Until I Find Julian (14 page)

I think of the pine forest, and Angel sitting in the cave.

How soon until I go back? I look up at the clock.

Sal sees me watching. “Take some food, Matty.” He points to the shelves. “Help yourself. Then go home. See you tomorrow?”

I nod. “See you tomorrow.”

I take water, oranges, and juice, things to quench our thirst on this hot day; then I make two sandwiches, rye bread with ham and cheese and mayonnaise dripping out the sides.

Sal reaches out with money, but I shake my head. “Enough,” I say, pleased that I know that word.

I rush back to Angel, glancing up at the sky. One cloud rolls over another and thunder rumbles in the distance.

We sit at the edge
of the cave, the quilt under us, munching on Sal's sandwiches, not talking. We can't stay here. Tonight is all right, maybe even tomorrow, but this isn't a place to live.

I think of everything I've done to find Julian: walking along the street looking for him, climbing the building, asking the women at the factory, even hoping there'd be a clue in the house we've just left. I can't imagine one more place to search for him. And then I wonder: could I find that woman, Elena, and ask her?

Next to me, Angel slurps down water and peels back the orange rind.

“Matty?” she says.

From her voice, I know she's holding back tears. “I think about going back. Maybe I belong with my grandfather.” She brushes her cheeks. “I dreamed last night that I was in school, that I could read and write, that my grandfather was waiting for me at the gate in the afternoon, asking if I had a good day.”

“Was it a happy dream?”

“I don't know. The dream was over before I found out. But maybe I do have to find out. We could stay here, just another day. I'll keep learning words. But just a day, no more, even if I don't go home.”

“We have to look for another place,” I say.

“But if I did go home, I'd tell my grandfather I can't read. Maybe then he'd help.”

She's really thinking about it. I imagine crossing the border again, that terrible trip, but worse this time because I have to tell Mami and Abuelita and even Lucas that I didn't find Julian, never even came close.

Don't think about it right this minute.

I put my empty water bottle back in Sal's bag. “Angel? I'm going to take a look in back of the cave.” I stand as a bolt of lightning streaks across the sky, the light flashing from one end of the horizon to the other.

I take the flashlight. It really isn't much of a cave. As I go in, the wall slopes on each side, the ceiling slants downward with a thin line of water pooling in one corner. I have to duck my head to walk farther.

And then I see it! It's so small it would be easy to miss: a splash of paint, a river of blue, a hint of a boy standing at the edge.

I'm the boy.

Julian is the artist.

He's been here, right where I'm standing, and I feel how close he must be.

I put my fingers over the blue river, over the boy, and I hold back tears.

I go out to Angel. “I think you'll be happy in school,” I say. “But maybe not yet. Maybe you'll wait a little longer, just until I find Julian. Because now I will. I know I will.”

She stares up at the sky, and then at our poor things gathered around us. “I guess so.”

So I take Mami's quilt—the home quilt, I call it in my mind—and spread it out inside. I bring in the rest of the things and put them under the painting. All we have to do is wait for the next few hours when it will be dark, and hope for rain that will cool off the rest of the world.

In the meantime, I tear off a piece of paper from Felipe's notebook, which Angel and I share now, and begin to write; it's just bits and pieces about what's happened to me since I've been here. I search for a word to say what it was like to see that painting, to know that Julian is nearby.

So I'm not going home.

I'm going to keep looking.

Tomorrow I'll find the woman who owns that ghost building and ask her about Julian. Sal might know where she lives.

I fill the paper in front of me now, half listening to Angel as she writes too, mumbling the words. I can hear the satisfaction in her voice.

But the air feels strange, the light in the sky almost a neon green. An animal crashes through the trees nearby. Are we really safe here in this rocky cave?

The next bolt of lightning
and the thunder that follows are so close that the ground seems to vibrate. There's another huge crack. It almost deafens me.

Angel jumps to her feet, her paper floating away from her, and takes three steps out of the cave.

I'm up too. I see a curl of smoke and a flash of fire bursting from the top of the highest tree nearby.

The tree explodes, sending showers of sparks up and out to cover the branches nearby.

I push Angel back into the cave, but she grabs my arm. “We won't be able to breathe,” she says. “We'll have to run.”

I glance back at the quilt, at the guitar; they're lost. But that's only the moment before we run. Hands covering our heads, we rush down the narrow path, feeling the heat of the fire behind us, mouths open to the smoke, coughing….

We throw ourselves down at the edge of the road, gasping for breath.

And I see…

A truck comes to a stop, almost hitting the nearest tree. Three people jump out. Angel and I scramble out of the way as they pull a huge round hose off the back and attach it to a fire hydrant I didn't notice.

They pass us, and I realize that one of them is Elena, who owns the ghost building.

I don't know who the second is. A man.

But the third…

The third person…

Brushes my head as he drags the hose, the water, coming now, gushing.

It's my brother.

Julian.

“Boys don't cry,”
Damian said once.

“He's wrong,” Abuelita told me, her voice fierce. “Good men cry because they care.”

I'm glad she said that, because I'm crying, really crying, now.

Angel thinks it's about the fire. “It wasn't your fault,” she keeps saying, her hands on my shoulders. “And those people will put it out.”

I can't answer. I stand there, not even trying to hide the tears. I grab her arm, shaking my head. I feel the tick of my heart, because I'm afraid now for Julian, and the other two, so close to the smoke and the fire.

Over the flaming trees, water sprays in a thick arc, back and forth. Several branches split and crash to the ground. The heat is so fierce that Angel and I move across the street where several people have gathered, watching, pointing. No one seems to wonder about who we are, or care; they move over to make room for us.

Flashes of lightning zigzag across the sky, one after another, and there's a constant rumble of thunder. But finally, I feel it…

Great drops of water on my head as rain comes at last.

I raise my face to it, open my mouth to drink it in, and watch as a few sparks continue to fly up, the flames lessen, and slowly, the fire dies.

My crying has stopped now, but not the rain. It comes down in torrents, bringing cool air.

The people scatter, and I know Julian will be coming back out soon. Did he see me as he went by? Or did he run his hand over the top of my head because I was just a kid standing there?

“All right now?” Angel says.

I nod and raise my hand toward the fire. “My brother Julian.”

“Oh, Matty!” she says, finally realizing and almost dancing around me. Her face changes, and I'm sure she's thinking about her grandfather, and maybe how glad she'll be to see him, to be home.

Now the three are dragging back the hose, and Julian stops, and of course he knows it's me.

In two steps, he's in front of me, his face filthy. He reaches out, his hands in thick gloves, and lifts me off the ground.

He's not crying the way I did; he's laughing, a wonderful sound as he swings me around the way I might swing Lucas in the kitchen.