CHAPTER FOUR

Happiness is not where you think you find it.… So many people poison every day worrying about the next.

—JACQUELINE KENNEDY

Mom would never have given me coffee. One of the reasons I used to like staying over at Nana’s house—before we were staying here permanently, I mean—is that she pretends she doesn’t hear when Mom says coffee will make me jittery or stunt my growth, and not to pour me any.

When I sit down at the kitchen table, Nana fills my mug, half with coffee and half with cream, then sprinkles cinnamon and sugar on top. She brings me a bowl of oatmeal and half a concha, my favorite kind of pan dulce, from the Mexican bakery around the corner. She walks there every morning, even when it’s raining, and is back at the house before the rest of us even wake up.

I eat the oatmeal first, leaving a pile of raisins behind in the bowl (because Nana also pretends not to hear when I tell her that raisins are awful, so wrinkled and chewy). Then I break off a piece of concha, letting the crumbly topping fall over my fingers, and dip it in the coffee. It soaks it up like a sponge. The perfect mix of bitter and sweet.

Nana glances nervously at the clock on the microwave when Maribel’s blow-dryer roars to life in the bathroom. But I’m not worried. Maribel is never late.

“Do you have everything you need, mija?”

“Think so.”

I have my backpack from last year, the school supplies laid out on the nightstand, and of course, my new shoes. I look down. There isn’t anything wrong with them, really. They’re clean and new, bright and white. But so plain.

I have an idea.

“Actually, Nana, maybe there’s one more thing I need. Can I use some of your wrapping stuff?”

She starts to open her mouth as if she’s about to ask why, but changes her mind. “Ándale,” she says. “But you better hurry. You don’t want to be late on your first day.”

Nana always opens her presents slowly and cautiously, painfully careful not to rip or tear the wrapping. It doesn’t matter how much we tease or complain; she never rushes. And all the paper, all the ribbon, all the bows and bags she thinks are too nice to just throw away she keeps on a shelf at the top of the hallway closet.

Maybe some of it is useful after all. I drag a chair over from the kitchen and climb up to try to find what I need.

Under a square of silver wrapping that I recognize from Nana’s birthday last year, I find a long piece of ribbon the color of marigolds. It’s frayed at the ends, but only a little.

I hop off the chair and hurry to the bedroom, where I snip the ribbon in half with a pair of scissors. Each piece is just long enough to weave over my shoelaces and tie in a neat bow. I wish I had time to check the whole outfit in a mirror, but the shoes feel better, at least, with a little more color.

“Geez, you’re going to make us late!” Maribel calls.

I grab my backpack from off the floor, hold it open against my nightstand, and rake in pens and pencils and erasers. “Coming!”

Maribel is waiting for me at the door, holding the keys to Grandpa’s car in one hand and in the other, a pig-shaped gingerbread cookie with its ear bitten off. Her hair is braided and coiled up in a bun. Her mouth looks as if she’s just finished a grape lollipop.

“New item of the month?”

She smacks her lips. “Sugar Plum,” she says. “Let’s go.”

We lean down for Nana to kiss our foreheads on our way out the door. Outside, Logan is sitting on his front porch steps, poking at a spiderweb with a twig. He drops it and stands when he sees us.

“I heard your mom drive off earlier, so I knew she wasn’t giving you a ride. I waited—just in case you want to walk together after all?”

“That’s okay. Maribel’s giving me a ride.”

She elbows me in the ribs. “Geez!”

“Ouch! Okay.” I turn to Logan. “Sorry. Do you want to come with us?”

“Plenty of room,” Maribel adds, patting the side of the Crown Victoria. “This thing is basically a tank.”

Logan picks up his backpack and scrambles down the steps. Maribel unlocks the doors. I sit up front with her, and Logan climbs in back.

It’s not that I don’t like him. Logan is pretty much family. I mean, even before we moved in with Nana, I saw him more often than any of my actual cousins, and I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t know him. Mom’s photo albums are filled with pictures of Logan and me dressed as Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf for Halloween, of us diving for candy when the piñata broke at my birthday parties, and of bright blue raspado syrup dripping off our chins and staining our shirts when it was summertime.

I even sort of miss him, which is a strange thing to feel, I mean, considering we’ve been living next door to each other for months now. But that’s the problem. I never told anyone at school what happened with the house last year. But it’s not like I can hide it from Logan. Every time I see him I hold my breath and clench my jaw and wonder when he’s finally going to ask why we’re living with Nana, or how long we’re going to stay, or when my dad is coming back.

The thing is, I don’t know the answers to any of those questions, and I don’t want to say so out loud. So whenever Logan came to the door this summer, I told him I was busy. And every time I heard his basketball bouncing on the driveway, I just stayed inside.

But on the way to school, Logan doesn’t ask why we’re living at Nana’s, or where Dad is, or even why we’re riding with Maribel in Grandpa’s enormous Crown Victoria and not with Mom.

Instead, he leans forward and asks, “You haven’t seen Magdalena, have you?”

“Oh, no.” I twist around to face him, the seat belt straining against my neck. “She didn’t get out again, did she?”

He brushes his hair out of his eyes. “She got out again.”

Magdalena is completely harmless—unless you’re a guppy, obviously. She’s even sort of beautiful in a way, deep forest green with yellow stripes.

Nana doesn’t think so.

“Well, you better find her fast. You remember what happened last time, don’t you?”

Logan shudders.

He had invited me over to watch Magdalena eat her lunch one Sunday last year. Only, when we got to his bedroom, she wasn’t in her aquarium. His mom said he must have left the lid open, but he swore he closed it. We emptied Logan’s drawers and tore through his closet trying to find her. We checked in all his shoes and even turned all his pockets inside out, but Magdalena had completely disappeared.

Logan had dropped a guppy in her bowl. “Maybe she’ll come back when she’s hungry.” We went to go shoot free throws in his driveway.

Logan had made twelve shots in a row. He was going for number thirteen when we heard a shriek from Nana’s yard. The ball dropped. We ran over—Logan’s mom three steps behind us—to see what had happened.

I had never seen Nana so upset. She was screaming—she was even cursing—but none of us could understand what was wrong. Finally, Ms. Johnson took her by both wrists and got her to calm down enough to explain. Sort of.

Nana pointed at Logan, then to one of her toilet planters. “Get it out of there,” she growled.

“Get what? Wh-where?” Logan stammered. He looked from Nana to his mom, to the planter, and back to Nana again. And then the color drained from his cheeks. He finally understood. “Oh.”

He bit his lower lip, walked over to the toilet, and crouched down for a closer look. Gently, he pushed aside stems and leaves and flowers. “There you are.”

I shake my fist like Nana had that afternoon. “If I ever, ever, find that thing in my garden again, I’ll bring her back home myself,” I roar.

“In pieces!” Logan and Maribel shout together.

We had all laughed until we cried that day. Even Nana, after the surprise finally wore off.

We’re all laughing again as Maribel pulls over to let us out of the car half a block away from school. “This close enough for you guys?”

“It’s fine.” Logan and I click open our seat belts in unison.

I unlock my door, but Maribel puts a hand on my shoulder before I can open it. “Hey.”

I turn to face her. “Yeah?”

“Have a good day and all that,” she says. “Okay?”

“Okay,” I say. I push the door open and step outside.

“Thanks for the ride,” Logan says as she drives away.

“Thanks for waiting.” I really mean it. I’m glad he’s here. Because as long as I was laughing with Logan, I could stop thinking about my too-short jeans or my plain shoes or how different everything is from the way the first day of sixth grade was supposed to be.