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

Abuelita gets up from her pallet and limps over to the table. She’s always creaky first thing in the morning. I hand her a bowl of soup. Belén hops onto an overturned bucket and I take the folding chair at the head of the table.

“That’s Papi’s seat,” Belén tells me.

I feel awkward sitting in César’s place, but I try not to let it show.

“I won’t sit in it when he’s here,” I say cheerfully.

Belén tears a small loaf of bread into sections and passes it around. I lift my spoon and take a sip. After not eating for two days underground, I don’t think I will ever take food for granted again. And yet, even though it’s delicious, eating like this, as a family, is putting me on edge.

Memories of eating with my family, before it fell to pieces, flood me. Papi and Mami sitting together on the edge of their bed, eating and laughing as Mami teased him about getting dust in the house; Daniel, Abuelita, and me facing them, sitting on cinder blocks stacked against the wall. Our house was far too small for a table, so each of us ate with our plate in our lap. There had been bad nights, but there had been good nights too. Nights when Papi was sober and the price of mineral was high enough that he wasn’t worried. Those nights, he would tell us stories about his day, contradict Abuelita with science when she told her stories of ghosts and angels, and make Daniel and me recite something we’d learned at school.

I always took this very seriously, paying close attention to the teacher and, as soon as he or she shared a fact I thought would be good to share, repeating it in my head the rest of the day so as not to forget.

An equilateral triangle has three equal sides and three equal angles.

There are four oceans: the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Arctic, and the Indian.

Our first president was Simón Bolívar, and our country is named after him.

Daniel never took it seriously. He would summarize something his teacher had said or, more often than not, make something up on the spot. I learned today that the earth is one million, five hundred, and twenty-three kilometers around the middle, he would say, lying with the straightest of faces.

It took me a long time to realize that was what he was doing.

Usually Daniel was the one to get sick, but I remember one day in particular, when we were about seven, that I had caught a fever. The walls of the schoolroom seemed to pulse in and out with my headache, and the light from the windows stabbed at my brain. By the closing bell I was sweating and weak and Daniel had to support me as we stumbled home. We were halfway there when I realized that I hadn’t learned anything and wouldn’t have anything to say when Papi asked me for a fact.

In my fevered state, this seemed like the most horrible thing in the world, and I started bawling. Daniel held my burning hands in his cool ones, worry written all over his face, and asked me what was wrong. When I told him, he just shook his head.

Don’t worry, Ana, he said, we’ll make something up together, and they’ll never know any better. I had stared at him, not knowing what to say. Daniel had winked at me. First lesson from Professor Daniel, he said, throwing one of my arms over his shoulders so that he could take most of my weight and get us moving again, always lie in odd numbers. They’re more believable.

That night, when Daniel shared that he had learned that the temperature on the moon was negative 13.7 degrees Celsius, I knew why.

“Ana?”

My head snaps up at Abuelita’s voice.

“What’s wrong, love?”

Whatever is showing on my face is too much. Both of them are staring at me.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, pasting on a smile. Always lie in odd numbers. “That’s the third time I bit my tongue this morning.”

When breakfast is finally over, I stack the dishes in a shallow basin and leave them to one side to wash later.

“Come on,” I tell Belén, “get dressed for school.”

She bustles around the house, pulling on a colorful T-shirt and corduroy pants. When she reaches for her comb, I decide to make an effort at this big-sister thing.

“Here,” I say, “let me help.”

Belén shoots me a funny look but sits where I point and hands me the comb. I comb out her hair in long, smooth strokes and braid it into two plaits, like Mami used to do for me when I was little. She won’t be the little girl with crooked braids today, I think as I finish, a bittersweet feeling in my belly.

Belén finds her notebook and together we walk toward the door.

Abuelita pulls me into a quick hug as I walk out. “Now that we have a man’s salary again,” she whispers into my ear, “there’s no need for you to keep missing school. They won’t be back here with Daniel for at least another three or four hours. Stay at school if you like; I can tidy up here. You can help your mami and me as a palliri for a few hours every day when you’re done with your lessons, but you don’t have to work all day anymore.”

I stare at her for a moment, stunned by the idea. Abuelita tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear and gives me a big smile. “Go on now,” she says.

Ten minutes later, in clean clothes, face washed, and hair freshly braided, I’m ready to go. I fold Yenni’s borrowed clothes carefully and put them in a bag, planning to return them this afternoon. The school is about an hour closer to her house than César’s house is.

Belén is waiting for me outside the door,