Read Online Under the Same Sky by Cynthia DeFelice - Free Book Online Page B

letters to the editor, that kind of thing. It died down after a while. But our workers were very nervous that summer. Remember, Jim?”
    Dad nodded, his expression grim.
    Uncle Bud, always ready to look at the cheerful side of a situation, said, “Well, let’s hope people have wised up a little since then.”
    I nodded. It was hard to picture something like that happening these days, especially in boring old Stanley, New York, where nothing ever happened.
    Uncle Bud set down his empty beer bottle on the counter, thanked Mom, and said, “Well, I’ve got to be getting home. Kay’ll have supper on the table.”
    Uncle Arnie said he had to leave, too. Then he said, “Oops. I almost forgot again.” He went outside and returned with a wrapped present, which he handed to me with a sheepish expression. “Your Aunt Mary told me to give you this on your birthday, but somehow it never made it out of the truck.”
    I opened the long, thin box, which held a $20 gift certificate to the pizza parlor.
    After Uncle Arnie had left, I went up to my room to wait until dinner was ready. I looked around for my Spanish dictionary and phrase book, and finally found it in a box under the bed. It was in with a set of miniature Peter Rabbit books, some G.I. Joes, a bunch of little plastic soldiers, and a stuffed kangaroo that I used to drag everywhere I went when I was little. It was a pretty weird combination of stuff.
    I looked through the book. A lot of the words came right back to me once I saw them written down with their meanings.
    Buenas tardes, Señorita Luisa , I practiced. ¿Cómo está?
    Muy bien, gracias .
    Mucho gusto en conocerle .
    El gusto es mío .
    I sighed. It was pretty formal-sounding Spanish. No one on the crew talked like that. I pictured myself going up to Luisa and saying, “I am very glad to know you” or “The pleasure is mine.” She’d think I was nuts. The guys would probably fall out of the truck laughing.
    I looked up something else. Tu eres bonita. Tu eres muy bella .
    Forget it. I’d never in a million years be able to look a girl in the face and tell her she was pretty, no matter what language I used.
    I imagined myself telling her not to worry, that I’d make sure no dumb rednecks would harass her or the crew while I was around, and had to laugh at how ridiculous it sounded.
    To take my mind off Luisa, I counted my money in my head. Two hundred seventy-eight from my paycheck, plus the fifty bucks Mom and Dad gave me for my birthday, plus the twenty from Uncle Bud and Aunt Kay, minus ten for the movies and pizza, plus ten for my allowance equaled…three hundred forty-eight dollars!
    Only seven hundred twenty-six to go.

9
    That night I woke up to angry shouts and the honk-honk-honk of a car horn. The first word I could make out clearly sounded like, “Aliens!”
    I sat up in bed thinking, Aliens? What the heck was going on? Had a flying saucer landed in the yard, or what? And who was doing all the yelling?
    I checked the clock: One thirty-five in the morning.
    Then I heard, “Hey, Pancho! This is America!” and “Go back to where you came from, beaners!” and some swear words, too.
    I leapt to my feet and ran to the open window. I could see headlights from two cars that were moving in fast circles down at the end of our driveway, past the barns, right in front of where the crew lived. More shouts were accompanied by the crash of breaking glass and a rapid series of small explosions.
    Lights went on in the trailers. Then one of the trailer doors opened and a lone figure appeared. It looked like Manuel. I heard him shouting something in Spanish.
    Meg’s frightened voice came from the hallway. “Mommy? Daddy? What’s happening?”
    I heard Dad’s heavy footsteps on the stairs. Then our porch lights went on, illuminating the side yard, and I saw Dad running down the driveway toward the trailers and