Don't Feed the Geckos! Page 7

He looks down and shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  Carlos sighs. Now he knows how his mother feels when she asks him why he did some stupid thing and all he can say is, “I don’t know.”

  “How come you didn’t tell on me?” Bernardo finally asks. “How come you just made it so someone would find them on the floor?”

  “Good question,” Carlos says.

  Mami tiptoes into the room then. She holds up her hand, which is softly closed over a tissue. “Found it,” she says. “In the bathtub.” She tiptoes to the terrarium, slides open the top, reaches in, and shakes the cricket out of the tissue. Carlos doesn’t know why she’s being so quiet. The only one asleep is Papi, and he could sleep through anything. She sighs. “Problem solved.”

  Bernardo lies back down. Carlos climbs into the bottom bunk. And Mami turns off the light.

  Twelve

  The Coming and Going Party

  Bernardo is quiet the next morning. He’s up before Carlos, who can hear water running in the bathroom. Carlos feels a little uneasy. Maybe he shouldn’t have come down so hard on Bernardo—making him feel bad about his reading and pointing out his messiness. And all this time he’s been thinking that punch was out of meanness, not out of friendliness. He thinks about this for a few moments before he realizes someone is knocking on his door. It’s Issy. He can tell by the knock. “What do you want, Issy?”

  “Something.”

  Typical five-year-old answer.

  “Come in.”

  The door remains closed for a moment before she slowly opens it.

  “What is it, Issy? Can’t you see I need to get ready for school?”

  She stands there silently. Her mouth turns down and begins to quiver in the corners.

  “What’s wrong?” Carlos asks. It’s hard to be patient.

  “I did something bad.”

  Carlos sighs. “What did you do?”

  “I thought I could feed the geckos. I thought I could surprise you.”

  “What?” Carlos has a sinking feeling.

  “I forgot to be careful when I shook some out of the little box thing.” Issy begins to whimper. “And one got away.”

  “Issy, you should have told me.”

  “I thought you’d be mad.”

  Carlos does feel a jolt of anger. But he doesn’t let on. “Mami found it anyway. In the bathtub,” he says.

  “She did?”

  “Yeah. But if you do that again, Issy, I’m telling. And you will get in big trouble. You know you aren’t supposed to mess with my things—especially my geckos. And my ant farm,” he adds quickly. “You better not do that again.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  Now Carlos feels doubly bad about blasting Bernardo. He feels bad during breakfast and on the ride to school. During morning journal time, he’s tempted to write about it, but he decides to write about the cricket instead—leaving out the part about blaming Bernardo when Bernardo was innocent.

  During recess, he pretends nothing happened. Bernardo pretends as well, because he doesn’t even mention it. Room Ten still has the basketball court, and Ralph, who had to stay in for not doing his homework, let Bernardo take his place as team captain. Bernardo chooses Carlos for his first pick. That makes Carlos feel worse. Carlos even felt bad during pair-reading earlier each time he had to tell Bernardo a word.

  He wishes he’d known that punch was meant to be friendly.

  Could anything be worse than watching Bernardo just stare out the car window on the way home? He’s probably real homesick, Carlos thinks. He’s probably wishing he were home in Texas with Tía Emilia. He’s probably wishing he still had his father instead of just uncles. He’s probably even wishing Papi was his father.

  Carlos needs to apologize to Bernardo. He needs to understand why Bernardo said only once that he wasn’t the one who let the cricket out. No one’s going to believe you if you say it only once.

  Carlos looks over at his cousin, who’s still looking out the window. Just as Carlos is on the verge of getting Bernardo’s attention so he can tell him that he was wrong to accuse him, Mami pipes up with, “Listen. I’ve got a big surprise!”

  “What, Mami?” Issy asks. She’s wearing a macaroni necklace and bracelet that she made in kindergarten that morning. It’s painted blue.

  “I’ll tell you when we get home.”

  Just then Carlos notices Issy’s not wearing her tiara.

  “Where’s your tiara, Issy?” he asks. He knows she’s not allowed to wear it in school, but she usually leaves it in the car and puts it on first thing when she gets in after school.

  “I left it at home, because I’m not a queen anymore.”

  “Why?” Carlos asks.

  “’Cause I don’t want to be.”

  So the queen phase is over. Carlos is surprised. He forgets all about apologizing to Bernardo.

  Mami sits them down at the kitchen table, her face beaming as she gets them settled with cookies and milk. She takes a seat across from them.

  “Guess who’s coming? Right here, on Saturday.”

  Bernardo is silent. Carlos tries to think of who it could be. Then it hits him. He almost feels disappointed. “Tía Emilia,” he says.

  Mami looks surprised and a little let down. “How did you know?” she asks.

  “I just guessed.”

  “Her neighbor Mrs. Ruiz’s son-in-law is a dentist, who lives here. He needs a new office manager, and Mrs. Ruiz has convinced him to hire your mother, Bernardo. They even found her a place to live for now. It’s small, but your mother can look for someplace bigger after she gets here.” Mami’s eyes shine. “Isn’t it wonderful how things can just fall into place?” She looks at Bernardo, and her smile fades a little.

  “Aren’t you happy, Bernardo?” she asks.

  “Yes. I’m happy,” he says. But Carlos thinks he should sound happier.

  There’s going to be a party. A welcoming party for Tía Emilia and a going-away party for Bernardo. Everyone is coming. All the relatives. And the best thing is that they’re coming with food. Carlos thinks of the sweet stuff: empanadas stuffed with fruit, tamales de dulce. There’ll also be yummy chicken enchiladas and tortilla soup, arroz con leche, and the list goes on and on. Carlos remembers how good the Mexican dishes taste at a party. He can understand what Mami is talking about when she reminisces about the food of her childhood. Or when she and Papi disagree about who makes the best mole—her tía Hortensia or his tía Nelly. Whoever it is, it isn’t Mami. She complains about her own mole each time she prepares it: “I think it’s too runny. Is it bland? Did I make it spicy enough? Oh, no . . . I’m beginning to cook American.”

  Carlos wonders what the big deal is about mole. It’s just this brown saucy stuff. It’s all the same to him. He’d rather have spaghetti with meatballs.

  Sure enough, the parade of food begins in the late afternoon. Mrs. Ruiz brings arroz con pollo and her daughter comes with a nice big pan of flan. Tía Lupe arrives with a huge plate of empanadas and a gallon of pink horchata. Her three daughters just bring themselves.

  They’re all Issy’s age or younger, so Carlos directs them to the backyard, where Issy has set up rows of her stuffed animals in front of a chalkboard for school. Now she wants to be a teacher, so she’s teaching her stuffed animals letters and sounds.

  Bernardo and the uncles and two cousins, who are in college but home for the weekend, are in the living room watching a soccer match on TV. Brazil and Germany are playing. At one point, Papi tells Carlos to go to the kitchen and get more chips and salsa. “Salsa verde,” Papi says. “Not the red.” Before Carlos can open the kitchen door, he hears Tía Lupe say, “Poor Bernardo, to have his father die when he was so young—too young to remember him. I feel so happy that he has his uncle now to pay him some attention.”

  His uncle . . . Carlos knows Tía is referring to Papi. Now he feels extra bad about all the things he said to Bernardo. He gets the chips and salsa verde and returns to the den, where there’s a lot of who
oping and hollering going on. Bernardo is joining in too. He seems happy to be a part of the group. He looks like he belongs. During halftime, Tío Raúl gets everybody outside—Papi, the cousins from college, the uncles, Bernardo—for an impromptu game of soccer just for fun, without all the rules.

  Carlos decides to join in so that it’s him, Bernardo, and the cousins against Papi and the uncles. Back and forth, back and forth the ball goes without anyone keeping score and with Carlos running first one way and then the other. When halftime is over, the men go back inside the house. Bernardo and Carlos stay outside.

  Carlos says, “I have to tell you something, Bernardo.”

  Bernardo flops down on the back porch steps, and Carlos sits beside him.

  “What?” Bernardo asks.

  Carlos looks down. “I have to apologize.” The words feel funny in his mouth. Maybe he’s never said them before. He can’t remember saying them. Unless it was one of those occasions when he’d done something mean to Issy and Mami said, “Apologize to your sister.” Then he’d only mouthed the words. He never really meant it then, but later he’d feel bad. But this time he does mean it, right then and there.

  Bernardo looks at him, waiting.

  “It was Issy who let the cricket out. She told me. I shouldn’t have thought it was you. And I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you and said all those mean things.”

  Now Bernardo looks down, as if he’s embarrassed. But when he brings his head up, he has a smile on his face. “You really suck at soccer. You’re really bad.”

  “I know,” Carlos says.

  “You need to try harder. You can’t just run up and down the field. You have to get in there and do something.”

  “I know,” Carlos says again, and realizes it actually makes him feel better—to have Bernardo criticizing him.

  Bernardo stands up and runs to the ball. “Get up,” he calls to Carlos.

  Carlos obeys.

  Bernardo passes the ball to him. “Use the inside of your foot and kick it back, but keep it low.”

  Carlos’s foot slides under the ball, and the kick is too high.

  “This is going to take some work,” Bernardo says, but he passes it back. This time, Carlos manages to get it to Bernardo. They do that for a while, until Bernardo says, “Now use the outside of your foot.”

  That feels awkward—at first. But with Bernardo gently passing the ball to him, he soon gets the hang of it. Part of his “sucking at soccer” comes from not really trying all that hard. He can see that now. Maybe he should have tried harder to be Bernardo’s friend, too. They didn’t even go to Miller’s Park or to the store for candy. But the opportunity is not lost, because Bernardo is going to be living nearby and he’s still going to be in Room Ten. Carlos is still going to have his cousin.

  The doorbell rings—right after someone has scored a goal in the game on TV and everyone inside has shouted and pumped their fists.

  Bernardo runs in, with Carlos behind him, like he knows it’s his mother. He arrives at the door just as Mami is opening it and folks have gathered around. There is Tía Emilia, standing on their front porch with two big pieces of luggage. The relatives, one after the other, begin to hug and welcome her as she smiles and looks around. She sees Bernardo then, and he sees her. The crowd of family members parts so mother and son can give each other a big hug.

  Tía Emilia’s eyes fill with tears. “Though it’s only been a little while, I’ve missed you so much, mi hijo,” she says.

  Bernardo seems suddenly shy. “I’m glad you’re here, Mami,” he says finally.

  Everyone goes back to whatever they were doing. Bernardo takes his mother’s luggage and puts it in the hall closet out of the way. Then Tía Emilia follows Mami to the kitchen so she can visit with her sisters, and the party resumes. It seems that laughter is coming from everywhere.

  Later, when everyone has gone home and Tía Emilia has packed up Bernardo and taken him with her—after all the hugs and thank-yous and now-that-I’m-here-we’ll-be-seeing-a-lot-of-each-others . . . After all of that, Carlos finally gets to climb up into his top bunk and survey his room. It’s back to being all his, at last. Can anything be better?

  One

  It Was an Accident!

  Gavin is waiting for his new friend, Richard, to come over to play video games. Gavin likes Richard, his friend at Carver Elementary. Gavin had lots of friends at his old school, Bella Vista Elementary, but he knows that you have to start over whenever you change schools.

  In this new neighborhood, there’s a lot to get used to. There’s the new house and the new backyard and the new kids on his street who don’t even know that he is practically a soccer star. Well, maybe not a star, to be exact, but he thinks he’s pretty good. Anyway, Richard chose him for his team in kickball, so Richard’s a nice guy.

  Gavin has his socks rolled into a ball, and while he waits, he tosses the sock ball up hard until it hits the ceiling and comes back right into his hands.

  “That’s annoying. Why don’t you stop?”

  It’s Danielle, his sister. Unfortunately, she was not left behind at the old house.

  He tosses the balled socks up at the ceiling again just to spite her.

  “Ugh. You’re so annoying!”

  Luckily, she’s going across the street to babysit. Soon, Gavin hopes.

  Finally, the doorbell rings—and before he can get up to answer it, Danielle, Miss Big-Eighth-Grader, Miss Big-Thirteen-Trying-to-Be-Sixteen, opens the front door and stares down at Richard.

  “Yeah?” she says, in her new cool manner.

  Richard stares up at her for a few seconds. “Are you Gavin’s sister?”

  Without answering, Danielle calls over her shoulder, “Gavmeister, your friend’s here.”

  Gavin cringes. No one knows about that nickname at his new school. Danielle steps aside and lets Richard in. He tiptoes past her, probably a little afraid of her looming presence.

  “Hi,” he says sheepishly from the living room doorway.

  “Hi,” Gavin says. He throws his balled socks at the ceiling once more and catches them easily, hoping Richard’s impressed.

  “Are we still going to play video games?” For some reason Richard seems a bit unsure.

  “Yeah. What do you want to play?”

  Richard shrugs and plops down on the sofa. “You have Fight Night?”

  Gavin stops tossing his sock ball and sits on the floor, staring at the blank screen of the television. He hates to admit that his mom doesn’t allow “overly violent” video games. “No, I don’t have that one.”

  “You have Slam!?”

  Gavin shakes his head.

  “Slam2!?”

  Gavin shakes his head again.

  “Well, what do you have?” Richard asks, frowning.

  “I have Animal Incredible.”

  Richard looks at Gavin as if he’s grown a third eye. “Man, that’s a baby game.”

  Gavin doesn’t say anything.

  Richard sighs. “Okay, we’ll play that.”

  After twenty minutes Gavin can tell, without even looking at him, that Richard is getting tired of the game. He’s sighing and making mistakes and Gavin knows it’s just a matter of time before the complaints begin. They’re both sitting on the floor now with controls in their hands, trying to rack up points to add particular animals to their kingdoms. Gavin is racking up more points than Richard, so he isn’t surprised when Richard puts the control down and says, “This game sucks.”

  Gavin looks over his shoulder quickly. His mother doesn’t like that word. “It has a rude sound,” she’d explained the one time Gavin tried it out. “I don’t want to hear that again.”

  “That’s ’cause I’m winning,” Gavin says to Richard.

  “Because you play this baby game all the time.” Richard gives the control beside him a shove, to show that he is totally finished with trying to populate his kingdom. “Who cares, anyway? Why don’t you at least have Spooky Mansion? Carlos has it, and it’s way
more fun.”

  “My mom likes games to be kind of educational,” Gavin admits.

  Richard sighs extra loud. A big sigh that begins with a long intake of breath. “Whatcha got to eat?”

  Before Gavin can answer, he hears his mom on the stairs. She stops in the room with her purse over her shoulder. “Hi, Richard,” she says.

  Richard looks like he’s suddenly on guard. “Hi, Mrs. Morris.”

  “I’ve got to go to the mall,” she tells them. “Your dad’s in his office, and Danielle is right across the street at the Myerses’. You guys going to be okay?”

  Gavin stifles a smile. It’s always a relief when his sister is out of the house. If she isn’t pinching him for no reason when she walks by, she’s pointing out that his ears are too big for his head. He knows his ears are too big for his head. But everyone has a little something that can be improved upon. Danielle is sprouting tiny pimples on her forehead, signaling more to come. (He can’t wait.) That Deja girl in his class is probably going to need braces, and Richard’s nose is kind of big and funny-looking.

  “We’ll be okay,” Gavin says. He doesn’t ask what there is to eat, because then his mom will tell him all the things he’d better not get into. Like the cookies or the chips or the fruit bars she usually lets him have for an after-dinner treat.

  As soon as the door closes behind her, he smiles broadly, feeling the glow of freedom. Even though his dad is two rooms away, it’s almost like he has the house all to himself. He looks over at Richard, who’s now tossing the sock ball up to the ceiling. “Want some of Danielle’s candy?”

  “Yeah. Where is it?”

  “In her room. Under her bed.” Gavin grins mischievously. “She doesn’t know that I know where she keeps it.”