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

stay here and marry a miner. I don’t want my children to have to live the lives my parents did, and their parents before them.” I feel raw, exposed. “But I’m not willing to allow my family to suffer to do that. I won’t leave the wrong way. To leave the right way, I need to bring them with me. I need a job better than the ones I can get on this mountain. And to get that better job, I need to finish school.”

Don Marcelino smiles. “I’m glad to hear it, Ana. We’ve missed you.”

“Th-thank you,” I manage. “But that’s only half of it.”

He sits quietly, polishing his glasses on a handkerchief, and lets me gather my thoughts.

“Someone once told me that dreams are for little kids,” I say finally. “And in some ways, I think he’s right. Believing that good things will happen because you want them to is a way only little kids think. Everyone else on this mountain knows better.”

Don Marcelino grimaces when I say this but doesn’t contradict me. Even though he’s from the city, he’s worked up here long enough that he knows the rocky outlines of our reality.

“Which is why I need your help,” I say. “It’s no good to sit and wish for something; you have to work for it too.”

Hope kindles in Don Marcelino’s eyes. I wonder, for a second, just how hard it must be to choose to run a school and see all your students vanish, one at a time, year after year after year without end.

“Yes?” he prompts.

I take a deep breath.

“I can’t come back to school.” Don Marcelino’s face falls, and I rush on before he can end the conversation. “My family needs the money I make, especially with the robbery and Daniel’s medical bills. But . . .” And here I pause, gathering my courage. “But if I’m a guarda, I’m alone and it’s quiet and I’m not allowed to fall asleep all night long. So . . . maybe . . . I could study then?”

Don Marcelino looks slightly stunned. Stunned, but not angry. I go on.

“You could give me books to read, and exercises to do. I could write them on my overnights and give them to Belén in the mornings. She could bring them in to school . . . if someone was willing to mark them . . . maybe I could eventually learn enough to take the secondary school entrance exams . . . ?”

I trail off.

Don Marcelino starts nodding enthusiastically.

“Yes!” he says, beaming. “Ana, what a great idea! I can certainly arrange that for you. You might need to come in every now and again to have something explained to you or to sit for an exam, but I can arrange this with your teachers.” He grins at me. “You’re creating your own night school.”

My smile is wobbly. I can’t believe he said yes. I can’t believe that there is a possibility I can still reach for my dreams.

“You really think it might work?” I ask again, just to be sure.

“We’ll make it work,” he says.

Half an hour later I’m standing outside the peeling blue metal door, my arms full of textbooks and supplies. But though the door has clanged behind me, I don’t feel shut out. Instead, I’m grinning like a maniac.

I puff a breath out and turn. There is one more thing I have to do.

It hadn’t been until the day after the robbery, when César, Belén, and Abuelita were sleeping, that I finally admitted to Mami about the forty-eight bolivianos and fifteen centavos heavy on my conscience. I begged her to let me keep working as a guarda until I could earn it back. Mami had thought about it for a few moments, then agreed.

Your debt to your friend is no less important than our family’s debt to the cooperative, she had said. With two more nights of guarda money, plus what she and Abuelita had been able to earn breaking rocks, we finally had enough to cover food and for me to take what I needed with me when I walked Belén to school this morning.

My pocket swings heavily as I walk down the mountain. The jingle is a cheerful sound. I’ve hated that I stole from a friend. Now I’m finally going to make it right.

My steps are brisk as I make my way into Potosí. But faced with the imposing slab of the posada door, I hesitate for a moment. Taking a deep breath, I force myself to lift my hand and knock.

“Can you get Yenni for me, please?” I ask the gardener who answers. “It’ll just be a moment.”

He nods and closes the door. I wait on the street, chewing the inside of my lip nervously. Finally, the heavy door creaks open and Yenni is standing on the other side of it.

“Ana?” She looks surprised. “What on earth are you doing here?”

I open my mouth to reassure her that I’m not here to ask for anything else.

“I’m sorry,” comes out instead, in a miserable whisper.

“For what?” Yenni scrunches up her forehead, confused.

I reach into my pockets and pull out the handful of coins. I clear my throat.

“The last time I was here, you went shopping. You dropped your coin purse when you left the shop.” I find I can’t meet her eyes. “I should have given it back to you right away, but instead . . . I borrowed it.” I shove the coins into the space between us. “I’m so sorry I took it without asking.”

I want to go on, tell her why I took the money, tell her how I felt, but there’s a lump clogging my throat and the words are jammed up behind it. Besides, all of that is my problem, not hers. So I just let the apology stand, and hold out the little mountain of silver.

When I feel her warm hands under mine, I open my fingers, and the coins slide away from me. I drop my hands to my sides, feeling like a great weight has been lifted off my chest. I take the coin