Flor
With one hand still holding tight to the kettle corn bag and the other balled into an angry fist, fingernails digging into my palms, I marched through the midway and back to the petting zoo. I had to force my legs not to run. I did not want to call attention to myself, not with my cheeks still so hot. But I couldn’t help feeling like, if I didn’t get back there quickly, Rancho Maldonado would be shut down and boarded up before I could save it. Because the thing of it was, I had noticed our lines getting shorter, the crowds getting thinner all summer. What I hadn’t realized was that Mr. Barsetti had noticed too.
Why not cut the petting zoo? Just thinking about it made my eyes sting. And I could not believe I had wasted every lunch hour since Bakersfield watching Monstrous Miranda and the Rotten Reyes family getting ready to bump us off the carnival lineup.
It did not matter that she didn’t mean to, or that she probably didn’t know the petting zoo even existed. Depending on how she sang tonight—and since I had wasted every lunch hour watching her, I knew exactly how she’d sing—Miranda could be the final straw, the reason Rancho Maldonado closed for good. And that would make one more reason for Mamá to take me home and send me back to regular school. I sped up. Normally it took around ten minutes to walk halfway across the fairgrounds, from Rancho Maldonado to the side stage. That afternoon, I got there in five.
“Slow down. Where’s the fire? You too busy to even say hello anymore?”
I had just walked past the frozen lemonade stand. It was screaming yellow and shaped like an enormous lemon. Not the sort of thing you just walked past, unless of course, you happened to walk past it almost every single day. Ms. Alverson was leaning out the window.
“Sorry, I was just trying to get to the zoo. I’m running a little late. Told Papá I’d be right back.”
“The zoo’s not going anywhere,” she said. “Hold up a minute.”
I hoped it wasn’t going anywhere. But after what I’d heard at the side stage, I couldn’t be sure. Ms. Alverson helped the next customers in line. It was a dad and two kids, and each of them carried one of those handheld water-spritzing fans you could buy at a carnival concession stand for eight or ten dollars—or, like, two bucks anywhere else. But they must have thought it was worth the price. When you’re sweaty, you’re sweaty, I guess.
The kids were already holding corn dogs and barbecue turkey drumsticks bigger than their arms. I didn’t know how they were going to juggle the lemonades too, but somehow, they managed, sort of hugging the frosty cups against their sides as they shambled toward a picnic table.
After Ms. Alverson called out after them to have a nice day, she told Lexanne to come and watch the stand for a couple of minutes. Lexanne had been stretched out on a beach towel, studying the Diseases of the Teeth and Gums book we all pitched in to buy her last May when she earned her GED. She was leaving for college in three weeks and wanted to become a dentist someday. Ms. Alverson tossed her an apron, then met me outside, carrying two large frozen lemonades.
She wiped her forehead on her sleeve. “What I need is one of those mini water fans everyone’s walking around with. Here. Take these.”
Two weeks earlier, right after the Dry Bean Festival in Tracy, Mamá had said good-bye and taken the bus over to Stockton. My Tía Patty had a house there and found her a job. A good one at a doctor’s office. But before she left, Mamá made Ms. Alverson promise to look out for Papá and me.
And since then, Ms. Alverson didn’t seem to think she was keeping her word unless she was filling us up with frozen lemonade.
“You look like you could use something cool to drink, all red in the face like that. And goodness knows, your father hasn’t taken a break all morning. He takes better care of those animals than he does himself.”
She was right about that.
We didn’t always have the petting zoo, but we’d had animals since forever. We used to live on a little farm out in the country, with cherry trees and chickens and goats and rabbits. The Ranch, we called it. Papá invited my kindergarten class out for a visit once, to see the animals and feed them. Everyone had such a good time that when the first-grade teachers heard about it, they asked to bring their classes too. After a while, pretty much every school in the city was calling to schedule a field trip. Papá didn’t mind, though. He loved telling kids about how one pound of sheep’s wool can make ten miles of yarn. Or how chickens can fly, just not very far and not very high.
I didn’t mind either. On farm days, no one ever said a word about my jacket with sleeves that were too short, or about the chicken feathers stuck to my backpack. Everyone looked at Papá like he was in charge and he had all the answers.
Then, one weekend, a man in a suit and cowboy hat showed up. He’d heard about the Ranch from his niece, he said, and he wondered, had Papá ever considered taking the animals out on the road?
“You’d be surprised how many kids out there don’t know where eggs come from, never milked a cow before.”
“We don’t have a cow,” Papá said.
“My point is,” the man persisted, “a wholesome, back-to-basics act like this would be a big hit on the carnival circuit. We’d pay you, of course. Why don’t you come along with us for the summer, see how it goes?”
Papá said thanks but no. He wasn’t sure how the animals—not to mention Mamá and me—would take to it, all that traveling. The Ranch was staying put.
So the man said good-bye. He left a business card, just in case Papá ever changed his mind: Mr. Albert Barsetti, Barsetti & Son All-American Extravaganzas. There was a picture of a Ferris wheel on the back side.
But it turned out the Ranch wasn’t staying put after all. See, the land wasn’t actually ours, we just rented it. And about a year after Mr. Barsetti came to visit, the owner told us he needed the property back. He paid us for the cherry orchard, but the animals had to go. Only, without the barn and without a pasture, we weren’t sure where.
“We could sell them,” Mamá said one night at dinner, pushing green beans around her plate with the edge of a spoon. “We might have to.”
But I wasn’t ready, and neither was Papá. He dug that business card out of his wallet and called up Mr. Barsetti. We spent some of our savings, plus the cherry tree money, on a trailer for the animals and an RV for us, and a month later, Rancho Maldonado Petting Zoo made its debut at the Calaveras County Fair.
We only planned to stay with the carnival for the summer, just long enough to find a new house on another big piece of land. But it turned out things weren’t so bad on the circuit. We got to see a new city every weekend, the animals seemed to like all the attention, and there were even other kids around. Nine of us altogether. So when summer ended, instead of starting fourth grade, I started road-schooling with Mikey and Maria Bean. Mikey was my age, and Maria was three years younger. Their dad worked rides and games, and their mom set up a little classroom next to Mr. Barsetti’s office where we all went for lessons Thursday through Monday, while the rest of the adults were working. Tuesday and Wednesday were usually traveling days, but Mrs. Bean always made sure we had a reading assignment to work on. We got summers off, just like we would have if we didn’t live on the road.
“Looks like your dad has a little crowd over there,” Ms. Alverson said, pointing to the zoo. Before turning around, I shut my eyes and wished that when I opened them, Rancho Maldonado would be packed. I wished for a long line of people, all waiting to pet the goats or feed the sheep. There were lines everywhere else, after all. Lines to buy sausage and peppers, lines to speed down a slide on a burlap sack, lines to throw dull darts at a wall of balloons that almost never popped.
I looked.
When Ms. Alverson said “little,” she must have meant small. As in short. Besides Maria—who didn’t count because she was always hanging around and wasn’t a paying customer, anyway—the only “crowd” at Rancho Maldonado was twin toddlers and their grinning parents. Papá watched the boys waddle through the wood shavings, arms stretched out in front of them like drooly zombies, while their parents stood back and took pictures. Mikey told me that at some carnivals they charged for pictures with the animals, and he thought we could build a photo booth and start a business, him and me. We wouldn’t have to charge too much—even a little bit more money would help. Papá would never agree to it, though.
“Your papá has a generous heart,” Mamá said once as we watched him give our old sleeping bag away to one of the newer workers who was sleeping in a tent with just a thin blanket. She had sounded a little sad when she said it, though, and I didn’t understand why, since I always thought generous was a good thing to be.
But since she’d left, I was beginning to see how, when it came to running a business, Papá’s generous heart sometimes got in the way of his head.
“San Joaquin County next week,” Ms. Alverson said, interrupting my thoughts.
“Yeah.”
“Excited to see your mom?”
I sighed.
Mamá had wanted to take me with her. She said it was time for me to live in the real world again, to go back to school. To start sixth grade.
But Papá was going to stay with the carnival—Tía Patty might have found Mamá a job, but she had not found a new home for the animals—and I didn’t want to leave either.
“You can stay for the summer,” Mamá had compromised.
“Forever.”
“We’ll see.”
I thought if I could convince them Papá needed my help running the zoo, she might change her mind. But there was no way Mamá would let me stay if she knew Rancho Maldonado was in danger of closing.
I watched Papá shake hands with the toddlers’ parents. Then he patted each boy’s strawberry-blond head.
“How’s she getting along with your aunt?”
“Huh?” I had not been paying attention.
“Your mom,” Ms. Alverson said. “How’s she doing? She must miss you two.”
“Oh, she’s fine, I guess.” She was probably fine, but I had only talked to her twice since she left. She usually called on her lunch break, which just happened to be at the same time as my daily trip to the Family Side Stage. All she wanted to talk about was school and how much I would love going back. But every time she mentioned it, all I could think about was sitting alone in that crowded cafeteria, or listening to giggly whispers fly behind me in class, never being sure what they were saying exactly, but knowing it was about me just the same.
Inside the animal pen, Papá handed each of the twin boys a brown paper bag full of oats and seeds.
For free.
I ground my teeth. It was like he didn’t even care whether Rancho Maldonado survived. Like no one ever told him we were supposed to be running a business. Mamá had tried, but with her gone, it was all up to me.
“Sorry, Ms. Alverson, I have to go. Thanks for the lemonade.”
Each bag of animal feed cost one dollar. Said so right on the sign. People loved letting the animals eat out of their hands, kids especially. It was one of the only reasons they came at all. And Papá was just giving it away.
I jogged up to the wood-and-wire fencing that surrounded the zoo and forced the words out: “That’ll be two dollars.” My voice sounded small and shaky. No one even heard me. So I cleared my throat and tried again. “The feed costs a dollar a bag. So that’s two dollars… please.”
“Oh!” The mom looked up, all startled and embarrassed, and reached into her pocket. Her cheeks were as pink as mine felt. “Of course, just let me…”
Papá stared at me openmouthed like I had just told her she needed to buy the rooster a tennis racket or something.
“No, no,” he said, touching the woman on the elbow. “It’s on me. I insist. You just enjoy this time with your boys. It goes by so fast.”
“But, Papá.”
“Flor, if we can’t afford a little kindness, it isn’t worth staying in business.”
It was only two dollars. But two dollars is two dollars, you know? And sure, Ms. Alverson had just given us free lemonade. But that was different. She was looking out for us, and so was I—only, Papá was making it so difficult.
“Fine. Enjoy.” I wrenched my mouth into a smile and set the lemonades on the ticket counter. “Maria, you can have mine.”
“Thanks!” she chirped.
“And from now on,” I whispered into her ear, “you’re in charge of selling the oats.” Then I went around back to the shed behind the petting zoo. It was where we stacked the feed and hay, and where we took the animals to rest when they needed a break from people. It was also where we kept Betabel.
Her name meant sugar beet, after the harvest where Mamá and Papá first met. But she wasn’t very sweet.
“Where are you, Betabel? Come out.” She did not come.
“Betabel? Come on, pretty piggy.” Nothing. Not a sound. I shook the bag of kettle corn. “I have treats.”
That did it. Betabel snuffled and swaggered out from a shady corner of the shed. I shook a handful of popcorn into my hand and held it out for her to sniff.
She wagged her tail and lifted her snout in the air. Then I closed my fist and took my hand away. “Not so fast.”
We had gotten Betabel a year before at the county fair in Marin. This guy walked into the petting zoo with her and took Papá aside. He told us he hadn’t known she’d grow so big, that he couldn’t keep her in his apartment anymore, and could we take her? Then he offered us a bunch of money.
Papá said to put the money away and of course we could help. Mamá rubbed her temples and bit her lip.
“But Mario. A pig?”
He put his hands on his hips and smiled to himself. “The kids will like to play with a pig, ¿que no?”
“¡Que sí!” I answered for him, dropping to my knees to scratch behind the pig’s ears. “They will love it.”
But it turned out Betabel didn’t want to have anything to do with kids. Or anyone else, really, except for Papá and me.
Fortunately, Papá had found a potbellied pig farm near Dinuba, and the owner was supposed to come out and take a look at her, to see if he could help us.
For now, she was strictly backstage only.
But at least you always knew where you stood with Betabel. You never had to worry she was only pretending to like you, that she’d be nice to you one minute and bite you when your back was turned. You could respect a pig like that.
And, anyway, I had a feeling Betabel had untapped potential.
See, back in Turlock, in between fairs, Papá and I went to check out another carnival, one run by Sierra Vista Amusements, Barsetti’s only real rival. Sierra Vista had this skateboarding pug named Puccini, and people would stand in line for an hour to see him. Three times a day. In 102-degree heat. And when the show was over, they stood in line all over again to buy T-shirts and sun visors and water bottles and key chains, all with a picture of Puccini on them.
It gave me an idea. Betabel might not have been sweet, but she was smart. Smarter than some dog, anyway. I had been trying to train her to ride a skateboard ever since then, and she was finally making progress.
“It’s now or never,” I told her. “It’s all up to us. Pig versus pop star.”
I rolled the skateboard out of the shed. Mikey had given it to me after he got a new one at the flea market. The deck was pretty banged up, and one of the wheels was loose, but that didn’t matter, not for practice. I was saving up the nickels and dimes I found near the trash bins—people were always throwing away their loose change by accident—to buy something nicer for when Betabel was ready for an audience.
The first step was to get her comfortable standing on the board. I dropped a few pieces of kettle corn on it. She waddled over, ate them, and stepped off when she was finished. “Good girl,” I told her. “You got this.”
I reached into the bag and scattered a little more popcorn on the board. Only this time, when she stepped on and started chewing, I added another handful. Then, before she was finished, I gently pushed the skateboard forward a few inches. And then a few inches more. It bobbled over the hard-packed dirt.
Betabel lifted her head and grunted.
“All right, all right, I’m sorry.” I gave her some more kettle corn. “Here you go. See? It’s not so bad. You can do this. You were born for this.”
But just as I was getting ready to give the skateboard another push, a shriek rang out from the petting zoo. Betabel hopped off the skateboard and scuttled back inside the shed. I sprang off the ground, dropped the bag of kettle corn on the counter, and rushed over. It could have been a chicken pecking someone’s ankle. Or worse, one of the goats mistaking some kid’s finger for a French fry. It had happened before, and it was never good. Angry customers were almost worse than no customers at all.
I scrambled around to the animal pen, and when I saw what the fuss was about, I threw my head back and groaned. The Fairest of the Fair, all of them in white summer dresses and high-heeled sandals, turquoise sashes draped over their chests. The one in the middle—this was Dinuba, I remembered, so she must have been the Cantaloupe Queen—wore a glittery crown.
Just like every fair had a local band, each one had a pageant. The Peach Blossom Princesses or the Dairy Debutantes. Whoever they were, whatever town they were from, they always stopped by Rancho Maldonado for a portrait with the animals.
“One of them gave Chivo a cookie,” Maria whispered, then sucked the last droplets of frozen lemonade through her straw. “And then he licked her finger trying to get the crumbs too. That’s how come she screamed.”
“Didn’t she see the sign?” I had made it myself: PLEASE DON’T FEED THE ANIMALS. UNLESS IT’S ANIMAL FEED—$1 A BAG.
“I tried to tell her.”
Maria and I stood in the back of the pen and watched as Papá offered the girl a wad of paper towels and some hand sanitizer, while the photographer tried to guide the rest of the Cantaloupe Court into two straight lines. “All right, ladies, all right. Just a few more shots. Can one of you hold the rabbit? Scoot in a little closer, aaaaand perfect.”
Barsetti was there, standing next to the photographer with his hands behind his back. Only he wasn’t watching the Cantaloupe Court, he was studying the zoo. I tried to see it the way he must have. Four goats, five chickens, three bunnies, and a sheep, munching on hay and burrowing in the wood shavings. Wire fencing wrapped around skinny wood posts. Nearly empty.
But there was so much more he couldn’t see. Like how Papá had been teaching Maria how to trim the sheep’s hooves because she wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up. Or how, that Thursday before the fair opened, when we were setting up, he traded spots with Ms. Alverson so Lexanne would have some shade while she studied. Maybe we would have had a bigger crowd if we hadn’t set the zoo up in the sun.
“Hey, isn’t that Libby? It is! Libby, you’re back!” Maria started hopping and waving her arms.
I looked closer. It was hard to tell at first because her hair was shorter now, but Maria was right. Liberty Chavez. Her dad was a mechanic and they used to travel with the carnival until someone offered him a better job—in Dinuba. They’d left us after last year’s fair. Mr. Barsetti had been furious.
Libby looked over her shoulder and fluttered her fingers at Maria and me, but she didn’t say hello. She just turned right back around and smiled at the camera.
Maria’s shoulders dropped, and she wrinkled her nose. “Oh,” she said. “I guess she didn’t hear me.”
I nodded and squeezed Maria’s shoulder. Libby had heard. But with new friends like that, why would she ever want to admit she had been one of us? That was the way it was outside the carnival. Maria didn’t know because she had never lived anyplace else. She was practically born on the midway.
The photographer slung her camera strap over her neck. “I think I’ve got what I need here. What’s next?”
“Cantaloupe milk shakes,” Barsetti said. “And then deep-fried cantaloupe on a stick.” He waved at Papá and they all left, the princesses holding up their dresses and tiptoeing over the hay.
Maria tossed the empty lemonade cup into a trash basket. “Well, they’re gone. I better go bring out some fresh water.”
Maria changed out the animals’ water at least once an hour, way more often than we needed to. But Papá had said, “Déjala,” so I left her alone and went searching for Chivo, to make sure he was all right after all the commotion.
He was fine, of course. Eating out of some girl’s hand as she babbled away to him in the strangest-sounding Spanish I had ever heard.