“Not bad, Trino. Always makes me wonder what grades you’d get if you’d actually read the chapter.”
Coach Treviño laid a paper on Trino’s desk. An 85 was circled in red at the top of the test paper.
Trino shrugged his shoulders, and kept silent about Coach’s comment. He always said the same thing whenever Trino got a passing grade. It was pretty easy in this history class because Coach Treviño always told extra stories about the events or the people in a particular chapter. Trino didn’t mind listening to him, and usually remembered most of what Coach had said whenever there was a test.
Trino watched Coach move around the room, returning the other tests. It didn’t take big brains to know this man had been involved in sports all his life. He wasn’t fat, and he never tripped over the backpacks or books that ended up on the floor between the desks. He always wore something that had a sports team name on it. Today it was a blue-collared shirt with the silver star of the Dallas Cowboys football team above the pocket.
“We’re moving into the Texas Revolution chapters,” he said, as he gave back the last test. “There are a lot of people involved, so it’ll be important to keep the names straight.”
“What names?” some girl asked.
“Have you ever heard of Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie?” Coach replied.
“Sure, the Alamo stuff, right? My father was watching that old movie on Cable last week,” a boy said.
“So, tell me, Hector,” Coach Treviño said. “Did that Alamo movie happen to mention Lorenzo de Zavala or Juan Seguín?”
“Who were they?”
“Heroes of the Texas Revolution, Hector. There were tejanos who wanted independence from Mexico.”
A boy’s voice from the back called out, “Did they play tejano music, too?”
Trino saw Coach Treviño laugh when everyone else did. Then the man turned back to his desk and picked up another stack of papers. He waved the papers in his hands as he spoke.
“I’ve decided it’s time for you students to get more involved in discovering the facts about the people who made history in our state.”
Everyone groaned as Coach gave each person in the front desk of each row a few papers to distribute to the students behind him or her.
Trino took a paper and flipped it over to the back side. It was blank, and he started to draw Tic-Tac-Toe lines on it. He and Zipper usually started to play whenever Coach Treviño gave out a sheet. A cold feeling slithered down Trino’s body, making his hand shake. What’s wrong with you? Zipper’s not here to play Tic-Tac-Toe. He’s dead.
Trino flipped the sheet back. He started to fill his head with the names on the page just to keep thoughts of Zipper away. Then he glanced up and tried to catch whatever Coach Treviño was saying.
“You’ll have about two weeks before the first pair of students has to give their report on one of the people on this list. I’ll take the next two Wednesdays and give you time in our school library for research, but you should try to get to the public library on your own.”
One of the girls waved her hand at Coach. “Can we choose our own partners?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Next time, I’ll let you choose partners. Let me read off your names and then I’ll give you the rest of class to talk to your partner about your report.”
Looking around the room, Trino felt a sick feeling in his stomach. He hated doing extra work, especially when he had to do it in the library. Whenever Zipper, Rogelio, and Trino had gone into the library, the lady in charge always picked on them. She always blamed them if anything went wrong with the computers, or if some book was put back in the wrong place. Once she had sent them to the viceprincipal because Rogelio couldn’t stop sneezing and he and Zipper couldn’t stop laughing about it.
“Trino? Trino!”
Coach Treviño’s loud voice made Trino stop thinking about his old friends and look up at his teacher.
“Trino?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you hear me? I said that you’re working with Hector. The two of you will report on José Antonio Navarro, okay?”
Trino looked down the row as Hector looked behind him to where Trino sat. Hector’s round face seemed very serious as he eyeballed his new “partner.”
Trino merely raised his eyebrows. No problem. Hector was a school type. Trino would just let him do all the hard work.
After all the partners were announced, Coach said he’d let the students talk with their partners until the bell rang. Hector walked to the back of the classroom where Trino sat. He paused by the empty desk in front of Trino, the place where Zipper had once sat, but then he walked around the row and sat in the empty desk across from Trino.
“Hey, Trino,” Hector said.
Trino only acknowledged him with a slight shrug of the shoulders. It was all he had gotten from Hector yesterday outside Epifaño’s store.
“So, you know anything about this guy Navarro?”
Trino just shrugged again.
“Hey, it’s okay to talk, you know.”
Trino turned to look at Hector. “You didn’t talk to me yesterday.”
Hector’s dark eyebrows crunched together. “Yesterday? Oh—yeah—by Epifaño’s store.” It was his turn to shrug his shoulders. “Didn’t know you wanted to talk, that’s all.”
Trino hadn’t known he wanted to talk either. What did he expect? He had never talked to school types like Hector before. Everything felt so screwed up right now. Trino had always depended on Zipper and Rogelio to hang out with, even if the three of them weren’t big talkers.
Hector scratched his neck, then said, “Listen, Trino, I know you probably wanted someone else for a partner. Uh—we never worked together—or hung out—like you did with—well, you know. Uh—you know what I’m saying?”
Trino looked at Hector as he stumbled over words, trying not to mention Zipper. Trino didn’t want to talk about him either, so he said, “Listen, man, I hate talking in front of the class, and I hate doing stupid stuff like reports.”
Hector smiled, showing a mouthful of silver braces on his teeth. “I hear you, man. I hate it, too.”
Surprised by Hector’s response, Trino said, “I thought you were a school type. You always answer Coach’s questions in class.”
Hector leaned closer and said in a lower voice, “I answer Coach’s questions because I want to get off the bench and get more time on the basketball court, that’s all. You play B-ball, Trino?”
“Not much. There’s no place to play where I live.”
“A bunch of us play up here on weekends. On the courts outside the gym. Can you do an outside shot well? I’m saving up for a new basketball that will—”
“Since when did basketball get to be part of the Texas Revolution?”
Neither boy had seen Coach Treviño wander back to where they sat.
“I just bet, Hector, if you looked up the man I gave you to research—let’s see, who was it? Oh, yeah, José Antonio Navarro. Look up Navarro, and I don’t think there’ll be anything about a tejano basketball team. Trino, it’s going to be up to you to keep Hector straight. He’s poco loco when it comes to basketball. Have you two made plans about who’s doing what if we go to the library this week?”
“Sure, we’ll use the computers and get some book numbers. Then we go to the shelves and look for the books on Navarro.” Trino spoke as if he did library work all the time.
The wide look of surprise in Hector’s and Coach Treviño’s eyes almost made Trino smile.
“Be cool, Coach. Hector and I got it under control.”
“Whatever you say, Trino.” Coach Treviño walked away, shaking his head at them.
“Are you smart or just a good liar?” Hector asked Trino.
“Both.” Trino answered, feeling proud of himself.
Before the bell rang, ending history class, they talked a few more minutes about computers, basketball, and some TV show that Hector had seen.
“I’ll see if I can find out anything about this Navarro guy in some books I have at home. What about you?”
“Me?” Trino’s eyebrows raised.
“Don’t you have books at home for school stuff?”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” Trino lied. “My mom’s got some stuff—from a college.”
“Cool!” Hector said, then walked back to his usual spot in the front of the class to get his books.
Trino stood up, then dragged his book and a wrinkled spiral notebook from his desk. He wondered if his last lie had gone too far. Where would a boy like Trino find any college books? Well, he’d just think up another lie tomorrow.
Lunch period gave Trino a stomach-ache. The first few days after Zipper and Rogelio were gone, Trino had skipped lunch and sat outside. When he’d come home starving and not see anything to eat, he realized that it was stupid not to take the free lunch given to him at school. Lately, he had picked a place in the cafeteria at the end of a table where a bunch of seventh-grade strangers sat. He ignored their stares, gulped his food down as fast as he could, then went outside, hoping he might run into Lisana Casillas.
He still hadn’t figured out why Lisana chose to be his friend. They had met in a bookstore on the day he had seen Rosca and his friends beating up Mr. Epifaño. He had run away, fearing for his life, and had hidden in the bookstore. She had talked to him that day, and continued to talk to him whenever they saw each other at school. It was because of Lisana that Trino would show up at all, especially on those bleak days when he had woken up from nightmares about Zipper’s shooting.
Every day he tried to talk to Lisana before she went into English class since her classroom was three doors away from where he took English with Mrs. Palacios. Most of the time, he was told, “Get out of the hall. Get to class.” His best opportunity to see Lisana came at lunch period, but he had to eat first. All the fast eating filled him with gas, and he was scared he could be talking to Lisana when he’d have to burp or worse. He knew he had to get the guts to ask her to eat her lunch with him before his guts made a loud, smelly noise he couldn’t stop.
Trino was anxious to find Lisana now that he had a history project to do. Lisana loved to talk about books and school, and he could ask her about this Navarro guy. She was so smart, Trino just knew she’d know something he could use.
He felt lucky when he saw her at the outside picnic table where she liked to sit and read after the lunch period. He watched her for a moment, her shiny black hair gleaming in the sun. Her hair slipped down her shoulders and framed her thin face like the black lace mantilla his grandmother wore at church.
When she looked up, saw him, and smiled, a special warmth stretched across his chest. She motioned for him to come join her. He had barely taken a step when two girls carrying books in their arms came up from behind Lisana and started talking.
Trino hesitated, wanting Lisana all to himself. Then he noticed that Lisana talked to the girls, but kept turning her face back towards Trino, and he knew he couldn’t just take off.
As he walked to the table where Lisana sat, the girls who were standing beside it, both stopped talking to stare at him.
“Hello, Trino. Do you know my friends, Amanda and Stephanie?”
“Hi,” each of them said as Lisana gestured towards one friend, then the other.
“Hello,” Trino answered. He tried to look relaxed, as if getting introduced to two girls happened everyday, but he felt like somebody had put a lighted match near his face.
“Amanda and I are partners for a report in Coach Treviño’s class,” Lisana said.
Trino nodded, looking again at the taller of the two girls, the one with curly light brown hair. He forced himself to talk. “I have Coach Treviño third period. My partner is Hector—” He paused and gave his attention back to Lisana. “Your friend Hector is my partner.”
Lisana smiled as if she liked what he told her. “Actually, Hector is my brother’s friend, but I like him, too. Just make sure he doesn’t make you do all the work.”
The three girls giggled, but Trino didn’t hear anything funny.
Girls laugh at dumb things, he thought.
“So, do you want to work in the library today?” Amanda asked Lisana. “I know it’s only open until four, but we could read through a couple of encyclopedias just to get started.”
“I can stay today,” Lisana answered. Then she looked at Trino. “Are you going to work in the library after school with Hector?”
The three girls stared at him. He just bet that Lisana’s friends thought a boy like him didn’t go to the library.
“Coach said he’d give us class time on Wednesday to work in the library. That way if we have any questions, Coach can help us. Besides I have—” Trino stopped. He was going to make himself look good by saying he had a job after school helping an old man with a broken arm, but decided not to say anything after all. Why did he have to impress these girls? What did he care if they thought he was a loser? Only Lisana mattered. He’d tell her about his job with Mr. Epifaño when they were alone.
“You have—what?” Amanda asked. Impatience filled her voice.
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter now.” Even though anxiety simmered inside him, he forced himself to smile at Lisana. “I was going to talk to you about my history report. Hector and I have to look up—uh—” His mind went blank. All he remembered was that the man had a Mexican name. Guerrero? Treviño? Antonio?
Lisana’s friends giggled together.
“Don’t you even know what person you have to research?” Amanda said, emphasizing her words with an annoying giggle sound. She looked at the girl beside her, and both of them laughed more. “How can you go to the library if you don’t know who you’re going to read about?”
“I know who I’m going to read about because it’s written down on the paper Coach Treviño gave me,” Trino said. Anger made his words slow and deliberate. “And I’ll have the paper with me when I’m in the library. So will you if you’re so smart.”
The tall one stopped smiling. The shorter one smoothed her blonde bangs and looked down at the ground.
“Come on, Stephanie. Let’s go. I’ll see you after school, Lisana.” The tall girl nudged her friend, and they walked off.
Trino released a slow breath as he looked at Lisana. He tried to get rid of his anger so he could be nice to her. But her dark brown eyes didn’t have their usual sparkle. Was she upset because of what he said to her friends?
Suddenly three words flashed inside his head.
“José Antonio Navarro,” he said, like a guy who had to answer before a game-show buzzer.
“What?”
“I have to do my history report on José Antonio Navarro.”
“Amanda and I have to look up Francisco Ruiz. You weren’t very nice to my friends.”
What did she expect? Trino chewed on his lip. Lisana’s friends weren’t nice to him.
In the next moment, the outside buzzer sounded loudly. It signaled the lunch period for the seventh-grade students had ended.
Lisana sighed and stood up. “I have to leave now, Trino.”
He took a step closer to her. He felt like she was on the other side of a glass door, something invisible between them. All he had wanted was to talk to her, see that smile of hers that always made him feel important. What could he do to make things good between them again?
“If you want, I can be friends with those girls,” he said slowly. He looked directly into her face, hoping she would trust him.
Her eyes glided over his face, as she said, “Those girls have to be friendly to you, too. Friendship is a two-way thing, Trino.”
If friendship was indeed a two-way thing, then Trino knew he had to work harder at it.
“Lisana, maybe—we could eat lunch together in the caf—so we could talk more—”
She gathered her books from the table. “Okay, Trino. You’ll find me at a table near the windows. See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow,” Trino answered, and tried to feel hopeful as she walked away.