1
La Casita
•
My family lives on the second floor of La Casita — the Little House — in Guatemala City, Central America.
It’s anything but little. That’s because it’s not just our home. It’s also our restaurant.
There are eight wooden tables and lots and lots of fluffy chairs on the ground floor. A vase with fresh flowers sits on a big fancy table under a crystal chandelier right in the middle of the restaurant. The whole room seems to glow, especially at night when the lights are on. The wooden floors are polished like glass, and my parents make us tiptoe through the dining room so we won’t smudge the floor. You can almost see your face in it.
La Casita has three windows that face the street. I like to sit on the windowsill and watch people walk by on the other side of the iron bars. Sometimes people smile. Sometimes they wave or even talk to me.
Once an Indian lady wearing a huipil and red ribbons in her black braids gave me two canillas de leche — chewy candies made of sugar and caramel. I gave one to my brother, Felipe.
My favorite room in La Casita used to be the kitchen. That was before I found out it was a dangerous place. It has two refrigerators. One is for chicken, fish and meat. The other one is for milk, fruits and vegetables.
The kitchen has huge metal sinks and lots of shiny pots and pans hanging on hooks above the sink. One wall has cabinets and cutting boards of all sizes on the counter. The other wall has a counter topped with large glass jars filled with rice and black beans.
And, of course, there’s a gas stove. A pot of black beans always sits on the back burner next to a pot with boiled plantains. Yummy!
Everyone says La Casita is the best restaurant in Guatemala City. Since we never go out to eat, I don’t really know. I do like our weekend brunch when we eat tamales and chuchitos that Consuelo, my nanny, prepares.
Once when Felipe and I were alone in the kitchen, he wanted to show off how much bigger he is. Whenever anyone asks our age, Felipe always says that he is two years older. But he is just twenty months older, which doesn’t sound like a lot to me.
“I can do so many more things than you,” he bragged. “My bicycle is bigger. And I know how to light the oven!”
“Like Augusto?”
“Faster than that, slowpoke!” He pulled over a kitchen stool, climbed up and snagged a box of matches from a shelf.
“Watch what I can do!” he said.
“Mamá says not to play with matches.”
“Oh, man, don’t be a baby.” He turned the oven dial and lit a match.
The stove started to purr softly. I had the feeling that something bad was about to happen.
I stepped back.
Felipe said, “Don’t be afraid!” Then he opened the oven door. “Now, where is it?” He stuck his head halfway into the oven.
“Where is what?”
“I can’t find the hole where the gas comes out —”
KABOOM!
There was a huge explosion.
I screamed.
Felipe was thrown to the kitchen floor. He put his hands to his face and started to cry.
“I can’t see! I can’t see!”
Mamá rushed in from the dining room. She was holding the silverware.
“What happened?” she asked me. Her face was very crinkly.
By now I was crying, too. All I could do was point to the stove.
Mamá sniffed. The kitchen smelled of gas. She closed the oven door, turned the gas knob off and picked up Felipe, all in one motion.
I thought he had burned his face off!
But Felipe was all right. Mamá put ice in a towel on his face, and soon he stopped crying. Only a little bit of gas had slipped out.
But, boy, was he funny looking! It reminded me of the cartoon when Sylvester the Cat put Tweety Bird in the chimney and lit it.
KABOOM!
Felipe’s face was pink. He had burned off his eyebrows and eyelashes. Mamá put ointment on his face that made his skin smooth as a balloon. He kept complaining about how much it hurt.
I could have said something mean to him — called him a bruto, a birdbrain, for trying to light the stove. But I decided not to make him feel worse.
From then on, Felipe glared at the stove whenever he went into the kitchen, as if it were some kind of traitor.
•