Facts of Life

by Gary Soto

  Provided they ate less and flossed weekly.

  A week passed, and Rebecca was continually bullied by Sylvia, who would cut her down with icy stares, hiss dirty words, toss balled-up napkins at her in the cafeteria, and threaten her with a good ol' school yard whipping.

  One day mean Sylvia chased her around the school yard, her cheeks filled with water from the drinking fountain.

  "Don't!" Rebecca pleaded. She was cornered near the baseball backstop, jumping left, then right as she attempted to avoid the inevitable. "Don't! I'll tell! I really will!" Rebecca was grossed out—they had just eaten lunch and most likely there were loose food particles in Sylvia's fat cheek. Yuck, that water is dirty. I might even get a disease—all this and more entered Rebecca's mind.

  Sylvia let the stream fly from her mouth, and it splashed on Rebecca's leg.

  "That was really mean!" Rebecca cried. She limped in a circle, and pouted because her sock was wet.

  But when Rebecca reported what Sylvia had done, Mr. Rafferty had a greater concern than a girl who'd been spit on—a boy had climbed up to the roof in an effort to fetch a kickball and now couldn't get down.

  On the way home Rebecca would chant in her heart, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

  For the next few days, Rebecca avoided Sylvia. She hung with her friend Carolina, playing two-square with a nearly deflated ball. Carolina was quicker, more competitive, and just plain better.

  Rebecca realized that competition made her sullen—and sweaty! At home, she added another improvement in the margins of the map of the Ideal City: no competition. She rationalized that competitive sports made people go crazy—just look at professional football, a sport that made people dress up in weird clothes and cuss at the ref. Was that civilized?

  In the Ideal City people would just play catch or they could swim. Yes, they would swim laps. She mulled over other activities.

  "We can juggle," she said to herself. She wrote in the margins juggle, hula hoop, ride ponies, run through sprinklers, and that thing called yoga: non-competitive stuff.

  That night, with the television muted and her mother seated in her recliner, Rebecca practiced her presentation of the Ideal City. For ten minutes she outlined her major points and explained the rules for living in peace and love.

  "What would you think if there were no litter and stuff?" Rebecca asked.

  "But, honey, is there really a place like—" Rebeccas mother started to discount this magical place, then reigned in her opinion. Every day she rode around and saw gutters filled with garbage.

  Mom's a doubter, Rebecca figured, but that's okay because the Ideal City is still only on paper. Rebecca was convinced that once her plans became a reality everyone would start to act nicer. Everyone would change. Then her mother would see.

  The next day she walked to school clutching her report and the butcher paper on which she had drawn the map.

  After the first recess Rebecca began her presentation by showing the class pictures of the Hawaiian Islands.

  "Would you like to live in paradise?" she asked. "Right under a coconut tree?"

  A classmate raised his hand and asked, "Para—what?"

  Rebecca was not disturbed by this interruption, or the fact that the boy had orange Cheeto stains at the corners of his mouth.

  "Good question," she replied. She gave a summary of their terrible times: wars and famines, cars all over the place, oil from the cars in driveways, and earthquakes where people had to lie under rubble for days and days. "This can all change."

  Rebecca noticed that her teacher, Mrs. Lynch, was at her desk, making small but fierce checks on their math problems. Mrs. Marshall, the teacher's aide who worked in the classroom in the afternoons, was looking through her purse. They're not listening, she surmised, and this hurt because Mrs. Lynch had oohed and aahed when she'd first heard about the project. But now the teacher didn't seem to care. Still, Rebecca hung a toothy smile on her face.

  "See, I have drawn a map of the city." She pointed with a ruler. "I call it the Ideal City. Later it'll have another name."

  She showed the map by walking from one side of the class to the other. Her confidence grew. Her classmates, even Sylvia, were examining the map.

  A kid remarked, "It don't look like our city."

  "That's right!" Rebecca nearly screamed in delight. "That's because it's nicer. The Ideal City will have parks everywhere and a river. Don't you wish you could fish in a river?"

  Her classmates seemed unmoved by the portrait of paradise.

  "If you don't like fishing, there would be other things to do." She cast light on her plans: The parks would be the greenest green, and each tree would have a birds nest, maybe two.

  Yawns from two students.

  "The birds will have more freedom than ever," Rebecca exclaimed. She flung her arms into the air. "They'll pull up worms and wouldn't have to eat garbage because no one would litter anymore. Won't that be nice?"

  No response.

  In desperation, she called out, "And Sylvia!"

  Sylvia had been chewing a fingernail, her head bowed. When she gazed up, her mouth was red, as if she had been feeding on blood. But it was only the stain of candy.

  "Sylvia, there aren't going to be any parking tickets. You can tell your dad that." Rebecca crossed her heart and said, "I promise."

  Sylvia's scowl produced deep rivulets of hatred around her mouth.

  "Don't be mad! Didn't you hear me? No parking tickets."

  Sylvia puffed out her cheeks as if they held water or the biggest gob of spit in the world. Rebecca rocked back on her heels. She stepped quickly to the other side of the classroom.

  There would be no cars in the Ideal City, Rebecca announced after she shuffled her notes. People would get around by walking or bicycling. True, a single ambulance for really old people would be needed, but most people would be so healthy they wouldn't need to go to the hospital.

  "And you know why they're going to be healthy?" Rebecca gazed around the classroom, her classmates squirming in their chairs, as she waited to get their full attention. It didn't come. Some were folding little pieces of paper into origamilike shapes. Most were talking to their neighbor.

  Rebecca pushed on. She informed the class—future citizens of the Ideal City—of fruit trees planted by the thousands. If you were hungry, you could just pull off an orange.

  "I hate oranges," Sylvia remarked.

  "Then you can eat a peach. We'll have lots of peach trees."

  Sylvia growled that she hated peaches, too, and was starting to list other fruit she despised when the loudspeaker crackled. Mrs. Lynch raised her face, her eyeglasses slipping from her nose but caught by the chain that held them.

  The class became attentive, leaning their bodies toward the speaker, as if they wanted to hear another persons voice.

  "Students, the freezer is broken again," Mr. Rafferty disclosed in a weak voice. He seemed out of breath, as if he had climbed a staircase and was taking a break at the landing.

  No further explanation was required. The class roared, arms raised high, and were out of their chairs, some of them dancing and giving one another high fives. When Mrs. Lynch gave them the okay, they lined up against the wall. None of them pushed; for them this was the Ideal Moment.

  While the students left in centipede fashion, Rebecca remained behind with Mrs. Marshall, the teacher's aide, who had papers to correct. She had told Mrs. Lynch that she wasn't hungry for ice cream and, anyhow, she had so much more to say about the Ideal City.

  With the classroom empty the clock beat out it's time. Rebecca regarded the chaos of sweaters hanging sloppily on the backs of chairs, the stains on the carpet, books shelved upside down: mess, mess, mess, everywhere.

  She continued. "I have told you about the parks and the river," she told the desks. "I said that we would walk a lot. You know that. You also know that there will be bicycles, but I haven't said anything yet about skates. Skates can be dangerous if y
ou decide to go down a mountain in them. But don't worry. I haven't ruled them out."

  Rebecca stopped abruptly when she heard how her voice echoed off the walls with authority. She was impressed. She had imagined the dental hygienist as mayor, but she began to consider the position for herself.

  "Now let me tell you, citizens!" The sentence echoed with drama. She giggled and thought, I really like that. I sound so different.

  She then made her face serious and began again, aware of her posture as she stood soldier straight.

  "Now let me tell you—you're going to hate this—but there will be no competitive sports. I know, I know, you like sports, but they have to stop."

  She described the activities that would replace sports and pointed out a mountain range on the map. "See this mountain? It's green. It's green all the time because rain comes every three days. The flowers will die, but just for a couple of days; then they'll grow back. Yes, this is the mountain. No cars will go there because there won't be cars and no one will get parking tickets and stuff. We will walk—no, trek. We will trek up the mountain and right here—the place I'm touching on the picture—there's going to be a slide. You can slide down the mountain if you want."

  Rebecca licked her lips. There was so much to say.

  "You can slide down and go home. Everyone will have a home, and the dogs and cats will be happy. You will also get chickens to lay as many eggs as you want, and each house will come with two cows. It's going to be nice. Families will come in fours and no one will get sick. It's easy, really. This is the Ideal City. It will be clean, and there will be no cars—I said this already, I know, I know—but there will be no cars to make people angry, about parking tickets and stuff—I know, I know, I said that, too. You will walk and you will get into shape, or if you're already in shape, you'll get into better shape. You can climb the mountain or fish or just sit in the parks. The birds will sing different songs, and if you want, you can sing with them, like this."

  Rebecca began a bird call, which had Mrs. Marshall peering up through her reading glasses. For the heck of it Rebecca crowed a cock-a-doodle-doo. She giggled with her hand over her mouth, but quickly reigned in her laughter when Mrs. Marshall shook her head.

  "It's going to be nice," Rebecca announced as she paced in front of the classroom. She became serious, picked up the ruler, tapped her map, and maintained that everyone would be happy—the word happy echoed brightly off the wall. The desks, all in neat rows, all attentive, didn't once interrupt what she had to say about the ideal world.

  D in English

  RYAN GONZALEZ, twelve years old, was feeling under his bed for a sock that would match the brown one on his foot when his mothers angry voice reached his ears. "Ryan," she barked, "how could you get a D in English? No one born in this country gets a D in English!"

  He could think of a dozen reasons, the most compelling that he had lost his textbook and the least compelling that the stuff they read in class was boring. His yawns were not big enough to convey his boredom. The poems and stories were sugar-coated lies. What was real was PlayStation 3. That he could get into.

  When his mother's footsteps began pounding down the hallway, Ryan—a magician in such pinches—decided on a quick exit. Since he was already on his knees, he just lay flat on the clothes-littered floor and slid under the bed.

  And just in time.

  His mother pushed open the door and entered, roaring, "Ryan, I am tired of this!" She paused. Ryan imagined that she was sniffing the air like a bloodhound, as if she could pick up his scent. She pulled back the curtains and opened the window, muttering, "It smells in here."

  Ryan placed a hand over his heart, which was beating so hard he was convinced that she could hear it. And did his room really smell?

  His mother stepped across the room and opened one of his drawers. She's snooping, he realized. She's looking to see if I have drugs. He stewed at her lack of trust. He would never do anything to harm his body, and this included his head. In truth, his head was dented in two places from falling out of trees. But he would never take drugs.

  As he waited under the bed, he felt something at his side—it made a crinkly sound he was sure his mother had heard. Any second she would peer under the bed. What then? Smile? Maybe say, "Oh, I was looking for my Game Boy." Or perhaps he could get up, redden his face with anger, and snap, "Why did you come into my room without knocking? Why are you snooping in my drawers?"

  But she didn't seem to have heard the crinkly sound of his hand touching whatever it was. The territory under his bed was a graveyard of lost things, including unwashed socks.

  After his mother left, closing the door softly behind her, Ryan crawled out. He looked down at the object that had nearly given him away: a Snickers candy bar. He wondered how long it had been under the bed. Since Halloween? Halloween the year before? It didn't matter. He tore the wrapper open with his teeth and took a healthy bite. The candy was old, but the flavor sweetened the moment.

  Ryan checked to see if his mother had taken anything from his drawer. He stopped the laborious chewing of the old candy bar, touched by what he discovered. His mother had rolled his white gym socks and underwear into tidy balls. He admonished himself for thinking that his mother was a snoop.

  Still, Ryan figured he'd better get out of the house before he got into trouble that Saturday morning. He located a sock for his bare foot, a blue one that contrasted with the brown one. He slipped into shoes and a Fresno State hoodie. He opened his bedroom door and, Ninj alike, peeked out before he hurried down the hallway. His mother, he judged from the noise in the kitchen, was loading the dishwasher.

  Out the front door and down the steps, he hurdled over the rosebushes, dislodging a few petals. He looked back. Would his mother be angrier that he had ruined a beautiful red rose or that he had chiseled a D in English into his academic record? But he didn't have time for this debate. He scurried away, the spring air rushing about his ears and combing his hair into odd angles.

  Where should I go? he asked himself. He thought of his friend Freddie Fernandez, but remembered that Freddie was sentenced to wash all three of his family's beat-up cars, plus mow the lawn, and who knew what else. Like Ryan, Freddie had gotten a D in English—and worse, a D in Spanish. His Mexican parents could not understand how their son, born in that south-of-the-border country, could do so poorly at his own language.

  Ryan thought, I know. I'll go down to the lot. The lot was where he, Freddie, and countless others hung out. It was a weedy patch of ground where they played soccer in the fall and baseball from March until the start of school in September. It was a place where he had witnessed a boy his own age kiss a girl right on the lips!

  But when he got there, he discovered two boys hunkered over what appeared to be a motor. They were trying to pry it open with Popsicle sticks. To Ryan they resembled chimps poking sticks down ant holes.

  "What are you chimps doing?" Ryan asked.

  The two gazed up. Their hands were black from motor oil, and the corners of their mouths were black, too, from the licorice whips they had been eating.

  "We found this thing," one explained. "The copper is like gold."

  "Like gold," Ryan repeated. He didn't know much about electrical gizmos but imagined that the spool of copper made the small motor run by magnetic force or something—or was it that the copper cooled the motor? "What are you going to do with it?"

  "Sell it," the second kid said with a snarl.

  "And who's going to buy it?"

  "Who's going to buy it?" the first kid repeated as he stood up. "The people who buy gold."

  Ryan left the vacant lot thinking that those kids were even more vacant. Was he ever that dumb? He pushed his hands into his pockets and searched for money—he needed fifty cents for a soda from the vending machine outside Safeway. He could only locate a quarter and two dimes.

  He began his trek to Safeway, hoping he could find five more cents on the way. He hadn't gotten very far when he had to hide behind a car. H
e'd spotted Travis Clark, a bully from school. There was no telling if Travis might jam him up for money or push him around just because it was something to do.

  As Ryan waited behind the car, he searched the ground around him for a nickel. But he stiffened as a gravelly voice bellowed, "Get away from my car." Ryan looked in the direction of a small house—or did the house just look really small because the man on the porch was exceptionally large? The man, in his own Fresno State hoodie, grinned meanly at Ryan.

  Yikes, Ryan thought. The guy had anvils for arms, and his neck was as thick as the motor the two fool boys had been trying to pry open. His grin spread and revealed a coppery grill.

  "I was just—" began Ryan.

  The man told him to shut up and get away from his car. Ryan didn't have to be told again. In an impromptu disguise he pulled up his hood and ran away with his head down, aware that he had left his fingerprints behind on the fender. Would the man call the police? No, Ryan felt that this guy was the type to settle matters on his own.

  "It's Travis's fault," he muttered. "If he hadn't shown up, that guy wouldn't be growling at me." But he knew the blame was weak. He was just lurking behind a car, and the owner had resorted to threats. Boys his age responded to threats.

  Ryan jogged until he was finally in front of Safeway, a touchstone of safety. He caught his breath and brought out the forty-five cents. He pounded on the vending machine, hoping it might burp a nickel or—this had happened before—a free soda. But the machine gave up nothing. His pounding just started the motor.

  "Stupid machine," Ryan muttered. When he turned, he saw his mother exiting the store with two bags in her arms, struggling to keep the bags from slipping. He considered running over to help her, but he played it safe and lowered himself behind a car. He couldn't risk the public humiliation of his mother bawling him out about the D in English.