The Midnight War of Mateo Martinez

  Text copyright © 2016 by Robin Yardi

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Carolrhoda Books

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

  For reading levels and more information, look up this title at www.lernerbooks.com.

  Paper: © Oleg Golovnev/Shutterstock.com

  Main body text set in Bembo Std regular 12.5/17.

  Typeface provided by Monotype Typography.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Yardi, Robin.

  The midnight war of Mateo Martinez / by Robin Yardi.

  p. cm.

  Summary: “Mateo, a Mexican-American fourth grader from California, spots two skunks stealing his sister’s trike. He launches a crusade to retrieve the trike and soon learns that the skunks are not only thieves—they can talk, too!”

  — Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-4677-8306-4 (lb : alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-1-4677-9561-6 (eb pdf : alk. paper)

  [1. Skunks—Fiction. 2. War—Fiction. 3. Mexican Americans—Fiction.]

  I. Title.

  PZ7.1.Y37Mi 2016

  [Fic]—dc23

  2015016191

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 12/31/15

  eISBN: 978-1-46779-561-6 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-51240-470-8 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-51240-468-5 (mobi)

  For you, when you’re trying to

  understand things and you’re not

  getting it right … yet

  1.

  The Crime

  Nobody believed me when I said two skunks stole my old trike.

  But I’d seen those stinkers take it.

  Swear.

  The night of the stolen trike, my mom made me come home after I had dinner with my best friend, Ashwin, ’cause we had school the next day. Ashwin always dares me to see who can drink the most of his mom’s chai, and I always win, so I was on my way back from the bathroom in the middle of the night. Waking up to pee three times is a small price to pay for victory. That’s what I think, anyway, even if my mom doesn’t agree.

  I checked the window, and everything seemed okay at first. I snuck a peek at my brand new silver-and-blue bike. Mom and Dad gave it to me in October, when I turned nine. I call it Steed. You know, like a knight’s shining steed.

  Our house is on this tiny one-block street in Santa Barbara: Caballero Road. Caballero actually means “knight” in Spanish. I don’t speak Spanish, but my dad does. Well, to me, that street name has always been a sign that I was supposed to be a knight. Like, for real. If your home is a castle, and my house totally is, then the driveway is a drawbridge. The sidewalk’s a moat. My bedroom’s even like a watchtower—I have a window right over the driveway, with a view straight out to Caballero Road. It’s my job to keep a lookout, and that’s what I was doing the first time I saw the skunks.

  Seeing Steed out there made me smile even though I was sleepy, but then I heard this weird creak and leaned a little closer to my window. I squinted up and down the driveway, checking everything out. Something was missing from the dark jumble of stuff by the garage, and I was pretty sure what it was. My rusty old trike doesn’t shine in the dark anymore, like Steed does, but the right back-wheel has this creak, and I definitely heard that. I don’t ride the trike or anything, but my little sister, Mila, does. And I always have to make sure she puts the trike back where it’s supposed to be. That night, the trike should have been where I used to park it when I was a little kid. It shouldn’t have been out on the corner or sideways in the dirt, and it definitely shouldn’t have been rolling down the driveway.

  But it was.

  My breath was making the glass all foggy. I rubbed it away so I could see better, and at first I thought the trike was rolling by itself. I don’t know, like being pushed by the wind. But when the driveway light clicked on, I saw them. Two little black-and-white skunks, one on each pedal, holding onto the handlebars, with their tails high in the air. One skunk went up, the other went down.

  Up-down, up-down, up-down, right out onto the sidewalk. When they got to the street, the skunk on the right pulled hard on the handlebar, and they wobbled around the corner.

  “That’s weird,” I said, leaning so close my nose touched the glass.

  I waited for a few minutes, but nothing else happened. Staring into the dark to see if the skunks would come back, my head felt all fuzzy. My eyes went all blinky. I flopped onto my bed, kicking at the covers, thinking, Two skunks can’t steal a trike. No way.

  I kept popping up onto my elbows to peek out the window, but pretty soon my head was too sleep-fogged to even look. I jerked awake a couple times and wiped some drool off my cheek. But I never heard that rusty creak again.

  Did I fail in my solemn duty as a watchman—as a knight? What was I supposed to do, raise an alarm? Even half asleep, I guess I knew nobody would believe me. I knew what Mom and Dad would say.

  And after a while, even I thought those skunks had to be a dream.

  But they weren’t.

  2.

  The Smile

  The next morning, I was crunching a huge bite of cereal when I remembered my dream that wasn’t really a dream. It squirted back into my brain.

  “Last night, two skunks stole my old trike,” I said. Little bits of cereal exploded out of my mouth and oozed down my chin.

  My little sister, Mila, laughed.

  I kicked her under the table.

  Not hard.

  But, you know, just to keep her in line.

  “That’s a funny dream, Mateo,” Mom said, putting the milk away. Then she smiled at me over the rim of her coffee cup. Whenever she smiled that smile, I smiled back. I was always dreaming up strange stuff, and I loved making Mom laugh at breakfast, before it was time for all of us to leave the house.

  So I forgot all about the skunks and that old trike.

  I forgot about protecting my castle and being a knight.

  But only for a while.

  Mom stacked our cereal bowls in a heap and sploshed them into the kitchen sink. “Time to go,” she said, clicking across the kitchen. Her smile was gone. “And, Mateo, no more leaving Mila behind. You have to wait for her and cross Las Positas together.”

  “I will,” I said, barely moving my mouth.

  Mila laughed again, but I didn’t kick her.

  It’s not me that leaves Mila behind, but I could tell Mom wasn’t in the mood to hear that excuse again. Besides, a knight does his duty without complaint. Mostly.

  Mom stopped at the door to the garage and scooped her keys out of the bowl. “I mean it, Mateo. If you still want to walk to school with Ashwin, then you have to be responsible for Mila. Otherwise I’ll just drive you both.”

  “I said I’ll do it!” I told her. Mom gave me a different kind of look, the one I hated, the one that said, Please don’t make me late for work. She scooped up her purse, a stack of papers, and her black laptop. She stopped for a second in the doorway to the garage, holding the door open with her shoulder. “And hold her hand at the light, mijo. It’s your job to keep her safe.”

  Mom didn’t wait for me to answer. The door to the garage slammed shut behind her.

  Bang.

  So I zipped my lunch into my backpack
and pushed Mila out the front door. I wanted to get to the sidewalk before Mom got her car out of the garage, so she would see me taking Mila. I thumped down the steps, with Mila ahead of me. The garage door groaned open, and the brakes on Mom’s old car squealed. I walked fast down the driveway while Mila shuffled up to me every few steps, her backpack drumming on her butt.

  We went past the shed and all our dusty old junk.

  Past the tangle of hoses and extension cords my dad always forgets to put away.

  And past the place where I should have checked for the old trike.

  At the sidewalk, Mila stopped to wave to Mom.

  “Bye, Mommy,” Mila shouted, hopping up and down.

  I didn’t wave, but I watched until Mom’s car turned the corner. Mom didn’t wave back at Mila. She was holding a coffee cup in her hand. I don’t think she even saw me. I started walking again, just a little too fast. Mila’s black cowgirl boots went bam-bam-bam, and I knew she was following me, so I just kept going without looking back.

  Mila caught up right before the corner, and I grabbed the straps on my backpack so she couldn’t hold my hand, ’cause we weren’t even close to Las Positas. That’s the only time I would ever be caught holding hands with my little sister. But she didn’t stop and try to grab my hand or even slow down.

  Bam! Bam! Bam! She zoomed around the corner with her backpack shaking. So I didn’t have time to think about the trike or the skunks or anything.

  “Mila,” I growled. “Wait up!”

  I started to run.

  The day before, someone—I don’t even know who—had seen Mila crossing Las Positas by herself, not holding anybody’s hand, and called my mom. Las Positas is a super busy street, so I almost got in huge trouble. What I guess that someone didn’t notice was me and Ashwin running right behind Mila, shouting at her to wait up. Mila thinks she’s all big now because she’s going to real school. But she isn’t actually in real school. She’s only in TK, transitional kindergarten. If you had asked me, I would have said she was too little for that too—she just turned five last month—but Mom did not ask me. If it’s my job to hold Mila’s hand when we are crossing Las Positas, then I think it should be Mila’s job to wait up.

  I ran a little faster.

  I was almost to the end of the block.

  When I turned the corner, I saw Mila using the crosswalk by herself, and I kinda tripped a little, but she had only gotten to Castillo Street, and she’s allowed to do that one on her own as long as I’m watching. Well, I was watching, just from pretty far away. I caught my balance, grabbed my backpack straps, and pounded my feet on the sidewalk. I couldn’t risk having Mila get to Las Positas without me again. No way was I going to let Mom drive me to school like a kindergartener.

  I put my head down and tried to ignore the cramp in my side.

  Mila moved pretty fast for a little kid when she wanted to.

  Actually, she moved pretty fast period.

  I found her standing on top of one of those big rocks across from Oak Park, rocking back and forth on her heels. I bent over my knees, panting. “I said wait up, Mila—you’re gonna get me in trouble! And we’re supposed to wait for Ashwin too. That’s the whole point of taking you.”

  She made this little scrunched-up face, didn’t answer, and then—bam!—she jumped down next to me and started walking again. I didn’t really have a choice. I had to go with her. Ashwin would just have to catch up with us. I stuck next to her, but I still didn’t hold her hand.

  That’s when I thought about it again.

  The trike, I mean—not her hand.

  That old trike!

  Had it been there in the driveway when we left home?

  I couldn’t remember, and that felt wrong.

  Before the night of the stolen trike, I thought I basically knew what was going on in all the backyards and garages in our neighborhood, even the ones I was never allowed to go in. Like, I knew that Mr. Mendoza had twelve fruit trees but he never picked any fruit. His backyard could have been a medieval battlefield, slippery with the blood of slain plums. Sometimes I wondered what happened in all those backyards and garages when I had to go to school and wasn’t around to keep an eye on things. I never knew I had to worry about what was going on at night too, and I definitely never knew I had to worry about skunks.

  Dad doesn’t really get my obsession with knighthood, or with books, but he always smiles when I tell him I’ve been watching over the neighborhood. His truck has a magnetic sign on the door that says Xavier’s Electric, with a thunderbolt on the bottom. I used to think he was like a secret superhero. This was before I knew about knights. Now I know he’s just a fancy contractor. I don’t mean “just” like it’s not something important. He pays his workers good and he has tons of awesome tools, but now I know he can’t, like, fly.

  Dad does have the heart of a superhero, though. He says you have to keep an eye on your street, do your duty, and take pride in your work. So when I remembered the skunks again, I felt like I let him down. If I was right about what I saw, then two skunks were out in the neighborhood somewhere on an old red trike, and nobody knew but me.

  But I didn’t know what to do about what I maybe knew.

  I thought, again, for the tiniest second, about telling Mila about the skunks, to see what she would say. But she was only five, and I didn’t think she knew anything. She was marching along the sidewalk with her hands on her straps. She was getting pretty far ahead again too. Her hunched-up shoulders, jiggling backpack, and smacking-the-sidewalk boots all said, “I’m big enough! I’m big enough! I’m big enough to cross Las Positas without you.”

  I ran up and snatched her hand right at the corner. I pushed the crosswalk button and made her wait for the little walking guy while the cars buzzed past us on the huge four-lane road. My heart was still beating hard, and the eucalyptus branches were all rattling in the wind, shaking their heads at me, ’cause no way would a knight let his little sister cross that street alone. Mom and Dad hadn’t even allowed me to cross Las Positas by myself until I was in the third grade.

  I looked back down the hill toward home to see if my friend Ashwin was coming yet. I wished I’d remembered to check the driveway for that old trike. I was pretty sure, even if I had, that the trike wouldn’t have been there. But pretty sure is never good enough for me.

  It never really gets super cold in Santa Barbara, even in January, but something made me shiver. A big brown car with noisy brakes stopped all fast at the crosswalk when the light turned yellow. I yanked Mila back a little, away from the car’s rumbling engine, waiting for the light to really turn green before I’d let Mila start walking. I guess I squeezed her hand too hard or something.

  “Owwweee,” she said.

  “I thought you liked when I squeezed your hand.”

  “Nope,” she said, smacking her p.

  I turned around for a sec and finally saw Ashwin running up the hill, dragging his green backpack on the sidewalk. But by then the signal was flashing, and Mila pulled me out into the crosswalk. Talking to Ashwin about those skunks in my driveway would just have to wait, because Mila wouldn’t.

  She glared down at the pavement, tugged me along, and squeezed my hand too hard right back. But I knew she liked holding it. I knew she wished I would let her hang on to my arm the whole way to school, like I was her old stuffed monkey. But it was only my job to hold her hand when we crossed big streets with stoplights and stuff, and I always did my job. I mean, I mostly did my job. So I smiled at Mila and let her hold my hand as tight as she wanted, because she’s my little sister and I’m supposed to take care of her.

  I smiled, and she smiled back.

  She always did.

  She couldn’t help it.

  3.

  The Soccer Ball

  I thought about the old trike and those skunks all morning at school.

  I didn’t have time to say anything to Ashwin about the skunks before the first bell, and Mr. León doesn’t let us sit together any
more. He says sitting together makes us “go bananas.”

  Back in September, Mr. León actually asked me to take a spot next to Ashwin, to show him around and stuff, because Ashwin had just moved to Santa Barbara. And it was my first year since kindergarten without a best friend in class, since Johnny Ramirez got put in the other fourth-grade section. So it was almost like me and Ashwin were both new. But by October, Mr. León decided that Ashwin was plenty “acclimated” and that we shouldn’t talk to each other during class anymore. Even on the way to the pencil sharpener. Now we have a ten-foot rule—Mr. León calls it “buffering the bananas.” So the morning after I saw the skunks, Ashwin sat all the way up front at a table with a bunch of girls, and I didn’t have anyone to talk to.

  By lunchtime, those two weird skunks were riding in circles through my brain, but by then, I wasn’t so sure about telling Ashwin about them.

  What would he say?

  Maybe my story would sound bananas even to him.

  At lunch, Ashwin shoved his backpack into the shade under our table. “I’ve got a good one,” he said, his voice all tinny under the metal tabletop.

  “A good what?” I asked, still trying to figure out how to bring up the skunks.

  “An animal joke, for Mr. León’s collection.” Ashwin clanged his head on the metal table when he dragged his lunchbox out from under it. “Ouch … Why do gorillas have big nostrils?”

  “Why?” I was already halfway laughing.

  “Because they have big fingers.” Ashwin dug around in his lunch like he was searching for a booger.

  “No way is Mr. León going to let you put that one up on the bulletin board.” I laughed and choked on my juice. Mr. León has two rules about the joke board: the jokes have to be about animals—no people—and they have to be appropriate.

  “Yeah, I figured he wouldn’t.” Ashwin shrugged. “But it is a good one.”

  We ate our lunch, waiting for the bell to ring so we could hop up from the hot metal tables. Ashwin told a few more animal jokes, a couple that would probably make the board and a couple that I probably shouldn’t repeat. I tried to think of a good skunk joke, but the trike zoomed through my brain until I couldn’t concentrate. I decided that once the bell rang and we got away from all the other lunch tables, I’d tell Ashwin about the skunks. It was like a deadline.