The next morning, Uncle Jorge was whistling. Instead of pouring milk on his cereal, he spilled it on the table. We grabbed paper towels to mop it up.
“My mind is out the window this morning!” Uncle Jorge laughed at himself.
Just as we finished cleaning, the doorbell rang.
“That must be Juanita,” Mom said, grabbing my arm. “Let’s not keep her waiting.”
Mom was in a big hurry to get going. We were all the way down the steps when she realized she’d forgotten Mr. Vaslov’s letter.
“No hay problema,” I told Mom. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Uncle Jorge was still whistling when he opened the door.
“What did you forget, Freddie?”
I told him about Mr. Vaslov’s envelope. He picked it up off the front table and read the address.
“I can deliver this on my way to work,” he said, putting it beside another white envelope inside the front pocket of his jacket.
“Are you sure?” I asked. Between the whistling and the spilled milk, I wasn’t 100 percent positive Uncle Jorge should be trusted with an important letter.
“Of course!” He waved me off. “Go have fun!”
I dashed back down the steps for a busy morning in New York City.
The first place Juanita took us was Rockefeller Center. It had an ice rink, flags, a gold statue, and a ginormous Christmas tree. Everything in New York was huge!
“We’ll come back here tonight,” Mom said, “to see the lights on the tree.”
In the meantime, we went inside Rockefeller Center to see the city from seventy floors above ground.
“Freddie!” Mom pointed. “Look at the Empire State Building!”
“Which one is it?” I asked.
“The tall one,” Mom said. “Can’t you see it?”
New York was full of tall buildings. My teacher would say Mom needed to do a better job with description.
“Look over there, Freddie.” Juanita touched my shoulder. “The tallest one with a needle on top.”
“I see it now!” I said. “It looks like a giant rocket!”
“You’re right!” Juanita agreed.
Some of the buildings had flat tops. Others had round ones. There was a lot to look at. But after a while, my stomach complained for lunch.
Juanita giggled. “Sounds like Freddie needs some New York pizza.”
She took us to a place that had the biggest pizza slices I’d ever seen.
“Use two hands, Freddie,” Juanita warned me.
It was good advice I should have listened to. Mom had to get a pile of napkins to clean pizza off my jeans. On the bright side, Juanita didn’t say, “I told you so.” She even gave me her second slice. “I’m full,” Juanita said, passing her paper plate across the table.
She patted her stomach. “Absolutely.”
“Thanks!” I smiled at my almost cousin.
Juanita was super nice. It was going to be fun to have a bigger family when Uncle Jorge and Angela got married.
After lunch, Juanita took us to Macy’s, this giant department store with more ladies’ purses and shoes than I ever wanted to see in one place. Mom loved it! I thought we were going to be stuck there forever.
“What?” she shouted. “You lost the ring? Oh, Jorge!”
Juanita’s brown eyes got bigger and bigger as she listened to Mom yell into her phone.
“My mother wanted a diamond from Jorge,” Juanita said quietly. “I hope you can find it.”
“Don’t worry,” Mom said. “We will.”
But her face didn’t look so sure. And I didn’t feel so sure I was going to have a bigger family anymore.