DURING THE NEXT MONTH, Loop and his friends worked through all twelve of the “spectacular tricks for beginners.” Loop was totally set to perform his trick for Mrs. Garza so he could get into the Vault, but Z kept stalling, saying that he could never practice because no one would give him a dollar. Loop almost handed over a buck, but he changed his mind. Seriously. How hard could it be to get a dollar? And Dominic kept practicing because he had to be perfect. He always had to be perfect. That’s why it took him five times longer to finish stuff. It didn’t matter if they were making PB&Js or taking a math test. Sure, Dominic got perfect scores lots of times, but Loop could jot down some answers and get a 70, which was still passing. And finishing early meant he could spend the rest of class sketching machines. Loop loved sketching machines—not real ones like washers or air conditioners, but spaceships and robots in futuristic cityscapes.

Finally, his friends said they were ready to perform their tricks, so Loop got all excited—but then he got grounded. Apparently, Cs on tests weren’t good enough when you also had a bunch of zeroes from failing to turn in your homework. So the audition for the Vault had to be postponed till the end of the school year. Thankfully, he only had to wait two weeks, but in the meantime, he felt like a jailbird at home.

In addition to homework, he had chores. Today, when he came home from school, his mom said, “There’s a basket of towels to fold, and then I want you to do your homework. You need to show it to me before dinner.”

Loop dragged his feet as he headed to the room with the towels. His mom liked them folded in thirds. It was extra work, but he did it, putting the bath towels in one stack, the hand towels in another, and the kitchen towels in a third. He was as organized as possible, but it wasn’t enough. When his mom came to examine his work, she pointed out a few towels and said, “You have to redo these.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you folded them with the ugly sides out.” The towels had initials or flowers sewed on, so they looked nice only on one side.

“Why does it matter?” Loop asked. “They’ll be in the closet. We can show the pretty side when we take them out.”

Instead of answering, his mom shook out the towels, unfolding them. She said, “You rushed through this just like you rush through everything. From now on, show some pride in your work.” Then she walked off.

Loop was fighting mad that his mom had accused him of rushing, even though it was true. He wanted to kick the wall or hit the table, but he couldn’t afford to make his life worse. If he acted out, his mom would ground him during the summer, too, and he’d be bored to death and stir-crazy if he didn’t get to hang out with Dominic and Z.

He shook his head, all frustrated. Then he finished the towels, folding them exactly the way she wanted. When he was done, he headed to his room to do his homework. His door had yellow crime scene tape crisscrossing it. It was his way of saying, “Stay out!”

Loop moved the crime scene tape and stepped in. At least he had his own private cave. And it really was a cave, with black curtains and dark gray walls. He had cool posters of wormholes and fractals, which were these weird geometric shapes that seemed to move when you stared at them. When he turned on the black light, the posters glowed in bright oranges, pinks, and greens, and everything white turned purple. He loved staring into the posters, pretending he was in a spaceship going through a nebula like in sci-fi movies.

Loop never made his bed, and he dumped his clothes in the closet without hanging them. He didn’t like to dust or sweep, either. His desk was a mess of paper. But one part of his room stayed clean—the retablo in the corner, a little altar his grandmother had made in honor of the Virgin Mary. It had a little statue of Mary, a rosary, and some candles. His grandma made the retablo when he was a baby because he was born on December twelfth, the day his church celebrated a story about La Virgen de Guadalupe. That was where he got his name—Guadalupe, or Lupe, for short. Since his first teacher couldn’t speak Spanish, it sounded like “Loopy” when she said it. The kids all laughed at him, so he said, “Just call me Loop,” and the name stuck.

Every month, his grandma brought fresh candles and made him pray with her. She put pillows on the floor so they could kneel. Then she did the sign of the cross and started mumbling. After a moment, she nudged Loop so he could pray, too. He didn’t really understand why this ritual was so important to her, but since she never bugged him about his messy room or his grades, he went along with it.

Loop didn’t like to recite prayers, so he just talked to O.G. That’s what he called the little statue. “O.G.” was how rappers abbreviated “original gangster,” but around here, it meant “original Guadalupe.” He hadn’t told his grandma about the nickname, because she’d make him go to confession if she knew.

Loop lit a candle and then plopped on the bed to study. He was about to fall asleep when someone knocked on the door.

He used his horror-film voice, saying, “You may enter if you dare.” Rubén, his “dad,” stepped in.

Rubén said, “I’m going to the car wash. Want to come?”

“Can’t. I’m grounded.”

“How about watching the game later?”

By “game,” he meant basketball. It was the NBA playoffs. Loop loved watching sports with Rubén, but instead he said, “I’ll catch the scores tomorrow.” He lifted Ancient Civilizations of the World and pretended to read.

Rubén got the hint. “All right, then.”

As soon as he left, Loop threw his book. It landed facedown on the floor, its pages getting wrinkled. He couldn’t help being angry with his “dad,” not after the big lie his family had told him.

All these years, Loop had been too dumb to realize that he and Rubén didn’t look alike. Rubén had curly hair; Loop’s was straight. Rubén had a gigantic nose; Loop’s was a normal size. Rubén had a runner’s body; Loop had a wrestler’s. He had never thought about these differences until he learned that Rubén wasn’t actually his dad, something he had never imagined, because Rubén was in Loop’s baby pictures and was dating his mom for years before she got pregnant. They even had pictures from the school dances they went to. That’s how long they’d known each other.

Loop had learned the truth right before spring break. He was at his grandma’s when he got in a fight after his cousin called him “Sancho’s son.” “Sancho” was what Tejanos called “the other man.” That cousin was seriously disrespecting Loop’s mom, so Loop tried to beat him up to teach him a lesson. He punched his cousin, and his cousin punched back. They got in a clench, each of them trying to take down the other. The uncles had to pull them apart. And it was a good thing, too, because Loop was about to break out some serious Muay Thai. He’d have won that fight. No way was his cousin tougher than him. As their uncles pulled them apart, Loop kept calling his cousin a liar, and his cousin kept saying, “I’m telling the truth. Just ask your parents.” So Loop did. As soon as he got home, he said, “Am I Sancho’s son?” His mom started crying, and Rubén told him to go to his room.

About an hour later, they came in and explained the whole thing. Back when they were dating, they had a big fight and broke up for a while. Then Loop’s mom met this loser and got pregnant. Then she begged Rubén to take her back, and he did. He even proposed so they could be married when Loop was born. Rubén promised to act like a real father, and he did… except for telling this big lie all these years.

Loop hated to think about it, so he put in his earbuds and turned up the volume. He liked listening to industrial sounds—not music, just sounds like trains, clocks, sirens, revving engines, falling coins, or banging pipes. He had downloaded tracks of factory noise, too. It made him feel like he was in a machine. Sometimes he wished he were a machine because machines got made on purpose and for a purpose. They weren’t mistakes, the way he was.