Chapter 3

 

 

The morning routine is the same, and Bella and I run off with our sausages. I decide to save one, even though my stomach wants it, and run off to find Pepe. His camp is empty. I wander back in the brushy area above the large rocks by the water and hear a strange call.

“Chick-a-bow!”

I look up and see Pepe standing on a huge rock, calling to me. I run up quickly and see he was smart in making his lean-to under a boulder that sticks out like a ledge.

“Were you dry last night?”

“As a biscuit,” he says proudly. “What about you? Where’d you go?”

“I know a good place.” Not wanting to admit someone has to help me.

“I smell something good.” He puts his nose up to the air, and his light green eyes sparkle as I bring out the sausage I saved for him.

“You owe me,” I say as he throws the sausage into his mouth and smiles after. Why does that space in his teeth always draw my eyes so?

“I’m still starving.” He rubs his bony ribs. “Let’s go and see what we can find at the docks.”

“Bella got that fish yesterday.” I laugh.

“Maybe she’ll do it again.”

We hide behind some crates by a pier as the fishermen are bringing in their baskets. Once Bella sees them put one on the dock, she runs for it, but this time, the fishermen shout at her as she nears. She tries to bite their ankles, and once they shake her loose, she runs in circles as they try to kick her. One of the fishermen knocks into the basket, spilling the fish in the whole chaotic scene. Bella quickly grabs a large fish and takes off with two fishermen after her. Pepe looks at me, and we both know she’s heading right for us. We run off back into the street, and Pepe just misses getting hit by a carriage. He’s much faster than me, but I see a small woodshed by a house and whistle. Pepe comes running back, and we hide, along with Bella and her huge fish.

We hear the men come running by, panting. One curses, and then it sounds like they left. After waiting a little longer, we look at each other and start laughing. We laugh so hard that we realized they must not be around, and we start pulling ourselves out, when we hear crying. It’s coming from under the wood. As we pull a few pieces away, we see a younger, smaller boy curled up in a space between the wood stack and the shed wall.

“Go away!” he yells as he feels the wood pulled off his back.

“We’re not going to hurt you. We were only hiding in here.”

“I found this place first,” he snaps.

“Whoa, easy there, tough guy,” Pepe says.

“We’re leaving with our fish.” I start to move out.

At the mention of fish, his brown-haired head pops up, he searches our hands, and upon seeing the big fish, he suddenly sits up.

“How old are you?” Pepe asks.

“Twelve.”

“Yeah, right!” Pepe says.

“Okay, I’m ten.”

Even that seems old for his small stature.

“How did you get that?” I ask, seeing a large wound on his forehead, not yet healed.

“A group of boys around the block beat me with sticks, telling me this was their street.”

I suddenly feel bad for him.

“Why don’t you come with us and share our fish?” Pepe says as he pulls Auradona out of his pocket. “I can start a fire to cook it.”

The small boy’s eyes flash at the mention of a cooked dinner. We help him out and run off with Bella in front spinning this way and that to figure out which direction we are headed.

After we eat our fish, I pull out my apple, and the new boy and Pepe both cheer. I feel like a hero. I put my hand out, and Pepe realizes I want his knife. I cut the apple into equal pieces. We lay back after our bellies are full. Full is such an unfamiliar feeling to us all.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Andres.”

“This is Pepe, and I’m Luis.”

“We make a pretty good team,” Pepe says to me.

“I can help too!” Andres tries. “I can run really fast, you know.”

“What’s your story?”

Andres looks down. “My mother died, and no one came for me.”

We both nod and feel sad for ourselves for a moment.

“It doesn’t matter, though. We can take care of ourselves,” Pepe says.

“I can’t go back to my woodshed, because if those boys find me again, they said they’d shove their sticks up my ass.” His eyes widen like plates as he says this.

Pepe and I can’t help laughing.

“Really, they are! I can’t go back there. I want to stay with you guys. I’ll help you.”

Pepe cocks his head. “Fine, you can stay with me. I think you’ll fit. Just don’t stink it up.” He goes back under the rock but starts throwing leaves in the air, saying, “I left it here! Someone stole it!”

“Stole what?” Andres asks me.

“His tent.”

“Oh, that’s not good.” Andres frowns.

“Of course it’s not good! Where am I going to find a piece of canvas like that? I had to sneak on a galleon to get it!”

I squint up at the sky. “It looks like it’s going to rain again tonight too.”

“Great!” Pepe throws a large pebble.

“Well, you can come sleep with me, maybe?” I venture, thinking the old man probably won’t allow it.

“Where do you sleep?”

“In an old man’s shed, where he keeps his apple cart. I bring his cart back and forth from market for him, and he gives me some food and lets me sleep in his shed. Bella’s his dog.”

“You let me sleep in the rain when you had a nice warm shed to sleep in?” Pepe says half-jokingly.

“Well, let’s go help the old man!” Andres starts for the market.

The old man is leaning back on the wall having a coughing fit when his eyes widen as he sees who I brought with me.

“Oh, no. Oh, no! What do you think I am, St. Mary’s?”

Andres tries to look as cute as he can while Pepe avoids making eye contact.

“They don’t have anywhere to sleep either and”—he’s shaking his head back and forth, still coughing as I speak—“you don’t have to give me more food. I’ve been sharing mine.”

He takes a deep breath once his fit is over and looks up to the sky. “Anna Maria will skin me alive if she finds out.”

Andres cleverly says with a sad face, “We understand. Don’t worry about us; we’ll find a rock we can sleep under.”

He starts walking away, and Bella barks at him.

“Oh, I’m going to die soon anyway. What do I care?” He pulls his old body from the wall. “Come help me put this cover on and get my cart back for me.”

When the cart is in, he pulls one apple out for each of us and brings back another loaf of bread and butter for us and a bone for Bella.

“Thank you,” we say, and I spread the burlap around for us all to lie on.

The old man’s eyes soften. “It breaks my heart to see this. Saint Nicholas, please help them.”

He closes and locks the door.

 

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

 

I’m back inside my house, and it’s unusually quiet in the purple dark right before dawn.

“Mama?” I cry out.

No answer, just a wind blowing the white muslin curtain slightly at the open window.

“Hector?” I whisper, not really wanting to hear him answer as I poke my head into the bedroom.

Empty.

There’s a strange roar outside the house, and an orange glow shines in around the window edges. I pull the curtain away from the window and jump back at the wall of flames beside the house. I turn and run out the front door, away from the fire, but I’m horrified to see the fire burning in every direction down each alley. No one can be seen. The fire keeps changing in my direction until I’m forced to the docks with the heat of the fire pushing after me. I step to the very edge of the landing just above the dark lapping water and face the fire. I have no choice. I turn and leap into the water and swear I see a flapping, giant ship right before I break through the surface.

A faraway voice says as I’m swimming back to air, “Fire or water—choose.”

We all wake up, and I tell them my dream as we wait for the old man to come and unlock us, but morning passes, and no one comes. Pepe tries to grab for an apple, and I slap his hand.

“I promised him we wouldn’t steal from him!”

“Where is he, then?” Pepe rubs his stinging hand.

I stare at the door. “Maybe he’s sick today. He never misses a day.”

“Maybe he’s a crazy man and likes locking children up in his shed until they die, and then he eats them,” Andres says, wide-eyed.

“That’s not true.”

“Well, I have to pee.” Pepe shifts his feet.

“Go in that corner, over there.”

We hear a carriage come up to the house, and an old woman calls, “Doctor, he’s not going to last long. I don’t even know why he called for you.”

Pepe turns to me. “You see, he’s dying, and we’re locked in this shed!”

“You don’t know he’s going to die. The doctor’s only arrived. Maybe he’ll get better, and he’ll come and get us. Someone’s going to remember the dog’s in here.”

“I’m not staying to find out.” Pepe starts kicking the wood slats.

“Don’t wreck his shed!” I yell.

“What about cutting a hole so we could pull ourselves out?” Andres offers.

I shake my head. “That would have to be a big hole, and then all the rats will come in.”

“Luis, we have to get out of here. If someone opens this and finds us, they’ll take us to St. Mary’s,” Pepe warns.

He’s right.

“All right, if we get out, I think the best way would be to kick out one or two slats so he can repair it easily if he gets better.”

“Okay on three! One, two, three!”

We all kick at different points on the wood slat, and it pulls out. One more kick and it flies down. We do it for one more slat, and we shimmy through. It’s late afternoon when we get out as the front door of his house opens; we all duck behind the shed.

I peek out when I see the doctor leave, and the old woman comes out and shouts, “Don’t bother sending the bill. I told you he was almost dead.”

I feel sad he’s gone. He had always been kind to me. I turn back to see Pepe with his arms full of apples.

“What?” He shrugs. “She’s a nasty old lady, right? She doesn’t deserve his apples.”

He’s right. Andres and I both fill our arms, and we run off as Bella chooses to follow us.