“Niño,” Abuela chides me, playfully smacking me on the back of the head.
“I think I’m going to lie down for a bit,” Mom says, her cheeks still flushed.
I help her up the stairs, her weight leaning on me more with each step. She’s always been the strong one, the one rubbing my back when I cry about Dad’s missing something at school or home, when I worry about what I’ve seen on the news. Holding her up as she weakens with each stair, I feel a weight I’m not used to carrying.
As I tuck her under the covers of her bed, I kiss her on the cheek. “He’ll be okay, Mom.”
She doesn’t answer and rolls away from me. Her long sigh fills the room as she deflates under the blanket.
I put my hand on her shoulder and give it a light squeeze.
“People forget the middle,” I say quietly, knowing my mom is barely listening. “There are always parades when he leaves and parties when he comes back. But nobody talks about the middle.”
Pulling the comforter up over her shoulder, I sigh. “Nobody talks about this.”
I trudge down the stairs, back into the kitchen.
Abuela sits at the table, a café con leche in her hand. “How is she?” Abuela asks.
I open my mouth to answer, but the words are blocked in my throat by years of Dad’s absence. Missed school plays, science fairs, family dinners, Christmases, and birthdays. But there’s always the hope that he’ll be here for the next one. Yes, don’t worry, he’ll be here next time.
Today reminds me that there’s always a chance there won’t be a next time.
And this thought makes my shoulders sink as I blink back tears.
Abuela holds out her arms, and I let her wrap me in a field of daisies, my sobs flooding their petals.
CHAPTER 14
I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING for Dad, so far away. But I can help Abuela. I can make the people in town understand that she doesn’t have anything to do with the disappearing animals. And I can keep the witch from doing any more damage.
I texted Talib and Maria Carmen, telling them we needed to put our woods search on hold until Monday. Mom, Abuela, and I spent the weekend cocooned in blankets on the couch, bingeing telenovelas and leftover ham croquetas as I flipped through Dad’s animal encyclopedia. Abuela and Mom argued over whether we should watch Amor Peligroso, Amor Baboso, or Amor Amoroso de los Amores. I just buried my head in Abuela’s shoulder and inhaled her lavender perfume.
At least Abuela didn’t go into the woods. Hopefully that’s enough for the snake to leave us alone.
I take the route through town to get to school instead of walking through the woods. Running into a murderous snake or wolverine would probably make me late for class.
Maria Carmen, Talib, and I huddle together in the back of the auditorium, waiting for Principal Jelani to calm down the hurricane of students so his assembly on “Understanding Your Changing Body” can begin.
“So what’s our pick today?” Maria Carmen asks, holding a stack of trivia cards in her hand. “Prepare for our upcoming competition or research the evil witch terrorizing the town?”
Talib slouches in his seat. “Decisions, decisions.”
“Witch. Definitely witch,” I say a little too quickly. Maria Carmen and Talib look at me. I don’t want to tell them about my scaly nighttime visitor. There’s no way I can say what went on without revealing my big secret. “I, uh, think fighting off impending doom beats winning a Texas regional quiz competition.”
“But think of the honor. The glory!” Talib jokes.
“Think of not getting ripped to shreds by a wolverine,” Maria Carmen retorts.
“Oh, yeah. That. So where do we start?”
Nervous, I drum my fingers on my armrest. “I actually have a couple of clues.”
Maria Carmen shoves the trivia cards into her backpack. “What?”
Swallowing hard, I take a deep breath. “After our competition the other day, I saw Miss Humala talking to a huge snake backstage in the auditorium. I think she might have something to do with the wolverine-snake witch.”
Talib’s mouth drops open. “She was talking to a snake? Just like a person?”
“Yeah, it happens, I guess,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. I don’t want to tell them I could hear the snake say, “Don’t stop me,” as she slithered out of the auditorium. “And then there’s Brandon.”
“What? He’s actually the witch? That would make sense,” Talib says, scanning the auditorium for signs of our favorite camo-wearing sixth grader.
“No. After I left your house”—I point to Maria Carmen—“I ran into Brandon in the woods. Or, rather, he ran into me. Hard. He said the witch was making him set the traps.”
Maria Carmen chews her bottom lip. “So when we dismantled Brandon’s traps…”
“There’s a chance we ticked off a psychotic witch who can slash our throats as a wolverine and wring us out like a meat towel as a snake.”
Talib puts his head in his hands. “Fantastic.”
“So where do we go from here?” Maria Carmen asks.
“I think we should go to Miss Humala’s classroom and do some investigating,” I tell them. I don’t tell them that I actually plan to interrogate Milla, the class chinchilla.
Baby steps.
“Okay, but I’m not sure what you think you’ll find,” Maria Carmen says.
Talib keeps an eye out, checking for when Miss Humala abandons her post at the side of the auditorium. He nudges me and points toward the back door. Miss Humala clicks down the aisle in her high heels, her lips pressed together, eyes narrowed into slits. She looks like she’s about to skin a baby seal and eat it for lunch. We see her put a firm hand on Brandon’s shoulder to hiss something into his ear.
The three of us sneak out of the auditorium and make our way to Miss Humala’s classroom. We scan the room filled with cat skeletons and jars of frogs preserved in formaldehyde. Maria Carmen makes her way to Miss Humala’s desk. Talib follows her.
I head straight to Milla’s cage. She’s sitting on her hind legs, scratching her belly. I tap my finger on the metal bars. “Hey, Milla.”
Milla stares at me with large black eyes. “You bring me mango slices? Carrot sticks? The kid in charge of feeding me keeps forgetting. Stupid Job of the Week list.”
“No, sorry, buddy,” I whisper. I hope Maria Carmen and Talib are too busy searching Miss Humala’s desk to notice I’m chatting up the class pet.
Milla shakes her head and scratches her long gray tail. “Fine. Guess I’ll just waste away to nothing. Hopefully there’s a ‘dispose of dead chinchilla’ on the Job of the Week list.”
“Hey, I got a question for you,” I tell Milla, pretending to look at the books on the shelf behind her cage. “Does Miss Humala ever have any visitors in here?”
Milla pauses. “Visitors? Why would you want to know about visitors?” She scurries up to the ledge in her cage and buries herself in the fabric hammock strung between two bars.
I move to the cabinets next to the bookcase and whisper, “Any chance you’ve seen her talking to a snake?”
“Find anything over there, Nestor?” I hear Maria Carmen ask behind me.
I open a cabinet, and a waterfall of animal pelts tumbles out. I shriek and jump back, knocking over an empty beaker. I catch it just before it rolls to the floor.
“Just a mild heart attack,” I say. “Keep looking over there.”
Maria Carmen and Talib keep rifling through the drawers in Miss Humala’s desk.
Milla peeks out at me. “You know the snake?”
“We may have been introduced a few nights ago,” I whisper.
Milla’s small hands clutch the fabric hammock. “Be careful. Oh, you must be careful. I’ve seen her talk to the snake, too. Two months ago, it crawled through the window and had a huge argument with Miss Humala. Thought I was going to be a prelunch snack for sure.”
“Really?” I think back to what Maria Carmen and Talib told me about Miss Humala
’s switch from peppermint-sharing teacher to scowling dictator. It must have happened about the same time.
“Yes, that snake is vicious. Stay away from it. Stay out of the woods, whatever you do!”
“Nestor, the assembly is almost over,” Maria Carmen says behind me. “We’ve got to go.”
“Okay,” I tell them. “Did you guys find anything?”
“Only that Miss Humala really loves beef jerky,” Talib says. “There’s a mountain of wrappers in her desk.”
“They’re really old, too,” Maria Carmen says. She lifts a wrapper up to show me. “Some of them are covered in cobwebs. Nasty.”
“That’s from the snake,” Milla says next to me.
“What? What does that have to do with the snake?” I whisper to Milla.
“She’s not just a snake,” Milla squeaks.
Talib closes the drawers in Miss Humala’s desk and says, “Nestor, quit talking to that chinchilla and let’s go.”
If he only knew.
Maria Carmen and Talib straighten the things on Miss Humala’s desk as I put back everything that fell out of the cabinets. I’m shoving the last of the animal pelts onto their shelf when I hear, “What exactly are you doing in my classroom?”
CHAPTER 15
“WHY AREN’T YOU AT THE ASSEMBLY?” Miss Humala’s eyes dart around the classroom. I hope we put everything back in its place.
Maria Carmen steps forward and stammers, “We … we were looking for more animal-trivia cards to study.”
“Why would you skip an assembly to get trivia cards?” Miss Humala narrows her eyes at us. I can hear Talib swallow hard next to me.
I clear my throat. “It was my fault, Miss Humala. I made them come with me. I don’t like school assemblies.”
Miss Humala puts her hands on her hips. “Why on earth not?”
Scuffing my feet on the floor, I shove my hands into my pockets. “During my dad’s second deployment, I started watching all these videos of surprise military reunions on YouTube. You know the ones? The dad surprising his family at a football game, the mom sneaking up on her kids in the middle of the cafeteria. My mom made me quit watching them because every day I’d come home from school upset my dad hadn’t surprised me that day.”
“Really?” Talib asks next to me.
Maria Carmen gives him a hard stare, and he purses his lips.
“Anyway, I was certain my dad was going to show up for some big reunion in front of the entire school any time we had an assembly or basketball game or play. It made me so nervous I’d spend all day throwing up in the bathroom. I talked Maria Carmen and Talib into coming in here with me so I wouldn’t have to sit through the assembly. I didn’t feel like barfing all day.”
Miss Humala’s hard expression softens, and she sighs. “Well, all right. But you really shouldn’t be in here unsupervised.”
We nod enthusiastically and head for the door.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Miss Humala asks behind us.
“What?” Maria Carmen spins around, smacking Talib and me with her braids.
“The trivia cards. Did you find them?” Miss Humala asks, walking over to the filing cabinet behind her desk.
“Oh, no. We didn’t.”
Miss Humala opens the top drawer of the cabinet and pulls out a stack of cards from a folder. She holds them out to me, and I move to take them, hoping she can’t see my hand shaking.
“These cards are advanced, but I think you all can handle them,” Miss Humala says. She doesn’t let go of the cards despite my trying to take them. She leans in closer and whispers, “I’d strongly advise you against wandering alone where you shouldn’t.”
My breath catches in my throat, and I cough. Miss Humala releases the cards from her red talons, and I slip them into my pocket.
“Thanks,” I mumble as we rush out the door.
“I think I need to go home and change my shorts,” Talib says as we walk down the hallway to our next class.
As we sit later in history class, ignoring Mr. Gearhart as he drones on about the Battle of San Jacinto, Maria Carmen leans in close to me. “Was that true? What you told Miss Humala?”
I continue filling in the scales of the snake I’m drawing in my sketchbook, making sure to get just the right shade of “I will pop your eyeballs out in your sleep.”
“Yeah, it is.”
Talib nudges me. “I always thought those reunion videos were cool. I never figured they’d make someone sad.”
I shrug. “They are cool, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that when I was little, I never knew if my mom and I were going to a baseball game or going to see Dad. Going out for ice cream or going to see Dad.”
“Going to get a root canal. Going to see your dad,” Talib offers.
“Exactly.”
“That would drive me nuts,” Maria Carmen says.
Mr. Gearhart clears his throat from the front of the classroom, and we hunch over our desks, pretending to scribble notes.
The bell mercifully rings, and we gather our things.
“Well, I guess we didn’t figure out anything about the witch,” Maria Carmen says. “Miss Humala’s classroom was a bust.”
“Other than giving me an ulcer,” Talib says.
“I still think she has something to do with it,” I say, walking down the hall. I’m not sure how to tell them that Milla confessed to Miss Humala’s conversations with a snake.
Passing Miss Humala’s classroom, I peek inside and spot her sitting behind her desk at the front of the room. Her head is lowered, and she’s staring at the floor next to her.
“Hold up,” I whisper to Talib and Maria Carmen. They stand behind me as I peer around the doorframe. “I think she’s talking to someone.”
I look on the floor next to her desk and spot a coil of brown scales. “Or something,” I add.
“What’s she saying?” Talib whispers behind me.
I wave him to be quiet and listen in.
“I came here to get away from you. To get away from what you did last time. Why’d you have to follow me?” Miss Humala whispers.
There’s a loud thud on the side of her desk. I squint and see a tail slither around Miss Humala’s ankle.
“You have to be more careful. You’re just causing too many problems,” Miss Humala says to the snake. “They’re going to find out about you, Mother.”
Mother?
CHAPTER 16
I’VE TRACED OVER DEAR DAD so many times on the page of my sketchbook I’ve punched my pencil through the words. Recent events in New Haven definitely don’t fit Mom’s Always Be Positive, Always Be Happy rule.
I give it my best shot.
Dear Dad,
We won our first trivia club match! Maria Carmen, Talib, and I are studying super-hard animal facts so we can really crush it next time. I’m definitely going to stump you now. For example …
This amphibian gives birth to fully formed offspring … through its mouth!
Yeah, Talib threw up after learning this one.
I found some Hot Wheels in the back of my closet last week. One of them was black, but someone had taken red nail polish and written “RAL” on both sides. You need to work on your paint-job skills, Dad. I may have added some flames to the top of it, but they’re purple because that’s the only nail polish color Abuela has. It still looks good.
Love you. Stay safe.
Nestor
Trivia club. My dad’s old toys.
Always Be Positive. Always Be Happy.
Someday I might figure out how to let Dad know what really goes on with me while he’s far away. How to let him still be Dad instead of just a pen pal.
“You know, they have this amazing invention called email that lets you send messages instantly across the world,” Talib tells me, raising an eyebrow and pointing to my letter. He leans in closer and scans my words. “Hey. I did not throw up.”
“You turned as green as the Darwin’s frog from the video we were watching.�
��
“Well, yeah. But, c’mon, man. Babies. Out of its mouth.” Talib shudders.
Maria Carmen clears her throat and taps her fork on the cafeteria table. We’re ignoring the limp spaghetti and shriveled boiled carrots on our trays.
I really need to start bringing my lunch.
“If it’s not too much trouble, guys, do you think we should discuss the pesky little problem of the witch in the woods and the fact that it’s Miss Humala’s mom?” she asks, tossing her braids behind her shoulders.
“And that other little, tiny side note of our friend Brandon working for the witch,” I add.
Talib sighs, poking a mushy carrot with his fork. “Sixth grade. What a breeze.”
I look over at the corner of the cafeteria and spy Brandon sitting by himself, stabbing his spaghetti noodles with more enthusiasm than makes me comfortable.
“Why do I think he wishes those were live squirrels on his tray?” I ask.
Maria Carmen shakes her head. “So do you think the witch, or Miss Humala’s mom, or whoever she is, asked him to do anything else?”
I push around the noodles on my tray until they resemble a snake. “There’s only one way to find out.”
Talib lowers his forehead onto the sticky cafeteria table. “Please don’t say go in the woods. Please don’t say go in the woods.”
I slap Talib on the back. “We have to go in the woods.”
“I hate my life.”
* * *
Cuervito soars above us as we meander down the trail through the woods, swooping in close and making us duck.
“What’cha doin’? Huh?” he squawks as he dive-bombs my ear.
I swat him away. I want to ask Cuervito if he’s seen anything suspicious in the woods, but Maria Carmen and Talib follow me too closely.
“So what exactly are we looking for?” Maria Carmen asks, kicking a rock down the path.
I shrug. “I don’t know. More traps?”
A squirrel runs across the path in front of me and asks, “Field trip?”
I shake my head.
The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez Page 9
