When I Was Puerto Rican - Esmeralda Santiago [59]
The point on my pencil broke. She looked at me through her thick glasses, and I wished I were bigger and could punch her.
“Go sharpen your pencil.”
She treated me like I had a disease. If I died and never came back to school, she’d probably be happy. But not for long. I’d come back to haunt her. I’d fill her inkwell with glue. I’d put hot peppers in her face cream. I’d curl a snake under her pillow.
I sat down to write the stupid composition using her ten stupid words. I would use all of them, just because she thought I couldn’t. Incandescent and Caramelize must go together somehow. Bannister and Delimitation. Boundary. “A cartographer draws the Delimitation of Boundaries in maps.” There, I’d even given her a word bigger than the assigned ones. What else could I say about cartographers? I had to think.
The door of the classroom was open. Across the hall, someone recited a poem I knew by heart.
“Esmeralda, is there something in the hall you’d like to share with us?”
Kids laughed. Sra. Leona hated it when my mind went elsewhere than her classroom.
“I was just thinking, Sra. Leona.”
She curled her lip.
“Well. This is no time for daydreaming. You’re supposed to be writing, not thinking.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. The idea that you were not supposed to think in school seemed funny. The kids behind me gasped. Sra. Leona’s face turned red.
“What’s so funny?” she growled.
I was laughing so hard that I had to hug my belly. Tears streamed down my cheeks. Slowly, as if a tide were rising around us, the rest of the class laughed while Sra. Leona stood at the front of the room with a dumb look on her face. She grabbed the long pointer from the blackboard and banged it on the desk.
“Quiet. Quiet, I say.”
The pointer cracked in two. The bottom half flew off the desk and out the door into the hall. Kids in the back banged their desks and roared. Sra. Leona held half the pointer in her hand, her eyes bulging behind her glasses, her face red, and her lips pulled back over yellow teeth. She screamed.
“Shut up, Carajo!”
We’d never heard a teacher swear. We all shut up at the same time and stared at her. She looked as surprised as we were. In the back of the room a kid giggled, then another, and another. There were footsteps in the hall and Sra. Leona turned to the door with a panicked expression. She shushed us. We were trying to control our giggles, but it was impossible. She was almost at the door when my father appeared.
I jumped from my seat and ran into his arms, sobbing and laughing. He pulled me to the stone steps leading to the outside. Sra. Leona closed the classroom door behind us. Papi wiped the tears from my face with his handkerchief. He held me against his side and rubbed my head.
“It’s all right,” he whispered. “Don’t cry. It’s all right.”
We sat on the steps and I told him how mean Sra. Leona had been. How awful the place we lived in was. How scared I was when I closed the baby’s eyes. It felt good to tell Papi these things. We sat there until the lunch bell rang. Kids filed out of classrooms and looked at us. Some of them pointed and laughed.
“Wait here,” he said. He went into the classroom and I heard him talking to Sra. Leona. He laughed. She laughed. He backed out of the room carrying my books. He waved to her and thanked her. He took my hand and led me down the steps. She came out of the room as we were going out the door. Papi didn’t see her, but I did. She gave me a dirty look and pretended to spit in my direction. Then she turned her back and walked away, her heels clicking on the hard polished floor.
LETTERS FROM NEW YORK
Escape del trueno y di con el relámpago.
I ran from thunder and hit lightning.
I will not forgive you again.
I’ve closed my heart.
It is useless to cry.
It is useless to call.
I will never forgive you.
The jukebox blared the lover’s troubles. His voice cracked a little when he sang that his heart was closed. But no matter how final he meant it to sound, eventually he would