Blood Secret Read Online Free PDF Page A

counselor introduced her to Sinta Garcia. I want to talk. But the words won’t come out. They are just sucked away. Sucked up like the dust in those whirlwinds. Please! Please let this girl understand. Maybe they had told her. Maybe Sinta came from a long line of mutes—selective mutes—and had been the first one to speak. Maybe this was in fact the exclusive club, and that was why Sinta had been selected as her guide in school.
    She looked at her, trying not to stare. Sinta was very tiny and compact. Not stocky. She had a very stylish asymmetrical haircut with bangs that flopped over perfectly to one side. There was something slightly Asian about her eyes. Her skin was not perfect. She had one zit on her chin and another coming on her cheek. But she was pretty.
    “Well, let’s go!” Sinta said cheerfully. Too cheerful. She’s faking it, Jerry thought, and followed Sinta.
    Their first class was geometry. Luckily Mr. Kolberg, the geometry teacher, kept them late so they had to run to health and hygiene. There wasn’t time really to talk to anyone. A few rushed introductions that Jerry could nod her way through. They slid into their seats with Sinta whispering about how this was the stupidest, most boring class in the world and that they only talked about washing your hands after going to the bathroom and before eating the seven basic foods and they couldn’t talk about sex and condoms and AIDS because the school board said no.
    Of course the class was not that boring to Jerry because she worried about lunch period, which would happen next. “Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous. Lunch at ten forty-five. Like you’re really hungry. No one eats. They just talk,” Sinta said blithely as they made their way to the cafeteria. “Get something now that you can sneak a bite of later when you really do get hungry. Actually the grilled cheese sandwiches don’t taste that bad cold. Grilled cheese and a Twinkie usually do me. Quiet food, if you know what I mean. Not crunchy or crackly like an apple or chips.”
    They sat at a table with mostly girls. Sintaintroduced her and once more she nodded and gave a small almost smile. “She’s in sewing with us, Jessie,” Sinta said to a girl across from her. Jessie seemed not to pay attention. Another girl asked her a question and Jerry just shook her head no. It was funny with kids. They always caught on right away that she just didn’t talk. No explanation necessary and that was it. But it didn’t make it more comfortable. She hated herself all the more. She hated that they got her so quickly. That she couldn’t change it with them. She had sat at so many lunch tables so silent for so many years. The kids didn’t taunt her. They just forgot she was there. She just became—what?—Quiet food—a cold grilled cheese, a Twinkie. On the outside she was very silent and would grow more and more still just like in the cars with all the mirror eyes, but inside everything raced. Words stormed; they beat themselves bloody in her head. Funny, it hadn’t been this way in the beginning. It had been cool and safe. When had the silence turned?
    Lunch lasted seventeen minutes. It felt like seventeen hours.
     
    “Your aunt is Constanza Delivers? Wow!” Sinta exclaimed as the truck pulled up at the end ofschool. Jerry nodded and smiled. It wasn’t a Harley, but she supposed it had its own kind of style. “We love her bread.”
    Jerry wanted to say, “You should taste her pastries,” but as usual she just stood very still and said nothing. Sinta walked up to the truck with Jerry. “Hi, Miss de Luna. Jerry needs to buy about two-and-a-half yards of fabric for sewing class and some thread.” Constanza nodded. There was an awkward pause. “Well, good-bye,” Sinta said. She waved and walked off toward the school bus.
    First they went and picked out the fabric. Then Constanza turned to Jerry and looked her up and down. “You need some new clothes. Let’s go in here.” She