MEXICO, PART I of III

Elizabeth Milligan
Writing Assignment for 24 March 2008
Prompt: Shadow Box Technique

MEXICO
PART I of III

Raul


It had rained everyday for the past thirty days in El Progresso. Raul had cut a notch in a branch near his head to mark each one of them. The palm leaves woven into the roof acted like oiled ponchos and the branches were so full of water that they touched. No rain fell on his face while he counted them and thought.

It was morning and Juanita, the sister he shared a hammock with, was still asleep. He could hear morning sounds of his mother making breakfast on the other side of the room and the animals outside, grunting, clucking and snorting. It was January, a month of cold mornings. But it would be warmer when the bus arrived.

His mother was calling them to breakfast – tortillas rolled around the green peppers, tomatoes, guacamole, and chicken they had been eating for the past two days. However, Raul did not complain. He knew that meals this week-end would be better. Millie was coming from America to visit and his mother was going to make some of his favorite dishes for the occasion.

He had been seven when Millie lived with them two summers ago. There were some other Americans who came with her then, but no one as fun. Millie played Monkey in the Center in the waterfalls behind the house, rode on top of the cab on the trucks that swayed up and down the mountain, played Hide and Seek around the houses and mountain paths, clapped her hands when he sang songs, and did not wear shoes – just like him.

Millie was about as old as his big sister Lupe who was in college in Tuxtepec, taller than his mother and father, and fun like his friends. She loved Pepe, their dog. When she went back to her family in America, she sent his family a box of gifts. Two of the gifts were special dog shampoo and a brush for Pepe. Everyone thought that was very funny, but his family had used them and now Pepe looked very nice.

He had overheard the grown-ups talk about the Americans who lived with them that summer. Except for Millie, not one of the Americans had written to their families in El Progesso. This made everyone in El Progresso sad, and they were very happy that Millie was coming to visit today. They had always liked her.

The sun balanced on the pointy top of a mountain to the place west of the lake where it disappeared every day. He and Nita wandered halfway down the mountain to the smooth ground where the bus always stopped before it went back down to Ixcatlan. Their mother had instructed them to wait there for Lupe and Millie.

On the way there, they had picked up two large sticks to stir mud with and to poke at weeds, stones, and each other. Raul also brought the little toy car that Millie gave him two years ago. Except for black tires and a white roof, the outside was all light green. There was a green fin of metal on each side of the back, too.

Now, one of the wheels was wobbly so Raul could only fly it in the air. When it was new, the car would go by itself after he dragged it backwards on the ground and then gave it a short, strong push forward. Raul hoped she was bringing him a new car.

All of a sudden, he and Nita saw the bus from Ixcatlan. At first, they could only see a tiny bit of rusty silver, but as the bus peeked over the last crest this far up the mountain road, they saw more and more of it. It rocked from left to right, puffs of black smoke came out of the end, people and animals crowded the windows, and there was Millie – holding onto the metal bar on top of the cab with one hand and waving with the other. Her pack was held down by ropes. A new car could fit in that pack – easy.