The Midnight War of Mateo Martinez Page 4

  Mila ran across the driveway to grab her polka-dot doll stroller and lugged it backwards up the front steps. Thunk-thunk-thunk. A few seconds later, I heard her rolling it around in the kitchen, banging into walls.

  “Excuse me, miss? Where can I find the tortillas?” Mila yelled. She was pretending her stroller was a grocery cart again.

  “Right over there,” Mom said. “At the end of aisle five.”

  “Where’s my stool, Mom? I mean, miss.”

  I sighed, and all the dead flies on my windowsill skittered away.

  That stool used to be mine too. Just like the trike.

  That empty spot on the driveway, on my own drawbridge, was making me crazy. I knew two skunks stole that trike, and I needed to get it back. I needed to figure out what was going on in my neighborhood. My honor as a knight required it.

  I flopped down on my bed and tried not to think about being hungry. I could smell my favorite dinner steaming in the kitchen.

  Chicken tamales.

  And it wasn’t even Saturday.

  “Mom’s doing this on purpose,” I groaned and flopped over onto my stomach. I tried breathing through my pillowcase. The stink of drool and old toothpaste filled my nose, but I could still smell dinner. My stomach growled: Taaaaa-maaaaa-leeeees.

  I knew what I needed to do.

  I opened my door and yelled, “I’m ready to tell the truth.”

  Then, I lied.

  “So,” said Mom, “two skunks didn’t steal your old trike?”

  I hung back in the doorway, keeping my toes far away from Mila’s out-of-control grocery cart. Mom had on her favorite sock-monkey slippers, but she still wore her work clothes. She stood at the edge of the kitchen, one hand on her hip, waiting for me to answer.

  “Excuse me, miss,” Mila yelled while she ran over Mom’s monkey toes with the stroller. Two oranges came toppling out of the seat and thumped across the floor.

  “Ouch, Mila …”

  Mom gave me a look, this tired and I’m-so-glad-you’re-my-grownup-little-man look, and I almost couldn’t do it. Almost.

  “No,” I lied. “Two skunks didn’t steal my old trike.” I stared at the monkey heads on her slippers instead of her face.

  “Thanks for telling the truth, mijo.” Then, after a long sigh, she added, “So where did you put the trike?”

  “I didn’t put the trike anywhere,” I said. That was the truth. “I don’t know where it is.” That was kind of the truth.

  “Mmmm-hmmm,” Mom said. “Go set the table, please.”

  I slunk across the kitchen and took a stack of plates from the shelf.

  “He knows, Mom! He’s lying.” Mila shook an orange in her hand.

  “I. Don’t. Know. Where. It. Is. Honest. But somebody probably did steal it,” I said. The plates felt heavy in my hands. “And it’s mine,” I mouthed to the plates.

  “Mateo …,” Mom said, shaking her head. She took a deep breath as Mila rolled over her slippers again. I waited for Mom to say something else, maybe even send me back to my room, but she didn’t. Mila zoomed around me with her stroller, singing, “Mateo knows … Mateo knows … Mateo knows.”

  “Mila, it’s time for dinner. Take your cart back outside, and put those oranges away. The store is closed.” Mom gave me a little smile, just for a second. “Mateo, go tell your dad dinner is ready,” she said.

  I stuck my head out the side door and yelled for Dad. He came in from the driveway, covered in little leaf bits. I waited for him to say something about the skunks—he must have noticed the trike wasn’t out in the driveway—but he didn’t even ask about the trike.

  The house phone trilled. Mom rolled her eyes at the caller ID. “Mateo, it’s Grandma Martinez. Tell her we’re having dinner, okay? My hands are a little full.” She did have the dish of steaming tamales in her hands, but everything else was pretty much ready.

  I ran to the phone and skidded to a stop, bumping into the kitchen counter.

  I picked up the phone and booped it on.

  “Hi, Grandma—we’re about to have dinner.”

  “Hola, mijo. ¿Cómo te fue hoy en la escuela?” Grandma’s voice was always scratchy, like she had a cricket caught in her throat.

  “School was fine, Grandma, and you know I don’t speak Spanish, and it’s dinnertime.”

  Dad snatched the phone from me. “Hola, Mama,” he said puffing his cheeks at me. I think he’s kinda scared of Grandma. But I’m not. She gives me money to buy candy when we go see her at Christmas. I just don’t like how she’s always trying to talk to me in Spanish. She seems so disappointed when I can’t answer her back, which is most of the time. Trying to speak Spanish makes me feel like I’m doing it wrong, and I hate that. But not speaking Spanish in Santa Barbara seems wrong too, so I’d rather just not think about it.

  Dad talked to Grandma Martinez in Spanish for a few more minutes, and then we all sat down.

  Dinner.

  Smelled.

  So.

  Good.

  Tamales are the most perfect invention on the planet. Maybe even more perfect than my catapult. But all through dinner, Mom kept raising her eyebrows. Watching. Waiting. It was always like this when I lied about something. She just knew. She would sit and wait until I confessed. Only this time, I couldn’t. I had no idea where the skunks took my trike.

  Mom stopped raising her eyebrows at me across the table and took this deep breath. “Did anything happen today, Mateo?”

  Before she could finish, I rolled my eyes. Like, hello, I’ve been trying to tell everyone! Two skunks stole a trike out of our driveway.

  Mom kept at it: “Anything at school, I mean?”

  I stared at my plate, thinking about Danny launching that soccer ball right at Ashwin’s nose, about him calling us weirdos, about Johnny laughing. I didn’t mean to start crying.

  I swallowed a bunch of times, thinking I could stop the tears, suck them back in.

  Dad leaned over and put his hand on my head, which I know was supposed to help but just made it worse. Knights are not supposed to cry. Right?

  Mom scooped Mila up, and they went into the kitchen to get dessert.

  Dad scooted my chair closer to his—screeech—and waited.

  Mom and Dad both know Johnny stopped coming around our house. They both know we’re not really friends anymore. But I’d never really explained about Danny and the stinky stuff he said. I swiped at my face. “Danny Vega keeps saying me and Ashwin can’t be knights, and he won’t let us play soccer on their team, and today he pegged Ashwin in the face with the ball. On purpose. For no reason.” I said it all at once without taking a breath.

  I heard Mom slam the refrigerator, mumbling something about macho nonsense. Mila turned the mixer on super high to make the whipped cream, and I couldn’t hear what else Mom said. Then Dad did this kind of explaining when he looks me in the eye and his voice gets low and growly—not mean, just deep. He said the macho stuff—Danny hogging the field and being all rough—wasn’t nonsense. He said what Danny did was wrong, but it wasn’t all wrong.

  “Bet you Danny thinks he’s protecting his territory and his friends. You know, doing his duty, like you do. He thinks he’s got to be all tough about it. Bet you he’s thinking Ashwin took you over a little. He’s probably just sticking up for Johnny.”

  “No way,” I said, getting a little worked up again, “that’s not how it is at all. And what about Johnny? He’s the one who should be sticking up for me.”

  Dad put his hand on my back, and even though it was sweaty, his hand felt good and heavy resting there. He didn’t say anything for a while. “Johnny’s still your friend too, you know. But Danny’s mama and Johnny’s mama are friends, and Johnny’s dad works on Mr. Vega’s crew. That stuff’s important.”

  I didn’t say that I already knew that, but I did. Dad’s got a crew of his own, so I know how that works. It’s like that with kids too. If your dads work together, you’re just in. If your moms are friends, you can always play. It�
��s automatic. Well, Mom and Mrs. Ramirez have never been friends. I mean, they’re nice to each other and everything, but Johnny’s mom still doesn’t know much English. Even Dad has trouble talking with Mrs. Ramirez. He says she speaks Nahuatl, but it sounds like Spanish to me. I already knew all this stuff. I just didn’t know why it all had to add up to me losing Johnny.

  Dad cleared his throat, and I wiped my face on my shirt.

  “Okay, I get it,” I said, even though that was kind of a lie. “They’re still being jerks, though.”

  In the kitchen, the mixer finally stopped. “Yeah, I think that’s maybe what your mama was saying a minute ago,” Dad said.

  I laughed, and Dad took his hand away. He kissed the top of my head, and my back felt sweaty but cool where his hand used to be.

  “I’ll talk to Mr. Vega. Try to get those guys to give you some space. Some respect.”

  I knew my dad would. He always does what he says. He doesn’t lie.

  Well, I had. I lied to Mom when I told her the skunks didn’t take the trike, and I lied to Grandma when I said school was fine, and I lied to Dad when I said I understood all that stuff about Danny and Johnny. I fiddled with my fork, clinking it against my glass of milk until Mom sighed. Two skunks riding off into the night on an old red trike was weird, but right then, I thought it would be easier to figure out than not being friends with Johnny Ramirez anymore.

  So what if I did lie, I thought. I’m going to find out the truth about that trike.

  And I’m gonna do it in the middle of the night!

  8.

  The Internet

  After I finished dessert—whipped cream and fruit salad—I made a decision. Before my night watch, I was going to need to do some research on the enemy. Not Danny Vega. The skunks.

  I stared down at my empty plate and tried to think of everything I knew about skunks, which was pretty much nothing. To face the skunks and get the trike back, I had to find just the right weapon. Lances were for tournaments, and this wasn’t a game. Swords seemed a little extreme, and Mom always says no when we’re at the toy store, so I didn’t have one anyway. My homemade catapult had been really cool, but Mr. Mendoza was never giving that back. I mean, he still had a bunch of oozy-orange polka dots dried on his back wall.

  If my house was the castle, then our driveway was the drawbridge, and I was going to guard it. All night. I just didn’t really know how. If you want to be a real knight, you have to have a plan, but I had run out of medieval ideas.

  “Mom, can I use your laptop? I have some, uh … research to do.” I pushed my plate away.

  “Mmmm-hmmm,” said Mom. “Something for school?”

  “Yeah, sort of.” I scooted back from the table.

  Mom raised her eyebrows again, waiting for more, but I just stood there by the table, rolling onto the outsides of my sneakers.

  “It’s under my work bag.” Mom pointed to the pile of things by her purse. “But finish your milk first.”

  I gulped my milk down so fast that I choked a little and some squirted out my nose. Dad and Mila laughed—they always do—but Mom tried to ignore it. She nodded when I was done, and I squeaked across the room and swiped up her laptop before she could change her mind or Mila could complain about it not being fair.

  Last summer, Dad let Mila play some stupid Internet game on Mom’s computer, one where you get to design your own pony. I guess Mila deleted something important. Mom got that quiet kind of mad. I think she was mostly mad at Dad, not Mila. She asked how he would like it if she let us play with all his tools and stuff, which was kind of a dumb thing to say, because that’s Dad’s only idea when Mila and I are bored. We help organize his tools and clean out the truck—it’s cooler than it sounds—and then we go get ice cream.

  “I let them mess with my tools all the time,” said Dad. “I teach them how to use them right, okay?”

  “Fine, but your tools are your tools,” said Mom. “You don’t work for a company like I do, and none of those tools cost a thousand dollars.”

  That’s when Dad left. He slammed the door too. I know Mom went to college, like a fancy one, and Dad didn’t. She wears her red Stanford sweatshirt on the weekends sometimes. I think the sweatshirt bugs Dad, ’cause he never squeezes her when she wears it.

  Every time I pick up Mom’s laptop, I remember that argument. The laptop’s pretty heavy. Not as heavy as Dad’s saw but heavier than his drill. I bet if you added all my dad’s tools together, they’d cost more than the computer. “I bought these myself, little man. Remember that when you pick them up,” he always tells me.

  All I remember when I pick up my mom’s computer is that it made Dad mad. So I don’t really like holding the computer when they’re watching. But once I got to my room, it was fine. It was pretty cool, actually. I could learn anything I wanted to.

  When Mila came in to say good night, she swish-swish-swished across the rug in her fuzzy pajamas and leaned over my shoulder to peek at the screen.

  “Mom says it’s time for bed.”

  Her breath smelled like strawberry toothpaste.

  “Okay. Good night.” I swiveled away from her in my spinny chair and raised my shoulders to hide my skunk notes. Mila can barely read Spot the Dog books, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

  Mila tugged at my sleeve until I spun back and gave her a kiss. I knew she wouldn’t leave without one. Then she swish-swish-swished back to the door.

  “G’night,” she said.

  She didn’t close the door all the way.

  She never does.

  I stayed up really late, reading about skunks on the Internet until my eyes started to sting. After a while, I heard Mom and Dad in the kitchen. They were talking soft, so I stretched out my neck, but all I could hear was mumble-mumble-skunk, mumble-mumble-skunk. I snuck up right next to my door to listen.

  “I heard something weird is going on over at the Vega house,” Mom said. “Their trash cans got knocked over every night last week. Garbage went all over the front lawn.”

  “Well, that’s not skunks,” Dad said. “They’re not big enough. That’s usually raccoons. Or some punk kids.”

  “On Sunday morning, Mrs. Vega found a big hole in one of the window screens too. She said someone took a tarp and some old ropes from the shelves.”

  “How do they even know what’s missing?” Dad laughed. “If someone started stealing from our garage, we’d never notice.”

  I’ve seen the Vegas’ garage. Everything is, like, arranged. So Mr. Vega would notice.

  “It’s not funny, Xavier. What do you think?”

  “Oh, come on. Mateo wouldn’t steal.”

  I curled my toes into the carpet, like a cat, and waited for Mom to say something. I mean, if anybody deserved to have trash on their lawn, it was Danny Vega, but I wouldn’t do that. Not ever. Too easy to get caught.

  “I don’t know. First weird things at the Vega house, now this story about skunks and a missing trike, plus all that stuff he’s saying is going on with Danny and Johnny …”

  She really thought it could be me.

  The teapot started hissing. Mom’s spoon clinked her cup. She was making tea.

  Probably peppermint.

  I pulled my feet back, peeking down at the little empty spaces I’d made in the carpet.

  “Mateo wouldn’t steal nothing,” Dad said, “and that story about the trike is just like that other junk he’s always telling you. He reads too many books, like his mama. Leave him alone. He rode that thing forever. He loved it, but he loves Mila too. The trike will show up if we let him alone for a few days. It’s time for him to grow up, but he’s gotta do it himself.”

  I heard them kiss.

  Mom walked down the hall, stirring her tea.

  Dad started to do the dishes. When Mom first went back to work, that was the deal she and Dad made. Mom still cooked, but Dad cleaned up, and nobody was supposed to tell Grandma Martinez.

  Dad turned his little radio on, the one all splattered wit
h paint, and played it soft. Sometimes he sings, like so bad that the lady next door complains. But he wasn’t singing that night.

  I slunk back to my chair.

  I glared at the computer screen and all my skunk notes.

  They both thought I hid the trike. And Mom thought all that stuff going on at the Vegas’ might be my fault.

  All the sudden, this was about more than keeping an eye on the neighborhood. I had to clear my name. Whatever was happening at the Vegas’ had to be connected to the skunks. I didn’t care about a bunch of old junk from the Vega’s garage, but I cared about my trike. I was going to get it back, and I was going to make those little skunks pay for getting me in trouble.

  When I’d read everything I could find on the Internet about skunks, I was ready to face the enemy. I took the computer back and put it on the counter next to Mom’s purse.

  “Find everything you need, little man?” Dad asked from the couch.

  “Yep.” I poured myself a huge glass of water and said good night.

  I squiggled under my covers, so Mom or Dad wouldn’t get mad if they checked on me, but I read comics with my flashlight and drank about ten more glasses of water so I would have to stay awake. I kept going to the kitchen to fill up my glass. Dad was watching some movie with exploding helicopters and boats.

  “You drink any more of that water, Mateo, and you’ll never get to sleep. Go easy, okay?”

  “Okay, Dad,” I said, trying to look sleepy. Knowing he and Mom both thought I stole that old trike and made up some crazy story made me feel less bad about tricking him.

  The next time I got up, Dad was still watching the movie, but he had slumped against the brown couch cushions. When he noticed me, I told him I forgot to brush my teeth and shuffled into the bathroom like I was really tired. I ran the electric toothbrush the whole two minutes like you’re supposed to, because I figured it would keep me awake. Vrrrrrrrrrrr. It’s like pushing a lawnmower around your mouth. You can still feel it in your hands when you’re finished.