Merci Suárez Changes Gears Read online

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  A Note from the Author

  Acknowledgments

  TO THINK, ONLY YESTERDAY I was in chancletas, sipping lemonade and watching my twin cousins run through the sprinkler in the yard. Now, I’m here in Mr. Patchett’s class, sweating in my polyester school blazer and waiting for this torture to be over.

  We’re only halfway through health and PE when he adjusts his tight collar and says, “Time to go.”

  I stand up and push in my chair, like we’re always supposed to, grateful that picture day means that class ends early. At least we won’t have to start reading the first chapter in the textbook: “I’m OK, You’re OK: On Differences as We Develop.”

  Gross.

  “Coming, Miss Suárez?” he asks me as he flips off the lights.

  That’s when I realize I’m the only one still waiting for him to tell us to line up. Everyone else has already headed out the door.

  This is sixth grade, so there won’t be one of the PTA moms walking us down to the photographer. Last year, our escort pumped us up by gushing the whole way about how handsome and beautiful we all looked on the first day of school, which was a stretch since a few of us had mouthfuls of braces or big gaps between our front teeth.

  But that’s over now. Here at Seaward Pines Academy, sixth-graders don’t have the same teacher all day, like Miss Miller in the fifth grade. Now we have homerooms and lockers. We switch classes. We can finally try out for sports teams.

  And we know how to get ourselves down to picture day just fine — or at least the rest of my class does. I grab my new book bag and hurry out to join the others.

  It’s a wall of heat out here. It won’t be a far walk, but August in Florida is brutal, so it doesn’t take long for my glasses to fog up and the curls at my temples to spring into tight coils. I try my best to stick to the shade near the building, but it’s hopeless. The slate path that winds to the front of the gym cuts right across the quad, where there’s not a single scrawny palm tree to shield us. It makes me wish we had one of those thatch-roof walkways that my grandfather Lolo can build out of fronds.

  “How do I look?” someone asks.

  I dry my lenses on my shirttail and glance over. We’re all in the same uniform, but some of the girls got special hairdos for the occasion, I notice. A few were even flat-ironed; you can tell from the little burns on their necks. Too bad they don’t have some of my curls. Not that everyone appreciates them, of course. Last year, a kid named Dillon said I look like a lion, which was fine with me, since I love those big cats. Mami is always nagging me about keeping it out of my eyes, but she doesn’t know that hiding behind it is the best part. This morning, she slapped a school-issue headband on me. All it’s done so far is give me a headache and make my glasses sit crooked.

  “Hey,” I say. “It’s a broiler out here. I know a shortcut.”

  The girls stop in a glob and look at me. The path I’m pointing to is clearly marked with a sign.

  MAINTENANCE CREWS ONLY.

  NO STUDENTS BEYOND THIS POINT.

  No one in this crowd is much for breaking rules, but sweat is already beading above their glossed lips, so maybe they’ll be sensible. They’re looking to one another, but mostly to Edna Santos.

  “Come on, Edna,” I say, deciding to go straight to the top. “It’s faster, and we’re melting out here.”

  She frowns at me, considering the options. She may be a teacher’s pet, but I’ve seen Edna bend a rule or two. Making faces outside our classroom if she’s on a bathroom pass. Changing an answer for a friend when we’re self-checking a quiz. How much worse can this be?

  I take a step closer. Is she taller than me now? I pull back my shoulders just in case. She looks older somehow than she did in June, when we were in the same class. Maybe it’s the blush on her cheeks or the mascara that’s making little raccoon circles under her eyes? I try not to stare and just go for the big guns.

  “You want to look sweaty in your picture?” I say.

  Cha-ching.

  In no time, I’m leading the pack of us along the gravel path. We cross the maintenance parking lot, dodging debris. Back here is where Seaward hides the riding mowers and all the other untidy equipment they need to make the campus look like the brochures. Papi and I parked here last summer when we did some painting as a trade for our book fees. I don’t tell anyone that, though, because Mami says it’s “a private matter.” But mostly, I keep quiet because I’m trying to erase the memory. Seaward’s gym is ginormous, so it took us three whole days to paint it. Plus, our school colors are fire-engine red and gray. You know what happens when you stare at bright red too long? You start to see green balls in front of your eyes every time you look away. Hmpf. Try doing detail work in that blinded condition. For all that, the school should give me and my brother, Roli, a whole library, not just a few measly textbooks. Papi had other ideas, of course. “Do a good job in here,” he insisted, “so they know we’re serious people.” I hate when he says that. Do people think we’re clowns? It’s like we’ve always got to prove something.

  Anyway, we make it to the gym in half the time. The back door is propped open, the way I knew it would be. The head custodian keeps a milk crate jammed in the door frame so he can read his paper in peace when no one’s looking.

  “This way,” I say, using my take-charge voice. I’ve been trying to perfect it, since it’s never too early to work on your corporate leadership skills, according to the manual Papi got in the mail from the chamber of commerce, along with the what-to-do-in-a-hurricane guidelines.

  So far, it’s working. I walk us along back rooms and even past the boys’ locker room, which smells like bleach and dirty socks. When we reach a set of double doors, I pull them open proudly. I’ve saved us all from that awful trudge through the heat.

  “Ta-da,” I say.

  Unfortunately, as soon as we step inside, it’s obvious that I’ve landed us all in hostile territory.

  The older grades have gathered on this side of the gym for picture day, and the door’s loud squeak has made everyone turn in our direction to stare. They don’t look happy to have “the little kids” in their midst. My mouth goes dry. They’re a lot bigger than we are, for one thing. Ninth-graders at least. I look around for my brother, hoping for some cover, but then I remember that Roli got his fancy senior portraits taken in July at a nice air-conditioned studio at the mall. He won’t be in here at all today. He’ll be helping in the science lab, as usual, and working on all his college applications in between.

  So here we are, trapped thanks to me.

  “Oh my God, they’re so cute,” a tall girl says, like we’re kittens or something. She even steps forward and pats the top of my head. I look at my shoes, my cheeks b
urning.

  Edna pushes past me as if we’re not surrounded. With a flip of her black hair, she takes over, the way she always does. “Follow me,” she says.

  This is no time to be picky. I stay close behind her as she marches us toward the other side of the gym.

  Thankfully, Miss McDaniels, our school secretary, doesn’t notice that we came in the wrong door. She’s usually a stickler for rules, but she’s too busy collecting payment envelopes for the sixth-graders and running crowd control. Still, she does notice that we’re all snorting and giggling the way you do after surviving an especially scary roller-coaster ride.

  “Quiet please, girls,” she snaps, without looking up from her clipboard as we reach her. “Ladies to the left. Gentlemen over here. Shirts tucked, please. Have your forms and money ready.”

  I get in line behind a girl named Lena, who’s reading while she waits, and try hard not to look at Miss McDaniels as she checks everyone’s selections. Mami only marked the cheapo basic package, and I happen to know (because it said so in gigantic font on the letter we got at home this summer) that picture day at Seaward is one of our biggest school fundraisers. You’re supposed to buy a lot, like for your family in Ohio that barely knows you and whatnot. But my family mostly lives on the same block, one house next to the other. We see one another every single day.

  Besides, my portraits don’t ever turn out so great. It’s my left eye that’s the trouble. It still strays sometimes, pulling out as if it wants to see something far off, all on its own. When I was little, I wore a pirate patch on my good eye to make the muscles in the bad one get stronger. And when that didn’t help, I had a surgery to straighten it. But even now, my eye still gives me trouble when I least want it to.

  Like picture day.

  If only Miss McDaniels would let me take my own picture instead. The camera in my phone is awesome. Plus, I downloaded PicQT, so it’s fun to edit the pictures I take. My favorite thing is turning people into their favorite animal. Puppies, alligators, ducks, bears, you name it — even better than on Snapchat. Now those would be good yearbook photos. I glance over at Rachel, who’s behind me. With her big eyes and tiny nose, she’d make an awesome owl.

  I move up in the line and scope out the photographer’s setup. There’s a screen background, sheets on the floor, and those big umbrellas to filter the light. She looks sort of grumpy, but who can blame her? It’s just point and shoot all day long, no fun. When she dreamed of being a photographer, she couldn’t have meant this. I mean, if I were a photographer, I’d be on safari somewhere, perched on top of a jeep and shooting rhinos for National Geographic. Not here in a hot (though expertly painted) gym.

  “Next,” she says.

  Miss McDaniels motions to Edna, who, in no time flat, starts posing easily on the stool like some sort of school-portrait supermodel. I glance over at Edna’s order form on the table. Just as I suspected, her envelope says “Gold Package Supreme.” I sigh and shift on my feet. It’s going to take a while for the photographer to take five poses with different backgrounds. In the end, Edna will get pictures in every size, too, including enough wallet photos to make sure everybody at this school has one. I swear, all that’s missing from that package is a billboard. What’s even crazier is that it costs a hundred bucks. For that kind of money, I could have half the deposit for a new bike.

  “You’ll be there tomorrow morning, Merci?”

  Miss McDaniels’s voice startles me. I turn around to find that she’s next to me, watching Edna, too. I can tell she’s pleased. Edna is just the kind of portrait customer the administration lives for.

  “Yes, miss. I’ll be there.”

  My stomach knots up even as I say it. Sunshine Buddies is having its first meeting tomorrow, and I most definitely do not want to go. I was a mandatory member last year when I changed schools. New students are paired with buddies (aka fake friends) from August to December while they get used to things at Seaward. Miss McDaniels, our club sponsor, expects me to “pay it forward” and be a buddy for someone who’s new this year. I suppose it’s fine if you get a good buddy, but it takes a lot of time, and I want to try out for soccer this year. All this friendliness is going to cut into after-school practice.

  Anyway, all day I’ve been trying to think of a way of getting out of it, and now here she is, cornering me before I’ve nailed down an excuse.

  “Seven forty-five sharp,” she says. “And be prompt. We have a lot to cover.”

  “Yes, miss.”

  “Next,” the photographer calls.

  Edna stands up, but just as she’s about to surrender the stool, she takes one look at Hannah Kim and stops.

  “One minute,” she tells the photographer. She whips out a travel-size bottle of hairspray from her backpack and spritzes a tissue. Then she taps down the hairs that always stick up like antennae along Hannah’s part. “That’s how you get rid of those fly aways,” she says.

  Hannah holds still, looking grateful.

  I sneak out my camera and snap a shot of Hannah as the photographer positions her. With two clicks I stretch her neck and turn her into an adorable giraffe, complete with head knobs. Hannah wrote a report on giraffes last year when we were studying the African plains. They’re graceful and gentle — and a little knobby-kneed — just like Hannah.

  Smile, I write underneath, and press send to her phone number. A second later, I hear her backpack vibrate.

  “Merci Suárez.”

  I slip my phone out of view just as Miss McDaniels looks up from her clipboard. She keeps a whole collection of the stuff she confiscates, and I don’t want my phone to be part of it. My heart races and my cheeks get blotchy as I step forward. Luckily, she’s only calling my turn. The boys in our class start making faces and flaring their nostrils to try to make me laugh. Normally, I wouldn’t care, especially since no one can make faces better than I can. Last year, we used to have contests at lunch, and I always won. My best face is when I push up my nose with my pinkies at the same time that I pull down on my lower eyelids with my index fingers. I call it the Phantom.

  But Jamie, who’s behind me, shakes her head at the boys and sighs. “Idiots,” she says.

  I ignore them as best I can and take my turn.

  I sit on the stool exactly the way the photographer says: Ankles crossed. Torso swiveled to the left and leaning forward. Hands in lap. Head tilted like a confused puppy. Who sits like this, ever? I look like a victim of taxidermy.

  “Smile,” the photographer says, without an ounce of joy in her voice.

  Just as I’m trying to decide whether to show teeth, a huge flash goes off and blinds me.

  “Wait. I wasn’t ready,” I say.

  She ignores me and reviews her shots. It must be really bad for her to hold up the line this way. Do-overs mean time, and everyone in business knows that time is money.

  “Let’s try again,” she says, adjusting my glasses. “Chin up this time.”

  Chin? Who is she kidding? I already know that’s not the problem. My eye is fluttering, and I can feel the soft pull to the left.

  “Look at the camera, honey,” the photographer says.

  I blink hard and fix both my eyes on her lens, which always makes me look angry, but it’s the best I can do. She shoots again and again in an explosion of shutter clicks. I must look as awkward as I feel, because I can hear the boys snickering.

  When it’s over, I jump off the stool and head for the bleachers, where the others are sitting. My head is pounding from this dumb headband. I yank it off and let my hair hang down in my face.

  Edna moves down as I take a seat to wait for the dismissal bell.

  “Shut it,” she tells the boys behind us, smiling at them anyway.

  “Thanks,” I mumble.

  She glances at me and shrugs. “Don’t worry about the pictures,” she says. “You probably didn’t buy many anyway.”

  The final bell rings, and everyone scatters.

  ROLI HAS ONLY HAD HIS license for a few weeks a
nd already we’ve lost a mailbox and two recycling bins to his skills behind the wheel. Even our cat, Tuerto, has learned to hide when he hears the jingle of car keys. Still, Mami has promised to let Roli drive us to and from school every day so he can practice. But today, as Roli lurches around the puddles in our driveway, I see there’s even bigger trouble at home.

  A police cruiser is parked in front of Abuela’s house.

  “Stop the car,” Mami orders.

  He slams on the brakes, startling the ibises that are digging for worms in the soggy grass. Mami doesn’t even shut the door behind her as she hurries out to see what’s the matter.

  My heart squeezes into a fist. The last time cops came to our block, it was because Doña Rosa from across the street had died. I glance around nervously, but I don’t see an ambulance anywhere.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask Roli.

  “Zip it, amoeba. I’m trying to hear.” He motions with his chin at Abuela and a policeman, who are talking near our banyan tree. Abuela’s face is twisted in worry, although that’s not unusual on its own. She’s the manager of the Catastrophic Concerns Department in our family, after all, so it’s pretty much her resting face. If you want to know all the ways you can be tragically hurt in everyday life, just talk to Abuela. She keeps a long list — and she doesn’t mind sharing details.

  “Get back from the canal,” she yells whenever one of us kids wanders too close to the fence behind our house. “An alligator will close its jaws on you and drag you to the bottom!”

  “Put shoes on!” she’ll say whenever I’m barefoot. “You’ll get worms in your belly the size of spaghetti.”

  She can’t watch anyone climb a ladder without mentioning a neck-breaking fall. Or sharpen the knives without recalling a fulana de tal who sliced off a thumb. And forget poor Lolo. She’s after our grandfather nonstop for one thing or another — a fall, heatstroke, even a patatús, whatever that is.

  “Is there a problem, officer?” Mami says when she reaches them. Her voice is extra polite, and she tugs nervously on her work scrubs. Roli and I are out of the car by now, watching, too. That’s when I notice that Lolo is in the back seat of the cruiser.