wore for special occasions, and after that, my boots. Of course, all of my shoes were too big, but he didn’t care. And when he tripped over himself, he laughed. After he got bored with matching pairs, he tried different combinations—one tennis shoe with a boot, one sandal with a dress shoe. He thought the oddball pairs were the funniest things he’d ever seen.
A while later, Carmen peeked in and said, “Dad wants to have a family meeting.”
I told Jimmy to pick his favorite pair, but he shook off the shoes and decided to go barefoot for a while.
We found Dad at the kitchen table. “Have a seat,” he said. “We need to talk.”
He sounded as serious as a strict principal. I just knew we were in trouble. I scanned my brain, trying to figure out what we had done wrong. Had I gotten in trouble at school already? Had Jimmy broken another Chia Pet? Had Carmen used Dad’s PayPal account for something as useless as the motorized solar system model she bought last year without his permission? Wait a minute! Maybe one of the guys from my Boyfriend Wish List had called. Maybe Derek had called! After all, he did talk to me today. He even asked me to sit by him. Dad probably wanted to set some ground rules now that he knew I was interested in boys. He probably wanted Carmen and Jimmy to spy on me. I was about to protest when Carmen spoke up.
“Where’s Mom?” she asked. “I thought this was a family meeting?”
“She’s resting,” Dad said. “And we are having a family meeting… but it’s about Mom. So let’s keep this between us, okay?”
Carmen and I nodded, but we glanced at each other, too. She looked as nervous as I felt. I wondered if something had gone wrong with the operation or with the radiation treatment.
“Is Mom okay?” I asked. “She seemed fine this afternoon. She was tired, but she was fine other than that.”
“She’s okay,” Dad said. “But like you mentioned, she’s tired. She needs to rest. And we need to let her rest.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about. Mom looked very comfortable on the recliner earlier. She had her feet up. She had a pillow and a blanket. Sure, Jimmy and I were jumping around, but it didn’t seem to bother her.
“I’ve come up with a few quiet rules,” Dad said. “We need to make sure we follow them.” He turned to Jimmy. “That means you too, little buddy.”
“What do you mean by quiet rules?” Carmen asked. “You want us to whisper from now on?” She wasn’t being sarcastic, only curious.
“That would help,” Dad said. And then he stated the rules, counting them off with his fingers:
Do not turn the TV volume above level 10.
Use your earbuds, not the speakers, when listening to your iPods.
Put your cell phones on vibrate.
Do not vacuum or run the dishwasher or the washing machine while Mom is asleep.
When Jimmy cries, take him to your room and close the door till he settles down.
Take off your shoes when you come into the house and tiptoe when you walk around.
He paused, thought a minute, then said, “That should do for now, but if I think of any more, I’ll let you know.”
He pushed his chair away from the table so he could stand. It made a scraping sound against the floor. Dad thought a minute and said, “Instead of scooting your chair, lift it, so it doesn’t make any noise.”
Before leaving the room, he lifted the chair to set it back under the table. He was right. It didn’t make a sound.
If only cooking were as quiet. Dad tried to make dinner without a sound, but he couldn’t hush the vent over the stove or ask the meat to stop sizzling in the pan.
“Who knew tacos were so noisy?” he said. And when Mom woke up, he apologized over and over again.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I can’t be sleeping all the time.”
She didn’t have a big appetite, so she heated up a can of soup instead. All in all, it was a normal dinner. Carmen bragged about how many times she knew the answers in class and how the teachers were excited to work with such a smart girl this year. Jimmy kept asking for things like my taco and Carmen’s glass of water even though he had his own. Dad shared a story he’d heard on All Things Considered. And Mom didn’t seem sick at all. She asked questions about our first day at school and laughed at the funny things we said. Maybe she was lucky. Maybe Mom’s surgery was the worst part of her treatment. And it was over. She’d felt sick for a while, but besides being tired, she was okay. At least, that’s what I thought, until Mom grabbed her stomach and raced to the restroom. She stood up so fast, knocking over her chair. It startled Jimmy, so he began to cry. It startled Dad too, and he hurried after her.
“What happened?” Carmen asked, all scared.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Watch Jimmy. I’ll be right back.”
I found Mom in the bathroom, vomiting into the toilet. Dad stood beside her. He was gathering her long hair, holding it away from her face. He kept saying, “It’s okay. It’s okay,” but it wasn’t. Mom made awful heaving sounds, and she kept throwing up, even though all she’d eaten was a tiny bowl of soup.
I knew walking a 5K was too easy. After all, one guy ran a thousand miles. A 5K was only three miles. Should I be doing two 5Ks in a row? Three? How much is enough? How much to keep Mom from feeling sick?
I ran to my room, ignoring Carmen and Jimmy, who were still in the kitchen, both crying now. I shut the door, grabbed a notebook, and started to brainstorm. There must be something extra I could do. I jotted down ideas, my pen hard against the paper. “Extra prayers,” I wrote, “running a thousand miles, giving up chocolate, being nice to my sister.” These seemed impossible.
I wrote:
Dear Virgen de San Juan,
Ayúdame por favor. My mother has breast cancer and she is very ill. She already had surgery, but the doctors say she needs radiation therapy, too. The next couple of months will be very difficult, and she will need all the help she can get. I have been training for a 5K, but it’s not enough. What else can I do? If only I had a sign.
4½ PROJECT IDEAS
The following week, Mr. Leyva gave us a math quiz. We had spent the first week reviewing last year’s math, so he wanted to see how much we remembered.
The quiz wasn’t too hard. It had addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and some easy algebra like “2x + 9 = 45.” I breezed through until I reached the word problems, which I absolutely hated, especially when it had “please show your work” in the instructions.
“A blue car and a red car are at location A,” the first problem read. “They both want to go to location B, which is sixty miles away. The blue car leaves at 1:00 PM and drives 20 miles per hour, while the red car leaves at 3:00 PM and drives 30 miles per hour. Which car will arrive first? Please show your work.” Of course, the blue car would get there first because it had a two-hour head start. I didn’t need an equation for that. It wasn’t as if the test were asking about that fable with the turtle and the rabbit racing each other. If that were the problem, I’d have to figure out how much time the rabbi
t wasted as it took naps, ate snacks, and played Wii. But this was about two cars with full gas tanks driving along the same road. I could solve it with common sense. The bad news was that Mr. Leyva didn’t give credit for common sense. He gave credit for showing work. What work? I just couldn’t see it. This was a classic example of somebody making something harder than it really was. Besides, who cared what time the blue car got to “location B”? I mean, whose car was it anyway? And where was location B? What was it? A store, a park, a friend’s house?
I felt so confused. Thank goodness, the bell rang. If I had to spend one more minute thinking about word problems, I’d lose all my hair.
“See you later,” Derek said as he rushed out. He’d been talking to me every day and was now numero uno on my Boyfriend Wish List.
I grabbed my things and headed to the door, where Mr. Leyva stood to collect our papers. When he saw mine, he said, “You didn’t finish.”
“I got stuck on the word problems,” I explained.
He seemed surprised. “But your sister…” he began.
“What about her?” I interrupted, not meaning to be rude but unable to stop myself. “I’m the dumb one, okay? She’s the one who was born with all the brains.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he started to say, but I didn’t wait around. I left as fast as I could and hurried to the restroom so I could calm down. The entire first week of school, teachers oohed and aahed about my sister. It made me so angry to hear about her in every class. I literally had to cool down, so I splashed some water on my face. As I dried off, I caught my reflection. Today, I wore my “Siamese Twins” T-shirt with two Siamese cats, instead of two people joined at the hip. Is that what people thought about Carmen and me, that we were twins—exactly the same like the cats or joined at the hip like best friends? And all because we shared a last name?
Luckily, Mrs. Gardner never compared me to my sister, which was another reason to enjoy her class. I stepped in and took my seat beside Patty. She said hello and so did GumWad. Today, his mouth was blue. I always checked the color of his gum just like I checked the color of my mood ring. I couldn’t help myself.
After taking roll, Mrs. Gardner said, “Every year, my students do a service learning project.”
“What’s that?” GumWad asked. “Is it a paper or a speech? Are we working in groups or alone? When’s it due?”
Mrs. Gardner raised her hand to silence him. “A service learning project,” she explained, “is one that helps the community. Activities like cleaning up a park, reading to preschool kids, volunteering, or organizing a fund-raiser.”
“Great,” Patty whispered to me. “More chores, only no allowance.”
“At least you’ll get to help people,” I offered.
“Why would I want to help strangers? I barely want to help my friends.”
I turned my attention back to Mrs. Gardner.
“Anybody have ideas?” she asked.
“Can we look for dogs?” GumWad said. “That would be helping the community, right? Finding lost dogs so little kids won’t cry.”
“That’s a good idea,” Mrs. Gardner said. She wrote it on the board. Then she asked us if we had other suggestions. Lots of hands went up. Someone wanted to start a community garden. Someone else wanted to teach people about recycling. Another wanted to paint over graffiti.
While the class brainstormed, I wrote “service learning project” on a piece of paper. Normally, I got excited about projects like this, but I also had “study math,” “read three poems for English,” “fix the toy train Jimmy broke,” and “remind Dad that we’re almost out of toilet paper” on the list.
“Erica?” I heard.
I looked up. Mrs. Gardner was staring at me. I’d been too busy with my list to notice that she had called on me.
“Yes, ma’am?” I said.
“Do you have any ideas?” she asked.
I looked at my classmates’ suggestions, but none of them interested me. Then I thought about my promesa, how perfectly it fit.
“Does walking a 5K for cancer research count?”
Mrs. Gardner nodded, but then she said, “Maybe you can do more than walk. Maybe you can get people to sponsor you. That way, you can raise more money and increase awareness.”
I glanced at my mood ring. Bright blue for happy. Of course I was happy! Here was the answer I’d been looking for. I was going to ask for sponsors—lots of sponsors! It was the perfect service learning project and the perfect promesa for Mom.
Later, I met the Robins in the cafeteria for lunch. Only the second week of school, and we had already staked a claim on our table. As soon as GumWad joined us, Shawntae saw his tray and said, “You do not have blue Jell-O. Can you believe I had a dream about that last night? Seriously. I dreamed that you got blue Jell-O, and I remember thinking, ‘GumWad doesn’t like that flavor.’ ”
“You’re right. I don’t,” he said. “But it was the only color left.” He stuck his fingers in his mouth and pulled out his gum. “Guess it matches this,” he said, showing us the slobbery mass before sticking it beside his milk carton.
Patty was mashing her peas, but when she saw his gum, she said, “Really? You’re going to make us stare at that while we eat?”
“You don’t have to look at it,” GumWad said.
“I look at everything that’s gross. I can’t help it. I see someone with a giant, oozing zit, and guess what—I stare. It’s human nature.”
“Hey, this isn’t a zit,” GumWad said, all offended.
“Maybe not,” Iliana interjected, “but it is kinda gross.”
“Amen to that,” Shawntae added.
“Fine, then,” GumWad said. He wrapped it in a paper towel and left to throw it away. “All better?” he asked when he returned, and the rest of us nodded.
“Guess what!” Iliana said, all excited. “I had a close encounter of the third kind with Alejandro. He asked me if I’ve seen any movies lately. Do you think he’s trying to ask me out? I mean, why else would he mention the movies?” She reached in her purse, took out a compact, and checked her mascara. “Do you think he likes my thick lashes or should I put on more mascara?”
“No!” Patty, Shawntae, and I said in unison, because Iliana had gobs of black around her eyes.
“Are you girls going to talk about boys again?” GumWad asked. “That’s all you ever talk about sometimes.”
“If you don’t like it,” Shawntae said, “sit somewhere else. But before you do, consider this. If you pay attention, you’ll get special insights about girls. You’ll be the only guy in school with insider knowledge about the mysterious workings of a woman’s mind.”
GumWad thought a minute. “You make a good point.”
“Of course I make a good point. I’m going to be captain of the debate team this year. It’s my job to make a good point.” She then turned to Iliana. “So what else did Alejandro say?”
We spent a while hearing about Iliana’s close encounter, and then we moved on to other topics. That’s when I said, “I figured out my service learning project and a new and improved promesa.”
My friends leaned forward to hear more.
“I decided to get a lot of people to sponsor me for the 5K. All they have to do is sign their names and make a donation.”
“That’s a great idea,” Iliana said. “I’ll be your first sponsor.”
“I’ll sponsor you, too,” Shawntae said, and GumWad also agreed.
“That makes three sponsors so far,” I said. “I’m off to a good start.”
We all stared at Patty, expecting her to donate too, but all she said was, “How many people is a lot?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess I should be specific.”
I glanced around the table. Five Robins, five hundred names.
“I hereby promise to get five hundred sponsors for the 5K.”
“Five hundred people?” Patty said. “Are you crazy? It’s easier to get five hundred people to pull off their toe
nails than to do something nice like help a real cause.”
Iliana sighed. “Don’t you believe in anyone?”
“Absolutely not,” Patty answered, mashing a few more peas.
“If you ask me,” Shawntae said, “getting sponsors is a great idea, and five hundred is even better.” She took a sip of water. “So you want to know what I’m doing?” She and Iliana had Mrs. Gardner, too. “I’m going to educate everyone about the upcoming election. I plan to design brochures listing this year’s hot topics and what each candidate believes. Then, I want to do a YouTube video of random people to get their opinions. Finally, I’m going to collect links to articles and post them on my Facebook page, so everyone can keep up-to-date.”
“Sounds like an awful lot of work,” Patty said.
“Sounds like fun to me,” Iliana countered.
“Especially the random people part,” GumWad said. “I like helping random people. That’s why I’m going to look for lost dogs.”
Patty poured milk into her mashed peas. It looked totally gross. Then she turned to GumWad and said, “You’re not looking for dogs because you want to help people. You want the reward money. Why don’t you admit it?”
“I’m not doing it for reward money.”
“Sure, you are.”
GumWad plopped a fresh gumball in his mouth even though he hadn’t finished his lunch. “I know what it’s like to lose a pet,” he said. “How you’re always wondering what happened. Did he run away? Did he get hit by a car? Did someone steal him? And I see these poor dogs running around, probably trying to get back home. So I don’t care about the reward money at all.”
He seemed a little mad, so I said, “I wouldn’t blame you if you took it. After spending all day in the heat, you deserve a little reward.”
“But that’s not why I’m doing it,” he insisted.
“I know,” I said. “You’re doing it because you’re nice.”
He smiled, and his dimples looked really cute, but then he blew a big orange bubble, and when it popped, gum got on his upper lip. He licked it off, which was really gross, in my opinion, especially since we were at the lunch table.
