Canned and Crushed Read online

  Aha. You were starting to get bored with all this description, weren’t you? But stories need settings. You know that. So, you’re interested in the rattlesnake story?

  Remember, I was just a little grasshopper when we left Mexico. I was at my abuelo’s ranch, and we went to throw some hay into the corral. The corral fences in Mexico are just wires strung between branches then stuck into the ground—cheap but effective. Horses and cows scrounge around and nibble on the sagebrush, but it’s not enough. You know what they say: hay is for horses.

  Well, we were getting close to the fence and one of the horses made a loud sound, a sort of screaming neigh. I wish you could hear me do it. It would send shivers up your spine. We stopped dead in our tracks. Not really dead. That’s what the horse was trying to tell us. Stop or you’ll be dead.

  There on the path, curled up like a piece of gray rope, a rattlesnake lifted its head and hissed. You know those photos you see on Google images of rattlesnakes? If you don’t know, go look one up. I’ll wait. So you got it in your mind? Well, they’re right on target. They make this sound with their tail—imagine little rocks shaking around in an empty soda can.

  Abuelo said, “Sandro, stay put, don’t move”—in Spanish, of course. Miss Hamilton would have said, “Let’s not move, shall we?” Abuelo’s voice made me freeze even though I wanted to run. And stay put I did with that snake just about as far away as the length of a bat—a baseball bat, not the one that flies.

  Now if you want to be a good reader, you have to get a well-defined picture in your mind. There’s me, there’s the snake hissing and shaking, and there’s the horse screaming, in that order. I knew grandpa was behind me, so you can put him in the picture even though I couldn’t see him. All of a sudden the loudest sound I’ve ever heard jammed into my ears. Actually, the sound reverberated in all my joints. Uh-oh. Big word alert. Reverberated means bounced back and forth.

  Seems that when you’re going to shoot a gun, you should give a warning. In golf the players yell, “Fore.” In baseball they yell, “Play ball.” In racing they shout, “Get ready, get set,” and then they shoot the gun. But a gunshot with no warning made me jump so high I thought Abuelo blew us both to kingdom come. I never even knew Abuelo carried a gun in his belt. That rattlesnake didn’t know it either. It flopped right down to the ground, sorry it ever woke up that morning to say, “Make my day.”

  So lots of times when I’m with Miguel my mind wanders off to Mexico, and thinking about Mexico makes me think about Abuelo. And thinking about Abuelo always brings up that memory of that rattlesnake. And right this minute while I’m telling you all this background info, Girasol trips over nothing and lands flat on her face with Marta so close behind that she falls over my sister.

  “Girasol!” I shout and rush to her. I pull on her backpack to help her up.

  She’s crying, and Marta is hollering and holding her stomach. “Ow, ow, ow!”

  Girasol has a gash on her chin and scrapes on both hands and knees. She’s blubbering now, and the tears and nose stuff and blood is sort of mixing together as she rubs her chin. Yah. Gross.

  “Doe-doe,” she blubbers. That’s how she says my name, “Doe-doe.” She’s called me that ever since she learned to talk.

  “Stop, stop. Here,” I say and pull my T-shirt off to clean her up. I’m no doctor, but she looks okay, just dinged up a little. The blood on her chin is starting to coagulate. I know, another big word. But you seem intelligent, so I don’t want to dummy it down for you. Work with me here. Co as in cooperate—it means together. So blood coming together, or stopping bleeding, is coagulate. See how smart you’re getting? Stick with me—we’re going places!

  That’s when I think I see the rattlesnake I was just telling you about. The scaly brown face with the puppet grin. Those beady eyes—and it’s coming out of Girasol’s backpack. I blink and shake my head.

  Then Miguel says, “Qué es eso?”

  And sure enough, I’m not losing my mind. I see now it’s definitely not a rattlesnake. Its toes are climbing over the edge of the backpack. And it’s attached to a shell. And then I recognize it. The school mascot, Franklin the turtle.

  “Girasol, what are you doing with Franklin?” I ask, pulling Franklin out and holding him gently.

  Girasol is still blubbering, so it’s hard to understand her. “I want him. He’s mine. Give him back.”

  “No, Girasol. You can’t just take the turtle from school.”

  I hold the turtle higher since she’s jumping and reaching while blubbering and screaming.

  “Why? Why do you want it?” I ask her.

  “For vanilla. Mrs. Diaz said he gives vanilla. I want vanilla.”

  Yes, you heard right. And I agree with you. What connection do turtles have with vanilla? But remember, nothing is as it appears. And that is when I decide I should start writing these things down so people will believe me when I tell them about my life.

  •

  Miguel figures it all out as we finish the walk home, taking turns giving Franklin the fright of his life. I know I said this before, but always remember, nothing is as it appears on the surface.

  Girasol met Franklin on the school tour, just the same way we all met Franklin. Every year, the teachers explain that wild animals are not to be played with.

  “Play with my own. Leave wild ones alone.” That’s the catchy little poem they teach kids to help them remember about wild animals. The last thing the teachers tell kids about Franklin is, “Franklin looks friendly, but he’s a turtle, and turtles may give you salmonella, so don’t touch Franklin.”

  If you were learning English for the first time, do you think you would know about salmonella? But if you went to The Banana Split every day in the summer and the girl behind the counter asked if you wanted chocolate or vanilla, do you think you would know about vanilla?

  So you can see how Girasol got a little mixed up. Try it. Say salmonella then vanilla. Thing is, salmonella is a bacteria that makes you sick, and vanilla is the only flavor ice cream Girasol ever eats. Now why don’t you try explaining that to Girasol?

  CHAPTER 3

  Look Below the Surface

  We turn onto our street, and Miguel hands me his grammar homework. He finishes it in class so I can look it over in the evenings. I don’t think that’s cheating, do you? I just check it, and if it’s wrong, he fixes it. We have grammar homework every night this year, and in my opinion, that’s overkill. Last year, in third grade, we only had grammar homework once a week. But Miguel is getting better with English this year, so maybe practice does make perfect.

  “Don’t be late for soccer,” he says.

  “I’ll hurry,” I say for the second time.

  What’s the first thing you do when you get home from school? Yep, me too. Just walking in the door makes me hungry. But first things first. I tell Girasol to be brave while I clean her up. I do my impressions of cartoon characters to make her laugh. If we ever meet, I’ll show you, and you’ll laugh, too. I get the rag super wet and sudsy the way my mom does, so Girasol only whimpers a little when I do her knees. Maybe I’ll be an EMT comedian one day.

  I rustle up some snacks and turn on the TV. Girasol curls up next to me and goes to sleep. I’m thinking about Franklin. Here’s what I think. Franklin will die if I leave him in Girasol’s backpack. And Franklin will die if my dad sees him. Remember one of my dad’s jobs? Well, you should know that, he’s paid by the carcass. Adiós, Franklin. I could put him in a box, but if he gets out my mom might die of fright. And even though Girasol stole Franklin, we all know yours truly will be blamed. I’m a dead man.

  I could walk Franklin back to school right now. This is a bad idea for three reasons. First, my dad might come home and find me gone just when he’s ready for an amazing haul. Second, it’s too early for Mrs. Arona in the duplex next door to be home to watch Girasol, and she’s too little to be left alone. And third, with my luck Principal Smalley would be up on the third floor spying on me sneaking around the f
irst floor with Franklin.

  Then I have a brainstorm. I grab the olla from under the counter. It’s a big pot we use for tamales but not very often. I put a little dish of water in the pot. Girasol is still asleep, so I sneak outside and spoon some dirt into the pot, thinking Franklin might like it if some bugs just happened to be mixed in with the dirt. Then I throw in some handfuls of grass, introduce Franklin to his new home, and put the olla back under the counter, with the heavy lid on tight. No way can Franklin escape from my ingenious solution.

  I hear my dad’s truck. So that’s good. I might make it back in time for soccer. I really hate missing soccer practice. Once inside, my dad thumps me on the back. “How was school?” he asks. “Keep out of trouble?”

  “Yep,” I say. “How’s treasure hunting?”

  “Good. Maybe ten.”

  That’s not good for me getting to soccer, but it is good for money. Ten means ten places that might still have scrap metal. If no one beats us there. Because of my dad’s back, he has to wait for me to help him lift the stuff into the truck. He used to wait for my Uncle Pablo, but by the time his work ended, everything was picked clean. I feel bad leaving when Girasol is asleep, but Mrs. Arona is home now to keep an eye on her. So we head out.

  We stop a few blocks away, where we find an old iron metal bed. We get ready to lift the headboard into the back of the truck, and I stick my head through the bars of the bed and say, “Let me out. Let me out,” pretending I’m in jail. I crack myself up.

  My dad gives me a quick smile, but he doesn’t laugh. I suddenly realize maybe he thinks I don’t like working with him. As if working with him is the same as being in jail. I lay the headboard down, and instead of clowning around, I bust my butt muscling stuff into the truck. Three more stops for more metal stuff—a weight bench and weights, car parts at my dad’s friend’s garage, and some gutters. We pass on the refrigerator.

  “Next year, when you grow up,” my dad says.

  I could probably lift it now, but I hate to show off. We drive past places five and six because nothing is left. Somebody beat us to it. Less work for me, but it makes my dad grumble under his breath. By the time we finish and head to the dealer, the truck is pretty full, including the cans my dad collected during the week. We pull into Crusher, Inc. with thirty minutes until soccer and three trucks in front of us.

  If you’ve never been to a scrap metal yard, you’ve never lived. Piles of dead twisted metal carcasses surround the drive like an iron jungle. A huge, hungry crane with a giant magnet swoops around plucking pieces of metal as if picking flowers. The oily smell sort of burns your nose, and even if you try to stay clean, the dirt just jumps on you.

  When it’s our turn, we drive up onto a giant flat metal bed that’s really a scale. It’s the same drill every time. Get out. Grab the cans. Go wait in a little room. Give the cans to the lady. The lady behind the desk writes down the price for the cans and prints off the truck’s weight. Some days we have a radiator or an air conditioner in the back of the truck. Those are in a different price category. Those are good treasures. Today, it’s just regular stuff. My dad signs for it.

  We get back in the truck and drive off the scale and down whichever path a worker wave us to. On a lucky day, the workers help us unload, throwing the heavy metal stuff onto the metal mountains as if they’re flicking feathers. But today is unlucky. Somehow, I knew it would be. The workers are helping other luckier dads, so we grunt and sweat and pull the stuff out and lay it beside the big mountains.

  Then we drive the truck back onto the scale and go back in the little room. The lady weighs the empty truck, and then she does subtraction. Here’s the problem for you: The full truck weighed 6,597 pounds and the empty truck weighs 6,520 pounds. What’s the difference? Well that number is the pounds of metal we get paid for, and every pound is worth fifty cents. While you figure that out, I’ll tell you a story.

  One time when we were waiting in the little room, a couple of boys came to the office with two bikes. The lady didn’t even make them weigh the bikes. She gave them $8.75. They threw the bikes on the mountain, and later, when we drove down the street to go home, I saw those two boys sitting on the curb eating McDonald’s hamburgers.

  I felt sad for a minute, thinking they were so hungry that they traded their bikes for hamburgers. Then I wondered if they stole the bikes, and I felt sad for the real owners, too. My dad touched my arm and pointed behind the boys. Guess what I saw? Yep. The bikes. So it goes to show you, always look below the surface. Also, before you feel sorry for somebody, make sure they are not a cheater.

  Today, me and my dad get $23.10 for the cans in cash and a check from the lady for $38.50. Is that the answer you got? See, I knew you were smart. She gives me a peppermint like that will sweeten up the place, and we head home.

  I don’t bother putting on my shin guards or shoes because once the game has started, the refs won’t let me in late. I’m glad my dad doesn’t say anything stupid like, “It’s just a game, Sandro.” He’s a big soccer fan. It’s not his fault half the games are on the same day people put their garbage out for the next day’s pickup. I’m disappointed, of course, but I stay cool so my dad doesn’t notice.

  The only thing is, the team needs me. We’re undefeated and have five more games in the regular season. If we win at least three, we go to the playoffs. And if we win the playoffs, we go to the championship. Oh yah. I hope the team wins today, but I also hope they don’t start somebody else and leave me on the bench for the next game. And you know, I live and breathe soccer. It will kill me if that happens. Every day at recess, we kick the ball around. Just us guys. Soccer is a game for guys, don’t you think? No offense, but I think girls should stick to jump rope and gymnastics—stuff they can do well.

  At home I smell dinner, so that’s good, cuz I’m hungry and dirty and have homework.

  “Sandro, what happened to Girasol?” my mom asks.

  I tell her, and she shakes her head.

  “But how? Was she running? Did she trip over something?”

  I think back. “No,” I say. “She was walking and fell down, I guess.”

  “She has a fever. Maybe she got dizzy.” And my mom shakes her head again. That worried shake, the way your mom probably does, too. Like shaking the eight ball until the answer comes into view and clears everything up.

  I don’t think too much about it because Girasol is five and just barely past a baby in my book. Babies fall all the time, don’t they? I work on some homework and then eat dinner, or I should say devour dinner. It’s a good thing moms love to cook, isn’t it? I know some families don’t eat together, but we do, and I’m glad.

  My mind is bouncing around while I’m chewing. Every once in a while I answer my mom’s questions about school, but mostly I bounce around in my head between which month to draw for the contest and how to get Franklin back to school. Here’s my thinking: November—I would have to draw people for Thanksgiving, and people are hard to draw. Franklin—leave him outside on the step. No, it might be too cold. January—it snows in January, and drawing white snow on white paper doesn’t sound too appealing. Franklin—I could bring him back to school tomorrow in my backpack. But what if he poops or pees while he’s in there?

  I’m starting to think about drawing February and asking Miguel to return Franklin for me when we hear a noise in the kitchen, and my mom yells out, “Girasol, what are you doing in there?”

  Did I mention that Girasol didn’t eat with us because she had a fever? I might have skipped telling you that because I was preoccupied with eating. Anyway, Girasol doesn’t answer, so we all go back to eating. A big fork full of chicken is heading into my mouth when I hear the noise again. It sounds like Girasol is getting a plate out of the cupboard. It sounds like Girasol is scraping a spoon across the bottom of a metal bowl. It sounds like Girasol is washing a pan with a scrub brush. It sounds like . . . and then I know what it sounds like.

  It sounds like Franklin is escaping from his temporary h
ome in the olla. I shoot out of my seat. “I’ll go see!” I yell.

  “Sandro!” my mom shrieks, and I see the table reverberate, glasses wobbling.

  Whoops, my bad. But I’m in the kitchen before anyone else and just in time to see our friend waddle out the other door. The cupboard door is open, and the lid of the olla is on the floor. How in the world? Franklin must be an escape artist. I should have duct-taped the lid on. Holy guacamole. What should I do now? Two choices. Clean up the floor? Or follow Franklin?

  “Sandro!” I hear my mom’s voice and know she is at the kitchen door. “What is this mess?”

  “Sorry. For school. A project.” Here’s another little bit of advice. If you make a weird mess, always say it’s for a school project. Parents love school projects.

  I’m scooping up the dirt and rinsing out the pan when my mom says, “What project?”

  I’m thinking fast now. “Oh, you know, making homes out of stuff.” I know there’s a word, a big word, that will impress her. We learned it last year. It’s the word for the places animals live. Habitat. That’s it. “I’m making a habitat.”

  Mothers love to help out, so I know my mom will totally bite on this, and sure enough, she goes back into the living room. “Papi, do you have something Sandro can use for his project?”

  See? I knew it. But where exactly is my other project? The one with the beady eyes? I walk down the hall and into Girasol’s bedroom just in time to see a tail disappear under her bed. I’m just about to reach under to grab it when I take a look at Girasol.

  “Mom! Mom!” I yell. And not just a regular yell. A panic yell. The kind of yell moms run for. The kind of yell you would yell if you saw your sister with a bloody nose and red blotches all over her face.