The Skirt (4 page)

The man in the checkered shirt said, “Looks like someone was monkeying around here.” He looked about the yard and kicked the loose gravel. A pebble ticked against one of the oil drums.

“He knows we’re here,” Ana whispered. Her small shoulders twitched like wings.

“They can’t see us,” Miata whispered back.

Miata’s father popped the welder. A blue flame shot out. He adjusted the flame, lowered his goggles, and crawled under the bus. The bus was old and squeaky when it bounced on the road, and the frame was cracked from the weight of kids and time. A few sparks kicked against the ground.

“I’m scared of that noise,” Ana whined. She pressed her hands to her ears. A single tear crawled down her cheek.

“Don’t cry,” Miata said. She held hands with Ana, who wiped away the tear.

Miata thought about that morning’s breakfast. She remembered how her father had talked about a small job. Her father was always doing small jobs. He would weld broken bicycles, tractors, trailers, and farm equipment. He welded on Saturday, his day off.

“We’ll wait until Dad’s finished,” Miata told Ana. “It won’t be long.”

They spread the skirt on the ground. The two of them sat on it, hugging their knees. The two friends had a history of experiencing similar trouble. They had both locked themselves out of their houses. They had both climbed trees and couldn’t get down. They had both played with
matches and burned their fingers. And they hadn’t told anyone but each other.

But hiding from grown-ups in a parking lot was something new. They were both ready to cry, when they heard a slurping sound behind them.

They looked up through moist eyes. At the fence was Rodolfo. He was sipping a Coke through a straw. His hair was combed, his cheeks red as cinnamon red hots. He was on his bike and clinging to the fence.

“What are you guys doing?” he asked calmly. His slurping was nearly as loud as the welding. He let out a polite burp.

Miata and Ana were shocked to see him. “We’re hiding,” Miata whispered. “Be quiet.”

“How come?” he asked. “You guys playing a game? Can I play?”

“No, we’re not playing a game,” Miata whispered angrily.

“We’re in trouble because of you!” Ana snapped. “If you had left Miata alone, she wouldn’t have forgotten her skirt on the bus.”

“That’s why you’re hiding?” he asked. Rodolfo thought for a moment, then he suggested, “Why don’t you crawl out here?” He pointed to a hole in the fence partially hidden by yellowish weeds.

Miata and Ana looked at each other. Their eyes were big with hope. They got to their feet.

Miata peeked over at her father and the man in the checkered shirt, who was unloading a heavy toolbox from the truck.

“You first,” Miata said, turning to Ana. “I’ll take your library books, and you take the skirt.”

“I’m scared,” Ana said.

“Don’t be,” Rodolfo said. “I’ll give you some of my soda if you do it.”

“I don’t want any of your soda,” Ana said. She sneered at Rodolfo. “I have plenty at home.”

Ana breathed in deeply three times. Then she dashed for the hole, leaping over a stack of lumber. Miata followed closely, library books tucked under her arm like a football.

They heard someone shout, “Hey.” It was the man in the checkered shirt. He dropped the toolbox and scattered the tools. The man cursed under his breath. He had dropped a heavy wrench on his big toe.

“Stop, you kids,” he hollered.

But Miata and Ana didn’t stop. They scrambled through the hole and didn’t look back. They raced up the street alongside the shadow of Rodolfo’s bike.

M
iata and Ana ran to the library, where they tossed themselves on the lawn.

“That was close,” Miata said after she caught her breath. Her cheeks were red, and her hair had come loose.

“Yes, that
was
close,” Ana breathed. She was exhausted but relieved to get away.

They lay on their backs and stared at the blue sky, where high in the distance an airplane was a black speck against a white puff of cloud. They felt their heartbeats slow to a gallop and their breathing return to normal.

Rodolfo did figure eights while they rested. He was showing off by riding with his eyes closed. He hit the curb and sailed over the handlebars with his arms stretched out. He looked like Superman. But unlike Superman, he crashed with an “Ouch.”

Miata and Ana sat up and asked, “Are you all right?”

“It didn’t hurt,” he said as he got up and dusted off his pants. A bump began to rise immediately on his forehead.

“Are you sure?” Miata asked.

“Yeah,” he said. He walked his bicycle over and sat on the grass with them. The
bump was pink and shiny and hot when Miata touched it. Ana made a face. She touched the bump too, but pulled her fingers away quickly.

“Isn’t that your mom?” Rodolfo asked.

Miata and Ana followed Rodolfo’s gaze. The woman leaving the library with an armful of books
was
Miata’s mother. She was walking with a friend.

The three kids were sitting on the lawn in plain view. There was no escape.

“Hide,” Miata whispered.

“Hide?” Ana asked.

“Just pretend you’re asleep,” Miata said. She lay down, opened a book, and placed it over her face. Miata was staring at a mouse. One of the books she had borrowed was about a mouse that had moved from a wheat farm to New York City.

Ana and Rodolfo did the same. Ana lay
still, but Rodolfo was giggling behind his book. His body shuddered from laughter.

Ana shivered like a leaf. She was scared of getting caught.

They heard footsteps on the sidewalk and then the voices of adults. Miata’s mother and her friend were talking about the Sunday dance.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Miata’s mother said. “Miata plays so hard, and her legs are always full of scratches.”

“Kids are so hard on their clothes,” her mother’s friend said. “I had to buy my daughter two pairs of shoes, and …”

Miata thought about the new scrape on her knee. It was true. She was always falling off the monkey bars or tripping over the garden hose, sliding into second base and coming up hurt, or climbing a fence and coming down face first. And it was true that the asphalt tore up her shoes.
Her new shoes were only a month old, but they already looked like her old shoes.

They heard a car door open. A few seconds later the engine started up with a roar. When the car backed out of its parking space, the three kids looked up.

Rodolfo sat up, with grass in his hair. He was reading the book that had covered his face. “This is pretty good,” he said of the story about children lost at sea.

Miata and Ana got up, brushing grass off their skirts.

“Thanks, Rudy.” Miata beamed. She started to walk away with Ana. Then she stopped and said, “I didn’t know you were good at math.”

“I’m better at shooting hoops,” he said, getting onto his bike. “Let’s play sometime.”

Miata returned home with Ana.

“I’m going to throw the skirt on the
clothesline,” Miata said. “It smells like the bus.”

She pinned the skirt to the line. It whipped bright as a flag in the May wind.

Miata and Ana went inside. They were careful to wipe their feet. It was Saturday, the day her mother mopped the kitchen.

“Hi, honey,” her mother greeted. She was at the kitchen table, opening the day’s mail. “Hi, Ana. Are you ready for tomorrow?”

Miata and Ana looked at each other.

“I guess so,” Ana said shyly.

Miata’s mother took down two glasses from the cupboard. She got a plastic pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator. She looked down at Miata’s legs. “You scratched up your knee again?”

Miata looked down at her knees and said, “A little bit.” She touched the scab gently. She winced even though it didn’t hurt.

“How did you do that?”

The secret almost spilled out. Instead, Miata spilled lemonade from the pitcher. Two ice cubes skated across the floor. The girls cleaned up the mess and went to the living room to read their library books.

Ana left when Little Joe came into the house. His knees were caked with mud. She knew that he was going to be in trouble for dragging in dirt.

“Ay, you little
chango
!” his mother cried. She made him undress on the back porch. He had to run from the porch to the bathtub in his underwear.

When Miata’s father came home, he was whistling. He was happy because he had repaired a bus and earned a little extra money. He could look forward to a
hundred-dollar check in next week’s mail.

“It was easy,” he said after a long swallow of water. He refilled his glass and continued. “It was just
zip
, and that baby was fixed in a minute. All because I’m the best welder in town.”

Miata’s mother smiled and said it was true. He was the best welder in the whole San Joaquin Valley. Little Joe came into the kitchen, a towel draped over his shoulders like a king’s cape. He looked around and ran away. He had spotted a small shoeprint on the floor. And it looked like one of his.

“What a little monkey,” his father said with affection. He turned to Miata, who was coloring at the kitchen table. “What did you do today?” he asked. “I saw you at the library with Ana. You two are going to dance like flowers tomorrow.”

Miata stuttered, “Ah, well, I checked some books out. We just hung around. We didn’t do anything.”

“I’m glad I got a good daughter,” her father said. “Some kids were fooling around on the buses.”

Miata stopped coloring.

“Did you catch them?” her mother asked.

“Nah. Henry saw them, but I was busy welding.”

Miata started coloring again. She was working on a picture of a tropical rain forest.

Her father sat down at the kitchen table. He said, “There were two girls and a boy on a bike.”

Miata stopped coloring again.

“But you know how kids are,” her father said. “They were just fooling around.”

Miata started coloring again. Her mother said, “You know, I saw two girls and a boy at the library. I wonder if it was them?”

Miata stopped coloring again. This time she gathered her crayons and picture and left the kitchen. She couldn’t stand to hear any more.

That night they had hamburgers, thick french fries, and root beer to wash it all down. After dinner her father turned on the television. Luckily for him and the rest of the Dodgers fans, it didn’t rain in San Diego. Her father cuddled up on the couch with Little Joe and Miata. Although the Dodgers lost 4–3, it was something to do on a Saturday night.