by Diana Lopez
“Well?” Mabel asks. “What do you think? Do you like my profile?”
There’s only one right answer because Mabel’s my best friend. “It’s very nice,” I say. I don’t think it, but I say it because lying to make someone happy is sometimes better than telling the truth.
Then Nick, another student in the class, comes up and says, “Good job on the newsletter, Mabel.” He glances at me and smirks before adding, “I have an idea. You should add a section called ‘freak show’ and write articles about the weird people at our school.” He doesn’t say anything else, but he nods in my direction.
I can’t help it. I’ve had enough. I’m not ashamed anymore. I’m outright mad! And anger speaks … no, it yells! “Stop making jokes about my hair!”
Everyone freezes and looks at me. I’ve been singled out in the worst way.
I rush toward the door. As I pass Claudia, she grabs my shoulder and asks if I’m okay. I shrug her off. John-John’s entering the room, and I almost bump into him. “Where are you going?” he asks, but I don’t answer. Once I get to the hall, I run to the restroom. Some girls are in there, but I ignore them and find an empty stall where I can hide.
I know I’ll have to return to class soon, but for now, the restroom stall feels like the safest place because the only thing people can see are my feet, which aren’t too big or too small and which have ten toes, no extras—but even if they did have extras, no one would notice because I’m wearing tennis shoes, the same type that everybody else wears. My feet do not belong in a “freak show” section of a newsletter because they’re the most normal feet in the world. If only I had the most normal hair, too.
During the weekend, I ask Mom if I can start wearing hats again. I ask three times, and three times she says no. I’m facing two more weeks of torture. When I tell Mom about the teasing, she reminds me that I have “lovely hair and shouldn’t hide it.” Well, that’s easy for her to say. She has brown hair with zero white strands, but even if she did have white strands, no one would comment because she’s already old.
On Sunday, my dad and I watch a rerun of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the episode, the crew starts the day by playing poker but then their ship explodes and they all die. The events repeat over and over but no one remembers except Dr. Crusher, who begins to see clues. Little by little, they solve the mystery. Turns out, they’re in a time loop.
I feel like I’m in a time loop, too, because soon it’s Monday again. Claudia’s in the kitchen like before, and she’s eating the only banana that doesn’t have black spots. She’s still knitting, and on the bus, kids are still holding their noses.
But this is where things change, because instead of hiding in her seat, Claudia stands in the middle of the aisle, hands on hips. “I’m sick and tired of seeing you grab your noses when we get on the bus. Grow up, people!” The nostrils of her giant nose open wide as she huffs and puffs like the Big Bad Wolf. She actually scares the little ones. They stop pinching their noses and try hiding in their seats.
Claudia still looks like the Big Bad Wolf when we get to the classroom. Mr. Cruz notices. “Is everything okay, Claudia?”
“No,” my prima answers. “But I’m taking care of it.”
“Hmmm …” he mutters. Then, to the rest of us, he says, “I hope we aren’t having issues in this class, but if we are, please come talk to me.”
He gives us a moment to think about it and tells us to get ready for mini bees. That’s when we practice spelling words with our friends. I always practice with Mabel and John-John.
I get the first word, “description.” This week, we’re doing words that end in “t-i-o-n.” They should end in “s-h-u-n” because that’s how they sound, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned about English, you can’t always spell by sound. After I spell it, I say, “Looks like Claudia finally got tired of hearing jokes about her nose.”
Mabel and John-John glance at each other. Then Mabel says, “Maybe they weren’t talking about her nose.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. “Why else would they say it stinks?”
“There could be lots of reasons,” she says.
I nod toward John-John. “Yeah, like throwing up worms and grilled cheese sandwiches?”
Mabel and John-John glance at each other again, but they don’t say anything. Instead, we move on to the next spelling word.
During recess, Mabel and I find a shady tree, but rather than sit on a bench with her new friends, Claudia marches to the middle of the playground.
“Listen up, people!” And they do listen because it sounds as if she has a megaphone. “I have an announcement.” She holds up a knitting needle. It looks like a little sword. “Nobody’s perfect. All of us have something that makes us different, but that doesn’t mean we’re weird. It just means that we’re unique, which is a cool thing if you ask me. That’s why we should accept people for who they are and not for how they look.”
Some kids look down because they’ve been rude, but others give Claudia a thumbs-up—like Harold with the bushy eyebrows and Lucy with the chapped lips. They get teased, too. There’s a lot of teasing at my school. Sometimes I forget that other kids are having a hard time, because I’m too focused on my own problems.
After her big announcement, Claudia heads our way and sits under our tree. “There’s plenty of shade here,” she says, “so don’t tell me to leave.” And she starts knitting again. I still don’t know what she’s making. It looks like a bowl but not for cereal because the milk would seep through.
When we return to class, Claudia changes her seat. She tells John-John, “Switch with me. Just for today.” He mumbles but moves anyway.
I whisper, “Stop spying on me.”
She whispers back, “I’m not.”
I don’t believe her, so when we get a worksheet, I hunch over and try to block her view. I write itsy-bitsy letters so she can’t read my answers. But hunching over is a bad idea because my neck and shoulders start to hurt and a headache starts to form because I’m squinting.
I forgot the starfish today, so I try Mabel’s coping mechanism by daydreaming about a horse. But instead of a sunny beach, there’s a storm, and the harsh winds are throwing sand in my mouth and eyes. I can’t see, and I can barely breathe. Mabel’s daydream is making things worse, not better. If only I had a rabbit. A rabbit would calm me down a lot more than a horse.
Then it’s time for lunch. Claudia dumps her new friends again and comes to my table.
“Quit following me,” I say. “Quit spying.”
“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m here to protect you. Trust me, no one’s going to say you stink when I’m around.”
Did I hear right? I shake my head for a double take and turn to Mabel. “Are people saying I stink?”
She shrugs.
“But I have a normal-sized nose,” I say.
Mabel looks down. I can tell she doesn’t want to answer, but after a moment, she finally says something. “They’re not making fun of your nose, Luna. They’re making fun of your hair.”
“Of course they’re making fun of my hair! I’ve been hearing old-person jokes all week. But that doesn’t mean I smell bad.”
She takes a deep breath. She looks like someone who’s about to swallow the worst-tasting medicine. “They’re saying you look like a skunk.”
I do another double take. So not only am I prematurely old but I’m a stinky mammal, too.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask Mabel.
Claudia answers instead. “How could you not know?”
“It seems obvious now,” I say, “but I really didn’t. Whenever I heard a skunk comment or saw kids holding their noses, I thought it was because of John-John throwing up or because they were making fun of you.”
“Of me?” Claudia’s surprised. “Why would they make fun of me?”
“Because of your giant nose.”
“I do not have a giant nose.”
“She doesn’t,” Mabel agrees. “I’ve be
en trying to tell you. Claudia’s nose is normal.”
“In fact,” Claudia says, “if I have a big nose, then so do you because even though our hair is different and our eyes are different and our lips are different, our noses are exactly the same.”
To prove it, she reaches in her purse and takes out a compact mirror. I take it and look at my nose, then at hers, and then at mine again. I can’t believe it. Our noses are exactly the same! Claudia and Mabel are right. Why didn’t I see it before?
I hand back the mirror. “So we have the same nose,” I admit. “I wish we had the same hair instead, because then I wouldn’t have this birthmark.”
“We can’t always get what we wish,” Claudia replies. “Now, stop separating your carrots and peas. You should eat all your vegetables. If you don’t, I’m telling your mom.”
Mabel tugs my sleeve. “I like your white hair. It makes you unique just like Claudia said at recess. Look, I have a birthmark, too.” She rolls down her sock and shows me a brown splotch on her ankle.
I’m glad she reminded me about her birthmark, but a splotch beneath a sock is not the same as a streak of white hair. Sometimes being unique is a good-luck thing like when you’re the fastest runner, the best dancer, or the only person in class who knows how to make homemade ice cream. But when it comes to uniqueness, I have the bad-luck kind.
After school, we get on the bus. Claudia, too.
“Don’t you have Needle Beetles?” I ask.
“I’m skipping it today.” Then, instead of three rows behind, she sits one row in front of Mabel and me. “It’s only for today,” she says, just like when she made John-John move. “I don’t actually want to sit here.”
She faces the front of the bus and starts knitting again. I can hear the needles clinking. For the first time since I locked Claudia in the restroom and got grounded from wearing hats, no one holds their nose or says it stinks or makes an old-person joke. I’m sure they still want to, but they’re too afraid of my prima.
We’re almost to Mabel’s stop, when Claudia turns around, hands me the green thing she’s been knitting, and says, “Finally. The answer to all your problems.”
Claudia’s respuesta makes no sense. How is this green thingamajig the answer to my problems when I have no idea what it is?
“Don’t you like it?” Claudia asks. “Isn’t green your favorite color?”
“Yes,” I say, even though I like Kermit-the-Frog and not snot-and-boogers green.
“Then what’s wrong? I’ve been knitting twenty-four/seven for a whole week! I had to start over three times to make it perfect. I even got a blister.” She holds up a finger, and sure enough, there’s a blister.
She was doing something nice, so I try to be polite. “Thanks, Claudia. I’m sure this bowl will come in handy when I eat Cheetos.”
Mabel giggles. “That’s not a bowl.” She takes it from me and fits it over my head. “It’s a hat.” We’re at her stop, so she grabs her things. Before she leaves, she turns to Claudia. “Will you teach me how to knit? I want to make hats, too.”
“Sure,” Claudia says. “Knitting’s fun.”
Mabel thanks her, and then she’s off the bus.
I look at my reflection in the window, tucking away most of my white hair. The hat fits perfectly. I touch the soft yarn and smile. I want to be happy, but I can’t help feeling suspicious.
I tap Claudia on the shoulder. “I thought you didn’t like me. You’re not trying to get me in trouble by giving me a hat when you know I’m not supposed to wear one, are you?”
“No. This can be our secret. I promise not to tell.”
“Really? Why are you being nice? Why did you make all those announcements today and tell the kids to leave me alone?”
She takes a moment to speak. “At first, I didn’t care if people made fun of you because I was still mad about getting locked in the restroom. In my opinion, you deserved to be teased. But then it didn’t stop, and all those people started getting on my nerves. I kept wondering … didn’t they have anything better to talk about? How many times can they repeat stuff about your hair? All those jokes got old on day two.” She shakes her head with disbelief. Then she says, “When you got upset in class the other day and ran out, that was it. I got mad—not at you, but for you. Like they say, ‘La sangre es más espesa que el agua.’”
Wait a minute! I think. She just repeated Abuela, word for word!
“Abuela told me the same thing about agua. Is that a dicho or something?”
Claudia pauses before answering. “It’s an English proverb, but I’m not sure it translates to Spanish exactly. When we were at the quinceañera, I was complaining about having to go to your school. I knew you would cause all kinds of trouble.”
I think back and remember seeing Claudia with her mom and Abuela, all glancing in my direction. I thought I was being paranoid, that they were really looking at someone else, but I guess they were talking about me after all.
“So Abuela told you to drink water as a coping mechanism?”
Claudia looks at me, confused. “No. Why would she say that?”
“Isn’t that what ‘la sangre, blah, blah, agua’ means?”
She laughs, and I feel like the dumbest person in the world. “So that’s why you were drinking so much water? This is hilarious. I can’t wait to tell our primas and your mom so she can see why you need extra Spanish lessons.”
I want to scream, but I hold it in. Still, I have to ask, “Why do you have to be such a tattle all the time?”
“I am not tattling,” Claudia says, offended. “I’m informing.”
The bus reaches our stop, so Claudia and I make our exit. Instead of heading home, we stay at the corner, facing off.
“Well, your ‘informing’”—I put air quotes around the word—“gets me in trouble. It gets our primas in trouble, too. Remember when I said they don’t like you around?”
She crosses her arms. She’ll make a great prison guard someday.
“I wasn’t trying to be mean,” I say. “Well … I was … but I was also telling the truth. We can’t do or say anything without you telling our parents and getting us in trouble. Who wants to be in trouble all the time? It’s better to keep you out of the loop.”
Suddenly, Claudia doesn’t look like a prison guard anymore. She looks like a regular fifth grader whose feelings are hurt. “I’m not trying to get you guys in trouble,” she says. “I’m trying to help you.”
“How does tattling help us?”
“Because …” She takes a moment. “I tell your mom about your grades so you can do better in school, and I tell her about how you don’t eat your veggies so you can get good nutrition.”
“And Mirasol driving with her friends? You tattled about that, too.”
“She doesn’t have a license yet. She could get a ticket, or worse, get in an accident!”
“And how about Celeste kissing her boyfriend in the parking lot at the quinceañera?”
“She shouldn’t be kissing in public like that. It could ruin her reputation!”
“That’s so old-fashioned,” I say. Then I give her more examples of tattling, and for each one, she has an explanation. She totally believes that she’s doing it for our own good, and all of the sudden, I’m starting to believe it, too. When Claudia tattles, she’s not being mean on purpose. I thought she was trying to get us in trouble, but in her mind, she’s helping us.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t know you were tattling for those reasons and that you just wanted me to be healthy, smart, and bilingual.” I pause because I can’t believe what I’m about to say. “Thanks, prima. Thanks for looking out for me.”
And then I realize something else. Not once did Claudia make jokes about my hair or laugh at me. And today, she stood up to those bullies. She was helping me, so now it’s my turn to help her.
“I don’t think our primas are going to understand why you tell on them,” I say. “They like to focus on the negative and forget the
positive, if you know what I mean.”
She nods. “I do. They’re very stubborn.”
“Exactly.”
She thinks a moment. “I can’t stop informing about the big things like driving without a license because my primas could get seriously hurt. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened. But I could stop telling about the small things even if it means they’ll get in trouble—maybe not with their parents but in other ways.”
“At least they won’t blame you for it.”
“That’s true.”
I decide to take a risk. It means helping Claudia by going behind Paloma’s back, but it’s for a good cause. Besides, I owe Claudia because she stood up for me and made me a hat. Maybe it’s an ugly version of green but at least it’s soft.
“Why don’t you come to Paloma’s mariachi performance?” I say. “It’s on Thursday. You can ride with me and we can sit together. Maybe you can translate the songs, and if you start to tattle about something, I’ll give you a signal—like tugging my ear. That way, you can stop yourself before it’s too late. Once our primas see that you aren’t a tattletale anymore, they’ll start calling and inviting you places.”
She thinks about it. “You really want me to go? Even though Paloma didn’t invite me herself?”
“Sure,” I say. “She won’t turn you away once you’re there. She’ll probably be glad to see you. Especially if you clap and throw out some gritos.”
Claudia smiles. Then she says, “I guess what my mom and Abuela said about la sangre y agua is true.”
I scratch my head. “Yeah, about that. I still don’t know what it means.”
“Well, it’s not about drinking water,” Claudia laughs. Then she gets serious. “It means ‘blood is thicker than water.’ My mom said it first because it’s an English dicho, if there’s such a thing. Then Abuela asked her to translate because she doesn’t understand English very well.”
