houses are painted yellow and turquoise and purple and mint green and pink, and the palm trees are like spraying fountains at the ends of tall, slender trunks.
At traffic lights, skinny boys dressed in rags come forward with scraps of cloth to clean thewindows. Miguel can’t stop staring-“Don’t they have parents?” he asks his mother.
“A lot of them don’t,” Mami sighs. “They live on the streets,”
Miguel has seen street people in New York, and it always makes him feel sad and spooky to think someone doesn’t have a real home. But all those street people were grownups. These kids are his own age. He feels suddenly very lucky just riding in the back seat of an old Chevy, squeezed between two cousins, with his mother, his little sister, and his aunt all talking at the same time.
At his aunt’s house, they sit down to lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day, Miguel has never seen so many dishes of different foods. Every time he finishes, some more
arroz
and
habichuelas
and
puerco asado
and
ensalada de aguacates
are piled on his plate. Rice and beans and roast pig and avocado salad—it’s like a
ñapa
that will not quit! The meal lasts for over two hours, the uncles and aunts eating and telling stories and eating some more. When the meal is finally over, everyone stands up, gives each other a kiss, and disappears, “Where did they all go?” Miguel asks Tía Lola.
“La siesta,”
she explains. “To bed to take a nap.”
Only babies take naps, Miguel is thinking.
“How can they be sleepy when it’s not time to go to bed?” Juanita asks.
“We have a different sense of time,” Tía Lola explains. “If someone tells you to meet them at four, it means any time between four and five. We don’t live by the clock. Remember the story I told you—We live by the sun and the sea, and we love surprises. Have you noticed?” She winks.
Looking at her radiant face and dancing eyes, Miguel thinks, This is the happiest I’ve seen Tía Lola in a long time!
Miguel tries to rest in the bedroom he is sharing with Angel and his brothers. He has begun to worry that Tía Lola is actually planning to stay on the island when they have to return to Vermont. She seems so happy here, speaking Spanish all the time, exchanging stories, fitting right in with everyone else. But if she does stay, Miguel and Juanita and their mother will have no one to tell them wonderful stories. No one to make
frío-fríos
in the summer or sew his baseballuniforms. No one to think up surprises all the time.
This trip has been a bad idea! Once Tía Lola is back on her beloved island, there is no way she will want to return to Vermont.
Around him, he can hear his cousins snoring away, enjoying their siestas. He will never be able to sleep in the middle of the day—especially now that he is worried about Tía Lola.
As he lies there, he hears the pounding of the sea not far away. It seems to be singing Christmas carols to him.
“Navidad, Navidad,”
the waves sing as Miguel drifts off….
The next evening, the whole extended
familia
gathers together for
Noche Buena
, Christmas Eve. Mami and Tía Lola pile the gifts they have brought under a plastic tree on the patio. Later, Santa Claus will be coming from the North Pole to distribute them among the cousins.
“When is he coming? When is he coming?” the littlest cousins keep asking.
“After you eat your dinner,” Tía Lola replies. She is dressed up tonight with gold hoops in herears and a bright red dress in honor of the occasion. Her beauty mark is on her right cheek again. Sometimes it seems Tía Lola forgets and the beauty mark appears on her left cheek or on her upper lip. Sometimes it doesn’t appear at all
More and more relatives arrive, and there is more kissing and hugging. Several girl cousins recite poems, and everybody claps. One uncle takes Miguel aside to show him the little bone spur next to his pinkie. “My sixth finger!” he brags. His aunts gossip,
At traffic lights, skinny boys dressed in rags come forward with scraps of cloth to clean thewindows. Miguel can’t stop staring-“Don’t they have parents?” he asks his mother.
“A lot of them don’t,” Mami sighs. “They live on the streets,”
Miguel has seen street people in New York, and it always makes him feel sad and spooky to think someone doesn’t have a real home. But all those street people were grownups. These kids are his own age. He feels suddenly very lucky just riding in the back seat of an old Chevy, squeezed between two cousins, with his mother, his little sister, and his aunt all talking at the same time.
At his aunt’s house, they sit down to lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day, Miguel has never seen so many dishes of different foods. Every time he finishes, some more
arroz
and
habichuelas
and
puerco asado
and
ensalada de aguacates
are piled on his plate. Rice and beans and roast pig and avocado salad—it’s like a
ñapa
that will not quit! The meal lasts for over two hours, the uncles and aunts eating and telling stories and eating some more. When the meal is finally over, everyone stands up, gives each other a kiss, and disappears, “Where did they all go?” Miguel asks Tía Lola.
“La siesta,”
she explains. “To bed to take a nap.”
Only babies take naps, Miguel is thinking.
“How can they be sleepy when it’s not time to go to bed?” Juanita asks.
“We have a different sense of time,” Tía Lola explains. “If someone tells you to meet them at four, it means any time between four and five. We don’t live by the clock. Remember the story I told you—We live by the sun and the sea, and we love surprises. Have you noticed?” She winks.
Looking at her radiant face and dancing eyes, Miguel thinks, This is the happiest I’ve seen Tía Lola in a long time!
Miguel tries to rest in the bedroom he is sharing with Angel and his brothers. He has begun to worry that Tía Lola is actually planning to stay on the island when they have to return to Vermont. She seems so happy here, speaking Spanish all the time, exchanging stories, fitting right in with everyone else. But if she does stay, Miguel and Juanita and their mother will have no one to tell them wonderful stories. No one to make
frío-fríos
in the summer or sew his baseballuniforms. No one to think up surprises all the time.
This trip has been a bad idea! Once Tía Lola is back on her beloved island, there is no way she will want to return to Vermont.
Around him, he can hear his cousins snoring away, enjoying their siestas. He will never be able to sleep in the middle of the day—especially now that he is worried about Tía Lola.
As he lies there, he hears the pounding of the sea not far away. It seems to be singing Christmas carols to him.
“Navidad, Navidad,”
the waves sing as Miguel drifts off….
The next evening, the whole extended
familia
gathers together for
Noche Buena
, Christmas Eve. Mami and Tía Lola pile the gifts they have brought under a plastic tree on the patio. Later, Santa Claus will be coming from the North Pole to distribute them among the cousins.
“When is he coming? When is he coming?” the littlest cousins keep asking.
“After you eat your dinner,” Tía Lola replies. She is dressed up tonight with gold hoops in herears and a bright red dress in honor of the occasion. Her beauty mark is on her right cheek again. Sometimes it seems Tía Lola forgets and the beauty mark appears on her left cheek or on her upper lip. Sometimes it doesn’t appear at all
More and more relatives arrive, and there is more kissing and hugging. Several girl cousins recite poems, and everybody claps. One uncle takes Miguel aside to show him the little bone spur next to his pinkie. “My sixth finger!” he brags. His aunts gossip,
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