Chapter 2: Friends and enemies
As I climbed down the steps outside, I heard the familiar voice behind me, “Hey, Tracy! Wait up!”
Ilia. She wanted to talk. I liked Ilia most of the time, but she couldn’t control her mouth, so I was afraid to share secrets with her. Still, she was nice enough to me. I just had to be careful of what I said around her.
“Hi again, Ilia,” I said.
“Yeah, well,” she began, “I wanted to talk to you about what happened with Grace.”
Great, I thought. I just wanted to avoid the whole thing. “Okay,” I said.
“Grace, she just let her mouth run off,” she said. “I don’t know why but during lunch the other day she started saying all kinds of things about you. For some reason she just went off about how you dress so ghetto and how your family is so poor and all kinds of things. It was pretty mean of her, really. I wanted to defend you, but I wasn’t sure what to say. Grace can be fun to be around though. In fact, I’m going over to her house after my homework. She lives just down the street from me. Convenient, right?”
“Anyway, I just wanted you to know I don’t agree with what she said and I will try to keep her from spreading things about you in the future. Well, I know you have work to do tonight, so maybe I’ll see you later.” Ilia turned around and went back the other way. She had followed me just to tell me what a backstabber she was. I took a deep breath, trying not to cry. Positive attitude, I told myself. Keep it positive.
I was really beginning to hate girls. Boys may be smelly and gross, but at least they didn’t pretend to be your friend and then treat you like dirt. I wondered what Gregorio was up to. I hadn’t seen him all day. He lived just down the street from the school, so I thought I’d stop by and say hi. He was probably home by now.
I walked two blocks past the bus stop and up to his house. I could always catch the next bus, even though it came half an hour later. I figured my parents wouldn’t mind this one time.
Gregorio lived in a nice neighborhood, but his house was the oldest and smallest one on the block. He said his family were the first to live there so they bought it before everyone else moved in.
Two houses in a row had roman columns, and one had an Olympic sized swimming pool even though I had never seen anyone ever swim in it. The house on the corner was owned by some computer guy. You could tell because he made the whole house look like one of those old-time computers. It was a giant black rectangle. It looked weird and cool at the same time.
I rounded the corner and saw Gregorio’s house. His mom tried to take care of the front lawn as much as she could, but she couldn’t keep up with the people who hired professionals. The grass was green and well cut, but it didn’t have anything fancy growing in it. She worked during the day at a clothing store on the other side of town.
I tried to open the broken fence, lifting it up so it wouldn’t scrape on the cement as I opened it and walked through. Once on the wooden porch, I knocked on their red door. I could tell it was starting to fade some. Maybe I could help them paint it someday.
I waited a minute, but no one came so I knocked again, louder this time. The door made a deep, hollow sound as I knocked.
Finally, I saw the thin form of Mrs. Sanchez as she opened the door slowly. “Hi, Tracy,” she said. “Did you want to see Gregorio?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I haven’t seen him all day. Usually he catches me right after P.E.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Gregorio has been sick all day. He’s been in bed, mostly. I stayed home to watch him.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mrs. Sanchez. Is he okay?”
“He’s just been sick to his stomach lately,” she said. She turned around for a moment, “Gregorio?” she yelled to the back of the house. “It’s Tracy. Do you want to say hi?”
From a back room, I heard: “No, not today, Mom. I feel really bad.”
Mrs. Sanchez turned back to me. “I’m sorry, Tracy. Maybe he’ll see you at school later this week. Probably not tomorrow though. He’s pretty sick today.”
“Okay, Mrs. Sanchez. Well, goodbye.”
“Bye Tracy,” she said.
I turned around and slowly walked down the steps, disappointed. It felt like the whole world was against me today. Since our family moved to the area, I have had a tough time making friends and Gregorio was the only one I could count on so far. I felt extra lonely now as I passed through the gate. Maybe I would have to just go home and do homework. I thought about what day of the week it was: Tuesday. That meant my dad would be home today. I smiled at that. On Tuesdays he worked from home and on those days, if I finished my homework early, we would play Sluice Juice. Even though I was not a big video game girl, I liked this game. Especially because it was the only game my dad would play with me.
I began to walk back to the bus stop. No students were there now because I had already missed my usual bus. An old man I’ve seen before was reading a book, and he had a blanket over his legs even though it wasn’t very cold yet. I sat down and didn’t talk. I didn’t know his name anyway.
“Do you smell that?” the old man said, looking up. He had white, messy hair that needed to be cut. He usually never talked to me! But then I noticed the smell too.
“Is that smoke?” I asked. “It’s November, but the sun is still out. Why would people use their fireplaces this early in the day?”
“Yeah,” he said. “And do fireplaces do that?” He pointed down the street to my left and off in the distance was a huge plume of smoke. It could have been coming from a lot of places, I thought, but it looked an awful lot like the place where I lived!