Thursday afternoon, I sat on the front porch, waiting for my friends and watching Jimmy scribble on the sidewalk with chalk. The Race for the Cure forms were due, and as soon as Dad came home, I was going to turn them in. But my friends made me promise to wait. They said they had a surprise for me.
I pulled the list of sponsors from my manila envelope and tallied up the names—412. In a way, I felt proud. I had talked to every person I knew and a lot of strangers. So I didn’t meet my goal, but hopefully, I’d get credit for trying my best, and in that way, fulfill my promesa.
“Gimme car!” Jimmy said, pointing to a toy truck at my feet. I kicked it to him. He rolled it across the curvy line he’d drawn on the sidewalk. The line looped over itself and sometimes trailed off into the grass, but Jimmy kept following it, making zooming sounds as he pushed his truck. And I thought, if I were to draw a line of my life, it wouldn’t be straight like the timelines in my history book but tangled like the squiggle Jimmy drew on the sidewalk because you had to change directions sometimes, trail off the normal path—like the way Carmen did eighth-grade math even though she was supposed to be in elementary school, or the way I took care of Mom when she was supposed to take care of me. Maybe there was no such thing as a normal path. Maybe we all traveled through confused squiggles instead.
A sedan pulled into the driveway, and after turning off the engine, Shawntae’s mother got out.
“The gang’s all here,” she announced, and when the other car doors opened, all the Robins, even GumWad, stepped out.
“Hi, everyone,” I said. “I didn’t know all of you were coming.”
“Are you ready for the surprise?” Shawntae asked.
“Sure, what is it?”
She laughed. “Not so fast. It’s for your mom, too.”
I told Jimmy to go get her, so he ran in, calling, “Mommy! Mommy!” A few moments later, Mom and Carmen came outside.
“Close your eyes,” Iliana told us.
Mom, Carmen, Jimmy, and I closed our eyes. When the Robins told us to open them, we saw a white banner with bright pink letters that said, “Race for Lisa.”
“I love it!” Mom said, clapping her hands like a kid who had just opened a birthday present. She gave Shawntae’s mother a hug, and then she hugged each of the Robins.
“Look on the other side,” GumWad said as they turned the banner around.
Dozens had signed their names. I didn’t recognize every signature, but many were familiar. My teachers, classmates, even guys on my Boyfriend Wish List. I scanned the names, finally finding Iliana, Shawntae, Patty, and Roberto.
“There’s more,” Patty said. She reached into the car and pulled out four manila envelopes.
“We felt really bad the other day when you got mad at us,” Iliana explained. “There we were talking about silly things when the whole time, you’ve been dealing with some big problems.”
“Then we thought about the times you helped us,” Shawntae said. “Like when you made those invitations for me.”
“And when you helped with my English homework,” Patty said.
“And when you found my first dog,” GumWad added.
“And when you went to the hospital to help me with the kids,” Iliana said.
“But you never asked us for help,” Shawntae went on. “So when you said you were short one hundred names, we decided to pitch in.”
“We didn’t think it’d be hard,” GumWad said, “if we each got twenty-five people to sign up.”
“I got all my relatives to sponsor you,” Patty said.
“I set up a fund-raising campaign on my Facebook page,” Shawntae said. “Lots of people responded.”
“I asked my brothers,” Iliana told me. “They think you’re cute, like another little sister, and when they heard about your promesa, they asked their whole football team to help.”
“I went back to the people who had lost their dogs,” GumWad said. “They were more than happy to donate the reward money.”
I took the envelopes and peeked inside. Each had extra sponsor forms, checks, and real money. With the extra names from the Robins, I knew I had reached my goal.
“Thank you,” Carmen and Mom said.
And I said it, too. “Thanks. This means so much to me. I know you helped because you care about me and not for other reasons”—I looked at GumWad—“like feeling sorry for me.”
His smile told me that he knew I was apologizing for the night of Derek’s party.
“Why don’t we take the banner inside,” Mom suggested, “so we can sign it, too.”
“Good idea,” Shawntae’s mom said.
We headed toward the house. Everyone went in, but before GumWad and I entered, I grabbed his sleeve to hold him back.
“I’m sorry you wasted all your quarters on me,” I said when we were alone.
“They weren’t wasted,” he answered. “I like helping out. Besides, I really needed to get rid of my gumball machine.”
“You got rid of it?”
“Yep.”
“What a coincidence,” I said. “I just got rid of all my Chia Pets. I didn’t throw them away. I just passed them along to children at the hospital.”
“Even Scooby?” GumWad wondered. “He was my favorite.”
“Sorry. Even Scooby.”
“Do you miss them?” he asked.
“I thought I would, but no, I don’t miss them at all. Do you miss your gumball machine?”
“Sometimes.” He got this faraway look on his face as if he were remembering special moments with gumballs. I couldn’t help laughing a bit.
“Erica! Roberto!” Shawntae called. “You’re missing all the fun!”
“Coming!” we called back.
And then GumWad said, “You should call me Roberto from now on too, since I’m not chewing gum anymore.”
I held out my hand, so he could shake it. “It’s a deal,” I said.
He smiled. I had to admit he had cute dimples, cuter since he didn’t have an annoying gumball in his mouth. And, like Iliana often said, he could be really sweet sometimes. I could never add GumWad to my Boyfriend Wish List, but maybe, someday, I could add Roberto.