CHAPTER 29

Santiago lost count of how many weeks had passed. Had it been seven or eight Sundays of boxed eggs?

Then one day they were given the biggest feast of their lives with turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, and some weird gelled red thing no one but a few brave souls tried. Santiago loved the tang and asked Consuelo to pile extra of the red on his potatoes when they were allowed to get seconds. According to Chismoso (who’d been at the center the longest and had been present at the feast last year), it was some kind of holiday when locals welcomed immigrants by giving them lots to eat.

Yet as Santiago ate the “pai” de calabaza (what kind of a person came up with a dessert made from pumpkin?), he couldn’t help but think that maybe they were being fattened up for slaughter.

His gut proved correct when the day after the huge feast, a bus parked outside the facility. A large white bus with no letters or design, large enough to hold half the boys in their area. Three boys from the little-kid section, the first Santiago had seen of the others held at the center, were loaded onto the bus, which let out gray clouds of exhaust as if it were digesting the children it had just eaten. Santiago watched this phenomenon with his fingers laced through the chain-link fence that enclosed the outside area.

“That’s my brother!” Manzano, the boy who tried to take an apple out of the dining hall, called out. “Where are they taking him?”

The rest of the boys all dashed toward the fence, except for Chismoso, who stood back, looking self-important. “That’s the bus to send people back.”

Everyone began to talk at once.

“What? To México?”

“No, al Polo Norte, idiota.”

“But I’m not Mexican!”

“You think the girls will come out next?”

Boys pressed against Santiago in attempt to see over his tall head. The wire from the fence dug into his hands, but he didn’t push back.

“How often does it come?”

“Sometimes every month, sometimes not for three months,” Chismoso said, still standing away from the mob by the fence. “Basically whenever you gachos have filled up the facility. Did you know it costs more than seven hundred dollars per person per day to keep us here?”

“¡Mentira!”

“And they can’t afford to give us beds and real food?”

“My dad earns less than that in a month, and he still provides for the whole family.”

Chismoso gave a noncommittal response.

“You’ve been here the longest. Aren’t you afraid you’re going to be on the bus, Chismoso?”

“Nope.”

“¡Entren ahora!” Herrera yelled for them to get inside, cutting their outdoor time short before the legendary girls emerged. It took a few minutes before the guys behind Santiago stopped shoving and allowed him to follow. He could still feel the fence digging into his hands. As horrible as staying here would be, it didn’t compare with returning back there.

From a clipboard Herrera called out names. Manzano’s name came first, except they used his real name, evident by his moving out of the shoulder-to-shoulder line they had had to form. Then Pinocchio and the man-child with the tattoos who’d arrived the same day as Santiago. Three more got called, then ten.

Santiago hung his head low as he waited to be summoned.

“And García.”

So this was it. He would have to face his fate. As soon as he could get his feet to move.

Until one of the other boys called out, “Which one?”

Herrera scowled, clearly wanting to say all of the Garcías should get the heck out of there. Instead, he resigned himself to disappointment and rechecked the list. “Guillermo García.”

Santiago breathed. He’d escaped deportation. This time.