How Tía Lola Learned to Teach (5 page)

“What is it, Milton?” Ms. Sweeney asks.

“When can we
empezar
?” Milton grins.

Ms. Sweeney grins back. “We can start right after recess!”

After recess, the treasure hunt starts. Ofie and her team of second graders zip around the room, unearthing one clue after another.

Juanita’s team lags behind. When they stumble over words, their leader, Juanita, can’t help them out. Tía Lola has been reviewing words and sayings for weeks with her
class, but Juanita hasn’t been paying attention. She thought she didn’t have to because she already knew tons of Spanish. Instead, she has been living in a boxcar and wondering what on earth she and her sister and brothers will have for dinner.

And so it is no surprise that Ofie’s team is the first to reach the last clue:
Camarón que se duerme se lo lleva la corriente
. “The shrimp who falls asleep is carried away by the current,” Ofie translates. People who don’t pay attention lose out on real-life adventures.

Right off, Ofie’s team figures out where the treasure card is hidden: in Juanita’s desk! It seems everyone knows Juanita has not been paying attention in class.

No wonder Milton has been calling her
camarón
. Juanita has been carried away by the current of her daydreaming.

But now she is wide awake, listening to the other team’s triumphant shouts. Juanita wishes a strong current would carry her away so she doesn’t have to face the disappointment of her teammates. Especially when Tía Lola unveils the winners’ prize: a big donkey piñata filled with candies and stickers and dollar-store trinkets, which Ofie’s team will break open in the art room after lunch.

For the rest of the school day, Juanita feels miserable. There is no thought of princesses or emperors or dragons. No magic tree houses, boxcars, dinosaur rides,
swans laying golden eggs, princesses in towers. The only scene playing over and over in her head is that moment of losing the treasure hunt.

Juanita can’t wait to get home so she can have a good cry with all her dolls and stuffed animals and books to comfort her. Except she knows that nothing can take away her bitter disappointment with herself. She has let down her teammates, Ms. Sweeney, and most of all, Tía Lola, who actually put aside her fear of teaching to come help Juanita get back into her teacher’s good graces.

“I’m sorry, Tía Lola,” Juanita apologizes to her aunt as they walk down the driveway once the bus has dropped them off. “I didn’t mean to ignore everyone. It’s just that I love reading. And I keep thinking about the stories once I put the books away.”

Even though Tía Lola didn’t get much schooling, she loves stories, so she understands. “If you keep loving books and stories so much, Juanita, maybe one day you can write your own stories.”

Thinking about such a possibility takes away a tiny bit of Juanita’s disappointment. Someday, if she writes wonderful books, maybe her teammates will forgive her.

“But remember, you have to have adventures in order to have stories to tell,” Tía Lola says wisely. “So you have to pay attention to all the wonderful things happening in your own life.”

This is just the boost Juanita needs. Tomorrow, she will apologize to her whole class and tell them she is ready for some real-life adventures with them as her
companions and Ms. Sweeney and Tía Lola as their guides.

“I just wish I could make it up to my team,” Juanita confesses to Tía Lola, who comes up with a wonderful idea. Why not make a losers’ piñata? Juanita can pick whatever animal she wants it to be.

All weekend long, Tía Lola and Juanita work on the losers’ piñata. On Monday, Mami drives them both to school, as Tía Lola wants to be there for the surprise. From the trunk, Juanita pulls out the fat pink shrimp piñata for her losing team.

“Hola …,”
Milton calls across the parking lot to Juanita. But before he can say
“camarón”
his mouth drops open. “What in the world is that?”

“It’s a
camarón
,” Juanita says, already feeling a lot better. “It was carried away by the current, but we caught it and are bringing it back.”

lesson four

Con paciencia y con calma
,
se subió un burro en una palma
With patience and calm,
even a donkey can climb a palm

Miguel is in a big hurry.

He wants to race through fifth and sixth grade and be in middle school, away from his annoying little sister at Bridgeport Elementary.

He wants to be in the major leagues, old enough so he doesn’t have to ask his parents’ permission to sign on with the Yankees.

He is impatient with how short he is. Okay, so he’s not the shortest boy in his class (which includes fourth
graders, after all). But of all the fifth graders, only Oliver and Lily are shorter, and there are three fourth graders who are actually taller than Miguel—and one of them, Anna, is even a girl. Miguel’s mother keeps telling him that one day he will probably be as tall as his
papi
, but Miguel doesn’t want to have to get there in inches. That could take years!

When they first moved to Vermont, Miguel wanted to have instant friends, instant good feelings about the place. He was impatient for everything to be great right away! But instead, for months on end, he was horribly homesick. He missed the city. He missed the Yankees. He missed his best friend, José, and his old school. But most of all, he missed Papi.

Now, a year later, Miguel has made new friends. His classmates have stopped teasing him about his name, Guzmán (“Gooseman”), and asking silly questions about being Hispanic. Besides, they can now ask Tía Lola. Everybody loves Spanish class and looks forward to the two days a week, Tuesday and Thursday—that is,
martes y jueves
—when Tía Lola officially comes to school. But many other days, by popular demand, Tía Lola drops in to help with other projects. Miguel has to admit that his aunt is fun to have around.

But one thing that has never, ever gotten easier is the separation from his
papi
. While he’s in New York, Miguel is impatient to get back to Vermont. He misses his new friends, his big rented house in the country, and especially his
mami
. But every time Miguel comes back
from a visit with his father, he is impatient for the next time.

More immediately, Miguel is impatient with his reading problem. Wouldn’t you know it—just as his little sister is becoming what she calls a voracious reader, Miguel is lagging behind in English class. It’s so hard to get through a sentence with so many little stumbling blocks: words he doesn’t know (like “voracious”), meanings he doesn’t get (“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”). Miguel wishes he could be really good in English class right away.

“Maybe having two languages has confused him?” Mrs. Prouty suggests to Mami during parent-teacher conferences.

“Nonsense!” Mami says later, on the ride home. “Juanita has two languages, most of Europe speaks two or three languages.…”

Great. Now Miguel is not just dumber than his little sister, but dumber than a whole continent!

While Tía Lola and Mami and Juanita chatter away, Miguel looks out his window. Snowy fields spread out on either side of the road. There’s nothing to take his mind off his remedial status at school. He feels impatient to get home, but once there, what next? Homework, and nagging from his mother, and pestering from his little sister …

It’s going to be a long night. Miguel sighs impatiently.

Later that night, as Miguel sits down to do his homework, the phone rings. It’s Papi. He has something he wants to discuss with Miguel and his little sister, but he wants to do it in person.

Oh no. Miguel’s heart fills with dread. The last few times Miguel and Juanita have visited Papi, Carmen, Papi’s girlfriend, has always hung out with them. Not that there’s anything wrong with Carmen, who is perfectly nice and friendly and sort of pretty. It’s just that Miguel doesn’t want anybody to be married to his
papi
except his
mami
.

“Car and I, we’re thinking of heading up this next weekend to see you. It’s too long to wait till you come down for winter recess in February,” Papi is explaining. Miguel loves hearing that Papi wants to visit. But why does he have to spoil it by saying “we”? Lots of times, after he finishes talking to Miguel, Papi says, “Car wants to say hi,” and Miguel is stuck answering a bunch of stupid questions about how school is going and when practice is starting up for his Little League team. But today, instead of putting Car on, his
papi
says, “Let me talk to your mother,
mi’jo
.” When Papi calls Miguel
mi’jo
, meaning “my son,” it’s usually because he’s got something serious and parental on his mind.

After a few cool hellos and how-are-yous, Mami’s face gets an alert, private look. “Hold on,” she says, and with her hand over the speaker, she asks Miguel if he wouldn’t mind giving her some space. The last words Miguel can make out as the kitchen door is closing are
“Yes, I can talk now.” And then something-something-something, which just by Mami’s tone Miguel can tell is not the good kind of something he should be looking forward to.

Miguel heads upstairs to alert his little sister about the upcoming visit. She’s not in her room, but he finds her up in the attic, in Tía Lola’s bedroom. They are designing a piñata as a gift for Rudy’s birthday. Oh no! The surprise party is this Saturday! Miguel considers racing downstairs to remind Mami. But then Papi will have to reschedule his visit, and Miguel will have to wait a whole other week or two, or maybe even till winter recess, to find out the something-something-something that his
papi
has to tell him in person. If it’s bad news, Miguel is impatient to get his heartache over and done with.