How Tía Lola Saved the Summer (11 page)

Her father blinks, surprised by the response. “I mean it, Victoria. You would definitely enjoy it.”

“How would you know, Papa?” Victoria’s voice has suddenly acquired an edge. “Don’t you think I should know more than you what I would really enjoy?” She pushes her chair back from the table with an earsplitting screech. The room has gone absolutely still. Everyone is shocked at the transformation in the sweet eldest Sword. As if astonished herself, Victoria bursts into tears and runs out of the room. They hear her footsteps trotting across the living room and out into the mudroom.
Bang
goes the front door with that extra force that says: I am slamming this in case you missed how upset I am!

Víctor is on his feet. He intends to go after his daughter and remind her that she is the eldest, and they are guests, and she owes everyone an apology. But Tía Lola intervenes. “I think right now the best thing for Victoria is to have a little time to herself.”

Víctor runs his hand through his hair. Suddenly, there seems to be more gray peppering the black. He looks confounded. Unlike Essie, his eldest is the soul of gentleness, so willing to please. “Did something happen today to upset her?”

“No, actually, Victoria had a lovely day,” Tía Lola says, winking at Mami.

“Do sit down, Víctor, and let’s talk,” Mami says, reaching for his hand. Víctor seems soothed by her touch and sits back down. “Girls and boys,” Mami says, although the
only boy here is Miguel, “could you go out in the backyard and get the campfire ready for s’mores, okay?”

“Let me carry you out, Miguel,” Víctor says, starting to get up again.

“I’m good,” Miguel assures him. How it happened, Miguel can’t say, but his ankle really does feel okay. Later, he’ll soak it in a solution with salts that Tía Lola has prepared for him. It looks like his donkey will make it to the top of that palm tree today.

A little while later, Victoria reenters the house on tiptoe. After she washes her face so she doesn’t look like she has been crying, she goes in search of everybody. The rooms are deserted. Where did everyone go? They probably all got in the car and drove off to … to … Fort Ticonderoga to have a great time without her. Good riddance! She’d like a little time to herself, if they want to know the truth.

But the truth is that when you finally get a little time to yourself, it is nice to know that at the other end of it, you will find the people you love waiting for you, glad to have you back, eager to hear your stories. So instead of marching upstairs, wrapped in a righteous mantle, Victoria calls out, “Papa? Cari? Essie? Tía Lola?”

Room to room she goes with growing apprehension. Where are they? And then she hears their bright voices coming up from the backyard. What a warm surge of happiness to look out the window and see them gathered
together, safe and sound. They’ve even got a real campfire going!

But perhaps because she is her father’s daughter, the happiness is tinged with worry. What if they won’t take her back? Or what if they take her back, and she is again imprisoned inside that sweet, polite, responsible Victoria?

With luck, she’ll be fine. But just in case, she decides to retrieve her sword from the big flowerpot full of umbrellas in the mudroom where she plunged it when she came back from running away. Every time she sees that playful, perky name, Vicky, on the blade, she thinks, That’s not me. But come to think of it, the name does fit. Victoria has been searching for the Vicky part of herself for years. Today she has found her.

“Let’s go!” she says out loud, flourishing her sword as if she were leading a charge against the oppressive British. She needs to work up her courage before facing the people who have loved her as Victoria and will also love her as Vicky.

Seven
thursday

Esperanza’s Dashing Hopes

Esperanza Espada, a.k.a. Hope Sword, may not be in Disney World, but she sure has been having an insane roller-coaster ride all the same.

First, she was
down
about coming to Vermont. But upon arrival, Tía Lola announced her summer camp idea, which was an
uplifting
surprise. The nighttime treasure hunt turned out to be quite fun. Then Miguel got hurt, which Essie knows was a downswing of his personal roller coaster, but hers just about peaked. She was able to play baseball and be as good as, if not better than, some of the team. But actually, yesterday’s trip to Fort Ticonderoga was tops. Who would have thought that in the middle of nowhere there’d be a place as cool as Disney World?

But the problem with being at the top is that a bottom will inevitably come. And that’s what this Thursday morning is turning out to be. Miguel wakes up with a healed ankle, raring to go. Even before breakfast, he’s out there with Papa, hitting balls, catching, throwing. He’s my father, Essie feels like reminding them both.

Then, at breakfast, Papa asks Victoria what she’d like to do today. “Just watch baseball practice, I guess,” she says in a small voice, as if she’s afraid to speak up, though she had no problem at all yesterday. Meanwhile, Papa has been enlisted to help coach, mostly running extra drills for Miguel so he can catch up. That leaves only Essie, Juanita, and Cari to participate in Tía Lola’s camp today, which means the activity has to be something that little kids can keep up with. How much fun can that be for Essie? It’ll be like babysitting without even getting paid for it!

No two ways about it: Essie’s hopes for today are dashed. She feels like taking that supposedly magic sword and just snapping it in two to show what she thinks of miracles. What no one knows, not even Juanita because she had already fallen asleep, is that last night, Essie secretly slipped her sword under her pillow and wished for three things: First, that Miguel wouldn’t be able to play today, so that Essie could fill in. Second, that Miguel wouldn’t be able to play Friday either. And third, you get her drift? That Miguel wouldn’t be able to play on Saturday, and Essie would step in and help the team win their big game.

Essie knows that she wouldn’t be able to substitute if this were an official Little League team. But Charlie’s Boys is just a collection of local kids wanting to play baseball
after their Little League season is over. What’s more, with teammates on summer trips, the team doesn’t even always have substitute players. The one dependable substitute, Patrick, is the worst player. In fact, Essie has been taking him aside and teaching him stuff. All Essie is asking her sword for is to let her be a second or third substitute. It’s not a biggie miracle, for heaven’s sake. She’s not asking to go to Disney World, or to get her mother back, or to make Cari stop stealing all the attention. One crummy chance to be a star baseball player in front of her new friends in Vermont.

Incredible as it seems, Essie has made friends in this place she was determined to dislike. Juanita, for one. Much as Essie complains, there are some pluses to having a younger friend: Juanita almost always lets Essie take the lead. Essie also likes the guys in Charlie’s Boys. They’ve been complimentary, never adding “for a girl” when they say Essie’s a great hitter or an amazing pitcher. She considers Miguel her friend as well, even if he is standing in the way of her hopes. She admires how he puts his team first, something she would find hard to do. He’s real smart, too, guessing all those clues for the treasure hunt. Most of all, Essie loves Tía Lola because she is like a Mary Poppins aunt who can take the most boring activity in the world and somehow turn it into fun.

That’s why Essie doesn’t sink into total despair this Thursday morning, even though it looks like her wishes are not going to come true. Sure enough, Tía Lola announces that for today’s camp outing, they are going to bike into town to the municipal pool, swim for a couple of
hours, then head over to Amigos Café for lunch. In the afternoon, they’ll visit some of Tía Lola’s friends in town.

“Like who?” Essie wants to know.

“Oh, let’s see. Estargazer.”

Cool, Stargazer owns a totally fun gift shop.

“Then we’ll visit
el coronel
Charlebois, who is sick,
pobrecito.
” The poor old man already missed baseball practice yesterday. “
El coronel
just caught a little cold from all this wet weather. He gets lonesome by himself when he can’t get out.” Tía Lola can understand. Before she started teaching Spanish at Miguel and Juanita’s school, she used to get so sad cooped up in the house by herself all day long. “We are to have tea and cookies at his home.”

“Is that the house that looks haunted?” Cari’s eyes widen. Every time they go to town, Cari begs to drive by it so she can get a Halloween thrill right in the middle of summer.

“
Ay
, Cari,
querida
, do not worry. That house is haunted only by memories,” Tía Lola assures her. “
El coronel
Charlebois has traveled all over the world and has wonderful stories to tell.”

That could be kind of fun, Essie is thinking. Colonel Charlebois has led an exciting life, from what Essie has heard, fighting real battles, being a hero. He has also amassed a considerable amount of money. From the few books Essie has read on her own—okay, she’s not as big a reader as Juanita—she knows rich, elderly bachelors usually leave their money to somebody. Essie also knows the old man really loves baseball, and he seemed very impressed with her playing during practice on the Fourth of July. So
maybe Colonel Charlebois will leave her a million dollars so that she can buy her own baseball team and a big, huge piece of land—probably in Vermont—where she can build her very own diamond.

From dashed hopes, Essie’s state of mind has taken a decidedly upward swing. As she rolls her sword in her beach towel and stuffs it into her backpack, she is thinking maybe it didn’t let her down after all. Maybe it has an even better fate in store for her. “Cancel last night’s wishes,” she whispers, and then she tells her sword what she is really, really hoping for.

They ride in, Juanita on her bike, and Cari in a red wagon Tía Lola rigged behind her bike, and Essie on Miguel’s. With her swimsuit under her clothes and her sword sticking out of her backpack, Essie feels the thrill of adventure. Maybe she’ll just keep going, a bicycle hobo, cycling all the way down to Disney World in Florida. Only thing is, how will the lawyers reach her to inform her that she just inherited a million dollars from Colonel Charlebois? Essie wishes Papa weren’t so strict and had gotten her a cell phone.

For right now, Essie is happy just being at the municipal pool. Swimming is always fun, but what makes it more special today is that Essie is also making friends. Maybe it’s because she’s from New York City, but Essie is like an instant celebrity. Just in the space of an hour, she has added four new friends to her life, and Essie would have to struggle to
name four kids in her fifth-grade class in Queens that she could call a friend. Essie doesn’t mean to be unpleasant, but she has a tendency to argue a lot, and nobody seems to like that. But here in Vermont, she hasn’t found that much to argue about.

Being with Tía Lola also helps. People just flock to her, even though she doesn’t know much English. Many kids even try to talk to her in Spanish, which surprises Essie, but it turns out Tía Lola was their Spanish teacher this past year.