by Bibi Belford
“Dinora Diaz,” yells a voice. “Dinora Diaz.”
I jolt from my thoughts and troop to the tryout door.
“Hope you make it,” say the best friends at the same time.
“Break a leg, Dinora Dinosaura,” says Noodlenose when I walk past her. “Hope you don’t crash through the stage.”
“Hope I do,” I say over my shoulder. “Then you’ll fall all the way to France where they’ll see your underpants.” I hear kids laughing but I don’t turn around.
I open the door and Mrs. Marsh, Mrs. Cruella, and Principal Sorry wave at me from the other side of the auditorium. Danny stands near the exit door at the back. Yari and River and some fifth graders I don’t know are sitting in the front row. Oh My Gatos. Now I really don’t know what to do.
Danny gives me a thumbs-up.
“DeeDee, eat this before you go backstage and change,” says Mrs. Marsh, rushing over and handing me a granola bar.
“I don’t think—” I start to say.
Principal Sorry holds out the dress. “You don’t have to put it on, but I’d love to see this dress.”
Mr. Leverance comes rushing into the room. “Did I miss it? Oh, no I didn’t. Oh, that dress! Viva México!” He claps his hand over his heart.
Good Gatos. I give myself a pep talk while I zip behind the curtain, rip open the granola bar, and slip the dress over my head. You’ve got nothing to lose. You won’t make it, anyway. You may as well just put the ridiculous dress on and dance and be done with it. Make people happy. I struggle with the bow in the back. I know it looks hideous. Where’s Mami when I need her?
I can do this with effort and work. My growth mindset. I stand in the center of the stage. The curtain opens. I see Yari and River whispering and giggling. I’m one millisecond from walking out but the music starts. “El Jarabe Tapatio.” I shut off my brain and let the music wash over me. Let it become the master of my legs and my arms. I’m a spinning top, a twirling merry-go-round, floating and free. I reach for the sky and fall to the earth, the wings of my dress making rotating pinwheels of fireworks all around the stage.
I take a quick peek at the SLT members. River shakes his head and says something to Yari, who starts writing in her notebook. I must look ridiculous in this dress dancing to this music. He hates it. They all hate it. I hide my hands in the folds of the dress and make the twirls smaller.
The SLT stops the music after three minutes. That’s the rule of the tryout. Three minutes. If you make it for the Spring Fling, then you can have five minutes. I finish swirling, people clap, and the curtains close. I run down the steps into the auditorium. My face is on fire. I can’t believe I made a fool of myself in front of all these people.
“Good job, DeeDee,” says Yari.
River’s eyes are big like he wants to say something to me, but his lips are straight and pinched shut like they won’t let his mouth speak.
“I stunk like a skunk,” I say to the entire world. I’m nothing but a disappointment. Forget about growth mindset. This is too hard.
I grab the garment bag and my backpack and go out the back door with Danny. “Don’t say anything,” I say to Danny on the drive home. “I told you I wasn’t good enough.”
Danny drops me in front of our apartment. “Stop being so hard on yourself. You did fine,” he says. “Tell Mami I’m meeting with my mentor tonight to find out about the spring training program.”
The spring training program? Another disappointing thing. How will I survive without Danny here for six weeks?
Mami is snoozing on the couch when I open the apartment door. My plate of cold chicken and rice waits for me on the table. Talk about a disappointment. It’s quiet. Danita must be at Andrea’s. I watch Mami’s boring show, afraid to change the channel and disturb her.
When Mami wakes up, she asks me about the tryouts, hangs the mango-tango dress in the front closet, and then goes to bed early. I turn off the TV, test my blood sugar and give myself a shot. I make my couch bed and feel sorry for myself.
One time I asked River, “Did you miss your dad when he died?”
He said he was too little to remember his dad, but that it was like losing a tooth. When it’s in your mouth you don’t think about it, but when it’s gone, you notice the hole all the time.
And that’s exactly the way I feel tonight. All those days when Papi came home from work and everything was normal, I never told him, I’m so glad you’re home or I’m sure glad I have a daddy who loves me. But now there’s a hole, a space. No Papi to kiss me good night or call me Gordita or kick the soccer ball. No Papi to escort Danita or dance the “Vals de la Mariposa” at her quinceañera. No Papi to give the toast, or twirl me around.
I snuggle under my haunted madrina blanket with my teddy and start to read my school library book about a dog and a girl who’s missing her mother just like I’m missing my father, and I get all entwined in my dreams with the dog at Danita’s quinceañera and a boy skateboarding between giant orange flowers that twirl like a mango-tango dress.
I jerk awake. My phone is ringing. River’s calling me. I know it. I stumble over to my backpack and fumble in the pouch to grab it. Oh, don’t let him hang up.
“Make it so,” I demand into the phone. But it’s not River’s number. It’s nobody’s number. It says UNKNOWN CALLER. I hear static and I’m about to hang up.
But then a deep voice says, “Mi Lora Hermosa.”
The flutter of a thousand wings beats against the walls of my heart. “Papi? Papi? Is it really you?” My stomach flips and flops and flips and flops.
“Gordita, your letter. Your letter came to me at Casa del Immigrante. Te quiero, mi gordita. You’ve saved my life,” he says, his voice breaking. “My phone stolen. All my numbers gone. My letters returned. My hope all gone.”
“The trailer park burned down, Papi. We moved. I sent you our new address,” I say. There’s so much to tell him.
“Ay, Dios mío. Is everybody good? I missed your birthday.”
Too many words ping-pong off the walls in my head. “It’s okay. We’re all good. Danita’s planning for her quinceañera. Danny’s home and he’s going to do the first dance with her. And Mami works two jobs.”
“Daniel? Mi hijo?”
“He’s good Papi. He’s got his GED. He might be recommended for a military placement for training.” My heart expands in my chest when I say this. I’m so proud of Danny. Did I ever tell him? I have to tell him.
“Tell him I’ve missed him. And how proud I am. And you, mija querida?” Papi asks.
I want to tell Papi about disappointing everyone at the tryouts. About having diabetes. About skateboarding and about River. About Nancy and Sherie. But there’s too much to tell. What’s the most important thing?
“Papi, I have a friend, but he’s mad at me. And it’s my fault. I’ve been a bad friend and I don’t know what to do.” I sniffle. I know I have to wake up Mami, but I want one more minute with my Papi.
“DeeDee. Get a paper and write this down,” Papi says.
I pull my reading response journal from my backpack. “Okay, Papi.”
“This is a poster here. Write the word ‘friends.’ Now this is what friends do. F—fight for you. R—respect you. I—include you. E—encourage you. N—need you. D—deserve you. S—stand by you.” Papi waits for me to copy everything down. Then he says, “This is good, no? This is what you do for your friend.”
“Sí, Papi. Sí.” I look at what I wrote. Yes. I can do all these things. Even if River never speaks to me again. “Papi, are you coming home?”
“I don’t know, mija. I don’t know. Maybe you will visit me here until there’s a way.”
“Te echamos de menos, Papi.” I’ve waited to say this for so long. I’m not even sure the Spanish is right. We miss you.
Papi laughs. “Your Spanish, Gordita. Ay, Dios mio. Worse than my English. You will laugh at my job here. I’m the English translator for the immigrantes who arrive that don’t speak English.”
> I laugh. “You’re mixed up, Papi. English in Mexico and Spanish in the United States.”
“Remember mija, amistades verdaderas, mantienen las puertas abiertas. Remember my Star Trek? Go boldly …” he waits for me to finish.
“Where no man has gone before,” I say. River would really like my papi. “I have to go get Mami,” I say.
“Te quiero, DeeDee,” he says.
“Te quiero, Papi,” I say.
“Mami! Danny, Danita!” I yell at the top of my lungs.
Mami rushes out, one arm halfway in a bathrobe sleeve, the other arm backstroking to grab the other one. “Mija, are you sick?”
Danny stands in his doorway. Blinking and worried.
I hold my phone above my head and shout like a warrior, like a champion, like a lottery winner, “It’s Papi!”
Mami snatches the phone from me. Danny hovers close by. I hug them both. But then Mami gets blubbery and you know how I feel about crying. It’s a good time to go to the bathroom. I smile into the mirror. I pump my fists into the air. I look ridiculous and that’s okay. Because Papi’s okay. Oh My Gatos. Where’s Danita? Still sleeping?
I rush into her bedroom and shake her awake. “Danita, Papi’s on the phone.”
She rolls over. “Go away, DeeDee.”
“No, Danita. Wake up. It’s Papi.” I jiggle her mattress.
“That’s not funny, DeeDee.” She pulls her pillow over her head.
I yank her pillow. I switch on her bedside light. I scream in her face, “It’s Papi!”
She stares at me. Squints. Suspicious. I smile my ridiculous smile. She blinks. Her eyebrows lift. Her eyes widen. She catapults from her bed and pushes me out of the way. “Papi!” she wails. I sit on the edge of Danita’s bed and squeeze my arms around my stomach to make it stop jumping.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
D IS FOR DANCE
Stop asking me. Stop, I want to scream at Mami. Because they haven’t posted the list for Spring Fling yet.
Do not tell me one more time I was great. Do not, I want to scream at Danny. Because he doesn’t know how great everybody else probably was.
You’ll be the first to know. The first, I want to scream at Mrs. Marsh. Because she will see the list in the office before they post it.
I have so many other things on my mind. Papi in a shelter. Danny going away. Danita’s quinceañera. And River, still not speaking to me. Knowing Papi is safe lifted the giant storm over my head, but a shadowy cloud still floats in front of my sunny day. I miss River. I think about his Padlet poems and his text messages. I think about him whispering and giggling during my tryout. I think about him signing about me to Miss Monaldo.
Thursday is Mami’s day off, so she and Danny finish the bedroom. They paint three walls gray and one wall pink. We set up the bunk beds and put our new bedspreads on.
Mami says, “Perfecto.”
I smell dinner—rice boiling for agua de horchata, pork roasting for torta de avocados, and chicken bubbling for pozole. Mami’s been so happy since Papi called. Humming and singing and joking and laughing. It makes us forget Danny is leaving in two weeks.
I wake up to rain tapping on the window, close to my head where I’m sleeping in the top bunk. Danita got first choice of the bottom bunk. She gives me a squintyeye crabby look. “What?” I ask. “I didn’t mean to step on your head in the night. Mami has to test me.” When I get to school I’m wet from walking in the rain and late for my Friday morning tutoring. Yari left a message with the door monitor that she went to sell shamrocks.
Those darn shamrocks. But wait. Lucky shamrocks. I dig around in my jacket pocket and find a quarter. I reach my fingers into the little cracks in the pouches of my backpack and find two dimes and a nickel and head to the library and buy one shamrock from an SLT member I don’t know.
Then I stop into Mrs. Marsh’s office, and while I wait for her, I decorate the shamrock with little skateboards and Star Trek logos. In the middle I write. I’m lucky I have a friend like you and not like me. I slide it into my back pocket.
Mrs. Marsh bustles in and tests me. We both look out in the hall when we hear an uproar near the office door.
“They must have posted the Spring Fling list,” says Mrs. Marsh.
“Go see, DeeDee,” says Mrs. Marsh, showing me her crossed fingers.
I’m sure my name isn’t on the list, but I’m curious about whose is.
That’s when I hear Noodlenose’s needle-sharp voice say, “Who wants to watch Bubblebutt dance, anyway?”
I freeze.
Then I hear River’s voice. “Don’t be jealous just because you didn’t make it.”
“They just picked her because they felt sorry for her, a Mexican with diabetes, probably illegal.”
“You don’t know that,” says River.
“Ha. Yes I do. I heard Mr. Leverance tell Mrs. Krewell that after all DeeDee’s been through this year Spring Fling should be handed to her on a platter.”
“You know what?” I hear River say. “I feel sorry for you. It must be hard work to be so mean.” Then, “Hey! That’s my backpack.”
I watch Noodlenose run and River chase her, and I escape back to Mrs. Marsh’s office.
“Congratulations, DeeDee. I knew you’d make it.”
My hands are shaking. I start to inject myself without using the alcohol wipes first.
“DeeDee. You forgot to swab.”
I start over. Bubblebutt. Bubblebutt. I can’t stop Noodlenose’s voice in my head. Don’t be jealous. Don’t be jealous. I can’t stop River’s voice. I feel sorry for you. I even hear Mr. Leverance. On a platter. On a platter. I poke myself and see red. On my thigh and in my head. Red for blood and anger.
Now I know what River means. People being nice because they feel sorry for you. Because you have a defect that makes you not as perfect as they are. So they do you a huge favor. Show you what a great person they are. Give you a break that, if you were normal, you wouldn’t deserve. Because you are inferior.
I march right out of Mrs. Marsh’s office without even saying goodbye. I’m a big bundle of mad.
First—I’m a good dancer. I know this. I always get the highest score on the Dance Forever game.
Second—if they voted for me just because I have diabetes, then I better show them that, diabetes or not, I’m a better dancer than any fourth grader they’ve ever seen.
And third—if they voted for me just because I’m Mexican then why didn’t they vote for Nancy just because she’s Asian? And she doesn’t know anything about my family. This is where we live. This is our country. That’s all she needs to know.
In my head I know Nancy is wrong and River’s right. She’s jealous because I’m going to dance in front of the whole school.
Oh My Gatos. I’m going to dance in front of the whole school. My knees wobble when I think about it.
The tardy bell rings. Mrs. Krewell—that’s how you really say my teacher’s name—knows I’m always late, so I don’t worry. And I was wrong about her anyway. She’s a good teacher. I should never have called her Cruella.
I want to put the shamrock in River’s backpack, but I don’t see it hanging in the hall. And he’s not in the classroom, either. Maybe he had an SLT meeting, I think. But when he doesn’t show up after fifteen minutes I know something’s wrong.
“I forgot something at the nurse,” I tell Mrs. Krewell. I fly into the boy’s bathroom and look under the stall doors. I don’t see any feet, for sure not River’s blue Nike SB Dunks. I walk-run to the library. Maybe he’s helping put away shamrock stuff, or counting the fundraising money. I heard they made enough to rent an outside stage for Spring Fling. But no River.
I flat-out run to the art room. But there’s only Mr. Leverance moving some paintings to a drying rack. Did he really say hand it to her on a platter? You know, I bet he didn’t. I bet Noodlenose got it wrong.
Where else could River be? Think like a detective, I tell myself. What’s the meanest thing Nancy would do with Ri
ver’s backpack?
And just like that, I know. I’m out on the wet playground in two seconds. And there’s River. On the third level of the jungle gym. And there’s his backpack. Balanced between two rungs. Way at the top. On the fifth level. And if River tries to go any higher, he’ll never be able to climb down. Even his blue hand-aid ball doesn’t help on slippery jungle gym.
“Hey, stop,” I yell, waving my arms wildly to get his attention. He turns and circles both arms around a metal pipe. His pale face stares down at me. His eyes perfect circles. His mouth sucking in breaths.
In a second I’ve scrambled up to his level, and I sit, swinging my legs over the bar. He carefully lowers himself down next to me. It’s not raining anymore, but the bars are slick.
“You don’t have to help me,” he says, his voice shaking.
“I know.” I nod and look right into his eyes.
“I can do this,” he says, his knuckles whitening.
“I know.”
We sit there, quiet, for a while, like two birds. Wishing we could fly away to a better world.
“You didn’t have to stand up for me,” I tell him, my voice ashamed.
“I know.”
“Are you nice because you feel sorry for me?” I ask.
“No.” He says it so loud he almost loses his grip. “Are you?”
“No, I don’t feel sorry for you, either. You helped me look for my dad, right? You taught me about skateboarding, right? You practiced dancing with me, right?”
“Yah, but …”
“So, did you do those things because you felt sorry for me?”
“Of course not. I’m good at those things, so I did them.”
“Right. And I’m good at climbing this jungle gym. Better than you.” I carefully pull myself up and anchor my feet on the bar. I stretch my hands to the next level and the next level, and my legs follow, until I’ve got the backpack over my arm, and then I crab crawl down and sit next to River again.
One side of the sun slides out from behind a cloud. River’s hair glistens with rain droplets, and I know mine will dry frizzy as an electrocuted cat. “Why don’t you tell on Nancy?” I ask him.
