The Paper Swan(13)

“Esteban?” I fake-smiled in the mirror. “Would you make a tooth for me?”

He was stretched out on my bed, folding and unfolding a sheet of paper, trying to figure out how to turn it into a giraffe.

“You want a paper tooth to hide the gap between your teeth?” he asked.

I nodded and went back to examining it in the mirror.

“He’s just going to find another way to tease you, güerita.” Esteban called me güerita. Blondie. “And how are you going to make it stick?”

“Make it out of cardboard and I’ll tape it in the back.” I opened my mouth and pointed to the spot I’d picked out.

We both jumped when the door opened and MaMaLu walked in.

“Esteban! You’re supposed to be in school.”

“Going!” he yelped, when she smacked him.

MaMaLu hit Esteban a lot, but she hit him like she was swatting a fly, out of irritation and frustration. Esteban got swatted a lot because Esteban misbehaved a lot. He propped a half-finished giraffe up on the sill, scrambled out the window, and shimmied down the tree. MaMaLu slid the glass pane down and watched as he high-tailed it across the garden.

“How many times have I told you not to let him in? If Se?or Sedgewick finds out—”

“He won’t,” I said.

“That’s not the point, cielito lindo.” She picked up the brush and started combing my hair. “You and Esteban . . .” She shook her head. “The two of you are going to get me in trouble one day.”

“Can you do my hair like yours?” I asked.

MaMaLu had thick, dark hair, which she braided and folded into a bun. I wanted to crawl into the ‘U’ it made on her nape because it looked like a little hammock.

“That’s old lady hair,” she replied, but she sectioned off two side braids and combined them in the back, leaving the rest of my pale, blond hair loose.

“So beautiful,” she said. She removed a small, red flower from her hair and tucked it into mine.

“Gidiot says I’m a witch because witches have gaps between their teeth.”

“It’s Gideon,” she chided. “And when God made you, he left that space so your true love could slip his heart through it when he finds you.”

MaMaLu was full of stories; there was a tale behind everything.

“Then how did Esteban’s dad give you his heart? You don’t have a gap between your teeth.”

Esteban’s father had been a great fisherman. He died at sea when MaMaLu was pregnant, but she told us all about his adventures—about magic and monsters and mermaids in the sea.

“Well then, I probably never had his heart.” She smiled and poked me in the nose. “Run along now. Miss Edmonds is already here.”

“Is Gidiot there yet?”

MaMaLu refused to dignify that with a response.

I grabbed my school bag and went downstairs. Everyone was already gathered around the dining table. The only space left was next to Gidiot, because no one wanted to sit next to him.

“Good. We’re all here. Ready to begin?” asked Miss Edmonds.

Gidiot stomped on my foot under the table. I winced as I opened my textbook.

“Everything all right, Skye?” asked Miss Edmonds.

I nodded and gave her a small smile. I wasn’t a tattletale, but I knew I was in for another long afternoon.

Three times a week, Miss Edmonds came in from the city to Casa Paloma. My mother had inherited Casa Paloma as a wedding gift from her father. It was a lavish, Spanish-inspired estate on the outskirts of a fishing village called Paza del Mar. There was a small school in Paza del Mar where the locals sent their kids, but the expatriates preferred private tutoring for their children, and so we met in our house, which was the largest by far.

We were learning about soil erosion and landslides and earthquakes when Gidiot pulled my braid so hard, the little red flower MaMaLu had adorned it with fell to the floor. I blinked a few times, refusing to cry, and focused on the diagrams in my book. I wished Gidiot would fall down one of the fault lines, and into the molten core of the earth.

“Ow!” Gidiot howled, rubbing his leg.

“What’s the matter?” Miss Edmonds asked.

“I think something bit me.”

Miss Edmonds nodded and we continued. Bugs were common. No big deal.

“Ow!” Gideon jumped. “Swear there’s something under the table.”