The Midnight War of Mateo Martinez Read online

  Whishhhh—the water started swirling in.

  “Come on!” I said, grabbing the dustpan and broom.

  Mila followed me out the side door and down the driveway. She held the dustpan steady while I swept up every bit of Dad’s broken work light and the smashed tamales. Dad’s not much of a noticer—he loses stuff—which ticks Mom off. So I figured as long as I cleaned everything up, Dad wouldn’t notice the missing light and I wouldn’t get into trouble. Mila and I dumped all the broken bits in the trash and ran back inside. I grabbed the second can of soup.

  “What’s that one for?” asked Mila, shuffling behind me.

  “For me.” I slammed the bathroom door in her face.

  I stood in front of the sink for a minute, trying to figure out what I was forgetting. The driveway was clean. My sweats were in the wash. The can of soup was heavy and cold in my hand.

  The opener.

  I cracked the door open.

  Before I could even whisper for Mila, she shoved the can opener through the crack. I grabbed it and clicked the door closed again.

  Okay, just so you know, showering in cold tomato soup is really disgusting. I dumped it over my head with my eyes squeezed shut, then shampooed my hair five times. At least I could use warm water for that part.

  When I opened the bathroom door again, Mila was still there.

  She wrinkled her nose. “It didn’t work. You still stink.”

  Then we both heard Mom’s door open.

  Click, click, click … she was walking down the hall in her work shoes.

  Mila looked at me.

  “Quick! Go get dressed—we have to get out of here,” I said. “Tell Mom we’re going to Ashwin’s for cinnamon buns!”

  I ran to my room. Even without my T-shirt and sweats in there, the place still stank.

  The only thing to do was leave the house as fast as possible. I heard Dad walk into the kitchen and turn on the coffee grinder. We had to go!

  I threw on some soccer shorts and a fresh T-shirt and snuck out into the hall. Shoving my feet into sneakers, I snatched up my backpack.

  “Come on, Mila,” I whispered under my breath, hovering by the front door.

  Mila popped out into the hall from her room. She must not have brushed her hair, because it was still flipped up like a peacock’s tail, and her shirt was on inside out. I waved her toward the door.

  “Bye, Mommy. Bye, Daddy,” she said. “Mateo’s taking me to Ashwin’s for cinnamon buns!”

  “Bye, Mom,” I yelled, opening the front door.

  I’d made it halfway down the driveway before Mila slammed the front door. She ran over in her black cowgirl boots and something in her backpack was tink-tink-tinking with every step. Whatever she had in there was definitely not homework, but I had no time to make her take it back.

  “You never take me to Ashwin’s for cinnamon buns!” she said, grabbing the straps of her backpack.

  “There are no cinnamon buns, Mila. We just needed to get out of the house before Mom smelled me.”

  “Awwww … but I’m hungry.”

  12.

  The Smell of Cinnamon

  Ashwin lives right around the corner on Calle Canela, another funny little one-block street. When we got to his yard, I told Mila to wait on the front porch.

  “I’ll go get him. He might not even be ready yet.”

  I opened the green front door and walked through the living room. Everything is always way-organized at the Vaz house, and it smells like hot rice, even when Mrs. Vaz isn’t cooking. Not the kind of rice my mom makes either. It’s this white, skinny kind called jasmine. So I felt kinda rude walking in smelling like a dead skunk, but I knew Mrs. Vaz wouldn’t say anything. Once, I left perfectly-stamped muddy shoe prints all over the rug—actually, rugs, because there are a lot of them—and Mrs. Vaz acted like the rain outside was her fault. I peeked into the kitchen. Ashwin sat at the counter, scribbling away at his math homework.

  “Wait, wait. I’m not ready,” Ashwin said. “Anyway, you’re early. I was about to call you. My mom made her cinnamon buns. They’re almost done.”

  I sat down on the stool next to Ashwin. He thumped his sneakers on the kitchen island. “Number four is wrong,” I told him.

  “So what? I’m almost done. Anyway, don’t get so close. You smell like Mike Feltcher’s armpit.”

  I was about to tell Ashwin how two skunks really did steal my old trike and they had names and I was probably, definitely, in trouble, when the kitchen timer buzzed. Mrs. Vaz came into the kitchen on her sneak-feet. I almost always smell her before I hear her, because she wears way more perfume than my mom. She took the buns out of the oven, and the whole room started to feel sweet and sticky.

  “Good morning, Mateo,” she said. “You must have a cinnamon bun detector in that backpack.”

  She slid two out of the pan and put them on plates. Clink. She put one down on the counter in front of me. Little sugary threads of icing gooed down the sides. I licked my lips and nibbled a golden raisin that I’d plucked from the top. The bun was still too hot to eat, so I just stared at it. I put my nose over the steamy part, and when I did that, I almost couldn’t smell skunk anymore.

  Almost.

  “You should bring Mila next time. I always make plenty,” Mrs. Vaz added. She sniffed at the air a little, like she could detect some not-cinnamon smell but she couldn’t quite figure out where the smell was coming from.

  Ashwin smirked down at his homework.

  “Mila doesn’t like cinnamon buns,” I said. “My mom always drives her to school when I come here for breakfast.”

  “Is that so?” asked Mrs. Vaz, wiping her hands on a dish towel.

  “Yeah, Mom,” Ashwin said. “Mrs. M always does.”

  “Then who is that peeking through the screen door?”

  Me and Ashwin both groaned. There she was. Mila. Waving at us from outside.

  “Why’d you bring Mila?” Ashwin asked while his mom let her in.

  “I’ll tell you on the way to school—and you are not going to believe it,” I whispered, hoping he would believe me this time.

  Mila scrambled up onto the stool next to me, looking as puffy and sweet as a cinnamon bun. I felt a little guilty for making her wait outside. Mrs. Vaz put a sticky bun in front of her too. Mila picked up the whole bun and stuffed a huge bite into her mouth.

  “Did you tell him yet?” Mila asked me with her mouth full.

  “Shhhh … wait until we’re outside. It has to be a secret.”

  Mila nodded like ten times and took another huge chomp. She didn’t even put her bun down between bites. She waved it around in the air, making little hummy noises while she chewed. I ate mine one bite at a time, being careful not to get my fingers too sticky. Ashwin bent over and nibbled his without picking the bun off the plate, then leaned back over his math homework.

  “I came up with a good one for Mr. León’s collection,” he said. “What do snakes have on their bath towels?”

  “Dude, focus and finish your homework. We’ve got something important to tell you,” I hissed. “Besides, that one’s dumb. Snakes don’t even take baths.”

  “Yef they do,” Mila said, her mouth oozing icing. “Emma told me snakes lick themselves just like kitties. It’s why they have those long, flippy tongues!”

  Ashwin laughed so hard he almost fell off his stool. Even Mrs. Vaz laughed, her back turned, as she poured another cup of chai. Grownups let some pretty silly stuff slide if they think it’s cute. Normally I would have set Mila straight, but that day, we didn’t have time.

  “How’s that homework?” Mrs. Vaz asked over Ashwin’s cackling.

  Ashwin hunched over his paper again. “One more problem and we can go,” he said.

  I peeked again and decided not to tell him number nine was wrong too.

  “Finished!” he said.

  Ashwin crammed the homework into his duct-taped backpack and zipped the pack half closed. Mrs. Vaz handed him a paper towel, and he wrapped his
sticky bun in it and started to walk to the door. Mila hopped down from her stool, stuffing the last chunk of her sticky bun into her mouth.

  “Pfanks for da ticky bun.” Mila waved with her gooey hand, mouth all full.

  “You’re welcome, Mila,” Mrs. Vaz said.

  “Goodbye, Mrs. Vaz,” I said, pushing Mila out the door.

  We all hurried down the back steps.

  “So what’s going on?” Ashwin asked once we got to the sidewalk.

  “Well, first of all, the Internet was wrong,” I told Ashwin.

  “No way. The Internet is never wrong,” Ashwin said.

  “Last night, it was wrong about a lot,” Mila said.

  Then I told Ashwin everything.

  Almost.

  13.

  The Ally

  All the sudden, it wasn’t so hard to convince Ashwin that I’d gone into glorious battle with two little skunks. I mean, I did smell pretty bad, and Mila had seen them too.

  It wasn’t even hard to convince him that we had to get the trike back. Our honor required it. Protecting the neighborhood was a duty that we couldn’t ignore. And like I said, Ashwin understands about having honor and being a knight. I needed to bring back the trike, clear my name, and make those skunks pay. Ashwin got it. He always thinks my plans are awesome.

  By the time we had walked to school, the bell was already ringing, and like I said, me and Ashwin don’t sit together anymore, so The Plan had to wait. I picked a book out for Sustained Silent Reading—Mr. León says it’s good to start every day with something quiet—and tried to suck in my stink as I walked back to my desk.

  I hadn’t even opened my book yet when the kids around me started to whisper.

  “Stink bomb malfunction,” I said under my breath, which maybe wasn’t such a good idea. A couple of kids laughed.

  “Mmmhrgh.” Mr. León cleared his throat. “Come on up, Mr. Martinez.”

  I walked up to his gray desk, holding my SSR book.

  “What’s all this whispering about?”

  I rolled onto the sides of my sneakers and shrugged.

  Mr. León spread his palms on the desk, then fiddled with the handle of the drawer where I knew he kept his referral slips.

  My brain started to spin. Did he hear the thing I said about the stink bomb? I didn’t know, but I had to say something. “I, um … Well, Ashwin came up with this new animal joke, only I don’t think it’s so good. It’s, ‘What do snakes have on their bath towels?’ and the punch line is, ‘Hiss and Hers.’” I shrugged. “I like the jokes that are real, you know? Like the gorilla booger joke, but you already said no to that one.”

  Mr. León took a deep breath in and then sighed.

  I was sure he smelled me.

  I gave him my best, most innocent face—I learned it from Mila. I mean, maybe Mr. León would think the smell was just some new BO, like Mike Feltcher had. I could totally grow hair under my armpits. Any day now.

  Rebecca, this girl who always sits up front, was rolling her eyes and whispering to the girl next to her.

  “Rebecca, eyes in your book, please. Mateo …” I swear, Mr. León tried not to smile. “If I get any stink bomb reports from the custodian, you and I will be having a serious conversation.” He put his hands back on top of his desk.

  “Got it, Mr. León.” I nodded and took a step back.

  “In the meantime, Mr. Martinez, put it on the board.”

  “Put what on the board?”

  “The joke.”

  I grinned and walked up to the Animal Joke board. I could feel Mr. León watching me. He didn’t actually say which joke to put up. He just said the joke, but we’d talked about two. I wrote, Why do gorillas … and peeked over my shoulder. Mr. León just smirked, so I put the rest up. I made it through the whole morning without any more whispering from Rebecca, and Mr. León never did open that drawer of referral slips.

  At lunch, me and Ashwin walked down the row of shiny metal tables, looking for an empty one. Danny Vega, Martin Ortega, Gabe Romero, and Johnny Ramirez were all sitting at the table closest to the dry, yellow-green field. When we moved past them, they all switched into Spanish, which is kind of like a secret language on the playground.

  Ashwin threw down his lunch bag on the last empty table, right next to the trash cans. It skidded across the top and slid off the other side and then thumped down onto the hot blacktop under the table.

  “Man, I thought I was going to make it that time.” He picked his backpack up and started to unzip the cover of his lunchbox. Blueberry yogurt oozed over the edge of the lid.

  He scraped at some yogurt with his sandwich.

  Like that was totally normal.

  “How do you think the skunks figured out how to ride the trike? Do you think they have a disease? Are they, like, crazy mutants created by toxic waste?” As Ashwin talked, he waved around half a salami sandwich. Then he dipped the sandwich in his yogurt and took a huge bite. Sometimes eating with Ashwin is weird. You kind of have to ignore it.

  “Don’t know,” I shrugged. “I don’t even think it was hard for them. They could just ride the trike.” I wasn’t sure how much to tell Ashwin. He totally believed me already. If I said the skunks could talk, would he think I was joking? I decided to keep that part of the night watch to myself until I was sure what was going on. Anyway, showing him would be easier than telling him.

  “So where do you think the skunks took the trike?”

  I didn’t answer because I saw Danny get up from his table and start walking over to the trash cans. He wadded up his big brown bag and pretended to shoot it like a basketball. It missed the trash cans and thunked down onto the table between me and Ashwin. Little bits of green Jell-O sprayed everywhere. I got some in my eye.

  “Whoops,” Danny said. “I always miss when you guys are sitting there.”

  Ashwin squirmed a little. I squinted up at Danny and saw the yard-duty teacher hovering next to the kindergarten kids.

  “No problem, man,” I told Danny. “I heard you have kind of a problem with trash.”

  It was a lame line, not my best, but Ashwin laughed and tried to hide his smile. I’d already told him about the mess all over the Vegas’ lawn. Ashwin stuffed another bite of soggy yogurt-sandwich into his mouth but had trouble chewing it.

  Danny smacked his hands on the end of the picnic table and leaned down over us. Ashwin flinched, and maybe I did too.

  I heard some kids at a first-grade table laugh.

  “If I find out it was you, you’re gonna be sorry, weirdo.” Danny needed to brush his teeth, and he was leaning so close I could see the freckle on his nose that was shaped like California.

  Martin, Gabe, and Johnny popped their heads up from their lunch table, ready to bring Danny some backup. When Johnny saw me, he started staring down at his lunch. He’d been my best friend for four years. I know even more about Johnny than I do about Ashwin. I know he likes stuff that glows in the dark: fireworks, shirts with bones on them, and that cool electric-looking algae in the ocean. I know he’s afraid of lizards and loves his baby sister, Noemi, pretty hard. And I know his real name is Juan but only his Mom calls him that. Even though I only saw him at school now, or riding bikes up on the overpass, I knew him and he knew me. So I knew he wasn’t gonna come over and back up Danny. Not in a fight with me. But Martin kinda half stood up and Gabe definitely gave me some stink eye.

  I leaned back from Danny’s breath and saw the yard-duty teacher coming down the row of tables. She was pretending not to watch us, but I could tell she was.

  “I don’t know what you mean, man. I thought you were practicing trashsketball on your front lawn. Was your mom mad?” I asked Danny, and crammed some chips into my mouth.

  “Whatever, weirdo. We put in an alarm. Next time anybody gets near the trash, me and my dad are coming out with baseball bats. And I only miss when I want to.” Danny wrinkled up his nose like he smelled something gross, probably me, and the California-shaped freckle on his nose looked like
it cracked in half.

  Danny was a natural disaster, like an earthquake or a hurricane. You never knew how bad it was gonna be until it was over. Sometimes he would just roll through, shake things up, and maybe knock somebody’s hat off. Nobody got hurt. Other times—no warning, nobody watching—bam. Major damage. Like with that soccer ball. I don’t get why he has any friends left. But I guess, before Ashwin came, I used to just put up with Danny too.

  When the bell rang, Danny smacked the table one more time, then thudded off to the soccer field.

  He left his wadded-up brown paper bag oozing green goo on our table.

  “It was kind of dumb for him to tell us that,” said Ashwin. “I mean, if it was you messing with the lawn, that would have been dumb to warn you about the alarm.”

  “Yeah, Daniel’s a real thinker.”

  We both laughed, and my heart started, like, beating again.

  “Let’s go stake out the monkey bars,” I said.

  But before we could get up, the yard-duty teacher came over and pointed to the mess on our table. She didn’t even say anything. I think she knew the trash wasn’t ours. I grumbled a little under my breath, but I threw away Danny’s sticky oozing-green-goo bag anyway.

  If I was going to make it through the rest of recess alive, I needed to stay on Ms. Printz’s good side.

  14.

  The Plan

  So, the rest of recess didn’t exactly go like I planned. Danny and Martin did that thing again. Launching missiles. After one close call, me and Ashwin hopped off the monkey bars before those guys could come over and do any more trash-talking.

  We found Ms. Printz to see if she would do anything about it. But we chickened out of blaming Danny and Martin when she asked, “Who kicked the ball at you?” and “Did you tell them how you felt about that?” and “Do you want me to help you talk it out with them?” all in one breath. What I really wanted was for Ms. Printz to send those guys to the office, but she never does, so what’s the point in telling?

  Nobody else even tried to hang around the monkey bars. It’s not like Johnny and those guys even use them. I guess they just don’t want anybody to have fun on the bars when they’re around.