The Tequila Worm Read Online Free PDF Page B

Clarke if I could go to the library to study after lunch instead of wasting time on the playground. She arranged it for me. She also told me, “Part of ‘kicking that girl’ is to eat your tacos proudly, and right in the middle of the cafeteria.”
    That year I kicked that girl in all classes and sports, especially soccer.
    It wasn’t long after my lunches with Coach Clarke that some of the other Mexican American kids started eating their foods out in the open too. And sometimes when I pulled out my lunch, I got offers to trade for sandwiches. But I always ate both my tacos before heading off to the library.

The FanCY SChOOL

    MRS. West was reading to my ninth-grade English class when a boy from the office walked in and handed her a note. She glanced at it and then looked straight at me. As she started toward me, I froze.
    Mrs. West handed me the note. “Go see Mr. Thomas.” Mr. Thomas was the school counselor. “Take your books. You might be gone for a while.”
    What did I do wrong?
    As I headed down the hall, I started panicking.
Someone died!
No, no. I prayed now that I
had
somehow gotten into big trouble.
    “Good morning, Sofia,” said Mr. Thomas, waving me to the chair in front of his desk. “I have some exciting news. A doctor is funding scholarships to send four Mexican American students from the Lower Rio Grande Valley to Saint Luke’s Episcopal School in Austin. His own kids are there. It’s a terrific school.
    “Since you’re at the top of your class, I want to recommend you. You’ll still have to go through tests and interviews. But I think you have a
great
chance. And going to such a good school will open many doors for you.”
    He handed me a brochure.
    On the front was a picture of a beautiful white stone chapel on top of a hill. It was all aglow. The photo must’ve been taken around Christmas, for the chapel was surrounded by hundreds of lighted
luminarios,
and another photo showed the inside, decorated with red poinsettias and tiny twinkling lights. What did it mean to go to an Episcopal school? Were the chapel services anything like Catholic Mass?
    Inside the brochure, I saw that the school buildings were made from the same white stone and that they surrounded the chapel in the shape of a rectangle, like a fortress. The playing fields were beautiful and green. Thoughts of running down those fields, kicking a soccer ball, filled my head.
No more street soccer
. And there was a girls’ soccer team too, with crimson uniforms.
Wow!
    The images of the school seemed like a dream. They made me think of the mansions on the other side of town, where the lawyers and doctors lived. When I read that all the students there graduated and went on to college, I thought of Coach Clarke and learning to kick with my head.
    “So what do you think?” said Mr. Thomas, breaking my trance.
    “Eh . . . how far is Austin from here?”
    “Oh, about three hundred and fifty miles.”
    “Oh.”
So far away!
    “But it’s a boarding school, so if you get in, you’ll be living in a dorm with the other students.”
    Silence.
    “But you’ll be able to come home for the holidays, and for summer.”
    I wanted to play soccer on those beautiful playing fields. I wanted to get better at kicking with my head so I could go to college. I could get a good job and make enough money to buy a nice house for my parents and Lucy.
    But to go and
live
at a school?
Without my family?
    “Sofia, do you think that’s too far away?”
    “Well . . . my parents . . . you know . . . ,” I said.
    “Yes, of course. It can be especially hard for the parents, having their child go away to school. But it’s a terrific school, and you have already gotten to the very top of what we can offer here. It
would
be a great opportunity to challenge yourself.”
    Silence.
    “So let me suggest this: go talk this over with your family, show them the brochure, and then come see me again next Wednesday at ten. Okay?”
    I talked to Berta first, on the