Until I Find Julian (13 page)

It's another morning; we're sitting
at the kitchen table. Angel is bent over a page from the notebook, working in her loopy handwriting. And I'm asking for English words:
owl, bobcat,
and
deer.
And then:
gray rocks
and
cave.

She draws in her breath at a noise outside. The rattling of an old truck? Is it coming down the alley?

She jumps up quickly, goes to the window, and lifts the curtain an inch or two.

“What?” I ask absently, gray rocks and the cave still on my mind.

She turns and I see she's afraid. She gives her head a quick shake, her fingers go to her lips.

I jump up and peer out. It really is a truck. The alley is narrow; the top of the truck grazes the trees, and leaves scatter. It stops directly behind the house.

Two men, both whistling, come around to open the back of the truck. It's hard to see what's inside, but Angel takes a guess. “Furniture,” she says. “They're coming here. Someone's moving in.”

She might be right. The men put their heads together to check a piece of paper and one of them points toward our kitchen.

But they don't come, not yet. They hop up and sit on the edge of the truck, with coffee cups in their hands. They're in no hurry.

But we are.

We move fast, scooping everything up from the table, the paper, the backpacks, the guitar against the wall. The ads we studied slide away onto the floor; the picture of the woman with the bracelets snaking up her arm stares up at me. I leave them there.

What else do we need?

We grab the food that Sal has given us, sweeping it out of the cabinet, and the money I've left on the counter.

I remember the flashlight on the couch and dive for it.

Do we have everything? I stare at the pile on the floor in front of us. How have we gotten all these things? I came here with almost nothing, and now there's really no way to carry it all.

Angel frowns. “We won't even get out the front door.”

In spite of our rush to get somewhere safe before the men open the back door, I give Angel a quick grin and she nods.

There's no time to pick and choose. We leave half bottles of soda on the counter, and then we run out the front door with whatever we can carry, as we hear the back door open.

We're just in time. We're not caught.

We look around, hoping no one is on the street to see us in the daytime. A car passes, and we duck our heads, but it doesn't even slow down.

“Where, Matty?” Angel mumbles. “Where?” and I tell her, “We'll go to the pine forest.”

“That's a terrible idea.” She raises her hand without thinking and drops a can of food. It rolls down the street.

“Not so terrible.” I go after it. “You'll see, Angel.”

The cave and the gray rocks are still in my mind. I wish I knew how large that cave was. Suppose it isn't even a cave, but only a jagged bunch of rocks with nowhere to sit inside?

Still, we hurry down the street. The sun is hidden behind sullen gray clouds, and it's so hot it's hard to move.

We look over our shoulders; we have to run, we have to hide. I can't wait to reach the friendly arms of the pine trees.

We turn left, taking the straight road toward that cool place with the cave.

The trees are up ahead, that green fuzz that promises safety. I hitch up Sal's food, the guitar over my shoulder, and run the last few feet. I show Angel the sandy path, our feet scattering pine needles.

I'm in such a hurry that I take a wrong turn and the cave isn't in front of us. I can't even see gray rocks.

“I'm lost.” I can hardly get the words out. “I can't find…”

I dump everything on the ground in front of me.

“Slow down,” Angel says. “Take a few breaths. We'll be all right.”

She doesn't mean it, though. I see her glance over her shoulder, even though I know the men unloading furniture are far behind us, and there's no one nearby.

I pick up our bundles, and we wander into grass that's high as our knees and bends gently in the hot wind. Underneath, the ground is soft, and the pine trees surround us with thick branches.

I feel safer here.

Angel still doesn't feel that. She zigzags ahead of me, dragging our things.

But then she slows down, stops, out of breath, and I catch up to her. We sit at the edge of the field. Around us, noise begins. It's the sound of frogs, so maybe we're close to a pond. One frog begins,
glunk, glunk,
another chimes in, and then a third. Over our heads a bird flies up.
“Talk to me, talk to me,”
it seems to say.

The sun comes out and plays over our eyes. We close them and yawn. We doze for a while, leaning against our bags.

But later, the wind is stronger, flattening the tall grass. The birds are silent, and only the frogs continue their strange music.

“We have to sleep somewhere tonight, really sleep,” Angel says.

“Yes, you're right. You're always right,” I say, trying to make her smile.

We leave our bags under a tree, careful to remember exactly where they are. Then we wander, and almost like a miracle, the trees and the narrow path begin to look familiar. “The cave is near.”

She doesn't answer. She's fed up with the pines and the wind blowing through the grass.

Maybe she's even fed up with me.

We duck under trees, the guitar still slung over my back, and there in front of us is a jumble of stones, almost hidden behind trees with uneven arms and bent trunks.

I think of the bobcat, but I don't tell Angel that the cave might be too small for us, or even that an animal might be living there.

I switch on the flashlight. Its thin beam shines into a pair of dark eyes, a groundhog maybe, which lumbers away and disappears.

“Wait here a minute,” I tell Angel.

She slides down against a bare tree and closes her eyes.

As terrible as all this is, I have to smile. I'm really in charge: the boss of the pine-tree world.

Not Angel.

She knows it. She's not happy about it.

We don't go into the cave yet. I'm glad to put it off, and I think Angel is too. We spread our things around us: the guitar, Sal's food, a can opener, bottles of water, of soda, spoons….

“Where's…?” I begin.

“What?”

“The quilt from the bed.”

I don't say it's the quilt Mami and Abuelita worked on at our table in the kitchen, probably sewing while I stood at the stove taking spoonfuls of rice from the pot.

How could I have forgotten it? How could I leave it there for someone else?

It's the quilt they made for Julian.

“I'm going back for it.”

She shakes her head, then changes her mind. “Yes, we'll need it.”

She doesn't offer to come with me, and I'm glad. I have to do this alone.

The truck is gone;
no one is around. But still, I move slowly, looking everywhere to be sure I'm alone. I dart across the yard, empty houses on each side of me, and go up the three steps to the door.

It's locked now.

But maybe the kitchen window.

I give it a push and it creaks up, I boost myself to straddle the sill, and then I'm inside. If people saw me now they'd be sure I'm a thief.

I feel like one.

I slide into the bedroom, passing a living room with a different couch, striped, cleaner than the one that was here before, a couple of chairs, tables, and a bookcase that's filled with books.

I can't waste a moment. Whoever owns all this must be coming.

The quilt isn't in the bedroom. A pale blanket is spread across the bed. Have they taken Mami's away in the truck with the old couch? If only I had remembered to take it!

Back in the kitchen, I close the window. This time I go out the door.

There's a clean garbage can next to the bottom step. I open the lid. The picture of the lady with the bracelets looks up at me, and underneath…

Mami and Abuelita's red and yellow quilt!

I pull it out, careful to keep it off the ground, rolling it up. I hug it to me, almost as if Mami and Abuelita are there beside me, and Julian too.

And then I hurry back to the forest, to Angel, and the cave.

It isn't huge, it isn't even big, but it's enough for the two of us. At least, that's what I think at first.

We sit just inside under a rocky roof, wishing we'd taken the rest of the food we'd left in the cabinet; we listen to the plink of water dripping inside.

It's hot and humid, and the rocks are hard even with the quilt folded underneath us. In the distance I hear the roll of thunder. I think I've never felt worse.

“Remember that first soup?” Angel says.

I do. Then I sit up straight.

Sal.

“We can't stay here in this heat,” Angel whispers, as if someone might hear us. She pulls her hair up off her neck. “It's worse than prison.”

I stand up quickly and stumble over one of the bags. “I have to go back right away. Sal thinks I'm coming to help today.”

I think of Miguel and the factory; I think of the fist-sized dent in the car door. I even think of taking the old woman's broom. I've done so many things wrong! But I can't let Sal down.

“Just stay here, Angel,” I tell her. “I'll come back when I can. I'll give you the flashlight so you won't be alone in the dark later.” I turn it on to show her.

She looks furious. “You think I'm going to stay here? When you come back, I might be gone.”

“Gone again?” I don't say it nicely. At the same time I drop the flashlight. It rolls between us, lighting the floor of the cave, lighting…

Something familiar?

But there's no time to go back and look.

Angel's face is flushed from the heat, and I feel sorry for her. “Listen. I'll come back as soon as I finish work. We'll figure something out.”

She barely looks at me, but she nods, and then I crash through the trees. I'm a mess, with twigs in my hair, and my face probably filthy.

I run along the streets, past the houses, along the avenue.

How could I have forgotten?

There's a crack of lightning. I actually see it—an angry flash that zigzags across the sky, and a clap of thunder so loud it makes me jump.

But the store is in front of me. Kids are coming out of school, so I'm not late after all.

Inside, Sal is turned away from me, taking an order on the telephone, I guess.

I rush into the little bathroom in back that's filled with boxes and pails. I turn on the faucet and dunk my head in the sink to wet my hair, my face, and my neck. I wash with soap until my nails are clean. Then I shake the twigs out from the bottom of my shirt. I'm ready to work.

I get the broom and sweep around the front, thinking of Miguel at the factory. The car I dented wasn't his. Did he have to pay for it? Did he have to explain to the owner that two kids were playing ball with a piece of the motor?

I can't think about that now.

I sweep harder, then lean the broom against the back wall. Sal waves at a few cartons. I know exactly what to do. I rip open those cartons, pile cans of dog food on the dog food shelf, canned peas on the vegetable shelf, and root beer in the refrigerator.

There's another flash of lightning; I look up waiting for the thunder…

Which doesn't come.

Sal, at the counter now, wipes his hands on his apron. He's glancing out too.

“A storm,” I say, one of my new words.

“No. Heat lightning.” He makes sure I understand, raising his arm in a zigzag motion.
“Zzzzz,”
he says.

“Yes. Lightning.”

He talks slowly, still using his arms. “If the lightning hits a tree…” He stops and waits for me to catch up as I mouth the words.

“Boom!” he yells.

I jump.

“The tree explodes.”

“Fire?” I ask, and he nods.