Happy first day of school!” Juan cheered.
Sunlight peeped in at the window, and through the orange curtain around her bed Yeny could see her cousin bouncing up and down. This day had taken forever to come. It was already October, and the school year had started way back in March. Back then, Yeny and her family had still been living in the village in the mountains. She had never imagined living in a city . . . but then, she’d never imagined what had happened in August, either. Now her life was split into “before” and “after,” and today, halfway through the school year, she would start at a new school, in a city a hundred times bigger than her village.
“This is going to be the best day ever,” Juan called, continuing his crazy dance on his side of the curtain. Yeny missed her village, but she loved having someone her own age to play with, now that both families were sharing the same house. Yeny’s older sister, Elena, had gotten so boring lately, only wanting to spend time with other teenagers. But Juan was lots of fun.
Yeny laughed and jumped up from her mattress on the floor, pulling off her pajamas and putting on her new school clothes as quickly as she could. She had laid out her uniform before going to sleep. It used to belong to her oldest cousin, Rosa, but it fit Yeny perfectly, and she loved the dark blue skirt and the crisp white blouse. In the village, children wore whatever clothes they had to school, but here in the city it seemed important to look especially tidy.
“What do you think we’ll do first in school today?” Yeny asked Juan, when she had pushed the curtain aside. Though the sun was barely up, the concrete floor of the living room was already cleared. Her parents had pushed back their own green curtain and leaned their mattress against the wall. They had made neat piles of their clothing in one corner, so that people could walk freely to the five chairs around the little television.
Across the room, the whole family had gathered for break-fast, and Yeny could smell fried arepas, the crispy corn pancakes that that she loved. Her stomach growled. She smiled at Juan.
“We’ll do history first,” he said. “We always do that first thing on Monday mornings.”
Yeny groaned, but only because she knew that her cousin expected it. Secretly, she didn’t care what they studied that day, as long as she got to spend time with Juan and meet other kids. Often, she wished she could go back in time, to August, before the men with guns had come to her village. Her mother said that it did no good to think that way, though, so Yeny was trying to forget the past and to start a new life. A safe, city life.
But she missed her best friend, Maria Cristina. Before she left home, her friend had told her that once she was in the city, Yeny should try to have as many adventures as possible. María Cristina wanted to hear about every detail of Yeny’s new life the next time they met. Whenever that would be.
At least it wasn’t hard to find excitement. Here, everything was different from what Yeny was used to. At home, she’d shared a one-room wooden house with her parents, her sister Elena, and her younger brother, Carlitos. It had a dirt floor, and a metal roof that made a wonderful racket when it rained. When it wasn’t raining, they spent most of their time outside. Mamá cut up vegetables and meat on the big chopping table next to the house and cooked over a fire close by. The washtub was outside too, and the garden, and the chair that her father sat in when he got back from the fields and wanted to relax.
This city house was made of concrete and had the kitchen indoors. The only thing anyone did outside was the washing. From this house, Yeny couldn’t hear the chirping of cicadas, the grunts of pigs, the clucking of chickens, or the sound of the wind. Instead she heard street vendors shouting about what they were selling—peas, arepas, juice, radios, lottery tickets—and the blare of car horns. It was hotter here, too, than it was in the mountains, and even the food was new.
“Are two arepas enough for you, dear?” Yeny’s aunt slid two corn pancakes from the frying pan onto Yeny’s blue plastic plate. The hot, toasty smell made Yeny’s mouth water, and she could hardly wait to sink her teeth through the crusty surface into the soft, hot middle. “We make them with cheese inside,” Aunt Nelly said, “so they’ll taste different from the pure corn ones that you’re used to, but I’m sure you’ll like them. We have plenty, so don’t be shy.”
The breakfast table was crowded. Yeny’s parents, Carlitos, and Elena, as well as Yeny’s aunt and three cousins—Sylvia, Rosa, and Juan—all crowded around. Yeny’s Uncle Alfredo hadn’t been home for a long time. He’d been kidnapped by one of the grupos armados, armed groups, the year before. For weeks after Alfredo disappeared, no one knew if he was alive, and then one day a letter arrived. A group was holding him prisoner, and the only thing his family could do was wait and hope that the kidnappers were not the kind who torture people. Waiting and hoping was very hard. Juan often woke up screaming from nightmares.
This morning, everyone at the table was eating arepas and huevos pericos, scrambled eggs with tomato and onion. The older ones drank coffee, but Yeny was glad that no one offered her any. She much preferred hot water with panlea, a sweet brown cube made from sugar cane juice that dissolved to make a delicious drink.
Yeny hurried through her meal and raced off to collect her notebook and pencil. Juan was right behind her. “We don’t want to be late, Mamá,” he said. “Yeny has a lot of people to meet.”
But getting out of the house took much longer than they’d hoped. Two mothers fussing take longer than one. “Now I know you’re excited, Yeny Clara,” her mother said, fiddling with Yeny’s collar and smoothing her uniform blouse, which was already smooth. “But make sure you pay attention to your teacher, and make sure you stick with Juan on the way there. It’s a big city, and—”
“She’ll be fine, Gloria,” Nelly said. “She’s only going for a short time, not for a year, and Juan will take good care of her.”
“I know he will,” Mamá said, but of course Juan could never protect Yeny entirely. In most families at least one person had been killed or kidnapped. It was impossible to say goodbye without wondering, Will we see each other again? “Be good,” Mamá said, “and enjoy being back at school, Yeny. I’m sure you’ll make friends in no time.”
Yeny smiled up at her mother and gave her a hug. “I’ll tell you all about it when I get home.”
As soon as she and Juan burst free onto the city streets, Yeny’s excitement turned to nervousness. At home, going to school had meant saying Hola!, hello, to her neighbors who were on the way to the fields, or outside washing clothes, or chopping vegetables. María Cristina would come running from the house next door, shaking off her little sister who always wanted to go to school too.
Here in the city, Yeny knew no one and nothing was familiar. The houses were side by side, with no space between them, and each was a different color. Few had gardens, and several had round white scars like the ones she had seen in pictures in the newspapers that her father had sometimes brought from the city. Elena said the marks were bullet holes, but Yeny thought her sister was only trying to scare her. Their parents had said they would be safer here in the city, so how could there be guns here too?
Before moving into Juan’s house a few weeks earlier, Yeny had been to the city only once, when she was little. Juan had come to stay with her family in the mountains a few times, though, especially last year, when his father went missing and his mother had to work throughout the school holidays. The first time Juan came, Yeny couldn’t believe that he’d never climbed a papaya or mango tree, or packed a horse, or swum in a river.
Actually, at first she thought he was a bit stupid for not knowing how to do those things, but her mother explained that no one could do stuff like that in the city. Now Yeny could see why. Everywhere she looked, there were buildings—some of them two stories high—and street after dusty street of houses and stores. Little groups of men stood talking along the edge of the road, but no one looked at them as they went by. Certainly no one called out, Hola!, as they always did in the village. She’d have a lot to learn in this new life. As she and Juan made their way to school, she concentrated extra hard so she could remember every detail to tell María Cristina.
They passed an old lady with flyaway white hair who was selling limes and oranges from a big, wheeled cart on the side of the street. Next to her, a boy called out to people passing on their way to work, offering them hot fried snacks called buñuelos. The boy seemed about the same age as Yeny and Juan, but he looked so busy that he probably wouldn’t be able to get to school any time soon.
Yeny breathed deep, trying to tell if the buñuelos were the big savory balls with bursts of melted white cheese in the middle, or the sweet kind that were filled with caramel. To her delight, she smelled both. Why hadn’t she asked her mother for a coin or two? Of course they didn’t have much money at the moment, but surely a few coins for something delicious on the way to school . . .
Suddenly, Juan grabbed Yeny’s arm and pulled her toward the woman selling fruit. He scooped up an orange. “How much is this one?” he asked the old woman.
“But Juan,” Yeny said, “how . . .”
She was going to ask how they could buy an orange without money, but her cousin cut her off. “Shhhh. Disculpe, señora” he whispered to the woman. “I just saw a boy from our school who is really mean, and I don’t want him to see us. We don’t have any money to buy your fruit—I’m sorry—but if you could look like you’re talking to us for a while, maybe he’ll leave us alone.”
The old lady’s face softened into a smile. “Stay as long as you like,” she said. “I don’t mind the company. That boy, is he armed?”
“No,” Juan said. “He’s not in one of the gangs, if that’s what you mean. He’s just mean.”
Gangs? Yeny had never heard that word before, but she knew what “armed” meant. The men who came to her village with guns were part of an armed group. Her father said that there were many grupos armados, each one taking orders from different people who wanted more land, more money, and more power. The groups were fighting each other, but they were also hurting people who just wanted a peaceful life.
She was happy to hear that the boy they were hiding from wasn’t part of such a group. She’d heard of children carrying guns and joining a grupo because they were poor and the grupos armados would feed them. She turned to sneak a glance at the boy, and when she spotted him she almost laughed. Tall, skinny, and with hair that stuck out every which way, he looked no older than her and Juan. He walked in a swinging kind of way, as though he was trying to take up as much space as possible. He didn’t look very mean. The older boys in her village had looked far scarier.
Juan chatted to the old woman for what seemed like forever. By the time they stepped away from the cart, and said adios to her, the mean boy was long gone, and Yeny was certain that they were going to be late for school.
“We’ll go the back way,” Juan said, grabbing her hand. “If we run, we can still get there before the bell. But watch your step. The road’s pretty bumpy.”
Yeny laughed. She’d spent her whole life running on trails much rougher than the wide, treeless streets here in the city, and she took off like a firecracker. She would have raced Juan, if she’d known where they were going.