Star in the Forest Page 3

  For a while, every night after that, Papá handed me a stick, a new one each time. He could always find magic sticks, even in the dark. Now that I’m eleven, I don’t believe in magic sticks, but I have to admit, they worked.

  In jail, when I saw Papá looking small and scared through the plastic window, I wanted a magic stick. Even with those square ceiling lights above, it felt dark in there, like it was the middle of the night and we were in the woods packed with mean dogs. I wanted Papá to find me a magic stick. And I wondered, if he couldn’t find one, could I find one myself? Could I find one for both of us?

  Three days passed before Crystal came back. I peeked at the note from her mom on Mr. Martin’s desk. Family emergency, it said.

  At recess, Crystal stood alone by the fence.

  I walked over and said, “Where were you?”

  She sighed, a big long sigh. “The dictator left.

  His enemies found out where he was hiding, so he took off. Probably to conquer another island. So me and my mom went to look for my dad.”

  “In Antarctica?” I asked. Really, sometimes her lies went too far. I mean, you couldn’t even get to Antarctica in four days.

  “Of course not. He just got back and we had to meet him at the airport. They located his research team with one of those GPS things. So we stayed with him at this fancy hotel for a few days, but now they’re sending him out on another mission. Africa this time. Madagascar. Studying lemurs.”

  “Lemurs?”

  “You know, like monkeys.”

  “Oh, right. Lemurs.”

  Later that day, in the forest, Crystal asked, “What about your father?”

  “What about him?”

  “I haven’t seen him around.”

  I tried to think of something as glamorous as Antarctica or Madagascar, but my brain couldn’t invent lies as fast as hers. “He had to go back to Mexico.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  “In the summer he’ll pick mushrooms. They have good ones in the forest there. It’s like looking for treasures. They’re really rare and valuable.” And it was true, they were. If you sold them at the market you could get a lot of money. But we never sold them. We roasted them and ate them and felt like royalty.

  “Cool.”

  “And I used to go with him, and I had a really good eye for spotting them.” Although thinking about it now, I realized he probably spotted the mushrooms and told me where to look.

  “What’d they look like?” she asked.

  “Some are red and orange like a sunset. Some are blue green like the ocean. There’s all different kinds.”

  Crystal looked at me long and hard. “You should talk more. You have good stuff to say.”

  * * *

  The next day at school, Crystal said under her breath in the lunch line, as though it was top-secret, “Don’t come to Star right after school. Wait until four o’clock, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “Just trust me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I watched TV until 3:50. Well, really I watched the clock on the DVD player that seemed to go so, so slowly I thought it was broken. I was by myself. I was hardly ever alone in the house and the air felt strange with no one else in it. Even the TV noise couldn’t fill the space.

  Yesterday, Dalia and Mamá had gotten in a big fight and Dalia said she was moving in with her boyfriend and dropping out of school and Mamá said, “No you aren’t, you’re only sixteen,” and Dalia said, “I’ll do whatever I want to do.”

  Then late that night, Dalia moved all her clothes and makeup and stuff into a trailer on the other side of Forest View, and she wasn’t talking to Mamá and wouldn’t answer the cell phone when she called. So Reina stayed after school the next day with a neighbor lady. Luckily I am the perfect age. Mamá says I’m a year too young to babysit my sister, because who knows what the laws are in this country and the last thing she needs is the police coming and arresting her for leaving a four-year-old with an eleven-year-old.

  But eleven is old enough to wander around the neighborhood without the neighbor lady knowing what you’re up to. I told her I was going to play with Crystal and she didn’t ask any more questions, just went back to her telenovelas while Reina messed with the remote control with no batteries.

  Finally 3:50 came and I ran to the forest. Crystal was sitting next to Star. She looked excited about something, so excited she was about to burst. She jumped up when she saw me. She rocked back and forth on her heels with a giant smile. “Zitlally! Guess what?”

  “What?”

  “You’re going mushroom hunting today!”

  And she handed me a basket, the kind with a handle that fancy bottles of bubble bath come in. Papá and I always just used plastic bags, so the basket made me feel like Little Red Riding Hood, but Crystal was so wound up it didn’t matter.

  “Okay, go!” she squealed. “Look for them.”

  “But they don’t grow here,” I said. “And even if I found a mushroom, I wouldn’t know if it was poisonous or anything.”

  “Just look!” she shouted.

  First I fed Star his cheese and petted him.

  “Come on!” she said. “Go!”

  I picked up the basket, unsure what to do.

  “Look behind that tire, Zitlally, look!”

  I peeked behind the tire and spotted a plastic Ziploc bag, and inside, a red and orange mushroom. It was the small kind that they sell here in the stores, the gray kind, but this was orangey red. I took it from the bag and held it close to my face.

  Crystal ran up behind me. “Look! It’s sunset colored! Eat it! You can eat it!”

  I looked at her doubtfully.

  “It’s just food coloring. The red and the orange! I did it myself!”

  I took a little bite. It tasted like Styrofoam, like all store mushrooms do. Not like the broken-plate memory I had of mushrooms roasted over a fire back in Mexico. I forced myself to eat the whole thing.

  “There’s more!” she screamed. “Look some more.”

  I looked around, under the bits of worn scrap metal, inside old hubcaps, and sure enough, there they were, hidden in nooks and crannies. Mushrooms in plastic bags, dyed ocean blue and green and sunset orange.

  “I put them in plastic bags to be sanitary!”

  I offered her one and she took it, grimacing as she ate it. “Needs salt,” she said.

  I found all nine mushrooms and put them in my basket, except one, which I gave to Star. He nibbled at it to be polite.

  “I’ll eat the rest at home,” I said. “With salt.”

  “And maybe mustard,” she said.

  We started walking home down the path.

  “And chocolate,” I said.

  “Oooh! I know! You should microwave a Snickers on them.”

  The whole way back we planned dyed-mushroom recipes.

  “Thanks, Crystal,” I said before she went into her trailer.

  She smiled. “That’s what best friends are for.” And she went inside.

  First I thought, You’re not my best friend. Then I thought about how she took all that time to dye the mushrooms and hide them and how she did it for me, just to make me happy.

  As I turned to go to my trailer, I heard her mom yelling. I could make out the words perfectly. “You left a frickin’ mess in here! Food dye everywhere!” Something bashed. “I should’ve left you there with your dad, left you both to rot in jail.”

  Jail. Crystal’s dad was in jail.

  Just like my dad, only hers was still there. Her mom must have taken her to visit him because the boyfriend left. And here I was all wrapped up in feeling sorry for myself about Papá. Maybe things weren’t so bad for me after all. Papá was probably whistling under a blue sky in a green cornfield, working hard to pay his way back to us. And he would come back. And Mamá would never go out and get herself an evil dictator boyfriend. Papá was coming back, and we would all be happy again.

  Crystal was the one who really needed a mag
ic stick. Something to make her feel safe. Strong. Loved.

  Maybe her lies were her magic stick.

  Maybe Star was.

  Maybe I was.

  “We got to do it,” Crystal said. “We got to unhook Star’s chain.”

  It was Saturday and we’d brought a bucket of water, a cup, a raggedy towel, a bottle of orange shampoo-and-conditioner-in-one, scissors, and an old hairbrush that Dalia had left behind.

  Crystal was right. We couldn’t do a good job washing Star if he was tied up. “He won’t run away?” I said.

  “No way. We’re, like, his masters now. He’s our best friend forever till death do us part. Like you and me.”

  I was glad I’d brought bacon. That was Star’s favorite. I fried it especially for him. Even if he tried to run away, I was sure I could lure him back with bacon.

  I held my breath and pushed on the chain’s hook with my finger. The hook was rusty and kind of stuck, but I pushed as hard as I could until it moved. Then I pulled the chain from it and held my breath.

  Star was free. He sat there, wagging his tail, smiling at me.

  “See, Zit?” Crystal said. “Told you.”

  I scratched his ears and said, “Good Star. Good, good Star,” while Crystal poured water over his fur. He squirmed a little, but he stayed. He looked smaller all wet, and you could still see some long bumps that were his ribs. We lathered him up until he smelled like a big, fresh piece of orange Starburst. Then we rinsed him and dried him with the towel. With scissors, Crystal cut out the tangled, matted pieces of fur. Luckily he had enough fur that the rest filled in the gaps.

  “I’m just going to layer his hair a little,” Crystal said. She walked around him, fluffing his fur here and there, studying it like a hairdresser about to try a new style.

  “He already looks good like this,” I said.

  “Listen, Zit. A few years back, my mom was, like, the owner of this chain of super-fancy beauty salons. She taught me everything she knows. I’m a whiz at layers. I can give his hair a windblown look.”

  I snatched the scissors from Crystal’s hands and stuck the brush there. “You can brush and style. But absolutely no layers!”

  “No problem,” she said. “I can work magic with a brush.”

  At first I didn’t believe her because of her scraggly mess of hair. But as she styled Star’s fur, I had to admit, it looked like she knew what she was doing. And Star was sighing with delight the whole time. Maybe Crystal’s mom had worked at the Supercuts in the mall for a while or something.

  When Crystal was done, she said, “Tah-dah!” Star seemed to hold his head higher, like he was proud of his new look. He did look sensational. His fur was white as the moon. The star on his head was black as the night. We ran around and played with him. I admit I was nervous he’d take off, but he never left our sight. When it was time to go, we hugged him goodbye and hooked him back up to the chain. “Hasta mañana, Star,” I said, and blew him a kiss.

  On the way back from the forest, Crystal said, “Tell me a story, Zit.”

  That was a first. It was as though she was out of her own stories. Luckily, I did have plenty of stories: stories Papá would tell me.

  “About what?” I asked.

  “About, um …” She looked at Star. “Animals.”

  I thought. “Well,” I said, “my dad told me how in the time of the great-great-grandparents, people used to have special animals. When a baby was born, they’d figure out what its special animal was. And if something happened to the animal, like it got shot, then the person would get hurt, too. He would feel the animal’s pain. And if the animal died, the person died, too.”

  “That’s awful!” Crystal said.

  “But also,” I said, “if a person needed extra strength, like superpowers, he could think about his animal and use its powers. Like if it was a deer, he could run really fast.”

  Crystal was nodding and thinking and listening closely. “So their fates were tied up together.”

  I nodded.

  “You think Star is someone’s animal?” she whispered. “That there’s some human out there who has his same fate?”

  I shrugged.

  But inside, I knew. I knew who shared Star’s fate. I’d known ever since the day he wagged his tail at me. And every time he licked me, I felt more sure. It wasn’t just a coincidence that I met Star right after Papá left. Papá must have asked his special animal to stay with me.

  This made me feel good.

  But Star was illegal, too, like Papá. No license, no papers. If the dog cops came, I couldn’t prove Star was really mine. And if the person who thought he was Star’s owner took him, there was nothing I could do. This scared me. Star could disappear at any time, just like Papá.

  When I got home, the drywallers were still at work, and my sisters were watching TV in the living room. Mamá and Dalia had started talking again because Dalia had broken up with her boyfriend and said she wanted to come home. We’d all missed her a lot anyway, and she did help out with Reina after school.

  Mamá was zipping around the kitchen, frying meat and heating beans and tortillas for dinner. She wore a short jeans skirt and a silky black top and dangly golden earrings. And she was wrapped up in a haze of perfume that nearly drowned out the sizzling meat smell.

  “Where are you going?” I asked. She was too dressed up for work.

  “Out with my girlfriends. Dalia’s watching you and Reina.” She was stirring and flipping and grabbing cups and forks so fast she didn’t even look at me. “I’ll be back late.”

  This made me red-hot furious. What?! I wanted to scream. Reina and I aren’t good enough to hang out with on a Saturday night?!

  I decided I wouldn’t talk to her.

  She snatched a plate with one hand. With the other hand, she scooped out beans and slid some meat onto the plate. She did the same with three more plates, then plopped them on the table. “Dalia! Reina! Dinner!”

  I picked at my beans and didn’t say a single word to Mamá. Not even Pass the salt. I didn’t even nod or shake my head. Reina went on and on about Dora the Explorer and her magical stars while I glared at Mamá from the corner of my eye.

  She didn’t notice. She scarfed down her food, wiped her mouth, grabbed her purse, and called out good night over her shoulder. The screen door slammed behind her, and I started thinking, Maybe I should start getting bad grades so Mr. Martin will call her and she’ll send me back to Mexico to live with Papá. But when I thought of that, my stomach tightened into a hundred thousand knots.

  Papá’s truck is red with an American flag on one window and a Mexican flag on the other. It says Mora in big, fancy letters across the back windshield because that’s our last name. He used to wash his truck every Sunday after church and Reina and I would help.

  The week after Dalia moved back in, Reina got sick with a fever and white spots all over her throat. So we all got in the truck, Reina and Dalia and Mamá and me, and we went to Urgent Care. It turned out Reina had strep throat, and we had to drive to the pharmacy to pick up her medicine. On the way to the pharmacy, Reina was asleep and Dalia was listening to music on her earphones and Mamá was telling me how we’d have to mix the medicine with Coke so Reina would take it.

  That’s when I noticed it.

  The red flashing light, and then the siren, right behind us.

  My heart started booming.

  Then Mamá noticed the light and the siren. She stopped talking about the medicine and started saying, “Jesús María José Jesús María José …” She pulled over and whispered the names of the entire Holy Family over and over and over again until the cop came to her window.

  “License, insurance, and registration, ma’am.”

  She opened the glove compartment. Her hands were shaking bad. She held out the pieces of paper. They were shaking bad, too.

  The cop watched the papers shaking, like it was proof she was guilty.

  She said in English, “I forget license. In my home. I very so
rry, very sorry, mister.”

  My face got hot. She talked like a baby in English. Plus, she was lying about the license. She never lied, but now she was lying.

  The cop talked slowly, like she was a little kid. “Ma’am, it’s against the law to drive without a license. If you can’t locate it, I recommend you get a new one or stay off the roads.” He stared at her hard, like he knew she was illegal. Like she was a stray dog without tags, something you would send to the pound, except it wouldn’t be the pound, it would be Mexico.

  Tears started pouring out of her eyes, and my hot feeling got hotter. I looked at Dalia. Her face was stony. Her earphones were in her lap and her fingers were twisting around the wires.

  This is it.

  We’re all going to be deportadas now and they’ll send us straight to jail, then straight to Mexico, and will I have time to say goodbye to Star and even Crystal, because yes, maybe she’s my best friend after all, and maybe she’ll take care of Star, I know she will, and what about Reina, because she was born here and she’s legal and what if they make her stay and make us go, because even though she’s a pain sometimes, I like having her around, and who will make sure she takes all ten days of antibiotics and know that you have to mix it with a little Coke for her to swallow it?

  The cop said, “Ma’am, are you aware you have a headlight out?”

  Mamá didn’t understand. My mouth was stuck shut, so Dalia translated.

  “No, mister,” Mamá said. “I don’t know light broken.”

  He gave her back the little pieces of paper. “It’s your lucky day, ma’am. Just promise me you’ll get that headlight fixed. And stay off the roads if you don’t have a license.”

  “Yes, yes, mister, thank you, thank you.” Except she said it like Tank you. But I didn’t feel too embarrassed this time because I was so glad we weren’t going to be deportadas.

  By the time we got home, my heart had stopped booming enough that I could do my social studies homework and only once in a while did a picture come into my head of Mamá’s hands shaking.