A Dash of Trouble

by Anna Meriano

  The cabinet hinge squeaked. Mamá’s head tilted at the sound, and Leo pulled her head back in panic. For three long seconds, everything was quiet. Leo waited for footsteps, or for the cabinet door to open.

  Instead, Mamá started speaking Spanish again. Leo peeked through the crack, her heart still pounding.

  The dough in the center of the table was growing.

  Like a soft beige balloon, it expanded to twice its size, then three times, and then kept going until it stretched from one end of the table to the other. The air smelled of flour, cinnamon, vanilla, the mystery smell, and the candles, and Leo even thought she could smell Tía Paloma’s funny organic soap and Mamá’s perfume. The darkness all around her stopped pressing Leo into a nervous ball. Her shoulders, cramped from hunching over, relaxed; her pulse slowed. She wiggled her toes inside her striped socks and smiled.

  Alma giggled, and Belén followed, and Tía Paloma’s high laughter rang out over Isabel’s soft chuckle. Even Marisol cracked a smile.

  “Shh . . . , ” Mamá scolded, but there was a smile in her voice. “Tranquila, girls. And here, take these.” She handed Alma and Belén each a cardboard spool of ribbon—pink for Alma, blue for Belén. Marisol, Isabel, and Tía Paloma pulled the sides of the dough balloon so that its top lay flat, and Mamá started speaking Spanish again.

  Alma and Belén wrapped their ribbons around and through the dough, weaving them together in a pattern that Leo couldn’t see. When the spools emptied, Isabel, Marisol, Tía Paloma, and Mamá reached out and folded the dough in on itself from both sides, and then folded the new corners in and in until the dough was just a bun-sized lump once again. Leo couldn’t see the ribbons anymore.

  Mamá gave one more speech in Spanish about family, and then, as quickly as they had started, she and Tía Paloma blew out all the candles. The kitchen lights came back on, hurting Leo’s eyes with their harsh brightness. The radio moaned about love.

  Mamá gathered up the candles into her shopping bag, folded the quilt, and plopped the dough lump straight into the trash can.

  “Okay,” she said, dusting her hands. “Now that the initiation is all taken care of, start the ovens, please, Palomita. Marisol, your sister will need help filling the conos. Alma, Belén, change quickly so you can start on the pan de muerto glaze. And put your heart into it, please. We have lots of work to do!”

  In the bustle that followed, the strange tingly smell slipped away, replaced by the normal bakery smells. Everyone prepared for tomorrow’s festival as though nothing unusual had taken place. With the lights back on, Leo was tempted to let the normalness wrap around her like a blanket and shut out her questions.

  But one word from Mamá’s speech Leo couldn’t stop thinking about. The word she hadn’t recognized before. “Magia.”

  Magic.

  CHAPTER 4

  SUGAR AND STOMPING

  Sneaking out of the busy bakery proved much harder than sneaking into the empty one. Leo found her opportunity after two hours scrunched in the cabinet, sneezy and nervous. She darted out the back door while her family crowded in the front of the store to perfect the window display. She snuck back down Main Street and hid in the bushes outside school until she could slip into the bus line.

  “Leo!” Caroline found her in their seat at the back of the bus. “What happened? Tell me everything.” She scooted into the seat and whispered, “I told Ms. Wood you ate fourteen cookies and had to use the bathroom. She was so busy and stressed out that she just nodded.” Caroline’s cheeks flushed pink as she held out an orange plastic bag filled with fun-sized candies. “I grabbed some extra for you. Can’t go home without candy from the Halloween party.”

  “Thanks.” Leo took the bag. She wanted to tell Caroline what she had seen in the bakery, but she didn’t know where to begin. She didn’t even know what she had seen. “I didn’t get caught by Mamá or my sisters or aunt.”

  “That’s good.” Caroline held out a hand for Leo to high five.

  Leo’s hand stayed limp at her side.

  “You okay?”

  “Does . . . your family lie to you?”

  Caroline didn’t answer right away. “My dad tries to be honest, but I think he pretends like everything is okay sometimes. He hides stuff if he thinks it’ll be hard for me. Like when . . .” She trailed off.

  Leo felt guilty. Her problem wasn’t nearly as big as Caroline’s mom dying. “It’s just . . . I found out something I’m not supposed to know.”

  Caroline raised her eyebrows, her hazel eyes worried. “You should be honest with them,” she said. “They love you.” She shrugged, then smiled. “I bet Isabel would know what to do.”

  Caroline was right. Maybe she should talk to Isabel. Or maybe not. “But they think I’m a baby.”

  “So tell them you’re not a baby.”

  The bus brakes squealed as they reached the first stop.

  “Sorry.” Caroline stood up and pulled on her backpack. “I have to go. But you can tell me more about it tomorrow, okay?” One side of her mouth stretched into a smile. “I’ll see you at the festival, Leo.”

  “Bye.” Leo watched Caroline exit the bus. Even though it was nice to talk to her friend, she was relieved to stare out the blurry window for the rest of the ride home.

  She arrived to a silent house, with a scribbled note from Daddy on the fridge promising to be back soon. “Helping with festival things,” the note read.

  Festival things. Leo crumpled the note and threw it in the trash. Then she stomped down the hall and into her room, her throat tight. She dropped her backpack on the floor and flopped backward onto the bed, careful of her face paint. She lay with her confused thoughts and grumbling stomach (she had missed lunch), trying to make sense of the bread, the candles, the ribbons, the knife—the magic?

  She took the sack of candy that Caroline had given her and unwrapped every single piece, shoving it into her mouth and eating it without thinking, without tasting any of it—even the Junior Mints. She could feel the stickiness of the chocolate mixing with the dried green paint on her face, and the whole thing made her stomach lurch.

  She stood up, her arms and legs full of frustration, and slammed her door so hard it bounced back open. This too annoyed Leo.

  “Wow.” Marisol poked her head into the room from the hallway. “You’re awfully violent today, cucaracha. What happened, the parade got rained out? The costume contest didn’t go your way?”

  Leo was definitely not scared—not even the tiniest bit—but she was startled when her sister appeared. “What are you doing here?”

  Marisol slumped onto the ground by the bed and pulled a bottle of nail polish out of her pocket. “Mamá sent me to check on you.” Her smile twisted into a smirk as she coated the nails of her left hand in bright metallic purple. “And to get me out of everyone’s hair.”

  Leo fumed. “I thought the bakery was super busy today.”

  Marisol blew on her nails and switched hands. “It is. That’s why they didn’t want me around. Best way to get out of work on a busy day is to break a few spice jars and drop a tray of bolillos.”

  Leo didn’t know if Marisol was joking or not, and she didn’t like not knowing. “Marisol,” she said, her voice small, “were you really working in the bakery today?”

  Marisol finished painting her nails, blew on them, and slipped the bottle back into her pocket. She held out her hands, tilted them back and forth, and then reached into another pocket and produced another bottle, of dark-silver polish.

  “Of course. What else would we be doing? What else do we ever do?” She shook and uncapped the bottle and added polka dots to her left-hand nails.

  Leo took a deep breath, feeling her frustration pound in her head. “Where do you get all that new makeup from, anyway? You don’t even get an allowance.”

  She wanted Marisol to get mad or embarrassed and yell back. She wanted a good fight. Instead, Marisol closed the nail polish and gave Leo a crooked smile.

  “What time do y
ou want to go trick-or-treating? Mamá told me to ask you when she should get home.”

  Leo didn’t care if her family stayed at the bakery all night. “I don’t want to go trick-or-treating today,” she snapped. “I’m sick.” She threw herself onto her bed.

  “Too much chocolate today, huh?” Marisol shrugged, tucked the nail polish back into her pocket, and stood up. “Okay, I’ll tell her. Feel better, cucaracha. I’ll hand out extra candy for you.”

  Leo’s rage faded away as she snuggled under her orange-striped blanket that night. Daddy had brought her ginger ale and Mamá had felt her forehead for a temperature. Isabel had sat next to her and urged her to at least walk up and down the block, and Alma and Belén had tried to tempt her out of bed with handfuls of chocolate. Even Marisol stopped by Leo’s room—dressed as an evil queen in silver and purple—to ask if she was feeling better.

  But Leo wasn’t better. What was everyone hiding? And why was Leo the only one left out?

  An angry voice whispered in her head: You’re too little. You wouldn’t be serious enough. Besides, you wouldn’t understand it, anyway. It was all in Spanish.

  Leo scowled at the wall, at her Wizard of Oz poster, and at the imaginary voice. She rolled over in bed so that her other cheek pressed into the pillow. Maybe her family had been doing something religious, like First Holy Communion. Leo had envied each of her older sisters when they had reached second grade and got to walk with their arms uncrossed to the front of the church every week, eat the communion wafer, and sip the wine. But eventually Leo turned seven and got her very own white dress and party, and there was nothing to be jealous of anymore.

  First Communion had never been a secret, though.

  Through the tiny window above her dollhouse, Leo could see the moving lights of the interstate beyond the edge of town and the still lights of the stars, flickering like the candles on the bakery table. Leo loved Rose Hill, but she knew it was an in-between sort of place. The cars on the interstate only stopped in her tiny town while zooming from their last place to their next. Rose Hill wasn’t important enough, or interesting enough, to compete with Corpus Christi or Austin. Rose Hill might seem perfect to Leo, but in a state as big as Texas, little things got overlooked. Forgotten.

  Leo fell asleep staring at the stars.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE DAY OF THE DEAD

  In the morning, the Logroño house spun and hummed like an electric mixer.

  “Wake up, Leonora!” Daddy called from the hallway, sing-songing the syllables of Leo’s name. “I hope you’re feeling better, because I promised your mamá I’d have you all up and out by eight o’clock.”

  Leo jumped out of bed as the Day of the Dead festival beckoned. It was like waking up on your birthday—tired didn’t stand a chance against excited. Even her anger from the night before had vanished with the bright morning sky.

  Mamá must have been up early: at the foot of Leo’s bed, her black skeleton T-shirt sat next to her colorful striped skirt. Leo hopped out of bed, changed out of her pajamas, and skipped toward the bathroom to brush her teeth.

  The phone blared, and the bathroom was full.

  “Hello?” Daddy answered the phone. “Yes, of course. Leo! Can you grab Mamá’s and my aprons from the bedside table? We need to bring them with us.”

  Mamá and Tía Paloma had been on Main Street for hours already. Leo swished the edges of her skirt, then ran to Mamá and Daddy’s bedroom across the hall, where she found the skeleton-decorated aprons not on the bedside table, but hanging over the closet door. She then bounced back to the bathroom, where Marisol and the twins fought for mirror space.

  “Will you do my makeup next?” Leo watched Marisol draw a long black smile across her white-painted cheeks. One of Leo’s favorite parts of Día de los Muertos was seeing all the colorful skulls on drawings, candy, and faces. As the best artist in the family, Marisol painted Leo’s face every year.

  “Do it in the kitchen,” Belén said. “We’ve been waiting.”

  “Hold your horses, all of you,” Marisol grumbled. “I got up early on purpose.”

  “Here, let me braid your hair first.” Isabel put a hand on Leo’s shoulder and pulled her away from the crowded bathroom.

  In the kitchen, Daddy answered another phone call and added a silver serving platter to the table’s growing pile of things Mamá needed. Leo added the aprons next to several folded plastic tablecloths and the good muffin tin.

  Isabel sat Leo down at the table, grabbed a brush from the counter, and pulled out Leo’s ponytail. She smoothed down the frizz at the top of Leo’s head. “Are you feeling better today?”

  Leo felt energized, her fingers and toes wiggly with purpose. She didn’t want to cry or pout anymore. She wanted answers.

  “I feel fine,” Leo said. “I can’t wait to leave already!”

  She didn’t tell Isabel that what she was most excited for was the chance to search the bakery for clues.

  After Isabel dragged the comb through Leo’s hair and braided it into pigtails with bright-green ribbons running through them, and after Marisol painted Leo’s face into a skeleton mask with curlicues where her smile ended and flowers around her eyes, and after Mamá called five more times, they finally left. Daddy and Isabel sat in the front seats of the old pickup, while Marisol and Leo sat on the tiny cushion seats behind them. The twins—who were the last ones out, after intricately decorating each other’s faces in blue and pink face paint—sat in the back of the truck, which Mamá would have hated.

  “Are you ready?” Daddy called. “We’ve got a long drive.”

  “It wouldn’t be so long if you didn’t take the scenic route,” Alma called back, knocking on the window.

  “I’m not driving on the highway with you two back there. Don’t worry—if we do a lot of business today, maybe by this time next year we’ll be walking to the bakery from our brand-new house. Hold tight, everyone!”

  The truck rolled out of the driveway with a grumble and a lurch and a couple of joyous screeches from the twins.

  Main Street had looked nice the day before, quiet and decorated, but today it was transformed. It seemed most of Rose Hill was crammed into the two blocks between Amor y Azúcar Bakery and Ms. Flores’s taquería, some dressed in elaborate skeleton costumes complete with flowers and ruffled clothing, some in their Halloween costumes, and some in regular clothes. Yesenia Flores, a girl from Marisol’s art class, sat outside the restaurant at a table with a long line in front of it, painting skeleton faces onto the kids and adults who had come unprepared. Ms. Flores sold breakfast tacos on the sidewalk, and Daddy bought Leo one of the tinfoil bundles filled with scrambled egg and potato wrapped in a fresh tortilla. Leo could smell tamales cooking inside the restaurant.

  Amor y Azúcar had its own outdoor booth, covered with sugar skulls and pastries and paper flowers. Mamá passed out cookies and rolls at the booth in full skeleton face paint, while Tía Paloma worked inside the bakery, serving customers with larger orders. Between the restaurant and the bakery, more stalls offered shiny skeleton trinkets, aguas frescas and other drinks, snacks, and fairground games.

  “There are my beautiful girls.” Mamá smiled when they reached the booth, her white face paint cracking around her cheeks. “Happy festival, everyone!”

  “I’ll put some more conchas in the oven.” Isabel eyed the empty spaces in the display table. “And maybe more cookies?”

  “Thank you, mija.” Mamá laughed. “Oh, good, the aprons.”

  Daddy slipped his over his head, displaying the neon skeleton printed on the front. Mamá put her apron on over her colorful ruffled dress and ran her hands down the front, leaving little streaks of flour. “Perfect,” she sighed, kissing Daddy’s cheek and reaching to tie the laces around his waist.

  Leo helped Mamá and Daddy lift trays while Alma and Belén spread an orange tablecloth over the booth. Music and laughter echoed down the crowded street, and the smell of sweet bread filled her nose. The Día de los Mue
rtos festival had started, and Leo grinned as wide as a sugar skull.

  “Marisol, I think Tía Paloma could use help with the customers inside,” Mamá suggested. Marisol, her fingers tapping at her phone, walked to the bakery without looking up.

  “I’m good with customers!” Leo turned to follow Marisol.

  “No, ’jita, stay here a minute,” Mamá said. “Alma, Belén, you’re running the tent like we talked about. It’s over behind the altars. Ask me or Tía Paloma if you have any questions, okay? And tell us if you need a break.”

  Leo watched her twin sisters nod and poke each other and giggle like third graders who had just been given hall monitor duty for the first time. For as long as Leo could remember, Tía Paloma had been in charge of the special tent, set up in the back corner of the empty lot in the middle of the block with an old hand-painted banner that simply read Messages—Mensajes $10.

  Letting Alma and Belén run the tent made no sense. Mamá had always said not to bother Tía Paloma when she worked there, and it should be Mamá or Isabel who took over, not the almost-youngest and giggliest sisters. Leo tugged at a strand of hair that was stuck to her cheek. She felt the sour feeling from last night rise up in her stomach.

  “I’ll help you.” She skipped to catch up with Alma and Belén. But Daddy caught her before she could take more than a few steps, and Mamá shook her head.

  “Go enjoy the festival, ’jita. You don’t need to spend the day working.”

  “But I want to help. Alma and Belén are helping.” Mamá and Daddy glanced at each other, then busied themselves arranging the table. “Why do they get to help?” Leo pressed. “You could tell me how to take the messages and I could do it.”

  Mamá placed her hand on Leo’s forehead. “How are you feeling? I think you’d better take it easy today, ’jita.” Mamá raised her eyebrows. “So you don’t get sick again.”

  “But—” I’m not a baby, Leo wanted to scream but didn’t, because there was no better way to sound like a great big whiny baby.