On These Magic Shores Read online

  I opened my mouth to speak, but the theater teacher and her helpers were chatting and laughing. Bailey was trying the Wendy costume on, as if the part was already hers.

  I cleared my throat, and the teacher said, “Go ahead, hmm . . . Minerva? Is that right?” She ­chuckled, and then maybe because she realized she was laughing at my name and I knew it, she blushed.

  I, for my part, was about to combust. “Oh, Michael and Johnny,” I said, but my English accent sounded so phony I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me. The skater boy watched from a seat on the first row, but he didn’t laugh.

  Before I went on with my lines, a wail pierced the silence, drowning my pathetic words. I looked up to see the older Snow White pacing the back of the auditorium holding Avi. My baby sister was crying with so much terror and sadness that the hairs on my arms matched the ones on my head.

  “Whose kid is that?” a girl asked.

  My feet itched to run back to my sisters, but this was my chance. My one and only chance to start my journey to the White House.

  “Oh, Michael and Johnny —”

  “Minnie!” cried a voice I had never heard before but would have recognized all the way to the end of the world.

  I jumped off the stage and twisted my ankle. But I didn’t care. “I’m sorry. My sister . . . she needs me,” I said, passing by the skater boy. I walked out so fast my feet didn’t seem to touch the ground.

  “Come here, baby,” I said, taking her from the older Snow White. “Let’s go home,” I hissed in Kota’s direction.

  If Kota had only helped me a little, if Mamá would have been here, like everyone else’s moms, none of this would have happened. Kota followed me out of the auditorium, away from the school. Out of the neighborhood. All the way home.

  “I’m sorry,” Kota said. “You were doing fine. You looked . . . pretty.”

  “Don’t lie.” Avi wasn’t heavy for a three-year-old, but after two blocks my arms were shaking. “When Mamá comes home, I’ll be so mad at her,” I said.

  “I won’t. I’ll be happy.”

  We turned the corner and my breath hitched. The front door light was on. I remembered vividly turning it off to save electricity.

  Kota ran ahead, her arms wide open in preparation for the hug she’d give Mamá. “Mamá!” Kota called. “Mamá, we’re here.”

  The image of the stroller inside the auditorium flashed in my brain like those scary faces that suddenly appear on the computer screen when you’re watching a video of dancing goats. For a horrible second, I wished Mamá wasn’t home so I wouldn’t have to tell her I’d left the stroller at the school.

  Too late to worry about that now. Mamá would have to be okay if I picked up the stroller tomorrow. It was her fault I had left it.

  I counted what-ifs as I went down the steps.

  If she hadn’t left us so long . . .

  If she had been cheering me on like a normal mom would do . . .

  If we had a dad who could pick up the slack . . .

  If I had an older brother or sister . . .

  . . . my life would be so much easier.

  I took a deep breath and walked into the apartment.

  The note I had left for Mamá still lay on the table. No one had touched it. I searched everywhere. It took me thirty seconds. The apartment was smaller than a handkerchief.

  Mamá wasn’t home.

  Kota crumpled to the floor and had the first tantrum of her life. Her voice went hoarse after the fifteenth “Mami, ¿dónde estás?” or so. She pounded the floor and kicked with a fury I didn’t know she had in her. When I knelt next to her with Avi by my side, I could tell she was slowly coming back to her senses, but that she didn’t really know how to stop crying.

  Avi patted Kota’s head, her lips forming ghosts of words of comfort. At Avi’s touch, Kota jerked, but Avi didn’t pull her hand away and murmured something I couldn’t hear. As soon as Kota spied through a gap underneath her arm and realized it was Avi trying to help, her movements became more controlled until she finally stopped thrashing about.

  Still sobbing, she gathered herself up and crouched next to me, her arms wrapped around my neck and her tears soaking my blue silk dress. The tears would stain, but I couldn’t push my sister away. Not when I needed that hug maybe more than she did. I wanted nothing else than to cry and call for our mom too, but I didn’t have that luxury. As the oldest sister, it was my job to keep it together until things went back to normal.

  “Shhh,” I said, following Avi’s example and patting Kota’s shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  She hiccupped and tried to talk, but her garbled words became a wail of misery that scared the baby. Avi whimpered as her tears rolled down her face. After a few minutes, Kota lay on the floor, her head on my lap. Her shuddering breaths and hiccupping became more and more sporadic until she sighed and fell asleep.

  Exhausted,

  terrified,

  tired,

  hungry.

  My sister was all of the above.

  After what seemed like hours, I scooted to the side, carefully holding her head so she wouldn’t bang it on the floor, and once I was free of her, I covered her with a blanket.

  “Minnie, up,” Avi said in a voice so sweet even Tinker Bell would be jealous.

  “Just a second, Avi,” I said. “Help me find Mister Browny.” Kota never went to sleep without her teddy bear. I searched for him in the bedroom, but I didn’t see him on the bed as usual.

  “Minnie, Minnie,” Avi kept saying from the kitchen. “Minnie, Minnie.”

  “Shhh, be quiet,” I hissed at her. Immediately, a pang in my chest reminded me that I had wanted to hear her voice all her life, and here I was, already telling her to be quiet on the first day she spoke. “Sorry, baby. Don’t wake her up.”

  “Minnie,” Avi insisted. “Browny, Minnie.”

  I looked at her then. She stood halfway between Kota and me, like she wasn’t sure who needed more help, our sleeping sister or me, panicking like a chicken with its head cut off. She pointed to the old sofa and said, “Browny, Minnie.”

  My gaze followed her pointed finger, and there he was, old Mister Browny.

  “Thanks, baby,” I said as I took giant strides to get the bear that had been sitting right next to us.

  Once Mister Browny was snuggled next to Kota, Avi tugged on my dress and pointed at the fridge. “Milk, Minnie. Peques, Minnie.”

  All our lives, Mamá had told us stories of the Peques, the fairies that lived in Argentina. Supposedly, they helped those who kept a garden or put out a saucer of milk for them. My sisters were convinced a family of Peques lived in the decrepit flower beds by the front door. As if anything cute and magical would choose an old rose bush and a couple of tangled chrysanthemums as a home, but they believed. Who was I to wipe the innocence from my baby sister’s eyes?

  With Avi watching my every move, I poured milk in a saucer. Just a little, though. We didn’t have much to spare. I wouldn’t say that I didn’t believe in fairies, but I had never seen one. I was sure the reason the milk vanished every night had a bushy tail and gray eyes: the neighborhood fat cat.

  The moon was out even though it wasn’t even that dark yet. It twinkled at me when I stepped out to set the saucer next to the door.

  “If someone is watching,” I said looking out into the creeping night, “now would be the perfect time to help. Please.”

  Although I counted to ten to give time to whoever wanted to help, nothing happened. Just crickets, literally. There was no flash of light with a fairy godmother, or a shower of sparkles introducing a boy who cackled like a rooster. Nothing more than the darkness of the mountains against the twilight sky, and my baby sister whimpering behind me.

  Avi, who’d been sniffling every other second, went silent when I spoke. Maybe she thought I was talking to
Mamá, because as soon as I walked back in the house, she broke into the saddest sobs of her life.

  “Come here, Avi.”

  I sat on the bed and rocked her, singing “Bah, Bah, Black Sheep,” but she shook her head no, no, no.

  “Stop. Stop, Minnie,” she said. Her golden fluff hair was all sticking up. Her nose ran like she had the worst cold ever.

  “Duérmete mi niña.” I sang Mamá’s lullaby.

  It worked like a charm. Avi hiccupped, trying to calm herself, choking me with her little arms. Every time I stopped singing to swallow or clear my throat, she threatened to start with her sadness all over again.

  Keeping the same tune, I sang, “Tengo mucha hambre. Let’s find something to eat.”

  I really was hungry and wanted something to eat, but she laughed, a sound so sweet and pure, my eyes filled with tears. I made up another silly phrase, and she giggled.

  If fairies were born of the sound of a child’s first laughter, how many fairies had been born at the sound of my sister’s? I hoped, really hoped, that they would make us a miracle and send us our mother. I didn’t ask for more.

  “One day,” I said to Avi. “One day when I’m all grown and free, you’ll say, ‘Tell me the story of the day I learned how to speak and the day I learned how to giggle.’ I’ll tell you the whole thing, and we’ll laugh and laugh.”

  She nodded like she understood every word.

  “Minnie,” she said. “My Minnie.”

  My insides melted and squirmed like molten chocolate cake in my tummy. I felt bad for having a favorite. I mean, Kota was awesome sometimes. She was a good helper and a good listener. She was my cheerleader. But Avi. Oh, Avi! She knew me. And she loved me no matter what.

  I was about to set her down to find something to eat when someone knocked on the door.

  Avi looked at me with her green eyes round as the full moon. Her features were delicate and refined, like she could be a model baby in a catalog.

  “Girls, are you there?” a lady asked. I thought I recognized her voice from the phone.

  She clapped her hands. “Girls!”

  I stood frozen at the sound of footsteps going back up the stairs. I took a step in the direction of the window. It was so small and so low in the ground, no one could see in, but I saw a pair of white shoes, the kind Mamá wore at the senior center. The woman stood on the grass as she walked back and forth, back and forth from the lawn to the building door like she couldn’t make up her mind to leave. Finally, she walked back to the yellow car parked by the curb and drove away.

  When I turned back to Avi, she had fallen asleep on the floor, her little hands pillowing her head. I covered her with her blanket and let her sleep on the carpet, not far from where Kota slept too.

  Mamá liked to mix her glittery fairy tales with horror stories. She warned us against La Llorona, the ghost of a sad woman who went looking for her lost kids in the night. Once, when we still went to church, a girl from Mexico told me she was going to dress up as La Llorona for Halloween, so I thought it wasn’t a story my mom had made up or brought from Argentina. Mamá also told us stories about el Cuco, a boogeyman that took disobedient children away. That one made me scared of the dark because if there really was a monster that took away disobedient daughters, then I had to be at the top of its list.

  More than anything, Mamá had told us time and again not to ever let anyone in when she wasn’t home, but I had a nagging feeling that maybe I should have opened the door. Maybe the lady could have helped us. But on the other hand, what if I opened the door and because of me, my sisters were stolen or something worse happened?

  No, it was best to follow the rules. I had broken them today by going to the auditions, and I hadn’t even had the chance to say my lines. Nothing good came from breaking rules. No, it was right to pretend we weren’t home when the lady knocked on the door.

  My stomach growled, interrupting my internal struggle, and reminding me I hadn’t eaten any dinner. Mamá usually went grocery shopping on Tuesday, and this Monday night, we were out of almost everything. I scoured the drawers looking for spare change, or anything that would help us survive until we could buy food again.

  I came up with three dimes and five quarters. Not even enough for a loaf of bread. I opened the chifforobe, as Mamá called an old armoire she’d bought at a garage sale. I searched in the pockets of Mamá’s jacket. A wrinkled five-dollar bill lay tucked in a corner, and after tugging a little, it came free. I held it up like I had found a treasure. But when I caught a peek of the corner of a leather wallet, Mamá’s wallet, on the floor of the armoire, my heart drummed like the galloping of an out-of-control horse. I snatched it, afraid it would disappear if I wasn’t fast enough.

  The leather was cool in my hands, well-worn and smooth like Mamá’s hands never were. Strangest of all, a thin layer of gold glitter covered it in patches. I wondered, whose? With a stab of jealousy, I thought, From Bailey’s house. We’ve never owned this expensive kind of glitter.

  I opened the wallet to see if maybe she had bought a new one and had left this one on purpose. Inside, I found fifteen twenty-dollar bills — three hundred dollars, more money than I’d ever seen at once in my life. I put it back inside, behind her driver’s license, although she hadn’t driven in months, not since she sold the car last winter. One of the reasons we moved to this basement was because the bus stop was only three blocks away.

  I wondered if maybe there was a bus strike, like the ones that happened in Argentina all the time, according to the news and Mamá’s stories of when she was young. But no, even with no transportation, Mamá would come back to us. Even if she had to walk all the way from downtown Salt Lake.

  If it took an hour by car, how long would it be on foot?

  Behind the driver’s license, so tightly tucked in I had a hard time pulling it out, was a picture of my father, Gustavo. He wore a yellow-and-blue soccer uniform. His long hair couldn’t quite hide the smile on his face as he kicked the ball. I wondered if Mamá had kept this photo because he was smiling, or because it was the shot of an important goal, or if it was because he looked so handsome. My skin was the exact shade of dark brown as his. I could also see Kota in his straight hair. His beautiful hair, Mamá called it. I had no idea where mine, wiry and coarse, came from.

  One thing was sure though, there was no trace of Avalon hidden in him. Papá left six years ago. Avi was only three. The numbers didn’t add up, or match, or whatever. I thought about this all the time. Especially when I looked and looked at her and saw how beautiful and different from the rest of us she was. Mamá, Kota, and I were like the same person in different sizes.

  When I turned to leave the room, I stumbled on the long dress, which I was still wearing. Carefully, I took it off and put it inside the chifforobe. Now that I knew it had been Bailey’s, I’d never wear it again. I didn’t want her leftovers. Besides, my black sweats and my old Hello Kitty T-shirt were more comfortable than the dress would ever be. Mamá had bought those. I knew that for a fact because I had been there at Wal-Mart when she got them for me.

  Once in my familiar clothes, I went back to the living room and turned the TV on so quietly it was almost on mute. With my father’s picture in hand, I snuggled in a corner of the sofa, buried under a pile of baby blankets.

  The TV reported nothing about a bus driver strike, or about a woman walking through the mountains to get home to her girls. Infomercial after infomercial clicked by, but none suggested how to find lost ­parents or how to take care of little sisters and still attend school. In the end, I settled on a soccer game from a B team somewhere in Central America. I wouldn’t even say it aloud, but in the silence of the night, I couldn’t deny that I looked for him, Papá. Sometimes I hoped I’d find him playing a game or cheering in a stadium. Had Mamá gone looking for him?

  Maybe she had.

  I jumped out of the chair, went back to the
bedroom, and looked inside the treasure box in her nightstand where she kept all the important papers: birth certificates, vaccine records, and passports. But Mamá’s documents were there. She couldn’t have gone looking for him without them.

  But what if the police thought she was undocumented and took her away? Besides a piece of paper that showed she’d been born here, in America, nothing else said that she belonged here.

  No, I couldn’t think of that.

  I kept rummaging through the box. In a Ziplock bag with my name written in permanent marker, a collection of baby teeth all but screamed at me that there was no such thing as fairies or Peques or magic. Of course, I’d known for a long, long time that Mamá was the Tooth Fairy, Ratón Pérez, Papá Noel, and the Three Kings all combined. Multipurpose Mamá. Still, my tiny ivory teeth were the proof I wished I’d never found.

  In a daze, I went back to the living room and turned the TV off. I just looked out the window, hoping to see Mamá walking home.

  I thought about our situation pretty much all night. Waiting at home for Mamá to come back wouldn’t do us any good. If I missed any more school, the office might call. The last thing I wanted was to involve grown-ups in our mess.

  When the clock struck seven, I shook my sleeping sister softly. “Kota, wake up,” I said. “We need to go to school. Wake up.”

  As soon as Kota opened her eyes, she was wide awake. She wiped a hand over her mouth and asked, “Is Mamá here?”

  I hated to turn off the sparkle in her eyes, but I wasn’t going to lie. “No. She isn’t back, but we have to act like normal, or she’ll get in trouble with the police.”

  Her loose tooth hung on by just a string. Any moment, it would fall out. “Do you want me to pull it out?”

  “No,” she exclaimed, jumping out of my reach. “I want to give my body time to go through its natural course.”

  “Ha! You don’t want it to fall out because you’re scared the Tooth Fairy won’t come if Mamá isn’t here.”