Caramelo Read Online Free PDF Page A

asks.
    —What could be worse than being a boy?
    —Being a girl! Rafa shouts. And everyone in the car laughs even harder.
    A t least I’m not the oldest like Rafa, who one day doesn’t come home with us on one of our trips from Mexico.
    —We’ve forgotten Rafa, stop the car!
    —It’s okay, Father says. —Rafa is staying with your grandmother. You’ll see him next year.
    That’s true. It is a year before we see him. And when he comes back to us in a clean white shirt and with hair shorter than we’ve ever remembered it, his Spanish is as curly and correct as Father’s. They made him go to a military school just like the one the Little Grandfather had to go to when he was a boy. When Rafa comes back with a class photograph of himself in his military school uniform, when he comes back to us taller and quieter and strange, it’s as if our other brother Rafa was kidnapped and this one sent back in exchange. He tries talking to us in Spanish, but we don’t use that language with kids, we only use it with grown-ups. We ignore him and keep watching our television cartoons.
    Later when he feels like it and can talk about it, he’ll explain what it’s like to be abandoned by your parents and left in a country where you don’t have enough words to speak the things inside you.
    —Why did you leave me?
    —It was for your own good, so that you’d speak better Spanish. Your grandmother thought it for the best …
    It was the Awful Grandmother’s idea. That explains it.
    The Awful Grandmother is like the witch in that story of Hansel and Gretel. She likes to eat boys and girls. She’ll swallow us whole, if you let her. Father has let her swallow Rafa.
    W e’d been to Querétaro for the day. For lunch and walking around looking at old buildings and, at the very last minute, the Grandmother suggests she have her hair done, because it’s cheaper in small towns than it is in the capital. A sign says so as we are walking off our lunch, and that’s how it is that Father, the Grandmother, Mother, and me find ourselves in the beauty parlor, the boys bored and waiting outside in the plaza .
    Because I don’t understand, they cut my braids off before I can say anything. Or maybe they don’t even ask me. Or maybe I’m daydreamingwhen they tell me. I only know when the braids let themselves go and fall on the tiles, it takes my breath away.
    —As if they’d cut off your arms! the Grandmother scolds. —It’s just hair. You should’ve seen the terrible things that happened to me as a girl, but did I cry? Not even if God commanded it.
    —We’ll have them woven into a hairpiece for when you grow up, Father says when we’re in the car. —You’ll like that, won’t you, my queen? I’m going to throw a big party with everyone in gowns and tuxedos, and I’ll buy a big, big cake, bigger than you are tall, and a band will play a waltz when I take you out to dance. Right, my heaven? Don’t cry, my pretty girl. Please.
    —Quit babying her, Mother says, annoyed. —She’ll never grow up.
    Q uerétaro 33 kilometers. As soon as the word is said, I hope everyone won’t remember, but they never forget, my brothers.
    —Querétaro. Hey, remember that time they cut off Lala’s hair!
    Then they’re on me again with their laughter like sharp teeth.
    Querétaro. A chill like scissors against the neck. Querétaro. Querétaro. The sound of scissors talking.

7.
    La Capirucha
                — W e’re almost there, he keeps saying. Ya mero . Almost. Ya mero .
    —But I have to make pipí , Lolo says. —How much longer is almost?
    —Ya mero, ya mero .
    Even though we still have hours to go.
    Father is already ignoring the rest of the scenery, watching the roadside signs that tell us how many kilometers more. How many? How many? Imagining driving through the green iron gates of the house on Destiny Street, the hot supper and the bed. The sleep that will come when the road ends and his right leg stops throbbing.
    Green