Flor and Miranda Steal the Show

by Jennifer Torres

  “Come on, you guys. Play with me.”

  Ronnie looked at the floor. Junior rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Miranda, we don’t have time for—” Dad started to say.

  “Go ahead,” Mom interrupted. “I want to hear it.”

  Junior and Ronnie looked at each other.

  “Come on,” I said again.

  Ronnie started humming, so quietly I could barely hear her. Junior took a spoon from the sink and drummed it against the countertop. I closed my eyes and sang.

  We got through a verse before Ronnie went quiet and Junior stopped tapping. “That’s about it,” he said, his voice like a candle flame that flickered and flickered until it was finally out. “The rest of it is… just… sort of… like that.”

  Mom clapped.

  “Lalo,” she said when Dad did not.

  He sucked a big breath in through his teeth and blew it out through his nose. “It’s nice, Miranda. You kids did a nice job. But this is not main-stage material. Not tonight. You’ll sing the song the right way.” He pressed his palms together. “Verónica and Junior? Go. Practice. Now.” He shooed them off. “Miranda, make some tea. And enough talking. You need to rest your voice.”

  He opened the cupboard and took out a coffee mug and the box of Lipton.

  “The right way?”

  Dad paused, staring a few seconds into the still-open cupboard before answering me.

  “Yes, Miranda, the way I taught you.” He closed the cupboard. Bam. Like he was closing the discussion too.

  But I couldn’t let him. We had worked on that song most of the summer. I was saving it for just the right time, and this was it. I knew it was. This would work.

  “We already sang it that way,” I said. “We always sing it that way. Your way. Why can’t we sing it my way for once? This is my chance, after all.”

  Ronnie and Junior crept backward, but they couldn’t escape.

  And even though I knew I should let it go, I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “We have to dress your way, play your way. Maybe you should just sing it yourself.”

  “Enough!” Dad slapped his hands against the counter, so hard I felt the sting in my own fingers. “After everything we’ve given up, after how far we’ve come, after everything we’ve planned…”

  Mom stepped between us. “Miranda, go outside. Take a walk.”

  “She needs to prepare,” Dad said, his voice lower again. So low it was almost a whisper.

  “She needs a walk.” Mom was practically pushing me out the door.

  Flor

  (1:10 P.M.)

  With one hand still holding tight to the kettle corn bag and the other balled into an angry fist, fingernails digging into my palms, I marched through the midway and back to the petting zoo. I had to force my legs not to run. I did not want to call attention to myself, not with my cheeks still so hot. But I couldn’t help feeling like, if I didn’t get back there quickly, Rancho Maldonado would be shut down and boarded up before I could save it. Because the thing of it was, I had noticed our lines getting shorter, the crowds getting thinner all summer. What I hadn’t realized was that Mr. Barsetti had noticed too.

  Why not cut the petting zoo? Just thinking about it made my eyes sting. And I could not believe I had wasted every lunch hour since Bakersfield watching Monstrous Miranda and the Rotten Reyes family getting ready to bump us off the carnival lineup.

  It did not matter that she didn’t mean to, or that she probably didn’t know the petting zoo even existed. Depending on how she sang tonight—and since I had wasted every lunch hour watching her, I knew exactly how she’d sing—Miranda could be the final straw, the reason Rancho Maldonado closed for good. And that would make one more reason for Mamá to take me home and send me back to regular school. I sped up. Normally it took around ten minutes to walk halfway across the fairgrounds, from Rancho Maldonado to the side stage. That afternoon, I got there in five.

  “Slow down. Where’s the fire? You too busy to even say hello anymore?”

  I had just walked past the frozen lemonade stand. It was screaming yellow and shaped like an enormous lemon. Not the sort of thing you just walked past, unless of course, you happened to walk past it almost every single day. Ms. Alverson was leaning out the window.

  “Sorry, I was just trying to get to the zoo. I’m running a little late. Told Papá I’d be right back.”

  “The zoo’s not going anywhere,” she said. “Hold up a minute.”

  I hoped it wasn’t going anywhere. But after what I’d heard at the side stage, I couldn’t be sure. Ms. Alverson helped the next customers in line. It was a dad and two kids, and each of them carried one of those handheld water-spritzing fans you could buy at a carnival concession stand for eight or ten dollars—or, like, two bucks anywhere else. But they must have thought it was worth the price. When you’re sweaty, you’re sweaty, I guess.

  The kids were already holding corn dogs and barbecue turkey drumsticks bigger than their arms. I didn’t know how they were going to juggle the lemonades too, but somehow, they managed, sort of hugging the frosty cups against their sides as they shambled toward a picnic table.

  After Ms. Alverson called out after them to have a nice day, she told Lexanne to come and watch the stand for a couple of minutes. Lexanne had been stretched out on a beach towel, studying the Diseases of the Teeth and Gums book we all pitched in to buy her last May when she earned her GED. She was leaving for college in three weeks and wanted to become a dentist someday. Ms. Alverson tossed her an apron, then met me outside, carrying two large frozen lemonades.

  She wiped her forehead on her sleeve. “What I need is one of those mini water fans everyone’s walking around with. Here. Take these.”

  Two weeks earlier, right after the Dry Bean Festival in Tracy, Mamá had said good-bye and taken the bus over to Stockton. My Tía Patty had a house there and found her a job. A good one at a doctor’s office. But before she left, Mamá made Ms. Alverson promise to look out for Papá and me.

  And since then, Ms. Alverson didn’t seem to think she was keeping her word unless she was filling us up with frozen lemonade.

  “You look like you could use something cool to drink, all red in the face like that. And goodness knows, your father hasn’t taken a break all morning. He takes better care of those animals than he does himself.”

  She was right about that.

  We didn’t always have the petting zoo, but we’d had animals since forever. We used to live on a little farm out in the country, with cherry trees and chickens and goats and rabbits. The Ranch, we called it. Papá invited my kindergarten class out for a visit once, to see the animals and feed them. Everyone had such a good time that when the first-grade teachers heard about it, they asked to bring their classes too. After a while, pretty much every school in the city was calling to schedule a field trip. Papá didn’t mind, though. He loved telling kids about how one pound of sheep’s wool can make ten miles of yarn. Or how chickens can fly, just not very far and not very high.

  I didn’t mind either. On farm days, no one ever said a word about my jacket with sleeves that were too short, or about the chicken feathers stuck to my backpack. Everyone looked at Papá like he was in charge and he had all the answers.

  Then, one weekend, a man in a suit and cowboy hat showed up. He’d heard about the Ranch from his niece, he said, and he wondered, had Papá ever considered taking the animals out on the road?

  “You’d be surprised how many kids out there don’t know where eggs come from, never milked a cow before.”

  “We don’t have a cow,” Papá said.

  “My point is,” the man persisted, “a wholesome, back-to-basics act like this would be a big hit on the carnival circuit. We’d pay you, of course. Why don’t you come along with us for the summer, see how it goes?”

  Papá said thanks but no. He wasn’t sure how the animals—not to mention Mamá and me—would take to it, all that traveling. The Ranch was staying put.

  So the ma
n said good-bye. He left a business card, just in case Papá ever changed his mind: Mr. Albert Barsetti, Barsetti & Son All-American Extravaganzas. There was a picture of a Ferris wheel on the back side.

  But it turned out the Ranch wasn’t staying put after all. See, the land wasn’t actually ours, we just rented it. And about a year after Mr. Barsetti came to visit, the owner told us he needed the property back. He paid us for the cherry orchard, but the animals had to go. Only, without the barn and without a pasture, we weren’t sure where.

  “We could sell them,” Mamá said one night at dinner, pushing green beans around her plate with the edge of a spoon. “We might have to.”

  But I wasn’t ready, and neither was Papá. He dug that business card out of his wallet and called up Mr. Barsetti. We spent some of our savings, plus the cherry tree money, on a trailer for the animals and an RV for us, and a month later, Rancho Maldonado Petting Zoo made its debut at the Calaveras County Fair.

  We only planned to stay with the carnival for the summer, just long enough to find a new house on another big piece of land. But it turned out things weren’t so bad on the circuit. We got to see a new city every weekend, the animals seemed to like all the attention, and there were even other kids around. Nine of us altogether. So when summer ended, instead of starting fourth grade, I started road-schooling with Mikey and Maria Bean. Mikey was my age, and Maria was three years younger. Their dad worked rides and games, and their mom set up a little classroom next to Mr. Barsetti’s office where we all went for lessons Thursday through Monday, while the rest of the adults were working. Tuesday and Wednesday were usually traveling days, but Mrs. Bean always made sure we had a reading assignment to work on. We got summers off, just like we would have if we didn’t live on the road.

  “Looks like your dad has a little crowd over there,” Ms. Alverson said, pointing to the zoo. Before turning around, I shut my eyes and wished that when I opened them, Rancho Maldonado would be packed. I wished for a long line of people, all waiting to pet the goats or feed the sheep. There were lines everywhere else, after all. Lines to buy sausage and peppers, lines to speed down a slide on a burlap sack, lines to throw dull darts at a wall of balloons that almost never popped.

  I looked.

  When Ms. Alverson said “little,” she must have meant small. As in short. Besides Maria—who didn’t count because she was always hanging around and wasn’t a paying customer, anyway—the only “crowd” at Rancho Maldonado was twin toddlers and their grinning parents. Papá watched the boys waddle through the wood shavings, arms stretched out in front of them like drooly zombies, while their parents stood back and took pictures. Mikey told me that at some carnivals they charged for pictures with the animals, and he thought we could build a photo booth and start a business, him and me. We wouldn’t have to charge too much—even a little bit more money would help. Papá would never agree to it, though.

  “Your papá has a generous heart,” Mamá said once as we watched him give our old sleeping bag away to one of the newer workers who was sleeping in a tent with just a thin blanket. She had sounded a little sad when she said it, though, and I didn’t understand why, since I always thought generous was a good thing to be.

  But since she’d left, I was beginning to see how, when it came to running a business, Papá’s generous heart sometimes got in the way of his head.

  “San Joaquin County next week,” Ms. Alverson said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Yeah.”

  “Excited to see your mom?”

  I sighed.

  Mamá had wanted to take me with her. She said it was time for me to live in the real world again, to go back to school. To start sixth grade.

  But Papá was going to stay with the carnival—Tía Patty might have found Mamá a job, but she had not found a new home for the animals—and I didn’t want to leave either.

  “You can stay for the summer,” Mamá had compromised.

  “Forever.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I thought if I could convince them Papá needed my help running the zoo, she might change her mind. But there was no way Mamá would let me stay if she knew Rancho Maldonado was in danger of closing.

  I watched Papá shake hands with the toddlers’ parents. Then he patted each boy’s strawberry-blond head.

  “How’s she getting along with your aunt?”

  “Huh?” I had not been paying attention.

  “Your mom,” Ms. Alverson said. “How’s she doing? She must miss you two.”

  “Oh, she’s fine, I guess.” She was probably fine, but I had only talked to her twice since she left. She usually called on her lunch break, which just happened to be at the same time as my daily trip to the Family Side Stage. All she wanted to talk about was school and how much I would love going back. But every time she mentioned it, all I could think about was sitting alone in that crowded cafeteria, or listening to giggly whispers fly behind me in class, never being sure what they were saying exactly, but knowing it was about me just the same.

  Inside the animal pen, Papá handed each of the twin boys a brown paper bag full of oats and seeds.

  For free.

  I ground my teeth. It was like he didn’t even care whether Rancho Maldonado survived. Like no one ever told him we were supposed to be running a business. Mamá had tried, but with her gone, it was all up to me.

  “Sorry, Ms. Alverson, I have to go. Thanks for the lemonade.”

  Each bag of animal feed cost one dollar. Said so right on the sign. People loved letting the animals eat out of their hands, kids especially. It was one of the only reasons they came at all. And Papá was just giving it away.

  I jogged up to the wood-and-wire fencing that surrounded the zoo and forced the words out: “That’ll be two dollars.” My voice sounded small and shaky. No one even heard me. So I cleared my throat and tried again. “The feed costs a dollar a bag. So that’s two dollars… please.”

  “Oh!” The mom looked up, all startled and embarrassed, and reached into her pocket. Her cheeks were as pink as mine felt. “Of course, just let me…”

  Papá stared at me openmouthed like I had just told her she needed to buy the rooster a tennis racket or something.

  “No, no,” he said, touching the woman on the elbow. “It’s on me. I insist. You just enjoy this time with your boys. It goes by so fast.”

  “But, Papá.”

  “Flor, if we can’t afford a little kindness, it isn’t worth staying in business.”

  It was only two dollars. But two dollars is two dollars, you know? And sure, Ms. Alverson had just given us free lemonade. But that was different. She was looking out for us, and so was I—only, Papá was making it so difficult.

  “Fine. Enjoy.” I wrenched my mouth into a smile and set the lemonades on the ticket counter. “Maria, you can have mine.”

  “Thanks!” she chirped.

  “And from now on,” I whispered into her ear, “you’re in charge of selling the oats.” Then I went around back to the shed behind the petting zoo. It was where we stacked the feed and hay, and where we took the animals to rest when they needed a break from people. It was also where we kept Betabel.

  Her name meant sugar beet, after the harvest where Mamá and Papá first met. But she wasn’t very sweet.

  “Where are you, Betabel? Come out.” She did not come.

  “Betabel? Come on, pretty piggy.” Nothing. Not a sound. I shook the bag of kettle corn. “I have treats.”

  That did it. Betabel snuffled and swaggered out from a shady corner of the shed. I shook a handful of popcorn into my hand and held it out for her to sniff.

  She wagged her tail and lifted her snout in the air. Then I closed my fist and took my hand away. “Not so fast.”

  We had gotten Betabel a year before at the county fair in Marin. This guy walked into the petting zoo with her and took Papá aside. He told us he hadn’t known she’d grow so big, that he couldn’t keep her in his apartment anymore, and could we take her? Then he of
fered us a bunch of money.

  Papá said to put the money away and of course we could help. Mamá rubbed her temples and bit her lip.

  “But Mario. A pig?”

  He put his hands on his hips and smiled to himself. “The kids will like to play with a pig, ¿que no?”

  “¡Que sí!” I answered for him, dropping to my knees to scratch behind the pig’s ears. “They will love it.”

  But it turned out Betabel didn’t want to have anything to do with kids. Or anyone else, really, except for Papá and me.

  Fortunately, Papá had found a potbellied pig farm near Dinuba, and the owner was supposed to come out and take a look at her, to see if he could help us.

  For now, she was strictly backstage only.

  But at least you always knew where you stood with Betabel. You never had to worry she was only pretending to like you, that she’d be nice to you one minute and bite you when your back was turned. You could respect a pig like that.

  And, anyway, I had a feeling Betabel had untapped potential.

  See, back in Turlock, in between fairs, Papá and I went to check out another carnival, one run by Sierra Vista Amusements, Barsetti’s only real rival. Sierra Vista had this skateboarding pug named Puccini, and people would stand in line for an hour to see him. Three times a day. In 102-degree heat. And when the show was over, they stood in line all over again to buy T-shirts and sun visors and water bottles and key chains, all with a picture of Puccini on them.

  It gave me an idea. Betabel might not have been sweet, but she was smart. Smarter than some dog, anyway. I had been trying to train her to ride a skateboard ever since then, and she was finally making progress.

  “It’s now or never,” I told her. “It’s all up to us. Pig versus pop star.”

  I rolled the skateboard out of the shed. Mikey had given it to me after he got a new one at the flea market. The deck was pretty banged up, and one of the wheels was loose, but that didn’t matter, not for practice. I was saving up the nickels and dimes I found near the trash bins—people were always throwing away their loose change by accident—to buy something nicer for when Betabel was ready for an audience.