Isle of Enchantment

by Precious McKenzie

  He gave us life vests, a board that looked like a snowboard, and a harness that attached the large kite to our life vests. Tomas glanced nervously at me.

  Fernando had us practice hooking and unhooking the kite from the harness. That was one way we could bail out if the ride got too rough.

  “Let tu padre go first,” Fernando patted Dad on the back. He led Dad to the water. We couldn’t hear what Fernando said to Dad. But, the next thing we knew, Dad’s kite caught the wind and off he went. Dad bounced across the waves like a rubber ball. He spun in a pattern like a tornado.

  “OOO, eeee, OUCH! Aiy-yay- yay!” Dad screamed across the shoreline.

  Fernando dashed across the beach, waving his arms and shouting in Spanish. In a flash, his kite unhooked from his harness and Dad’s body slammed into the sea water. Fernando rushed into the water to make sure Dad was okay.

  “Señor Perez, that was amazing!” Fernando must be an optimist. Dad was red-faced and looked miserable, like he had just gotten into a fist fight.

  “I think I broke a rib,” he said, rubbing his side.

  “Want to do it again?” Fernando obviously didn’t get Dad’s message.

  “No way, I’m too old for kiteboarding. It hurts to pound into the water.”

  “Niños?” Fernando looked at me and Tomas. “Want a turn?”

  After watching Dad bounce like a fish out of water, Tomas and I had a change of heart. Kiteboarding didn’t look like the sport for us.

  Since I am older than Tomas by six minutes, I took charge. “No thank you.”

  “Windsurfing?” Fernando pointed to the windsurfing boards down the beach.

  “Does it hurt like kiteboarding?” Tomas asked.

  “No, no, it is much safer,” Fernando said. He looked like he meant it.

  Tomas shrugged. “Why not? It’s got to be better than slamming against the waves attached to a large kite.”

  Fernando gave me and Tomas a lesson on windsurfing. Dad sat under an umbrella. He said he needed a rest.

  Tomas and I spent the day gliding over the shallow blue water, twisting and turning to catch the tropical breezes. If the breeze slowed down, we fell over and landed in the warm water.

  “Marisol, this is awesome!”

  “I know! I feel like a bird,” I said.

  “I feel like a pirate, sailing away on my own private raft to my own private island,” Tomas laughed. He has quite the imagination.

  “Tomas, you’re a goofball!” Just as I said it, a wave rolled in and knocked me off my board.

  Dad waved to us from his beach chair. “Hey, kids, time to go get cleaned up for dinner!”

  Tomas and I were starving. We’d been swimming and windsurfing all day. We devoured heaping plates of beans, arroz con pollo, which is chicken with rice, and arroz con dulce, candied coconut rice. After dinner, Mom and Dad decided that we should “soak up the local culture.”

  Mom found a cafe in Old San Juan that had salsa dancing. Tomas and I didn’t want to dance.

  “Oh, kids, it will be fun,” Mom pleaded with us.

  “I don’t know how to salsa dance,” Tomas shook his head.

  “You didn’t know how to windsurf and you learned,” Dad chimed in.

  “I don’t want to dance with girls,” Tomas said.

  “Dance with me then,” Mom suggested.

  “Oh, no!” Tomas said as he backed away from Mom.

  Dad said we should give Tomas a break because he is going through an “awkward phase.”

  “Marisol, want to dance?” Dad held out his hand to me. I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Sure, why not?”

  Dad and I made our way onto the crowded dance floor. People of all ages were moving to the bright, happy beat of the trombones, trumpets, and drums. I watched how the other dancers moved and tried to step like they did.

  “Hey, that was my foot,” Dad exclaimed when my foot landed on his.

  “Sorry, I’m new to this salsa thing,” I laughed.

  Tomas was standing in the corner but I could see he was moving his body to the beat. Tomas can be a little shy and afraid to try things that might involve contact with a girl. Dad and I kept dancing and he laughed to me, “I can’t believe you’ll still dance with your old dad. I was afraid you were too cool for that.”

  Dad spun me around and that’s when I saw her. A small dark-haired girl was standing next to Tomas, whispering in his ear. Tomas was blushing. She took his hand and led him to the dance floor.

  “Would you look at your brother? He’s dancing with a girl,” Dad grinned.

  Tomas stumbled around the dance floor at first. He couldn’t even find the beat of the music. The girl held his hands and showed him how to move his feet and hips. He bumped into the other dancers and muttered a few “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Tomas looked nervous and very sweaty. But the girl smiled as she taught Tomas how to salsa.

  “May I have this dance,” Mom asked as she stepped between me and Dad.

  “Yes, please,” I answered as I handed Dad off to Mom. I wanted to watch Tomas dance with a mystery girl and that was hard to do while I was dancing with Dad. I moved off to the corner so Tomas would not catch me watching him.

  After three or four songs, Tomas started to get better. He stayed with the beat most of the time and he wasn’t bumping into every other dancer on the floor. He began to look like he was having some fun.

  Then his mystery girl leaned into him, placed her hands on his cheeks, and planted a kiss on his face. Tomas lost the beat and skidded into his dancing partner. He looked surprised. The girl ran off.

  Tomas rushed off the dance floor in the opposite direction. I dashed after him.

  “Tomas, hey, wait up,” I called.

  Tomas was outside in the fresh air by the time I caught up to him.

  “What happened in there, little bro?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. One minute I’m learning how to dance, the next I get kissed.” Tomas was embarrassed.

  I laughed, “You act like you’ve never been kissed.”

  “I haven’t,” Tomas confessed.

  “Seriously?” I asked.

  “Seriously,” he answered.

  Wow. Tomas’s first real kiss was with a total stranger. Tomas shrugged sheepishly. “Maybe I am cuter in Puerto Rico than I am in the United States?”

  I shook my head.

  “Nope. Don’t think so.” Who am I to lie to the boy?

  “It must be your stunning dance moves,” I told Tomas. He looked like he believed me.

  A shadow moved behind Tomas. I motioned to him to be quiet. The shadowy figure came closer. Under the lamplight, I recognized the girl from the dance floor.

  “Tomas, someone’s looking for you,” I sang.

  Tomas turned around and jumped back, startled. The girl came closer to us.

  “Hola,” she said. “Tomas, you can’t leave without giving me your phone number.”

  Even though it was dark outside, I could see the blush rising in Tomas’s cheeks.

  “Uh, yeah, sure,” Tomas stammered.

  The girl handed him her phone and he typed his contact information.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your girlfriend?” I said.

  Tomas looked embarrassed and confused.

  “Carmen, this is my twin sister, Marisol.” Tomas paused and motioned to me. “Marisol, this is my friend Carmen.”

  I stuck my hand up, waved, and offered a polite, “Nice to meet you.”

  Carmen did the same.

  “Would you like to see real, traditional dancing?” Carmen asked.

  “Sure,” Tomas agreed to anything.

  “Come on,” Carmen said, pulling Tomas by the hand. I trailed behind.

  Carmen twisted and turned through the city streets until we came to a small restaurant.

  “Here we are. Real Spanish dancing. Take a peek,” Carmen said as she swung open the doors. We walked inside.

  The restaurant was packed with people gazing at th
e stage. A guitarist strummed a few chords in the corner. A tall woman in a red ruffled dress stood in the center of the stage.

  “Just in time,” Carmen said. “She hasn’t started the dance yet.”

  As the guitar played slowly, the dancer waved her arms in the air, keeping pace with the guitar.

  “What is she doing?” I asked.

  “She’s a Flamenco dancer,” Carmen said.

  “A what?” Tomas asked, puzzled.

  “Flamenco. It is a dance from Spain. People all over the Caribbean love Flamenco,” Carmen said breathlessly.

  The guitar played faster. The dancer arched her back and stomped her high heels to the beat. She spun, arched, and dipped to the rhythm of the music. Instead of slowing down, the music went faster. The dancer pounded the floor with her feet. She grasped the edge of her dress and dipped to the music.

  “Isn’t Flamenco beautiful?” Carmen asked us.

  “Incredible,” I answered.

  “Come on, let’s dance!” Carmen pulled me to the corner of the stage. Soon other women came to the stage to dance, too.

  “I don’t know how,” I shouted over the music.

  “Watch me.” Carmen arched her back. “Now feel the music.” I mimicked her moves, stomping and waving my arms to the rhythm of the song.

  “Loosen up and have fun,” Carmen laughed.

  I was self-conscious but I tried to forget that a hundred people were watching us.

  When the song ended, we left the stage.

  “That’s a little harder than salsa dancing,” I laughed to Tomas. “It’s intense.”

  Tomas smiled at Carmen.

  “You looked great up there,” he said shyly.

  “Thanks,” she answered. “I should. That dancer is my mom. "

  Tomas and I were stunned.

  “I’ve been dancing since I could walk. Music is in my blood.”

  Carmen wiped the sweat off her forehead. “We’d better head back. Your parents will wonder what happened to you.”

  We strolled through the Puerto Rican streets. On our way, Carmen shared stories about the island. She’d been to the mainland once but missed the sunny, happy Puerto Rican beaches and the music filled nights.

  “I hope you enjoy Puerto Rico,” Carmen said to us when we returned to the cafe. She leaned toward Tomas and kissed him again. “You better keep in touch, Tomas. Do not forget about me.” Tomas blushed. Carmen dashed off to return to the restaurant.

  Arecibo

  Observatory

  “The night life in San Juan is wild,” Dad said. We only danced until midnight but many people dance until two or three in the morning on the weekends, he told us. Dancing is the nation’s favorite pastime. Mom let us sleep in and catch up on our rest the next morning. We’d had a few busy days and she didn’t want grouchy kids.

  Mom wanted to see the Arecibo Observatory, home of the world’s largest radio telescope.

  Since it was a science thing, Mom was completely excited.

  “Do you kids realize how awesome the radio telescope is?” Mom asked.

  “Um, hum, sure,” I replied.

  “I don’t think you do.” Mom turned on her professor mode.

  Mom held up her hand and pointed her finger, “Number one, it discovered the rotating rate of the planet Mercury. Number two, it made the first radar surface maps of Venus. Number three, it discovered the first planets outside of our solar system. Number four, it discovered ice on Mercury’s north and south poles. Number five —”

  “Honey, we get it. The radio telescope helped scientists make big discoveries. Now can we take the guided tour?” Dad interrupted.

  Mom looked irritated but she agreed to let the tour guide teach us this time.

  I have to admit the tour was cool. But Mom found a group of scientists who were beginning new research with the telescope. She waved us away. That was her signal that she would be a while and that we could go ahead without her. Dad decided to have a snack. Tomas and I wanted to explore the area. The entire observatory area looked like something out of a James Bond movie, tall platforms, antennae, and wire cables in all directions.

  “Tomas,” I whispered. “Look over there at that cable car. I bet it goes all the way to the top.”

  Tomas nodded, “It’s probably only for scientists.”

  “We’re almost scientists,” I reasoned. “One of our parents is a scientist. I think that counts.”

  Tomas was not convinced.

  “Come on, let’s hop in and go for a ride. Nobody will miss us and nobody will see us.” I wanted to see the observatory from a bird’s eye view, the very top of the dome.

  Without waiting for Tomas’s answer, I jumped into the rectangular cable.

  “Mari, you’re crazy!” Tomas hissed at me. Then he jumped into the cable car, too. We traveled slowly up the cable, inching closer to the telescope’s receiver dome. The tropical parrots’ songs echoed through the trees around us.

  “Tomi, isn’t this incredible? We can see everything!”

  “Mari, stop jumping up and down! You’re shaking the car!” Tomas didn’t really like heights.

  “Tomi, this is what birds see! Don’t you wish you were a bird?”

  “No. No, I don’t. Now stop rocking the car! You’ll break the cable. Then we’ll plummet to our deaths.”

  “Oh, stop it you worry wart. Enjoy the view!” I hated it when Tomi got all chicken.

  A loud rusty screech stopped our argument.

  “What’s that?” Tomas asked.

  Again we jerked around in the cable car, and heard a metal-on-metal scraping noise, followed by a sharp stop. The stop was so abrupt, it knocked me backward and almost over the edge of the cable car’s railing.

  “Mari! It stopped! It stopped! We’re stuck,” Tomas was in panic mode.

  “Hush, Tomi. We’re fine. It stopped for a minute. It will start again soon.” I didn’t know when exactly it would start. I just didn’t want Tomas to start crying. He was really annoying when he cried. Big blobby boogers always got smeared all over his face. Disgusting.

  “No, it won’t be fine, Mari. We’ll be up here for days, months, years. They’ll forget about us and we’ll starve to death.”

  Tomas looked down at the forest below us. “We’re going to die!” he cried harder. Tears splashed down his round cheeks. His sobbing shook the entire cable car. He was a mess.

  “Tomas, listen to yourself. Don’t be stupid. Mom would send out a search party before any of that would happen.” Tomas’s imagination could run wild.

  “Mari,” he moaned. “We’ll die here.”

  “You are acting like a big old baby. Now calm down,” I commanded. “And think of a plan.”

  Tomas took deep breaths. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

  “Yeah, you’re right. Mom would look for us. She wouldn’t just leave us.”

  “That’s right. Mom would never leave us,” I said. Finally, he was pulling himself together. Am I the only mature person in this family?

  “Why don’t we climb out of the car and climb down the cable to the station?” Tomas suggested.

  “Tomas, there’s no way we could hold on and make that climb.”

  “I’ll do it and send help for you,” Tomas looked serious.

  “You can’t. You’re not strong enough,” I said.

  “Mari, what options do we have?” Tomas was ready to get out of the cable car that was dangling in mid-air.

  I reached in my back pocket. “I can call Mom,” I said as I waved my cell phone in his face. Tomas looked stunned.

  “You’ve had your phone the whole time?” he said.

  “Tomas, settle down. Let me handle this.”

  I dialed Mom’s number. It went to voicemail. She was probably still talking to the scientists. I glanced at Tomas, made a sad face, and mouthed “Voicemail.”

  “Leave a message,” Tomas insisted.

  I left my message: “Um, Mom, hi. This is Marisol. Tomas and I are uh in a litt
le situation. We’re actually stuck. Really stuck. In a cable car.”

  “Up high,” Tomas added as he leaned into the phone, “by the dome.”

  Beep. End of message.

  “There. I’m sure she’ll call back,” I said with false confidence to Tomas.

  “What if she left her phone at the hotel?”

  “Fine, Tomas. I’ll call Dad.”

  I dialed Dad’s cell phone. It also went to voicemail.

  I left the message: “Hi Dad, everything’s fine but, um, Tomas got us stuck. Can you help us get down?”

  Beep.

  “I got you stuck? It was your bright idea, not mine,” Tomas huffed and turned away from me.

  He curled into a ball and buried his head under his arms. He started to sob.

  “We’re going to die up here,” he wailed.

  “Oh shush and wait for Mom or Dad to call back,” I hissed at Tomas.

  The wind picked up and rocked the cable car. Tomas cried louder. I sat down next to him and put my arm around him.

  “Tomi, chill. They will find us.”

  He looked up at me.

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  We sat in the broken cable car for three hours. No one came to look for us except a flock of bright Puerto Rican Amazon parrots. The curious green parrots landed on the cable car’s railing. They turned their heads, sang to each other, and hopped from railing to railing. One leaped onto Tomas’s head. It pulled at his hair. Another leapt onto my head and chewed on my earrings.

  This made Tomas laugh.

  “They must think we’re weird for sitting up here all day. Like we think we’re birds.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “I bet those parrots think we’re bird-brained.”

  We heard shouting from down below.

  “Mari! Tomi! Where are you?”

  It was Mom. Tomas and I jumped up and waved over the railing. The cable car swayed a bit. But Mom saw us. She was with people wearing uniforms and hard hats. The uniformed people did not look happy.

  “Babies! Are you all right?” Mom shouted.

  “Yes,” we yelled back.

  “Hold on! They are going to re-start the cable. Brace yourselves!”

  We nodded and waved to Mom to signal that we understood. I grabbed Tomas’s hand.