Two days had passed since my deadly insect encounter. Since then, I’d been attacked yet again, by a violent hen who thought I was trying to steal her baby chick. I also found out the hard way that toilet paper clogs toilets very easily at Mamita’s house. Another embarrassing moment I won’t bother going into detail about. Besides all that, I was kind of excited because it was now the day before the Three Kings holiday, which meant I would be going home in two days. OH YEAH! At the same time, I felt totally bummed out. For the first time in my career, I didn’t want to complete an ongoing investigation. I felt empty, drained . . . like the dozens of bug bites covering my body had helped suck my crime-fighting skills right out of me. Even when I stared at the mirror, I saw a different girl. I had bags under my eyes from how little I had slept while on this “vacation.” My long black hair was tied in a bun, so it wouldn’t suffocate me in the heat. (I never do my hair, by the way.) And my face looked like I had broken out in a bunch of zits, from all the bug bites on it. I was covered with those hideous marks from head to toe, forty of them to be exact. The bugs on this island must have been immune to insect repellant. The strange part was, Mamita had no bug bites. Not one, and she didn’t even have a mosquito net on her bed. Maybe the pests in her house saw what she had done to that cockroach and didn’t want to suffer a similar fate. The truth was, I didn’t want to be at her house anymore. I didn’t want to celebrate any holidays or get any presents. I just wanted to go home, where everything made sense, where I could watch the crime channel in peace, where I could just be me.
The afternoon before Three Kings Day had come, and many of my mother’s family members started arriving at Mamita’s house to prepare for the evening’s festivities. There would be a huge family dinner, music and dancing and, finally, the kids would all fill shoe boxes with grass for the camels to eat. Tons of adult relatives entered the house and came over to hug me and tell me how big I had gotten. I had never met these people before, but my parents said I visited Puerto Rico as a baby. I stood awkwardly and let them hug me while my mom gave me a look that said, “You better be nice.” La Bruja, conveniently, was nowhere to be found. She had been hanging out with one of our two hundred cousins who lived in the house behind Mamita’s.
I had started slowly retreating into my mosquito netted bed when I overheard a group of kids in the living room talking about gifts they hoped to receive from the Three Kings. Part of my inner detective became curious. I got my note pad and decided to join the conversation, just for background information. The kids seemed to be about my age. I had no idea how I was related to them, and even if they tried to explain, I would probably have trouble picturing this giant family tree made of people I didn’t know. Mamita had thirteen kids in total. There was no way I wanted to begin deciphering that family code. Perhaps later in my career.
I sat on the couch and started questioning a girl named Mari. She was pretty but frail. She had Mamita’s color eyes and blonde hair. “So Mari, what do you guys do here on Three Kings Day?”
“You know, food, music, getting the grass. The regular stuff,” she answered. Wow, she was really great with the details, wasn’t she?
“Actually, I don’t know what’s done,” I confessed. “I’ve never had a Three Kings Day.”
The other kids in the living room exchanged surprised looks.
“You don’t celebrate Three Kings Day out there? Well, we Puerto Ricans celebrate it. It’s a major holiday. Some people think it’s more of a celebration than Christmas,” said a boy named Joel.
I imagined him to be a surfer. He had cool-looking sunglasses on the top of his head and a surfing-style T-shirt. But what did he mean, “we Puerto Ricans”? Was he not including me in that group? Was I not Puerto Rican, just because I didn’t celebrate Three Kings Day? The more answers I got to my questions, the more questions I had. I began writing my thoughts in my note pad, but the itching feeling on my legs was really strong. I couldn’t ignore it. If I would’ve scratched my bites, they might’ve gotten infected. So I started slapping my legs to make the unbearable sensation go away.
“What are you doing? And what happened to your legs?” asked another kid named Rubén.
This wise guy seemed like trouble. I know a mischief-maker when I see one. Rule 1 in detective work: Trust your gut. My gut said Rubén was no good.
“Moquitos,” I replied.
Rubén started laughing. Hysterically laughing, more like it. “Moquitos! The moquitos got her!”
The rest of the crew on the couch joined in his roaring. Was it something I said?
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Moquitos come from your nose. Mosssquitoes are the insects,” said Ruben.
Really? I missed one little s in a word, and I had gone from being bitten by a flying blood thief to being bitten by boogers?
Rubén taunted me. “Be careful tonight, Flaca. Watch out for those moquitos. They’re the worst!”
All around me were laughing faces, fingers pointing at me like I was some type of freak show. I got mad. Like super, flaming, about-to-blow-up furious. I stood up, stormed out of the screened front door and walked right over to the edge of the road overlooking a pasture full of cows. I yelled as loudly as I could for as long as my lungs allowed. I felt so good afterward that I did it again. Then I realized I was being stared at by a bunch of cows who probably thought I was a lunatic. I looked down at my feet and noticed I had no shoes on, just like the kids I had seen walking around when I had first arrived at Mamita’s. I almost looked like them. But I wasn’t like them. I was NOTHING like ANYONE around here, and that was a good thing. The entire fiasco with those kids inside reminded me of who I was and would always be. Detective Flaca was back and more determined than ever! I would show them. I was going to expose Three Kings Day for what it really was: a sham. A holiday full of Christmas-gift leftovers! I’d be the one with the last laugh in the morning.
I sat on a patio bench in front of Mamita’s house and plotted my revenge on my detective pad. I would need all my newest gadgets and some of my old, reliable tools. Every piece of equipment I’d brought on this trip was essential. There was no time to spare. In the heat of my preparation, Mamita walked out onto the patio.
“Writing a letter?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Come with me. I want to show you something.”
“I’m kind of busy right now.”
Mamita didn’t move. She stood there with her eyes burning through my paper, holding a woven straw basket.
“Are you trying to read what I’m writing?” I asked.
“I can’t read. Even if I could, I’m not interested. I’m waiting for you to come with me, and I’m not getting any younger.”
Normally I would reply with something sassy, but I got a feeling Mamita wasn’t going to back down. I got up, tucked my note pad under my arm and followed her lead. She walked me around her house and down a hill into what seemed like a jungle. I was surrounded by greenery and could just feel tiny little bites forming on top of the swollen, itchy bites I already had. Why was everybody around here torturing me?
Mamita stopped in front of a row of plants with white stuff on them and handed me the basket.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“You talk too much. Just pick the cotton.”
Cotton? I looked more closely at the white plant. I reached out my fingers and touched a soft material. She was right, it was cotton! I never knew cotton came from a plant. I always thought it came from a pharmacy. Mamita continued down the row of shrubs and began to pick different kinds of beans, handing them to me to put in the basket. I figured she would be using them for tonight’s feast.
The tree leaves around us rustled together, and my clothes blew in the wind. I glanced over in Mamita’s direction. Her blue eyes were closed, and her face was tilted back in the wind, smiling. I decided to do what she was doing. I felt the trees moving, I heard animals I couldn’t see, and I saw the brightness of the sun through my eyelids. Then it was all interrupted by two chickens chasing after each other, running between Mamita and me. We looked at each other and laughed.
“You don’t like it here, do you, Flaca?” my great-grandmother asked.
I shrugged.
“Is that a yes?”
I nodded. The lady told me I talked too much. So now I wasn’t going to talk.
“You know, you’re not as pretty as your sister.”
Great, another person reminding me of how gorgeous La Bruja was and how much “potential” I would have if I dressed in a more girly way or wore more smiles. Now I was throwing the beans into the basket.
“You’re not as pretty, but you’re smarter.”
I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. She had my attention now. Finally, someone had noticed my brilliance.
“You’re so smart, but don’t be blinded by your intelligence. You feel like you don’t belong here. But if you’re here, it’s because you do. I have lived here all my life. I gave birth to each of my children in that very house. And you, you are the granddaughter of my first child. If it weren’t for this land, these plants, this island, you wouldn’t be here today. Remember that.”
I nodded and smiled.
“I know you’re just hearing me right now, but one day, you will listen,” she said.
We finished picking the beans together and gathered some mangoes and starfruit along the way back to the house. I helped her bring the basket inside and escaped to my mosquito net. I liked Mamita. I really did. She might’ve even had a point or two, but her speech hadn’t changed anything. The Case of the Three Kings was very much open.
