Once Guanaco left, Santiago k ept to himself. Pinocchio and Mosca let him sit next to them during meals, but Santiago declined. He didn’t have anything to say to them. He still didn’t know how to talk to kids his own age. Besides, eating alone gave him a chance to plan. When the guards called time, some of the boys left their food trays on the long tables. It took Santiago a few extra seconds to pile the remaining trays and take the stack where it belonged. Not too di erent from what he’d done in Capaz. The second time Santiago did this, the lady who came out at the end of the mealtimes to clean up acc epted the trays from his arms. “ N o t i e n e q u e h a c e r e s o . ” She whispered her gratitude with respect. “ Y a s é , ” Santiago whispered back. Exc ept he did have to help her. During an evening meal, he introduced himself as he threw away wrappers that had fallen next to the trash. “ S o y S a n t i a g o . ” “ Y y o C o n s u e l o .” He wanted to say something more, but Patterson yelled at him to stop wasting time and get in line to return to the main room. That much English he’d learned. The next day at breakfast, as soon as Consuelo came out, he took his bowl of milky cereal debris and orange peels to the trash. Exc ept he “accidentally”
tripped on his ip- ops, spilling cereal mush all over the oor. “ ¡ A y , p e r d ó n e m e ! ” he apologized, then grabbed a couple of napkins to help Consuelo clean up the mess. Their heads together, he whispered, “Can you nd out about my sister, Alegría? She’s ve and wears pigtails.” Of course, María Dolores had styled her hair like that. He couldn’t imagine a guard doing that here. “I’ll ask around,” Consuelo murmured without hesitation. “Do you want me to give her something?” Something? What could he give her? All he had was a toothbrush and a metallic blanket; all that remained in the dining room were spilled food and trays. He glanced at the guards. A long line still formed to leave the dining area as each boy was searched to make sure he wasn’t sneaking out food. Consuelo tapped him on the shoulder, then handed him a wrinkled piece of paper and a pen. But he couldn’t write. Not even his name. Not yet, at least. But he’d change that very soon, now that he had a motive. For today, he’d make do. He drew an animal’s head that would have been mistaken for a cow or lizard if he hadn’t added a owing mane and a single horn between its ears. Good enough. “Hurry up, kid,” a guard called to him from the door. Consuelo pocketed the scrap paper as Santiago gathered the sodden napkins from the oor and threw them away before rushing toward the door. For the rst time since arriving at the center, he smiled. The center provided school for them on Mondays and Thursdays. Each boy was supposed to attend two hours a day either in the morning or afternoon, but d epending on the guard on duty, sometimes as many as half the boys stayed watching t e l e instead. Lessons took place in another small room o the main one. Long, white plastic tables with four or ve folding chairs along one side worked as desks. A whiteboard stood on an easel at the front next to a small, square card table the teacher used. No pens were allowed—nothing that encouraged drawing on bodies. Even the dry-erase marker dangled from a cord
around the teacher’s neck—black, because blue and red were historically associated with gang colors. Their teacher, Señor Dante, came from Honduras. Young, tall, and slender with round glasses, turned-up skinny jeans, and a loose tie, he pranced around the classroom unable to stand still for a second. He taught Spanish, English, math, and a little bit of everything else. Math was the easiest for Santiago, especially since Señor Dante taught it in terms of money. (“If you have twenty-one pesos, and the candy costs one peso and fty centavos, how many can you buy?” Before the teacher nished asking, Santiago had answered, “ C a t o r c e . ” Easy.) But reading and writing, in any language, he’d never learned. Exc ept now he had to. For Alegría. From his desk Señor Dante picked up a stack of magazines and began passing them out. “Find an article that gets your attention, read through it, and then tell us what it’s about.” Santiago grabbed a magazine with a sigh. This would be harder than he thought. “ C o n p e r m i s o , ” said Pinocchio. “I can’t read English. Can I get a Spanish magazine?” “Nope.” Señor Dante grinned while he rocked back and forth on his heels. “Try to gure it out. See what words you recognize, and use the pictures to understand what’s happening. You have ve minutes.” Santiago now thumbed through the magazine eagerly. Making up stories based on the pictures? That’s how he always read! “This is stupid.” Pinocchio ripped his magazine in half. “You can’t learn to read if you don’t even know the language.” “I understand your frustration,” Señor Dante said. “English is a hard language to read. I’m here to work with you, but please don’t take it out on my magazine. If the pictures don’t help, notice the letters that form the word and the other words around it.” While Señor Dante worked with Pinocchio and the other boys who found the assignment too hard, Santiago made up a story from a picture about two boys close to his age holding a plaque and a comic book. According to Santiago’s
imagination, the boys had won an award for the comic book they’d written together. The boy with the dark hair looked Central American. Judging by the two colored pencils sticking out from behind his ear, Santiago labeled him the artist and the blond boy with the lead pencil the writer. “Fantastic! That’s exactly what the article says. These boys live here in southern Nuevo México, and their school granted them an award for the comic book they wrote together. M u y b i e n .” “That’s cheating,” whined Pinocchio, making Santiago glad he no longer sat with him at mealtimes. “That article is in both English and Spanish.” “Not at all cheating,” Señor Dante corrected. “Our friend here used the clues accessible to him to gure out what it said. That’s exactly what I asked.” Santiago beamed. The words had just been smudges on the page; all the clues had come from the picture. He couldn’t even gure out which section was written in English and which in Spanish. He picked out a few words that looked similar in both languages, but had no idea what the words might mean. When Herrera, the pimply guard who had kicked him the rst morning, opened the classroom door to release them back into the main room, Santiago couldn’t believe they’d spent two hours in there. Even though it broke a million rules, he stayed behind as his classmates shu ed out. “I need to write my sister letters, but I don’t know how. Can you teach me?” Santiago pleaded. Señor Dante didn’t look surprised at his revelation. Instead, he beamed. “De nitely, that’s my job. Just wanting to learn is the most important part.” “García!” Herrera yelled, making Santiago jump. He had no idea the guard knew him from f u l a n o . Had it been Castillo, the nice, bald guard, Santiago would have corrected him —he’d prefer to be called Reyes instead, Mami’s last name. But as it was grumpy- pants Herrera, better to not get on his bad side. “Take this book today, and we’ll talk more next time.” Señor Dante quickly handed over a large book with a hard cover. It looked beautiful, with drawings of birds and animals on the front. Santiago sighed and tried to hand it back. “I can’t. It might get lost or stolen.” “Then that person obviously needs it more than you.”
The guard waved his hands to make him hurry up, but Santiago ignored him. He opened the book as he walked. Each page had an animal, bird, or insect and then a large word followed by smaller words all clumped together. He could copy some of these for Alegría. He remembered what Señor Dante had said about using the images to gure out the words. Along with the picture of a horse, he found a word he recognized. His Tío Ysidro always went to the tavern called El Caballo Entero. Now he’d know whenever he saw this word, c a b a l l o , that it meant horse. He sat against a corner in the cold main room to look through the book more carefully, focusing on the large words. He started to notice similarities in the words and patterns, just as Señor Dante had said. For instance, s e r p i e n t e started with the same sound as Santiago. He didn’t know how to write his name yet, but the two words probably started with the same letter. He’d have to run this theory by Señor Dante. After lunch, when the second school group got called, Santiago joined the line, holding the animal book to his chest. Patterson held the door open and didn’t bother checking to see who had afternoon school. Señor Dante smiled at the sight of Santiago but didn’t make any comment about his r epeated presence. The teacher just made sure Santiago received a di erent periodical for the story deciphering.