by Meg Medina
“I read the pictures.”
Still, I really wish she hadn’t picked me yesterday. Our main job is to make the dead body and the coffin. This is about as death-ish as you can get.
Hannah looks uncomfortable, too, but not because she doesn’t want to think about dead things, the way I don’t.
I think it’s because she’s not working with Edna and Jamie, who’ve been assigned to the scribe committee. Hannah’s eyes keep sliding over to the cafeteria windows to gaze at our usual lunch table, which I suppose is where she really wants to be.
“Hannah,” Lena says, “what’s your idea for the mummy?” The three of us are eating lunch in the courtyard at Lena’s spot, so that we can plan in peace.
“Sorry,” Hannah says, finally looking at us. “Why don’t we just wrap someone in toilet paper?”
Lena takes a sip from her juice box. “It rips too easily,” she says. “Plus, we’d have to wrap a new mummy every day. What’s your idea, Merci?”
I shrug. “Why don’t we make a model with a doll or something?” I take a bite of my sandwich, which is even drier than usual. I could offer to use La Boba, but the thought of making her a mummy scares me. What if that gives her devilish powers for real?
“But a doll is too small.” Hannah’s eyes dart to Edna’s table again. “I don’t have any left anyway.”
Lena dips a baby carrot into her hummus and takes a loud bite. “I think we should use a live model,” she says. “We can use plaster of paris. The model would have to lie still and be totally quiet — but only until it sets. It doesn’t take long. Then we can let them out.”
“They’d have to play dead?” Hannah asks, giggling. “Creepy.”
I shift in my seat and stare up at the clouds. It’s breezy today, and shapes move across the sky much faster than usual. Dragons, clowns, whales, a man’s face. I pull out my phone and scroll to video.
Lena looks up, too, and gazes for a few seconds as I film. “Oh! Did you get the guy with a beard?” she says, pointing.
I nod. Then I stop recording and turn to her. “I don’t want to pretend to be dead,” I say quietly.
Lena looks at me as she chews.
Hannah blushes and tries to change the subject. “Why don’t we work on the sarcophagus first? I have gold paint and beads. We can put gems on and glitter to make it shiny and —”
“Focus: mummy,” Lena says. “We can work through the problem. Why don’t we get a volunteer from the class? Somebody will want to do it. They’ll be immortalized in plaster, remember? That makes them the star of the whole tomb.”
All three of us turn to look inside the lunchroom. Edna is showing what’s left of her rash to anyone who wants to look.
Hannah breaks into a grin and balls up her trash.
“Wait here,” she says. “I know just who to ask.”
THE GIRLS’ SOCCER TEAM HAS its first home scrimmage after school today so the team got to wear their jerseys. The buses from The King’s Academy roll into the parking lot at dismissal time, just as Mami beeps and waves at me from a loaner car that I don’t recognize. For once, I’m happy to go home to the twins so I don’t have to watch.
I’m starving as usual, but Mami only leaves chia-seed pudding as a snack before she goes car shopping. So I head over to Lolo and Abuela’s to see if there’s something better. Besides, I need to get beads and buttons for the sarcophagus, if Abuela can spare some.
Tía Inés is hanging the twins’ laundry in the backyard. It’s weird that she’s home, especially this close to Thanksgiving, when the orders for cakes and special pastries start pouring in to El Caribe.
“You’re not working today?” I say. Tía is usually on until at least four, which is why I have to help babysit every day.
“Somebody had to get the boys from school.” She shrugs. “I’ve got Irma covering until I can get back.”
“Where’s Lolo and Abuela?”
“They’re not home right now.” She pins a pair of overalls to a shirt on the line. “Your dad took them to the doctor. It was his turn.”
I glance over at her, trying not to think about the doctor, about all the appointments filled with information that nobody gave me.
The twins are already in their play clothes, barefoot, and trying to catch lizards in a plastic jar. They’re terrible at hunting. Even Tuerto is better. They’ve only ever managed a capture once that I can remember. They named the poor thing Seymour and said he was a baby dragon.
“You OK?” she asks. “You’re moping again.”
I give her a look. I don’t have the energy to tell her about what’s been going on with Edna or anything else. Lolo was the one who always used to help me with stuff like that.
“I’m just getting a snack,” I say, and let myself into Lolo and Abuela’s kitchen.
I haven’t been over in days, which has almost never happened before. Now, even though everything is in the same place, it feels like I’m stepping into a strange house. With the lights off and no one home, the place feels too still.
The Gilda crackers are on the counter in a plastic bag. I’m not supposed to have those. They’re made with shortening, which Mami always points out is a death sentence. But I don’t care about that. They’re delicious with butter — even better dunked into Abuela’s sweet coffee. I fish a couple out of the bag and bite into one dry.
I start down the hall for the back door, straightening a few of the framed pictures as I go. Abuela likes to say that I take after her because I’m “artistic.” She might be able to turn a thousand scraps of fabrics into a beautiful dress on her sewing machine, but she can’t figure out how to take a picture like I can. The walls are cluttered with the headless pictures of our first days of school every year, our Communions, our family trips, Roli’s prom.
There’s only one set of photos that’s any better: the ones in their bedroom — because Abuela didn’t take those. Two years ago, we got a special package in the mail. I knew it was from Cuba right away because of the funny stamp and the Spanish words in the return address. Quemado de Güines, Villa Clara. Inside the big envelope were dozens of loose photographs, old ones in black and white and in faded colors. One of Abuela’s cousins, who still lives in their old house, had found them at the back of a closet where Abuela had hidden them before she left. Bugs had bored holes right through some of the faces, and the photos smelled a little like mold. But Abuela made a big fuss and got teary. She bought frames for them at the Dollar Store and made Papi hang them over her bed. That’s how we have pictures of her mother on her wedding day in 1930, of Lolo with his father, who came from the Philippines, and of a young and skinny Abuela holding baby Tía Inés in her arms.
I walk farther into their bedroom and stand in front of my favorite photograph. It’s Lolo on a bicycle. It’s not the bike he has here. This was the one he rode in Cuba, which he used every day, since he didn’t own a car. His hair is slicked back and he’s laughing, like someone just told him a good joke. I notice a bouquet of flowers resting in his basket, which makes me wonder if they were for Abuela or maybe someone else. He looks completely happy, squinting into the sunshine.
“If it weren’t such an old shot, you might swear it was Roli, right?”
Tía Inés’s voice startles me. “Sorry,” she says.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on people,” I say.
“You were taking a while, so I came to check before I left for work again.”
The twins’ voices rise and fall as they keep up their chase outside. Tía glances out the window as I take a bite of my cracker. I offer her the other but she waves me off. Instead, she sits on Lolo and Abuela’s bed and smooths the quilt over the lumps, the same way Abuela does.
“Are you still mad at all of us?” she asks.
I shrug.
She nods, thinking. “I don’t blame you. We should have told you. To be honest, I’m mad, too.”
I give her a side-eye. “What are you mad about? Nobody lied to you,” I point out.
“No. But I’m sad, too,” she says sharply. “My father is sick, and I worry about taking care of him as things get worse.”
I haven’t given much thought to how this is for her or Abuela and my parents. Mostly, I’ve been thinking about how this feels for me.
“There’s no use pretending anymore. A lot of things are changing fast,” Tía says.
I throw myself back on the bed and stare at the ceiling. “I’m sick of change. Nothing makes sense anymore. Not Lolo or the kids at school or anything.”
She looks down at me with an arched brow and starts to detangle a knot I hadn’t noticed in my hair.
From down here, Tía looks pretty. She has almost no makeup on at all, and I can suddenly see that long-ago baby in her face.
“Hold still.” I pull out my phone and snap a picture.
“Ay, niña,” she says. “I’m a fright. Delete that.”
“No.” I hold out the screen to her and she rolls her eyes.
Outside, one of the twins starts shrieking. Tía crosses to the window and peers out. “They’ve either finally caught something or they’re murdering each other,” she says. “I’d better get back out there and see which it is.” She turns to me from the doorway. “Anyway, I just wanted to say I’m sorry, Merci. We’re all sorry, and that’s the truth.”
“Don’t go yet.” I walk to her and position my phone. “Stand here with me.”
Her hands fly to her hair. “Come on. Not like this!”
“Smile,” I say.
We put our heads close together as I take a selfie. When we check the picture, it’s plain to see that neither of us looks great. My barrette has opened, and there are cracker crumbs on my chin. Tía’s blouse has a stain near the collar. Abuela will probably say we don’t look decent. I fiddle with the color and blanch us out to black and white. The picture looks totally different. Suddenly you notice what’s important in the picture. Little lines around Tía’s eyes. The tilt of my glasses. How our smiles are kind of the same, even though I never noticed before.
“What do you think?” I ask.
She looks at it and kisses my head.
Later that night, everyone comes over to our house. Lolo and Abuela. Tía Inés and the twins. They sit in our living room, the twins dozing like puppies on my favorite blanket near the TV. This time, there is no whispering in the kitchen. They talk about what the doctor said even when I wander in to get a snack. I don’t understand everything. But I hear it all as I sit in the corner and snap photos with my phone to pass the time. More rapid decline. Drug trial. Accessing assistance. Smiles and sad faces and a few tears. Lolo closes his eyes from time to time. Abuela holds his hands.
I click and click and capture us the way we really are right now.
“AND WHAT, MAY I ASK, is this?”
Lena, Hannah, and I have made a huge pile of buckets, garbage bags, masking tape, and drop cloths in the main office. Miss McDaniels is standing with her arms crossed, giving us her I-am-not-amused look.
“It’s official business, miss,” I say. “We’re collecting materials for our Great Tomb Project. We’d like to keep our things here until we need them. We’re mummifying someone this week.”
Her eye twitches. “It’s quite a mess, ladies. What’s wrong with putting it in Ms. Tannenbaum’s room?”
I exchange glances with Hannah and Lena. That’s what they suggested. I was the one who insisted that we keep our things in the office. “We want our stuff safe,” I say.
Miss McDaniels arches her brow. “Pardon me? Why wouldn’t your ‘stuff’ be safe in her classroom?”
I shift on my feet, unsure what to say. I don’t want to tattle, so I keep things brief. “It’s just that last time I kept something there, it didn’t work out.” She looks at me doubtfully. “It was the mask and costume for the fall festival. I brought it in for my Sunshine Buddy and left it in Ms. Tannenbaum’s room — remember, miss? When I went back, it was smashed to bits.”
Her face becomes a stone. “I see.”
This is how I find out that Miss McDaniels has yet another pet peeve besides lateness, wasting valuable time, and utter nonsense.
She fishes under her counter and pulls out an official-looking form. Then she hands me a plastic daisy pen. “You’ll file an incident report,” she says.
I glance at the sections marked Victim Statement and Estimated Value of Damaged Property. “Oh, no, miss. That’s OK. It doesn’t really matter anymore,” I say.
“Incorrect,” she says, holding my gaze. “What happened is called destruction of personal property. And it is unacceptable at Seaward Pines.”
She slips the sheet onto a clipboard and hands it over.
“Sit over there and fill this out. Press hard. It’s in triplicate.”
“It doesn’t have to be a boy,” Edna insists. “Ancient Egypt had famous queens, you know. Duh, Nefertiti — who was gorgeous, by the way.”
“Very good point!”
Ms. Tannenbaum’s eyes are shining with pleasure. She’s enjoying the class discussion (aka argument) about who gets to be the model for our mummy. She claims that a good debate gets her blood pumping. In any case, we weren’t expecting that more than one person would want to be the mummy. We asked Edna, but other people volunteered, too. Right now, the contenders are, of all people, Michael Clark and Edna, which has split the class into boys versus girls.
“But nobody’s ever found her tomb,” says Michael. “It said so in the homework video.”
The girls boo.
“And besides, King Tut is cooler,” he says.
“Says who?” Edna says. “He’s overdone.”
“Way overdone,” Jamie adds.
“And Ms. Tannenbaum says we’ve never had a queen’s tomb. It’s a girl’s turn,” Rachel says. She raises her fist in a power sign, but when no one joins her, she lowers it again and blushes. “Sorry, Michael.”
“The layout would have to be slightly different for a queen’s tomb, so the archaeology team will have to do further research,” Ms. Tannenbaum says, which is welcomed by a faint groan from the back of the room.
Lena is doodling in her notebook and listening. I can see she’s drawn King Tut’s famous mask and the bust of Nefertiti, too. It looks almost the same as what’s in our books.
Edna folds her arms. “We should be practical. Face it, I am a much better size as a model.” She smiles sweetly at Michael, who is towering over all of us. “And I am yoga trained in slow breathing. I won’t move a muscle.”
The arguments erupt again, until finally Ms. Tannenbaum raises her hand in the quiet signal. “Committee?” she says, turning to us at last. “What is your decision?”
Lena, Hannah, and I get up and do a football huddle in the corner.
“What do we do? Edna really wants the job.” Hannah looks like she wants to throw up. Making decisions has that effect on her, and Jamie’s laser eyeballs on her aren’t helping.
Lena looks at me. “By my calculations, Michael will take up too much plaster,” she says. “Plus, we’ll need a lot more wood to build the sarcophagus around him. Unfortunately, I think Edna has a point.”
I give her a pained look.
Lena nods thoughtfully. She’s no dope. “Think of it this way: she’ll have her mouth plastered shut for at least half an hour,” she says. “That’s something.”
So that’s how it ends up that Edna is going to get immortalized.
She comes to school in her gym suit on the last day before Thanksgiving break. She had to clear permission from Miss McDaniels, of course, since she’d be “outside of regulation attire,” not to mention the fact that we’ll all be missing math class today while the mold hardens. Apparently, Miss McDaniels peppered her with questions.
“God. She’s so nosy! No offense, but why does she have to know everything about all of our projects? She’s the school secretary.” She rolls her eyes and steps into the garbage bag I hold out for her.
Our work plan is simple. We’re going to wrap Ed
na into a human burrito using plastic bags, then plaster her with two coats of paper strips. Lena says the main thing is to tape everything very close to her, otherwise we won’t see the shape of her body. “It will look like a big pile of doo,” Lena warns.
Lena lays Papi’s drop cloths over the desks that we’ve arranged like an operating room table. Meanwhile, Hannah does Edna’s hair for the big event. She twists the pieces into a braid and then wraps them up first in a towel and then a plastic bag over that. She even brought two cucumber slices in a baggie to put on her eyes. In the end, Edna looks like one of those ladies getting facials at a spa.
The other committees are working all around the room, too. Jamie and the remaining scribes are painting the story of our queen. The engineers are figuring out how to arrange the cardboard dividers inside our tomb to make chambers. Artisans are working on vessels and statues.
“I’ve got to mix the plaster strips,” Lena says. “Can you prep her face, please?” She hands me a big jar of petroleum jelly. But when I scoop out a glob, Edna speaks up.
“Not so fast! That — on my face?” she says. “I’ll break out.”
“Well, would you rather we put a plastic bag over your head?” I ask. “You’ll suffocate, of course, but if you insist . . .”
“Don’t worry, Edna,” Lena says, cutting in. “We’re going to leave big holes for your nose. And the whole thing will be dry in less than forty minutes. You can wash your face right afterward. Promise.”
“Fine.” Edna leans back and puts the cucumber slices back on her eyelids. “The sacrifices I make.”
I start gooping her up, following the line of her cheekbones and her chin, all the way to where the plastic bag touches her neck. I try not to miss anything as I go. This close, I can see that Edna’s face is covered in little bumps and blackheads, like mine. If she does break out, we’ll never hear the end of it.
