"Be smart, think before you act..."
IT was RED, Yellow, Green, and it sat Way ON TOP...
School was back in session. Summer was over and this meant no more fun. Our mom had had our uniforms made and had left them ready for us. I wore a kaki tube skirt with a white blouse. My skirt made me look like I was constipated as I struggled to walk in it, much less run. Victor had it easy; he wore kaki pants and a white shirt. We were set for school. Due to the lack of infracstructure, we walked long distances to school. We walked on the dirt road, hitch hiking a ride here and there (only if the trucks would stop, which was almost never). If not, we had to find short cuts to make it in time for our first class.
Our walk was lonely most of the time, as it was just Victor and I. Sometimes our neighbor Levira would walk with us, but she was much older than us and she was much faster, so keeping up in a tight skirt was just beyond possible. We walked past a Catholic Church and everytime, we would Persinarnos (do the cross on our body), as an acknowledgment of our faith. On occassions we would go up the stairs, make reverence, and ring the bell (with the Reverend's permission). The church was so unique, it was small but it stood there so firmly and made its presence known.
We also went pass this place we called El Molino in Los Reyes which is where if we had high quantity of cooked corn to grind, we would bring to this place, wait in line and pay to make the dough for Tamales or any other large amount of grains we needed to grind. At el Molino, there lived a lady who walked very weird, our guess was that she had a back problem or one of her legs was shorter than the other, however, what I remember the most was that some times everyone would make fun of her (our less compassionate classmates who would catch up with us). She was matured, so she did not care, but rumors had it that she would chase whoever made fun of her when they walked alone. She was an interesting personage and we all knew about her, but didn’t exactly know her. I felt sad for her, however, I knew that she was much older than I and she understood that kids had no idea of what she was going through or how her deformity was a burden or not.
After acknowledging our sorroundings we kept walking to school, past one of my mom’s nephew’s house and on we walked down the dirt road. The school was brand new, it was two huge buildings separated by a field that was just about half of the soccer field. One of our classes consisted in helping around the school to maintain it clean and to plant flowers and greenery. La Escuela de Los Reyes - was in a different town than our home. It was quite the walk; however, we managed as we imagined our own adventures and mischiefs throughout the walk.
After school would let out, we would take a short cut as a way to change the scenery. We cut across "nice" people’s backyards, over the cercas (fences), and around malicious dogs. Other classmates joined our walk and in a small group we ventured to cut across the dirt road and make our trip a bit more exciting. One place we did end up crossing was the Molino’s backyard, they had the largest amount of land and it was just in front of us as a short cut. In that land, there was a huge mango tree. It looked lonely and the mangoes above were tempting and inviting our taste bubs. The thought lingered in us and the savory, juicy taste of a riped Mango caresed our tongues. Before we knew it, Victor had climbed the tree and told us to catch the mangos as he would cut them and stuff them in our back packs. We were in the middle of our most mischieveous deed, stealing from a private property, and stealing a precious fruit, which to us it was far more inviting to steal from this place than to pick the mangoes from the trees that rested over the cementary where no one would care if we took a few. However, these mangoes were the ones we wanted and not a mango that had grown through absorving the nutrients of someone's remains.
We were so concentrated and almost ready to bite into a fresh cut mango when we saw death hollering at the top of his lungs, waving what looked like a scythe...it was a machete. Scared for our lives, we grabbed the backpacks and took off running over the fences, through the thick bushy mescal plants, and into the cementary, there we hid. Upon reaching safety, we realized Victor was left behind. Slowly we returned to the scene of the crime, hidding through the thick bushery and searched the land for Victor, there was no sight of him anywhere. Did he make it down the tree to run? Or did he get caught and the angry citizen stashed at him? We feared the worse as we could not see him. Just as we were on the verge of crying as we were imagining the worse of things that could've happened...our anguished little hearts gazed blankly into the land franctically searching..... a Mango flew past our heads and landed with a loud thump on an old grave...we looked up into the tree, Victor sat way on top waiting for our signal of safety... he sat on a huge branch and covered himself with smaller branches! Smart! We were glad that he was ok, but our faces still had that blank stare...of fear and shame... The owner had been looming around as if like an angry dog waiting and anticipating some kind of action. He was disgusted and we knew he had every right to be. Just as the owner went back to his house, Victor climbed down, and all of us ran past the tumbstones and quietly walked the rest of the way home. Although it wasn’t said, we knew we would not be taking that short cut for sometime until that angry, malicious guy was over it... we were tempted by our hunger to be able to take a sinfully bite into such a delicious fruit...it seemed as though they had never attempted to pick the mangoes as there were tons on the ground...they fell to their misfortune, to rot and be a composition, a nutrient to the ground...our guess was he liked it that way.
Upon reflecting on that day’s event, it was either our life, death, or a Mango. We took life and the bonus, a Mango. It was a lesson learned: to ask before we dig into our own acts,to be safe and be thankful for a fruit earned through permission, not through stealing.
WRITTEN: Thursday, September 30, 2010 @2:24pm (this story was started before this date though)
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