I hop off the Metro bus and into the sunshine after a week of sitting in those classes. One whole week with a sharpened pencil and a sharpened backup pencil and a shiny new notebook with crisp dividers. One week of scholarly freaking posture and eyes on the speaker and trying so hard to make this all look perfectly normal.
Finally, the weekend is here and Ma Nature is giving us one last shot of summer.
For the old T, this would have been time to cut loose.
But instead of heading to Caleb’s, I’m marching down the cracked streets of SeaTac sporting a bulbous one-ton backpack. I got the periodic table whirling in my mind and I can’t drop the idea that the formula for calcium phosphate is C-3PO, when it’s really Ca3-PO-something. And I’m kicking myself for the time I’ve lost trying to find the compound whose formula is closest to R2-D2.
I have to unlock the mysteries of linear equations for Algebra Two. They’re in their second book in AP English. Dante’s Inferno. Eight chapters to read by Sunday night. Six chapters from the AP US History textbook, Out of Many, and an essay about a colonial rebellion called “Persons of Mean and Vile Condition.”
And I have to be prepared to talk pros and cons of sentencing convicted kids as adults for Socratic Seminar in Ms. Hays’s AVID class. Everyone talks. That’s the rule. And I have to keep my three-ring-binder in order. That thing is checked daily by Ms. Hays until I prove I’m a wizard of organization.
Ms. Bradley said it’d be like this. Like you’re trying to hop on a merry-go-round spinning a thousand miles per hour. You have to keep reaching for it, jumping up for it, keep getting smacked down. Eventually the spinning will slow and you can just step up for the ride.
Right now, I’m motion sick with all the spinning, but I’m choosing to trust Ms. Bradley.
I get to the house and onto the porch. But before I open the door, I lift the lid on the mailbox and reach in. There’s a utility bill, some ads, and an envelope from Puget High School.
I sit on the step and open up the parent version of the AVID contract. All this stuff Mami and Papi are supposed to do to support me. All the promises they’re supposed to make.
I turn to the second page. Pull a pen from my pack. Find the dotted lines. I’ve been practicing for this moment. I sign, Daniel Avila—long, curvy, and clear. Then Rosario Avila—big R and a big A, the rest a fast mess.
I’m not ready for any Avilas to know. College has always been the most important thing for my mom. She had high hopes for Manny. But he chose to join the army. Xochitl is the smartest of us all, but she thinks college will slow her down. My brother and sister disappointed Mami because they had real potential. I have never really shown any of that, so I don’t want to get her hopes up and end up being another disappointment.
But maybe the real reason I’m hiding all this is cuz when I blow it, it’ll be easier to quit if no one knows I tried.
I stuff the contract in my pack.
And before I head inside, I shoot off a text. Wendy answers right away.
FRI SEP 19 3:37 P.M.
T: What’s ur favorite class?
Wendy: AP Physics. But anything math
or science.
Wendy: And I kind of love my history
teacher. Your fave?
T: DK … year is still
young
Wendy: Oh, and band. I play tuba.
T: Lol you crack me up
Wendy: I play the tuba, Teodoro.
T: Wow that’s
Wendy: Cool? Awesome?
T: Cool and awesome and kinda
Wendy: ?
T: Cute
Wendy:The tuba?
T: U
T: Playing the tuba
Wendy: Aww. You are sweet. I have to
run.
T: Me too gotta hit those
books