CHAPTER 7

We wasted three precious minutes looking for Antonia. We zoomed around and finally found her in a far corner of the plaza. She had put her flowers down and was offering them to people passing by.

“Look!” I said when we spotted her. “Antonia has customers!”

A man and woman had stopped in front of her. She handed the man a lily, and he gave it to his girlfriend. Then he reached into his pocket for a coin.

“Way to go, Antonia!” Luna said.

We scooted across the plaza, but just before we reached Antonia, a group of boys ran to her from out of nowhere. One of the boys flashed the man a big smile while the others led his girlfriend to the opposite side of the plaza, where they had a large flower stall with a fancy sign. They handed her a bouquet of colorful flowers.

“They stole her customers!” Luna screamed. “They can’t do that!”

“But they did,” I said. “Just like Cooper and Pooch. Bullies are bullies, no matter where or when they live.”

“I have something to say about that,” Chives said.

Before we could stop him, he trotted right up to one of the flower bullies.

“Hola, puerco,” the boy said to Chives, slapping him on his rump.

Chives rose up on his hind legs until he was face-to-face with the bully.

“May I have a word with you?” he said.

When the bully heard Chives speak, a look of fright flashed across his face. He took off running, with Chives close behind.

Antonia was busy gathering the flowers back into her arms.

She had tears in her eyes, just like Maggie had when Pooch ruined her lemonade stand. Except that if Antonia didn’t sell her flowers, her baby sister might go blind. The stakes were a lot higher than Shop-Cool dolls.

“What can we do for her?” Luna said.

“Maybe we should split up,” I suggested.

“That could work,” Luna said. “Those kids might be able to bully one person, but they can’t stop us all. We’ll each take a bundle of lilies and go to different corners of the square. We can outsell them.”

“I’ll find Chives and keep him with me,” I said. “He’s not safe. I noticed at least two butcher shops in this plaza.”

Luna explained our plan to Antonia, and we divided up the flowers.

“Okay, Tiger,” Luna said. “Here’s the deal. Each flower costs ten pesos. Many of the young men like to buy them for their girlfriends. All you have to do is hold up the flower and say, ‘¿Para su novia?’ That means, ‘For your girlfriend?’”

I repeated the words. It felt good to be able to say something in Spanish.

“If you are selling a flower to an older person, hold up the lily and say, ‘Para su casa,’ which means, ‘For your house.’ Got it?”

“No problem,” I said. “I could do this in my sleep.”

“We have to hurry,” Luna said. “What time is it?”

I checked with Batman. According to him, it was 4:30 p.m. We had a half hour to sell the flowers, get Sofía and her mom on the bus, and go back to where we arrived.

“Okay, if we sell every one of these flowers, we’ll have the five hundred pesos we need,” Luna said. “We’ll meet back here in ten minutes. It’ll be tight, so hurry. Remember, we have to be back by five o’clock. On your mark, get set, go!”

Luna and Antonia took off in separate directions. I hurried to the bully’s flower stall and found Chives hanging out in front. He had scared off all the boys there.

“Like all bullies, they were cowards at heart,” Chives said. “A few words from a talking pig, and they scampered away like scared rabbits.”

“Good work, Chives. Now we have to sell these flowers fast. I just wish I were better at selling things.”

“Confidence, sir,” Chives said. “That’s what it takes to succeed in business.”

With his snout to my back, Chives nudged me into the crowd.

“Over there,” he said, leading the way to a gray-haired woman.

“¡Hola, señora!” I said, holding up my lilies. She shook her head no and quickened her step, but I remembered Luna’s words.

“¿Para su caca?” I said with a smile.

The lady looked shocked. Her eyes bugged out. She shook her finger in my face and let out a long, loud stream of Spanish. It was clear I had made her angry. She stomped away.

“The words you were looking for are ‘para su casa,’” Chives said. “That means ‘for your house.’ You said ‘para su caca.’”

“I said ‘caca’? Uh-oh. Does caca mean what I think it means?”

“Unfortunately, it does, sir. Potty talk sounds the same in every language.”

I was so embarrassed. Any shred of confidence I had went down the drain. To make things worse, I had wasted four minutes. And I still hadn’t sold one flower.

I had told Luna I could sell these flowers in my sleep.

I was wrong. I couldn’t even do it wide-awake!