After Peaches Read Online Free PDF Page A

English, a game Ricardo used to play with me when I was small. Soon I learned the English words by heart. “I spy with my little eye, someting that is…blue.”
    â€œSome th ing,” Julie said gently.“Not some t ing.”
    â€œI know, I know,” I said. “Some th ing. You guess now!”
    We soon passed Ms. Norton, who was picking in the next row, close to Mamá who was trying to explain about staying close to the ground.
    â€œNo too much stand,” Mamá said. “Like dees.”
    Ms. Norton smiled and shook her head. “I can’t believe how fast you pick,” she said, “and how you can hold so many bundles at the same time.” She tried to imitate Mamá—one bundle in her right hand, one under her left arm, and three between the fingers of her left hand—and they all fell to the ground like spilled matches.“I won’t even earn enough money for an ice-cream cone, the way I’m going,” Ms. Norton said, but she didn’t seem too upset.
    â€œEees okay,” Mamá said.“You learn.”
    By lunchtime, Ms. Norton said she was exhausted and couldn’t imagine how anyone could work like this six days a week. She and Julie stayed for the rest of the day and picked 150 bundles. “That’ll cover the ice cream,” Ms. Norton joked when she got her cash at the end of the day. “It might even be enough for double scoops.”
    We all piled into the car, headed back into town and stopped at a little ice-cream shop by the water, halfway between the Parliament buildings and the blue bridge. I ordered rocky road and mango. Julie had lemon and vanilla. If I didn’t think about José and Julie leaving and just how lonely this summer was going to be, I could consider it a good day.
    When we got home, Mamá wanted to open the week’s mail, which meant I had to pull out the dictionary and help my parents read difficult English sentences, mostly about buying magazines or newspapers, or signing up for credit cards.
    One of the letters, though, didn’t offer us anything at all.
    In fact, it took everything away.

CHAPTER 6
My Wonderful, Impossible Plan
    â€œWe must move away!” I told Julie on Monday morning, as soon as she opened her front door. The smile fell from her face, and she stopped pulling on her backpack and stared at me. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. “The owner of the house sent to my parents a letter. He wants us to pay more for rent, I tink—I looked up the biggest words in the dictionary. But we cannot pay more. My parents said now we must find anodder apartment.” My words tumbled out before I could check them for mistakes, and I was too upset to care about anything but where on earth we were going to live.
    â€œOh,” Julie said, pushing up her glasses, twice. She stood there with one shoe on and the other off, her backpack hanging from one shoulder. “But you won’t move very far, right? I mean, you won’t move away from Victoria, will you?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “My parents want to move closer to the farm, but I don’t want to. Now dere is not enough work for José and some of de other Mexicans. So maybe later dere will not be enough work for my parents. I don’ want to live far away with no work!” The words flew out of my mouth, mistake after mistake piling up before I could even sort out what I was going to say next.
    Julie was ignoring the mistakes. We stood in silence for a few minutes. “If you’re near the farm, I could still visit you, right?” she whispered. “I mean it’s not the other end of the province or anything.”
    She looked as miserable as I felt, but at least one person in Canada cared where we moved. One person in the entire country. When we left Mexico, half the town turned up at our doorstep the night before, with cookies and tortillas , pictures of saints, lucky