The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez Page 4

  So at four years old, I realized I could hear animals talk and immediately started a business as a toddler snack-stealer.

  I never told my parents about it. My dad is thousands of miles away, dodging bullets and bombs. My mom is worried about my dad, thousands of miles away, dodging bullets and bombs. They don’t need a freak kid to worry about, too.

  Of all the animals I’ve talked to, though, none has ever prepared me for the sight of my abuela stomping off into the dark woods with a knife. She didn’t come back to the house until after I went to bed, and I was too scared to ask her about it in the morning.

  I sit in science class, sketching a picture of Abuela fighting a zombie deer with a large wooden spoon, her purple hair flying in the wind as she jabs at the deer’s glowing red eyes. Miss Humala drones on. She’s still reviewing how to find density since most of the class failed her pop quiz. Her abnormally long neck juts forward each time she says volume. Maria Carmen sits in front of me, squinting at the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling as she flips her braids over her shoulder. Talib leans his head on his hand next to me, playing tic-tac-toe with himself on his paper. I’m not sure how that works.

  To my right, I hear Brandon, the camo-wearing bully, whisper to a kid next to him, “Dad and I shot a deer yesterday. Big ol’ doe.”

  I worry about the white-tailed deer I drew in the woods yesterday and decided to call Chela. I know for a fact that deer season doesn’t start for two weeks. So Brandon isn’t just a military wannabe; he’s a bad hunter, too.

  Miss Humala claps and says, “Before we continue, Principal Jelani has asked all the teachers to make an announcement. Students are not to walk through the woods before or after school. Make sure you take the roads through town to get home.”

  She narrows her eyes and scans the room. “I strongly recommend that you follow Principal Jelani’s instructions. We’ve had too many strange animal disappearances in town, and we don’t know what’s in the woods. So best to just stay away.”

  The students around me start to murmur. I look at Maria Carmen. She flips the pink goat tag between her fingers and then shoves it into her pocket. Talib sighs next to me.

  “I guess I won’t figure out what happened to my dog. But I don’t really want to get eaten out there, either. So good call,” he says.

  The glint from Abuela’s knife flashes in my brain. At least if no one else is supposed to be out there, they won’t see her stomping around doing … whatever it is she’s doing.

  Miss Humala clears her throat and starts to divide the class between those who failed her pop quiz (pretty much the entire class) and those who passed (me, Talib, and Maria Carmen).

  Miss Humala gives us free time while she drills “mass over volume equals density” over and over to the rest of the class. Talib points to a cabinet near Milla the chinchilla’s cage and whispers, “She has games in there that we can play.”

  I open the cabinet and scan the worn boxes and games, which look like they probably belonged to Miss Humala’s great-grandmother.

  “Nice job on the quiz, kiddo,” Milla says, scampering up her cage and diving into her hammock. “But that doesn’t mean you can pet me. Nope. No touching.”

  “I hadn’t planned on it,” I whisper to her.

  Finally, I see exactly the game I want to play with Talib and Maria Carmen—a plastic bag filled with dominoes.

  Maria Carmen, Talib, and I push our desks together, and I dump the dominoes out of the bag. They clatter on the fake-wood desktops, and several jealous eyes turn to stare at us.

  “Maybe a little less enthusiasm,” Miss Humala says, clearing her throat and taking a break from pounding her fist on the formula written on the board.

  Talib chuckles. “I don’t think she’s gonna be cool with us lining these up and knocking them down.”

  I shake my head. “Nope. I’m going to teach you guys actual dominoes.”

  I slide ten tiles to each of us and explain the rules of the game.

  “Where’d you learn to play?” Maria Carmen asks, lining up her tiles in front of her so Talib and I can’t see them.

  “From my abuelo. Each time we moved somewhere new, he traveled to see me so we could play dominoes in our new kitchen,” I explain.

  I scan the dominoes and hold up a double-nine tile. “This is the caja de muertos, the dead man’s box.”

  Talib takes the tile from me. “I like that.”

  “And this is the caja de dientes, the box of teeth,” I say, showing them a double-six tile.

  “Your abuelo taught you all this?” Maria Carmen asks.

  “Yeah. And when I was little, I learned a new Spanish curse word every time I beat him.”

  Talib hands me the caja de muertos. “You have to teach me those.”

  He sets up three of his dominoes in a line and knocks them over in a cascade. “So why’d you move to New Haven?”

  “My dad grew up here. My mom and I are staying with my abuela while my dad’s in Afghanistan. My mom thought it would be nice staying with family instead of on an Army base.”

  Talib nods and sets up his dominoes in a line again to tip over. “How many places have you lived?”

  “New Haven makes six,” I tell them. “Never been a Fighting Armadillo, though.”

  “I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” Maria Carmen says, rolling her eyes. “Our football team is so small that the same kids have to play offense and defense. They’re usually so tired by the last quarter they just lie down on the field and let the other team run over them.”

  Talib nods and twirls a tile between his fingers. “Did you always go to school on a military base?”

  “Yep.”

  “What was your mascot at your last school? The Parachuting Penguins? Bayoneting Beavers?”

  I smile. “No, we were the General Sherman School of Tanks and Missiles Valiant Vultures.”

  Maria Carmen and Talib stare at me with wide eyes.

  “Kidding.”

  “You’ve really gone to six schools? I’ve only ever lived in New Haven,” Maria Carmen says. “We drove up to Dallas once to visit my tía Maricela, but that’s the farthest I’ve ever been.”

  “We went on vacation to Florida a couple of years ago. But other than that, my butt has been in New Haven,” Talib says.

  I lay down the first tile, and we start taking turns matching up the numbers on each tile. I shake my head, thinking about how Maria Carmen and Talib have always been here. They’ve always known where their home is. Always had a home.

  I can’t even imagine what that’s like. Must be nice.

  Talib spins a tile between his thumb and forefinger, plotting his next move. “So where have you lived?”

  I list all the places the Lopez family has moved boxes. “I was born at Fort Benning, Georgia. Then we moved to Fort Carson, Colorado. We stayed there until I was in second grade. Next, we moved to Fort Lewis, Washington, for a little bit and then Fort Campbell, Kentucky. After that was Fort Hood just north of here, and finally”—I drum my fingers on my desk in finale—“New Haven.”

  I get tired just thinking of all the places I’ve kicked packing boxes under my bed.

  “That is so cool,” Maria Carmen says, slapping down a double-four tile. “I would kill to get to travel so much.”

  “No kidding. You’ve seen the ocean, right? Like not just the Gulf of Mexico, but the actual ocean?” Talib leans forward, scanning the tiles we’ve laid down, searching for a match.

  I picture the wide Pacific Ocean when we were stationed in Washington, the waves glistening like diamonds as the sun dipped below the horizon. I’d fall asleep right on the beach, the lullaby of the waves lapping the shore as Mom would run her fingers through my hair.

  I still don’t think moving so much is a good thing. But Maria Carmen and Talib are right—I have seen a lot of the country.

  I just haven’t seen a lot of my dad.

  CHAPTER 6

  DON’T GO IN THE DARK, musty basement with creakin
g stairs and flickering lights. Don’t answer the phone when you’re home alone and the caller ID says AX MURDERER. Don’t enter the decaying, abandoned building covered in suffocating vines and bloody handprints.

  I’ve seen enough horror movies to know what you are and aren’t supposed to do if you want to survive.

  Don’t walk through the woods in your town when you’ve seen your abuela stomp off into the trees with a knife.

  I guess Talib and I aren’t that smart.

  After hearing Brandon brag about shooting a deer with his dad, I wanted to check on Chela, the doe I met yesterday. Even though Miss Humala told us to stay out of the woods. When Talib saw me take off into the trees after school, he tagged along, saying I shouldn’t go alone.

  As we tromp down the path, I notice Talib’s dark eyes dart around every live oak tree and scan every rocky hill, searching for some unknown threat ready to devour us whole.

  Talib picks up an acorn and launches it at a tree trunk. He misses by a foot. The acorn bounces down the trail ahead of us, scaring lizards and squirrels, who scamper under fallen leaves and branches. “So is your dad really strict about keeping your room neat and making your bed since he’s in the military?”

  I laugh. “I have a Cuban mom and a Cuban grandma. The military is nothing compared with them when it comes to keeping a house clean.”

  I can hear the sound of Mom’s clicking tongue as she juts out her chin, pointing to the dirty clothes on my floor or my unmade bed. Nothing makes me clean faster than her raised eyebrow. And now she has Abuela as reinforcement when she’s not home.

  Talib shakes his head. “Sounds like my mom. So how long has your dad been away?” he asks, kicking a rock across our path.

  I could give him the exact number of days right now. Along with a Days in New Haven page, I have a Days Dad’s Been Gone page in my sketchbook. It has 104 marks.

  “He’s been downrange a little over three months,” I tell him, shoving my hands into my pockets.

  “Downrange?”

  “Deployed. Overseas.” I’m not sure why I said downrange. I’ve never liked that term. It always makes me think of shooting ranges. Downrange is where the bullets land. It’s where Dad is.

  Wanting to change the subject, I ask, “Are you looking for something out here? It seems like you are.”

  Talib stops in his tracks. “I, uh, I was hoping to find my dog, George.”

  “Your dog’s name is George?”

  “Yeah, he disappeared last week. I’ve been looking for him.” Talib’s eyes dart to a cedar tree with three long, jagged marks on it. His eyes grow wide, and he draws in a sharp breath. They look like scratches from a claw.

  “You think your dog might be running around the woods?”

  Talib scuffs his foot in the dirt. “Well, no, not anymore, I don’t think.”

  This isn’t making much sense, but Talib doesn’t seem to want to say more about George’s mysterious disappearance.

  I continue down the trail, and my stomach growls in protest. “Let’s keep going, man. I’m hungry,” I tell Talib. He follows me, but only after glancing at the claw-marked tree trunk one last time.

  We pass the spot where I sketched Chela yesterday, though she’s nowhere to be found. I stop and scan the hills around us, noticing a glint under a mesquite bush. I hurry over and see the blade of a large kitchen knife plunged into the root of the bush. Small bits of thin white paper surround the knife.

  I look closer and realize it’s not paper.

  It’s snakeskin.

  Kicking dirt over the shed skin, I stand in front of the knife as Talib approaches.

  “I thought we were gonna keep going,” he says, his voice shaky. He pushes on my arm to urge me forward.

  “What are you so scared of? I’m sorry your dog is gone, but what’s the deal?” Between the knife, the claw mark, and the snakeskin, I’m beginning to suspect there’s plenty to be scared of in these woods. But I don’t want Talib to think my abuela has anything to do with it.

  Talib wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “I went looking for George out here a couple of nights ago. And I saw something.”

  “Dude, what did you see?”

  Talib stands there and stares at me, his mouth mutely opening and closing, trying to find the words.

  “Well, I found George’s collar by a big cactus, and when I went to pick it up, I heard growling. I thought maybe it was him, even though George doesn’t really growl like that. I saw this big, furry brown thing with huge teeth and claws. It was absolutely, most definitely not a dog.” Talib’s eyebrows rise. “But then it changed.”

  I shake my head, unsure if I heard Talib correctly. “It what?”

  Before he can explain, I hear a shout and a cry.

  Talib opens his mouth to speak, but I’m not paying attention anymore. The cries grow louder, echoing over the hills.

  “Help! Help!”

  I look at Talib. “Do you hear that?”

  “What? The howling?”

  “No. Somebody’s calling for help.”

  Talib scrunches his eyebrows at me, but I take off running toward the sound.

  “Help! Please help!” The cries pierce my ears.

  Talib follows me, breathing hard. We crest the top of a hill and spot a figure below us, writhing in the dirt next to a large century cactus.

  It’s a coyote.

  The small reddish animal tries to stand, but his back leg is caught in a clamp of interlocked, large metal teeth. With each strain against the round clamp, the coyote yelps and stumbles on the ground.

  “What is that?” Talib asks.

  I shake my head. “It’s a hunting trap. It must’ve snapped around that coyote’s leg the second he stepped on it.”

  Talib winces. “That doesn’t seem right.”

  “It’s not. Hunters use them to trap animals, sometimes predators they want off their land, sometimes animals they’re hunting for fur. Dad says they’re cruel. An animal can stay trapped for days in it and starve to death.”

  “Please help me. Please!” the coyote cries, saliva frothing at the corners of his mouth.

  I run over and kneel down next to the injured animal. The coyote bares his teeth and growls, not knowing if I’m a friend or foe.

  I raise my hands. “It’s okay; I’m not here to hurt you. I’m going to help you.”

  “You can understand me?” the coyote asks.

  “Yes, I can,” I tell him.

  “Yes, you can what?” Talib asks behind me.

  “Nothing,” I say, shaking my head. One problem at a time.

  “What are you going to do, Nestor?” Talib asks, coming closer and kneeling down next to me.

  “We need to release the trap from around his leg.”

  Talib examines the trap. It’s a half circle of sharp metal teeth folded together. “This is one of Brandon’s. I’m sure of it. He and his dad aren’t exactly known for their legal hunting methods.”

  I clench my hands into fists. This Brandon kid is steadily rising on my list of people I’d like to see rocketed to the surface of Mars. Without a space suit.

  I keep my hands on the coyote, rubbing his fur and reassuring him that he’ll be okay. His body is warm and rises up and down as he pants. Talib presses two round tabs on either end of the trap, and it snaps open with a click.

  “It’s okay, buddy. You’re free,” I tell the coyote as he lets out a soft yelp. He tries to stand on his back leg, but his small body falls into the dirt.

  “I can’t walk. It hurts too much.”

  “Okay, let me carry you. Will that be all right?”

  Behind me, I hear Talib clear his throat. “Nestor, are you talking to that coyote?”

  I ignore his question. I’m not sure how I would answer it anyway. I’m not ready yet. Talib seems like a good guy, but I don’t want to send him screaming by revealing my secret.

  Picking up the coyote in my arms, I’m careful not to put pressure on his back leg. Talib and I con
tinue down the trail with the injured animal.

  “I can’t believe he’s letting you carry him,” Talib says.

  “I must have a way with animals,” I tell him.

  The coyote shudders in my arms. “Somebody’s not telling the truth,” he says.

  “Shush,” I whisper, scratching behind his ear with my finger.

  Talib and I pass a thick patch of mesquite trees when we hear stomping along the trail behind us.

  We turn and see Brandon, his face red and his fists clenched.

  “That coyote’s mine, you thieves,” he snarls, kicking dirt at us with his untied shoe.

  “Traps are illegal in these woods, you moron,” I snap back. I haven’t lived in New Haven long, but Dad always makes sure I know the rules wherever we go.

  Brandon rushes toward me, eyes on fire. His feet skid in the dirt inches from us. He leans forward, his nose almost touching mine. His hot breath blows in my face. I smell traces of the rubbery chicken fingers served in the cafeteria today.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Talib bend down and pick up a rock.

  “That animal should’ve stayed in the trap,” Brandon hisses, poking me in the chest with his finger.

  The coyote in my arms raises his head and clamps his small, sharp teeth around Brandon’s finger.

  Brandon screams and draws his bloody index finger back, wrapping his other hand around it. He huffs and stomps away from us, shouting over his shoulder, “This isn’t over!”

  I look at Talib, whose fingers are still clenched tight around the rock. His chest heaves up and down.

  “What were you planning to do with that?”

  Talib looks down at his hand. “I don’t know. Maybe juggle to distract him?”

  I chuckle. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  We head toward our houses, and the coyote snuggles in close to my body. The sun starts to dip below the tree line, sending snaking shadows across our path.

  Talib walks behind me, flinging his rock into the mesquite bushes. “Um, Nestor, what exactly are you planning to do with that coyote?”

  I think for a moment, considering my options. “Do you think my abuela would be okay with a new pet?” I ask.