Age:
Post High School, High School, Middle School
Reading Level: 4.1
Chapter One
Enrique is unaccompanied as the long line inches forward. The tear in his sweat-soaked shirt is visible. But his pants are pressed as nicely as possible.
His dark hair never needed much attention because a flick would do the trick. His mother made him comb it every day, anyway. She swore the neighbors would talk.
Chapter Two
He would say that his mother had raised his sister Anita to be the family's accomplishment. She sailed through second grade.
After skipping two more, she was shorter than her classmates. She announced she would not skip any more.
Now, she's firmly set in ninth grade. Her five-year-old bookbag is nearly falling apart.
When Anita was barely above his knees, she was writing her name in the dirt of their backyard. She dotted the i with authority.
Then, the book fairs would come. The boxes parked on the living room floor made it known.
His sister would show him her treasures later. This space, in between her return from school and his return from work was reserved for her and her books.
The authors definitely made a great first impression. She swore her allegiances.
No one was more cunning than Mark Twain. Or more adventurous than Rudyard Kipling. And no one was more bewitching than Emily Brontë.
These were only names on book spines to him. All he saw were surnames slanted to fit the book’s curves.
Chapter Three
Enrique moves slightly to the side so that a father can push a double stroller past him. The infant twins are crying in alarm because of the foreignness of this place.
He remembers feeling foreign when his father took him to the field. It was so long ago.
He taught Enrique to interact with the smallest and shyest of creatures. They peered at ladybugs chewing in the shadows of the stalks.
Field mice greeted them with long, suspicious gazes. Finally, the mice would run off to less crowded territory.
His father was gentle with them as they plucked produce, letting them scamper, crawl, fly away.
When Enrique saw them, he wondered about Anita's animal encounters. Her fair fingers found the most magical creatures on pages…
An inspiring pig made newsworthy by a hardworking spider called Charlotte.
An anxious rabbit that led Alice to hidden places.
Centaurs and talking beavers when you stepped into a wardrobe.
Some days, he touches the branches of sun-lit plants. He rests his hands there as dawn creeps up on his bent shoulders.
Once, his left palm held onto droplets of dew a bit longer. An earthworm curled in his dark hand.