Treasure of the World by Tara Sullivan (free ebook reader txt) 📕

I sip at my steaming cup. “Yeah,” I agree.

Susana, Alejandra, Robertito, and Óscar—the other twelve-year-olds—sit with us, along with a few of the eleven-year-old boys Daniel is friends with. Even though he’s thirteen, Victor joins us too. Victor’s smart and kind, with an easy smile. He’s in the year ahead of us when we line up because of when his birthday falls, but we’ve been friends for as long as I can remember. He never makes Daniel feel bad about being sick, and he has never made me feel like I’m somehow less for being a girl, like Papi and some of the other boys do. Even though I giggle and joke with Susana and Alejandra, Victor is my best friend.

For a few minutes all of us focus on the food, scooting sideways on the bench until everyone fits. No one gets breakfast at home. Once we’re done, though, everyone starts chattering. Óscar and Daniel are discussing La Verde’s chances in this year’s Copa América since they made it to the quarterfinals last year. Robertito interrupts.

“Hey, guys, did you hear? They found Mariángela’s body.”

“Wait—what?” Susana squeaks. “Her body?”

Mariángela used to go to our school. She was a few years older than us, so we weren’t all that close, but she had been kind and we looked up to her when we were little. She stopped coming to school about two years ago and, just before Christmas last year, took a job as a guarda for one of the big mines on the other side of the Cerro. Then, in mid-January, she vanished.

When the miners reported for work in the morning, she wasn’t standing by the mine mouth guarding the tools. She wasn’t with the equipment. There was no one watching the pile of high-quality ore. Worse, she hadn’t gone home. For the past two weeks people have been looking for her.

“Yeah,” says Robertito grimly, “they found her in an abandoned mine mouth on the other side of the Cerro. She’s dead.”

Being a guarda is lonely, dangerous work. I swallow against a lump in my throat. It’s not hard to imagine a gang of robbers—or even a pack of miners, drunk after leaving work—coming up on Mariángela and her not being able to fight them off.

Susana and Daniel pepper Robertito with a hundred questions about what he knows, but I try not to listen as they gossip about what must have happened to her.

With a shudder, I tune them out and turn to Victor, who, I notice, is unusually quiet. Normally Victor would be right in the middle of everything, but today he’s not his typical sunshine self.

I elbow him gently. It’s not like him to stare into his cereal with a frown tucked between his eyebrows and ignore everyone.

“Hey, what’s up with you?” I whisper under the buzz of the other kids’ conversation.

“Nothing.” He pastes on a smile, but it doesn’t crinkle the sides of his eyes. Now I’m actually worried.

“No, seriously,” I say, putting down my own mug and facing him. “What’s wrong? Are you upset about Mariángela? Did something happen at home?”

Victor lives alone with his papi ever since his mami died three years ago. Even before his papi paid for all the expensive medicine for Victor’s mami, they weren’t rich, and ever since she died, they never seem to have enough money. Sometimes his papi gets too sad to work and they go awhile without food.

Victor shrugs.

“Is your papi okay?”

“Everything’s fine, Ana.” I can tell from his tone that he doesn’t want to talk about it. I give him what Abuelita calls my “signature glare.” You could save the miners a lot of drilling and blasting, she teases me. Glare at the mountain like that and you’d bore a hole right through to the other side in no time.

Sure enough, Victor cracks. He glances away and starts to pick at a loose thread on the rumpled La Verde shirt he always wears.

“This is my last day of school.” His voice is barely above a whisper, but I hear it anyway.

“What?”

Victor winces. I guess my voice was louder than I meant it to be. The rest of the kids break off their conversation and stare at us. Victor flushes. Then he straightens his shoulders.

“I’m not coming to school anymore. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be joining my papi in the mine.”

I stare at him. Victor’s face, usually so happy, looks sadder, older. When he sighs, it’s not hard to imagine the ghost rattle of silicosis in his lungs.

If he becomes a miner, you might not get to see what he’s like when he’s older, a horrible voice hisses in my head. A lot of miners don’t live more than ten years after starting work. I slam down firmly on the thought, not letting it breathe. I refuse to think about that number and my best friend.

“It’ll be fine, Victor,” I say. “Maybe the price of mineral will go up and your papi will have enough without the extra you’ll bring in.”

Victor nods, but his face is tight.

Susana, Alejandra, Daniel, and Robertito all make sympathetic noises. The prices of zinc, tin, and most of the other metals and minerals that come out of the Cerro Rico were good until 2014, but recently they’ve been so low that most mining families are struggling more than usual.

Óscar grimly finishes his oatmeal. “I’ll be there soon too, probably,” he says, punching Victor lightly on the shoulder. “Don’t clean out the mountain before I join you.”

Victor forces another smile, but it’s all teeth and no joy.

None of us asks him when he’ll be back.

Somehow that makes it worse.

Knowing that Mariángela is dead and that Victor will be leaving school puts me in a sad mood the rest of the day. I struggle to pay attention in class and my cheeks fill with heat when our teacher has to call on me twice before I hear him. Even then I don’t have the answer prepared. Usually, I’m completely focused at school, working hard