Hurricane (2 page)

Our neighbors smile back at Ruby, and Víctor laughs again.

A little later, Ruby brings us glasses of lemonade. I sip mine slowly. Víctor inhales his in one gulp.

Dad comes out of the house and sees all our neighbors standing around. He goes over and visits for a while with Mr. Marpales and Mr. Cortez. When Dad walks by us to go back inside, he says, “Excellent, Víctor. What an improvement tearing down this monstrosity will be.”

Víctor smiles and seems very proud. But when Dad sees that Víctor isn't looking, he winks at me.

I try to pretend this horrible task isn't really happening. I see the flock of wild parrots, soaring overhead. They're so graceful. I look up at the steep hill that rises along the north side of town just behind our house. This hillside is a green wall that protects us from the world. The loggers clear-cut part of the hill, but I still love the forest even though it's no longer so close to our home.

I smell the smoke of breakfast fires around town, especially from next door, where Vera Ramírez has finished cooking. She looks over at me and gives me a thumbs-up sign. I manage to smile back despite how miserable I feel. I've known Vera Ramírez since I was born. She's like a second mom to me.

Some of the kids, led by Carlos and Pablo Altunez, tire of watching us and go out in the street to play soccer. I wish I could join them.

As I carry bricks, I see all the houses of our little town. Glancing at our neighbors who stand talking together, I realize that I know every home in La Rupa and the colors, shapes, and sizes of every room in every home. The houses here are just like most houses in Honduras—simple buildings, with one bathroom and two or three bedrooms. We don't have basements like I've seen in movies about the United States, or big two-car garages. But our houses are painted more colorfully, in bright pink or yellow or turquoise. I have been inside all these houses many times, eaten meals with the families, and watched TV with the kids. I know where the picture of Jesus, with his chest open and his heart showing, hangs on the living room wall of the Hernández house; I know that the Álvarezes always have pink toilet paper in their bathroom to match the pink tiles on their bathroom wall. I know exactly where the canned hams or canned peaches are in the Arroyos' trucha. I know every person in every home, where they sleep, where they eat, and who gets along or doesn't get along with whom.

The only family that I don't know really well, a family no one in town knows very well, is the Rodríguezes, squatters who live on the opposite side of town from our house, poor people with three kids and no money. They moved here a few months ago. Their “house” is made of tarps, two-by-fours, and scraps of weathered plywood. Every neighborhood and small town in Honduras has at least one Rodríguez family. Nobody minds them being here. They are just poor people who have no place else to go. But we haven't gotten to know them very well either, because these families move often, never staying in any one town or neighborhood very long.

After an hour and a half of working, Víctor and I have the barbecue torn only about halfway down. Víctor is being very careful to not break the bricks as he uses Dad's wrecking bar and a hammer to pry them loose and then sets them gently on the ground.

I stare at the Altunez and Cortez boys still playing soccer in the street. They've been joined by Jorge Hernández, who is my age, and Félix Marpales, who is a year older but a small guy and not very athletic. If I were playing, I'd be the best soccer player in the group. I
so
wish that I could join them!

“Go ahead, José,” Víctor suddenly says, nodding his head toward the street.

I ask, “Really?”

Víctor says, “You've helped a lot. Go play soccer. I can finish this up.”

I look at the rest of the barbecue still standing, and I want to say that I'll stay and help, but I can't make myself say it. Instead I ask, “Are you sure?” knowing that Víctor will say yes.

Víctor smiles. “Yeah, go.”

I feel guilty, but I can't stop myself. “Thanks,” I say as I take off toward the street. “See you.”

“See you too.” Víctor immediately gets back to work.

Berti sees me moving toward the street and slowly, lazily stands up and starts to follow me, but she only walks ten or so steps before she stops. I look back at her and ask, “You wanna play soccer?”

She sighs a dog sigh and plops back down onto the ground in a spot where she can watch both Víctor working and me playing. Berti might just be the laziest dog ever born. Teasing her, I say, “You can be goalie,” but she drops her head onto her paws and looks back at Víctor again. “Suit yourself,” I say, running to join the game.

I score six goals in our marathon match. I am the star … at least to myself!

Five hours after we started, Víctor is finally almost finished. The news spreads throughout the town, and soon all our neighbors—most everyone in La Rupa—comes back to watch Víctor complete the job. Our soccer game breaks up for good, and all of us go to watch too. As we approach the yard, Berti gets up again and trots over to stand near me.

When Víctor has unloaded and stacked the last of the bricks, he walks back toward the house and says, “That's it.”

Many of the adults burst into applause. They call out, teasing, “Bravo!” “Encore!”

Angelina Altunez, Carlos and Pablo's mom, says, “You are a great man, Víctor.”

Víctor won't let our neighbors see him blush, but he smiles, raises his arms, and takes a dramatic bow, which makes everyone laugh, cheer, and applaud even louder.

My shirt is soaked with sweat just like Víctor's, only mine is from playing soccer for the last three hours, and now I feel guilty that I didn't help Víctor more. I also have to admit that I feel a little bit jealous that Víctor is getting all the credit, even though he deserves it. If I had known that Víctor would become La Rupa's hero and main attraction for the day, maybe I would have kept helping. Then again, maybe I wouldn't have. Víctor is the oldest. It's his job to do things like tear down huge, ugly barbecues. I'm only thirteen; my job is to help him a little bit and then go have fun.

I glance at Víctor as he finishes his bow. To tell the truth, I'm hoping that he'll say something like “José helped too,” but he just smiles at me. As much as I hate to admit it, Víctor really did do most of the work. I guess fair is fair.

Berti looks up at me and kind of smiles in that way that dogs do when they seem calm and happy. I reach down to pet her, but she licks the soccer-game sweat off the palm of my hand before I can start patting her head. Víctor may be La Rupa's hero for the moment, but Berti still likes me best—at least right now she does.

As I look around at all our friends and neighbors, I can't imagine La Rupa ever changing very much. We're a tiny Honduran town in the middle of nowhere. Towns like ours are not just in Honduras or even just Central America. They can be found anyplace, really. Then again, what do I know? I've lived here all my life.

  SIX MONTHS LATER

“Berti! Come! Come on, girl!” I'm standing on our front steps, yelling down the street and then in the other direction, over and over again. Berti never wanders away for very long, but she hasn't been home for several hours.

“BERTI! BERTI!”

Mom opens the front door and says, “That's enough, José. She'll come home when she gets hungry.”

“But Mom …” I start to say, but she interrupts me.

“You're too loud, son. Come in and have dinner, and after you eat, you can go look for her some more.”

I say, “Okay,” but I'm not really happy about it.

Where is that stupid dog?

It's not just Berti who is missing dinner. There are only five of us home tonight. It's been rainy all day, a hard rain (the kind of rain that Berti
never
goes out in!). Víctor and Ruby are with Dad on his deliveries. Dad delivers goods—everything from expensive furniture for rich people's houses to groceries for the little truchas in the small towns near here and in the closest big town, San Pedro Sula, seventeen miles away. Dad is almost always home in time for dinner, but tonight he's late. I figure that the storm must have slowed him down. Víctor works with Dad on most days, and Ruby had to talk to some people at a modeling school in La Ceiba, seventy miles away, where Dad's deliveries are today, so she rode along with them.

Mom decided not to hold the meal any longer, which I'm glad about, because I'm hungry!

I ask my sister María to pass me a tortilla. This sounds like a poem because María rhymes with tortilla. Anyway, I ask her a second time, “Hey, María, will you pass a tortilla?” I get sort of a kick out of myself. María either ignores me or doesn't hear me. With her you can never tell. She's always got her head in the clouds. Why doesn't she do a poem back at me, something funny, like “No way, José. I must say, you'll get no tortilla from María!”?

“María,” I ask again, louder, “will you please pass me a—”

I don't finish my sentence because in this instant the rain and wind hit our roof with a huge pounding sound—a noise like thunder or something big and heavy ramming into the house. It hurts my ears. Our house shakes under the weight of this noise, and there is a bad creaking sound, as if the boards will give way and collapse. I feel a shiver run up my back and get goose bumps on my arms, as if I were watching a scary movie. I try not to let anyone see me looking scared.

But as I'm thinking this, my mother, who was walking toward the table from across the kitchen when the noise hit, freezes in her tracks, standing as still as a statue. Juan and my youngest sister, Ángela, both stare up at the ceiling.

María looks at me and asks, “What?” She is the only person in our house who has not noticed how bad the weather has suddenly gotten.

“Shush,”' I say to her quickly, holding my finger up to my lips. Juan and Ángela stare at me, and in another moment even María looks nervous.

“Mamá,”
Juan calls out, and Mom hurries over and wraps her arms around him. I wish Mom were holding me right now, even though I'm too old.

It bugs me that I'm scared of a stupid storm. I tell myself that it's only rain and wind, just water falling down from the sky. But the truth is I
am
scared. This is so different from any rain we've ever had. During the rainy season, we have lots of storms. Many times during sudden cloudbursts I've ducked into the house and watched the rain pour down. But there's never been anything like this rain before. It's not even like rain; it's more like sheets of solid water, like a waterfall crashing down from the sky. And the wind gets worse and worse, roaring all around us. What a stupid time for Berti to go missing!

Where are my father and Víctor and Ruby? Why aren't they home yet? Mom wasn't too worried earlier, because it
is
the rainy season and Dad is used to driving in bad weather, but this is beginning to feel like something much worse than just a regular storm.

The water shifts its weight; the roof creaks again. Rain now drips down into the house, and it is a
lot
of water. On the rainiest, wettest days of past rainy seasons, sometimes our house leaked in one or two different spots, a place in the kitchen and a place just over the back door. Now the house has sprung too many leaks to count. Mom, Ángela, and María hurry to grab buckets, pots, and pans—anything to catch the dripping rain. I can't tell where one leak ends and another begins. The water drips into the house so fast and steady that in some places it looks like it's coming from a faucet.