Flying Lessons & Other Stories(10)

Tianyi motioned me to sit, and I watched curiously as she pulled out a wooden chest, plain and uncarved.

“Long ago, we raided a passenger ship. While all the wealthy nobles threw their goods at us and begged for mercy, one man jumped in front of this chest and grabbed a sword,” Tianyi said. “He held the sword as if it were a broomstick, and it was easy to see he was no match for even the smallest of my men. But he fought valiantly to protect his treasure.” Her face softened at the memory. “I would have spared him for that, but he was mortally wounded.”

Tianyi worked the chest’s clasp as she continued. “As he fought, I wondered what treasure he had that was so valuable. And when he died, I found it was this.”

She opened the chest and I gasped. Books! Hundreds of books! I put my hands on them reverently. Poems of Li Po. The Classic of Music. Spring and Autumn Annals.

“Can you read these?” Tianyi asked me.

I nodded.

She looked at me, her eyes sparkling with an inner fire. “Teach me,” she said, “and you can stay.”

So I did.

—

Now, as I write this on a pirate ship whose red sails paint the sky, I ride the vast ocean. The wind is wild, and the waves are endless, and the shore is so distant it is hard to imagine that it even exists. But my head is raised and I can’t help but smile. For while the path before me might be difficult, it will be my own.





Sol Painting, Inc.


MEG MEDINA





I reach inside the window of Papi’s van and yank on the handle to open the passenger door. It’s my turn to ride in front. Roli sat there last time.

“You think they’ll need a painter soon?” Papi asks as I slide in next to him.

I follow his gaze to the second floor of building twenty-two. Men dressed like astronauts are tossing furniture into tall canisters marked BIOHAZARD. Do?a Rosa, one of the old ladies who lived over there, died in her living room last week. Her TV was on, so no one knew anything was wrong for two whole days. That means we were all sleeping near a corpse. A shiver runs through me every time I think about Do?a Rosa’s ghost hovering in the halls, insulted that no one noticed she was dead.

“If they do, I’m out,” I say. For starters, Do?a Rosa was mean enough when she was alive. Who in their right mind wants to risk meeting her now that she’s a spirit nursing a grudge? “I’m not going in there.”

“Why not?”

“She’s scared of putrefaction.” Roli climbs into the back of the van and parks himself on one of Papi’s paint buckets. My brother likes to show off his big science words, almost as much as he likes showing off his biceps, especially in front of Papi, who wants him to be a doctor. “That means human rot.”

“I know what it means,” I lie. “But that’s not the reason.”

“Are you afraid of ghosts?” Roli makes his best zombie face and holds up his hands like claws. “Ooooooooh…”

“Have some respect for los muertos, Rolando,” Papi says, trying not to laugh. He crosses himself and starts to back out of the space.

I give Roli a stony look. He’s right, but I know better than to let him know I’m scared. So I turn back to Papi.

“I’m too busy, that’s all. School starts next week, and I have to finish my summer reading.” I root inside the bakery bag for my pan Cubano. I take a deep breath of the warm bread that’s dripping in butter and grilled flat the way Roli and I like it. I tear off a chunk and sink my teeth in. A full mouth will keep me from lying any more than necessary.

Papi smiles at me and pulls the bill of my painter’s cap down over my eyes. “I can’t argue with making a good start at your new school, so I’ll let you off this time. But don’t get used to it. You wanted to be my number one apprentice, remember?”

“Mmmm,” I say, nodding.

Papi and I have a long-term business plan. I’m going to take over his company one day and turn it into an empire. Home Depot will eat my dust. I’ve already designed my business cards. They’ve got a sun rising and fancy gold letters: MERCI SUAREZ, CEO, SOL PAINTING, INC.

Roli makes a face and snatches the bag from me. He knows I haven’t cracked open a single book on my summer reading list, but at least he doesn’t say so. In fact, I think he felt bad for me, because he loaned me his good earbuds and CD player. Audiobooks to the rescue. He did the calculations while we were checking them out of the library. “You’ll be done in a mere thirty-four hours.”

Roli starts telling Papi about the process of human decomposition after death and proper biohazard cleanups, so I tune him out. This is definitely the dark side of having a science geek for a brother. Not that it’s ever been easy. Even when he was younger, Roli liked to dissect salamanders, dead roaches, and other creepy things. He always wanted to play Operation, too—which would have been fun except that he changed the rules. You had to name the body parts correctly. “No, not the Adam’s apple,” he’d say as I tweezed out a piece without making the buzzer sound. “It’s the laryngeal prominence. Say it or it doesn’t count.” Geez, you’d think he would have pity on somebody who was five. But no, Roli never cut me a break.

Anyway, these days Roli likes crime shows almost as much as he likes science. He says he’s going to be a medical examiner. Poking around dead bodies all day? No thank you.