The Revolution of Evelyn Serrano Read Online Free PDF

Evelyn?”
    â€œMr. Simpson, could I please try working at the hardware counter?”
    â€œThe hardware counter?”
    â€œYeah, I think I’d like to learn how to make keys and cut window shades.”
    Mr. Simpson looked as though he was thinking about it.
    I didn’t tell him that the real reason I wanted to work behind the hardware counter was that then I wouldn’t have to talk to anybody. Not too many people came to the hardware counter, and when they did, they didn’t talk much. All they cared about was getting a key made or a shade cut. The hardware counter was a good place if you didn’t want to interact with people.
    After two days with Abuela, a crazy morning with my parents, and an afternoon with Awilda, Dora, and Migdalia, I was ready for keys and shades that didn’t talk back.

T he next day, Mr. Simpson taught me how to make keys.
    â€œAfter you clamp both keys in the slots — the blank copy and the original — you follow the outline of the original.”
    He pulled down his safety goggles, switched on the saw’s power, and began grinding along with the keys’ metal edges.
    Halfway through, he said, “Now you try it.”
    I put on my own smaller pair of goggles and finished making the key, doing exactly what Mr. Simpson had told me. It was pretty easy, and fun, too.
    â€œLooks like you got it, Evelyn. If you need help, just let me know. I’ll be in my office working.”
    I knew he was going back there and reading thenewspaper. Mr. Simpson read the New York Times every day. Maybe that’s what he called work.
    I swept up the metal shavings.
    â€œ Oye , Mami.”
    I turned around. It was Wilfredo.
    â€œHow you be?” he said.
    I flinched when I saw him. He had a black eye and a cut lip.
    â€œWilfredo, what happened to you?”
    â€œNothing … I just had a … confrontation, let’s say, with some … friends.”
    Wilfredo could even make a black eye look good. The swollen skin around his eye couldn’t keep me from checking out their wild amber color, made even more beautiful by the flecks of gold inside their brown warmth.
    â€œHow come you don’t hang with my sister, Miggy, anymore, or come around the house?” he said.
    â€œI’ve been busy. I worked at the bodega in July and now I’m here.”
    Wilfredo was checking me out, but not in a good way. Then I realized — oh, God, my bangs. They must have gotten pushed up after wearing those goggles. And my blouse — I hadn’t tucked it in.
    â€œWork must be agreeing with you, because you look good, Evelyn.”
    Wilfredo said my name slowly, like he was tasting it and liked the flavor. I was surprised he knew I wanted to be called Evelyn. That meant Migdalia had been talking to her brother about me, even though she hardly talked to me .
    â€œMiggy told me you were working here, but I didn’t know you’d be in hardware, Mami.”
    He kept calling me Mami like I was his girlfriend or something. All I could say was “Uh-huh.”
    â€œYou be the perfect one to make this little key for me.” He held up a small key that looked like it was for a locker. It was on a little key chain that Wilfredo swung in front of me. If he was trying to hypnotize me, it was working. I reached up and took the key chain out of his hands. I put on my goggles, careful to get my bangs out from under them so I didn’t look like a doofus. But when I read the words engraved on the key, I pushed the goggles onto the top of my head, wadding my bangs up in them.
    â€œWhat’s this key for?” I asked. “It says ‘Do Not Duplicate.’”
    â€œJust make it up for me, mamacita.”
    â€œI don’t think I can….”
    A little cloud passed over Wilfredo’s expression. But then he brightened up.
    â€œCome on, baby. It just be a key to where I used to work, and I gotta get my things out of there,