Merci Suárez Changes Gears

by Meg Medina

  Just then, Ms. Tannenbaum, who has been circling the room, stops by our group. I look down at her feet. There’s a tiny tattoo on her ankle, which Abuela would hate.

  “I hear a lot of chatter back here, ladies. I trust it’s productive?”

  There’s an uncomfortable pause. I push up my glasses and put an arm over my blank screen.

  “We’re all organized,” Edna says, saving us. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and sits up taller. “We’re making a clay map. Our group was just about to split up the readings.”

  Ms. Tannenbaum nods thoughtfully and tugs on one of her earrings. They’re tiny metal mummies, I notice. She smells nice, too. Like laundry detergent and baby powder. “I like a decisive group,” she says. “It’s a sure sign of strength. But I wonder: Have you percolated properly?”

  We stare at her blankly.

  “Have you considered all the possibilities for your project or just the first one? Have you let your ideas bubble and froth properly?”

  No one says anything at first, but I think I know what she means. It always takes me a while to think of how to do a project. So I take a chance. “I was thinking of maybe a collage-style map instead,” I say quietly.

  Ms. Tannenbaum’s eyebrows shoot up. “Ah,” she says.

  “We can use fabric scraps and buttons,” I continue, making sure I don’t meet Edna’s eye and lose my nerve. “I can get lots of that stuff for free.”

  “That’s a very interesting concept,” Ms. Tannenbaum says, smiling. Her teeth have a little space between them in front. “Recycling materials for another purpose. Very timely. What do the rest of you think?” Her blue eyes dart around hopefully.

  Think?

  Poor Ms. Tannenbaum. All these years teaching and she still doesn’t know that thinking is the trouble with groups. Sometimes it’s not allowed, especially if somebody like Edna is around.

  Still, a tiny balloon of hope fills my chest as I look around at the others. Ms. Tannenbaum might make them brave. She has a picture of herself on a misty footbridge in Peru. She went to the Canary Islands to learn how they talk in whistles in the mountains. She went to Africa to help protect gorillas. She’s basically a courage machine in every way.

  “The buttons are swirly, like water,” I add.

  Ms. Tannenbaum smiles again and waits patiently in the silence that lingers. If it bothers her that we’re not speaking, she doesn’t show it. Finally, she folds her hands.

  “Over the years, I’ve noticed that developing ideas usually requires some time. Sometimes you have to mull things over for a bit to get what you’re really after.”

  Edna and the others keep staring at her like dead fish.

  “Here’s a thought. Why don’t you get started on the readings this weekend and think about the materials for the map on Monday? It isn’t due for a while.”

  She walks away to the next group, leaving her sweet smell lingering.

  “That’s just great,” Edna whispers, clearly annoyed. “My family has plans this weekend. Can’t we just vote now and get it done?”

  “But —”

  She cuts me off. “It’s just a map, Merci. What’s the big deal? And it’s the only fair way to decide anyway.” She looks around at us. “All those in favor of buttons for water, raise your hands.”

  I lift my hand and look across the table at Hannah, Jamie, and Rachel. Hannah starts to join me, but she ends up waving her palm in a so-so sign and shrugs.

  “Clay?”

  Sure enough, Edna’s mojo has worked like a charm. Rachel’s, Jamie’s, and Edna’s hands shoot up. “Three to one and a half,” she says.

  “But it’s not original.” Even as I say it, I can hear the pleading in my voice, and I hate myself for it.

  “Cooperation,” Jamie says pointedly.

  “No offense, but buttons are not that original,” Edna says. “They’re on, like, everything!” She points at my blouse. “See?”

  For a second I think of backing down. Edna has all As, all the time, after all. But then I think of Papi. He’s not school-smart, but nobody has better ideas about how to paint things. So I use a sales skill that Abuela has perfected. She claims it’s why she has never lost an argument with any of her clients over what she should sew for them. Give your idea calmly, she says, and find somebody else to say it’s brilliant. Lolo is usually the one for that job.

  “It’s how we’re using them that’s different, Edna,” I say. “How about buttons just for the water?” I look to Hannah, since Lolo isn’t around. She likes pizzazz. She wears shimmery clips in her hair every day. “Some bling is always good, right?” I say.

  Hannah looks to Edna. “It sounds kind of nice,” she says softly. “What’s the harm in compromising?”

  Edna sighs and rolls her eyes. “Fine. Merci can bring the dumb buttons.” She gathers her things and drags her desk back to its place, grumbling about how I’m a pain. I hurry up and finish our group notes before the bell.

  The midday sun feels bright enough to melt my eyes when I step outside after class. I walk along to math, trying to feel better. I kick a piece of balled-up loose-leaf paper as if it’s a soccer ball, working on swiveling my feet around the front as I go.

  It’s not a big deal, I tell myself. And I won, sort of, didn’t I? But somehow it still feels as though I did something wrong with the girls in my group. Maybe I am a pain. Or maybe buttons are stupid. Or maybe I’m stupid. If I had gone along, it would have been easier, and Edna wouldn’t be mad. And who really cares about a dumb map, anyway?

  The lower-school kids have just had lunch, and now they’re outside playing in the small field, just the way we used to in fifth grade. Miss Miller is sitting on the bench reading her book, the way she always did when we were in her class. I pause for a second to watch her new kids, wishing that I could take a few pitches in kickball instead of having to figure out equations for the next hour or remember my locker combination or even get to class before the bell rings. Last year took some getting used to, but I always fit in at recess — more than Edna, who was a total klutz. I would kick that red ball far into the outfield: hard, and on-target. It’s all that practice I get, I suppose. Papi lets me sub on his fútbol team in the last quarter sometimes. You’d think grown men might go easy on me, but the only break they give me is not tackling, which Papi made absolutely off-limits. Anyway, those kicks are why I’m always picked first for a team in gym and why I never have to wait and wait, pretending it doesn’t bother me not to hear my name called.

  But then all that changed last spring when some of the girls just stopped standing up when we picked teams. Instead, they wandered off and watched from the stands, whispering behind their hands while I rounded the bases, arms pumping.

  “You have to grow up, Merci,” Edna told me when I sat next to her in class one afternoon, still sweaty from the game.

  I take the long way around to class, hoping I might be able to peek in at Roli in the science lab, which is on the way. He hates when I do that — especially if I make a funny face at him against the windows. But sometimes I just want to see him, even if I don’t tell him so.

  He’s not there, so I walk by Sierpin´ski Sonnet, a kind of spooky sculpture made of white resin. To me it looks like a big piece of cauliflower with the top hacked off. But last summer, Roli showed me a secret — and why he loves it almost as much as he adores the science lab. We were taking a break from painting the gym. He brought me and Papi here and told me to climb on his shoulders so I could look at the sculpture from above. That’s where you could see that the canopy formed triangles, lots and lots of triangles, one inside the other. Everything was a pattern. “They’re fractals,” he said, holding me as I stood on his shoulders like a cheerleader. “Triangles that repeat in smaller and smaller versions, forever.”

  I stare at the lopped-off branches for a while, realizing that I’m still too short to see the magic from down here. But then I notice someone on the other side through the spaces. The face is so pale
that it’s camouflaged almost perfectly.

  Standing on the other side is Michael Clark, all by himself.

  “That girl Edna said you need to ask me something,” he says. “What is it?”

  My mouth goes dry. For a second, I’m not even sure he’s talking to me, so I turn around to be sure he doesn’t mean someone else.

  “Oh. Nothing really,” I say. I hope no one is watching us. I don’t want to hear Edna teasing me about him being my boyfriend anymore.

  “Oh.” His bushy brows knit together. (Curses on Edna for making me notice them!)

  I’m sure my eye is pulling, so I push up my glasses and blurt it out. “It’s just that I’m your Sunshine Buddy. They assigned me to you in the office.”

  He cocks his head. “My what?”

  “Sunshine Buddy. It’s sort of a temporary friend that the school gives you, if you’re new.”

  “Oh,” he says, blushing.

  “It’s kind of dumb,” I say.

  I blink hard and shrug. I could tell him I want nothing to do with it, but that might hurt his feelings. And I can’t exactly say that I’m working off my scholarship debt, either. Or that I’d rather play soccer than be his pal.

  “It’s not that bad,” I say.

  Then the warning bell rings. Dr. Newman, who’s out roaming the halls, starts to wave people to class.

  “I know you don’t need a buddy,” I tell him. “Everybody likes you, obviously.” My face feels like it’s on fire as I say it, and my tongue feels twice as thick. “The boys, I mean.”

  Then, because Dr. Newman is heading our way, I hurry off to class.

  That afternoon, Miss McDaniels looks up at me from behind the vase of flowers. It’s the end of the day, and most of the kids have gone home already. The only one left in the office besides her is a lady waiting to see Dr. Newman. Miss McDaniels stops clipping a few browned flowers when I come in.

  “At last,” she says, turning to me. “I was starting to wonder.” She puts the scissors away in her desk drawer and opens a file on her computer’s desktop marked “Sunshine Buddies.” Even from here, I can see an open space in the column next to my name. I guess I’m the very last one to submit a progress report this week.

  “And how is it going with your buddy?” she asks.

  “Michael Clark is doing just fine,” I say carefully. “He’s already friends with the boys. Maybe he’d like a boy as his buddy,” I say, trying to give her the hint.

  But no. She just looks at me over her glasses. “You’ve made initial contact? You’ve been friendly and welcoming?”

  I pull out my form and hand it to her quickly. It took some creative thinking to fill it out. I look over my shoulder, like someone might be listening to me about to lie.

  “Well . . . we stopped at the Sierpin´ski today,” I tell her.

  “Ah. Very good.” She types in a note and closes the file. “I’m sure more things will come.”

  I stand there in silence, my eyes glued to the new flat-screen monitors that are bolted near her desk. It’s a security system like something out of a NASA control room. I watch as random kids and parents walk in and out of view, unaware they’re being watched.

  Miss McDaniels glances over her shoulder and then frowns a little. “Is there something more?” she asks.

  I wonder if I’m wasting valuable time. That’s another thing Miss McDaniels doesn’t like. Every minute of her workday seems precious. But she did say we’d “revisit” this arrangement, didn’t she?

  “It’s just . . . well, are you sure Michael Clark even wants a buddy?” I ask. “He seems kind of happy already. No sense messing with success, is there?”

  She looks at me until my eye starts to quiver. “Everyone new to Seaward Pines Academy gets a buddy. It’s policy — not to mention good manners.”

  With that, she stands up and turns to the lady who’s still waiting on the cushy sofa for our head of school. “Dr. Newman will see you now, ma’am. Follow me.”

  I watch them go through the fancy wooden doors. What a kid wants is not part of the formula, as usual, not here and not anywhere.

  I look up at the camera that’s mounted near the ceiling and stick out my tongue. Then I turn and let myself out.

  I DON’T KNOW HOW IT HAPPENS.

  One minute, Lolo and I are pedaling home from El Caribe on the shady side of the street, and the next minute he’s gone.

  At first I don’t even notice that he’s disappeared because I’m caught up in my latest story.

  “ . . . and then she said, ‘OK, Merci can bring her dumb buttons,’ like she was the queen doing me a favor. Can you believe it? She said I was a pain.”

  As usual, we’ve taken the long way home so we can catch up without anybody listening to our conversation or telling us what chore we have on our list that day. But when he doesn’t say anything, I look over my shoulder.

  That’s when I see him sprawled on the street.

  “Lolo!” I toss down my bike and race back to him. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  He looks just as stunned as I am as he tries to untangle himself from his bike. In all the years we’ve been riding, he’s never fallen. In fact, Lolo’s the one who taught all of us to ride — including Papi and Tía Inés when they were little. He showed me how to balance with no hands, fix a slipped chain, and lube the gears to keep things smooth.

  A trickle of blood drips from his eyebrow where his new glasses have dug in. They’re crooked now, and the lenses are all scraped. Pebbles are stuck against his bloody palm, too.

  “It’s nothing, nothing.” He winces and gets to his knees. “I hit a sandy patch, that’s all. The tires are getting old on this thing.”

  I look around for the skid, but there’s none. There’s no sand anywhere, either. In fact, there’s just the same little buckles in the sidewalk that we’ve been riding over every Sunday for as long as I can remember.

  I help him get to his feet, remembering sheepishly that he did look a little wobbly this morning as we pushed out of the driveway. I should have paid more attention, but Lolo never has so much as a cold. Plus, he’s always been a sports nut, just like me. Baseball, swimming, biking — he does it all.

  All the pastries we bought at El Caribe are strewn on the ground.

  “Let’s pick these things up before the ants start feasting,” Lolo says. “We might be able to salvage some if we hurry.”

  Lolo and I always go to El Caribe on Sunday mornings to get bread and desserts for later. It’s the one chore I don’t mind because it’s our private time together. We leave the house when the sky is still pink, and we get there at seven a.m., when Tía Inés is pulling out the first loaves from the oven. We buy them for our Sunday dinner, which is the one time every week that we all eat together. It’s not technically dinner, though. It’s almuerzo cena, which I think should be called lunner or dinch, because we eat at around three o’clock — and just have a snack before bed.

  It’s not Sunday dinner without the bread and desserts, though. There is no way we can show up empty-handed without Abuela yelling.

  I dust the end of one of the loaves. Luckily, the second loaf stayed in its paper wrapper and is just fine.

  Lolo picks up the box of cookies and peeks inside. “A few are broken, but it’s not a total catastrophe. We’ll stick the bad ones on the bottom before Abuela can see.”

  “We should clean that cut up, though,” I tell him. Blood has made a long drip along his cheek. I unhook the water bottle from my bike’s frame and aim the nozzle at him. “Ready?”

  He pockets his mangled glasses and scrunches his face. “Fire.”

  I squirt him until we’re both laughing. Then we walk back down the street to get my bike. Lolo’s shirt is soaked, so I point at the corner bus stop. “Why don’t we rest on that bench while you dry off?” I say. “I’ll check your tires.”

  Lolo sits down while I get to work. I go over absolutely everything, but the bike looks perfect — for a relic. “The tires lo
ok OK to me,” I tell him. “You’ve got plenty of tread.”

  “Mmmmm,” he says, ignoring me. He rummages inside the box of cookies and takes out a broken one. “I bet a little sugar will give me a lift. Want one?”

  I join him on the bench, and together we watch the early traffic go by for a little while as we eat. Hardly anybody is out at this hour, so it still feels quiet, with just the sound of our munching on the broken treats.

  “Do you think Edna is right about me? Am I a pain? You can tell me the truth.” I hate the way the words sound aloud. All I can think of are the times when the twins are being impossible. You’re such pains, I tell them. But something about how Edna talks to me always makes me feel like I’m not as good as she is, like there’s something wrong with me.

  Lolo wipes the crumbs from his lips. “A pain! That’s ridiculous,” he says. “When it comes to people, sometimes it’s a matter of taste, like these cookies. We like some more than others. That’s not bad. It’s just human.”

  I give that some thought and sigh. “I thought sixth grade would be different, Lolo. I really wanted it to be fun, better than fifth grade, anyway. But there are all these classes to keep track of now. Miss Miller told us that switching classes would be fun, that it meant that we’d meet more people. I think she lied. I see Edna all the time, and she’s no nicer than last year.”

  He nods, thinking. “Well, it’s early yet, preciosa. Let’s see what happens.”

  We sit there for a long time until the Sunday-schedule bus comes into view. “We should go, or he’ll stop to pick us up,” I say.

  I straddle my seat, but Lolo doesn’t get back on his bike. Instead, he stands alongside it and grabs the handlebars.

  “Why don’t you ride for now, preciosa?” he says. “I’m going to walk mine the rest of the way and enjoy the scenery.”

  I give him a doubtful look. “The scenery of strip malls? Are you sure you’re OK?”

  “I tell you, I’m fine. I can’t help it if my bones aren’t made of rubber like yours. Now let’s go. I promised the twins we’d color.”