Snap (2 page)

“Don't worry,” she whispered, patting Sancho's neck. “There's no way I'm leaving you behind with that creepy guy hanging around. I don't care what Dad says.”

Nervously, Danya glanced over her shoulder. Her dad was busy talking with the man in the suit. Any minute she was sure he'd storm over and demand to know what happened, and she and Sancho would both be in a heap of trouble. The injustice of it made her cheeks burn. If they left now, it'd be worse, but at least that man wouldn't get another chance to bother her pony. Swallowing her nerves, Danya untied Sancho's reins and climbed onto his back.

“Let's go,” she whispered. “Quickly.”

Sancho whinnied in agreement, licking her pant leg with his scratchy tongue. Together they rode off toward home.

CHAPTER TWO

The Secret Mailbox

“K
eep quiet,” Danya
hissed into Sancho's ear as she steered him behind the large oak tree next to her backyard patio. Sancho nodded and placed his hooves carefully down on the grass to keep from stepping on any twigs.

The Ruiz family's backyard was bigger than their entire house. They weren't great gardeners, so crabgrass and dandelions covered the ground, leaving only a few spots of lush green grass left. Danya thought it looked awesome, like a patchwork quilt. A row of tall, leafy-green oaks separated the patio from Sancho's pen, and to the east were the shed, Bessie the goat's pen, and a now-empty coop that'd once been filled with chickens. The toolshed was in the far western corner, next to the remains of the old stable, the one place in the yard that made Danya's stomach coil.

That old stable was where Sancho's mother, Jupiña, died. Even though the terrible fire that took her life had been months and months ago, Danya was convinced the thick smell of smoke still hovered in the air around that spot. She held her breath whenever she walked past.

Danya slid off Sancho's back, and he let out a soft, breathy snort that was little more than a hot puff of air against her neck. She peered through the branches. Her mom sat on the patio, her forehead damp with sweat from the Kentucky heat. Danya was a slightly smaller carbon copy of her mother—she had the same big brown eyes and crazy curls, and she even had a widow's peak on her forehead that made her face look like a heart.

Pia's mom, Danya's
tía
Carla, sat at the table across from her mother. The two women sipped coffee from tiny, ceramic mugs and spoke in low voices. An old shoebox sat on the table between them. Danya frowned at it. Her mother usually kept those shoeboxes in the back of her closet.

“This is going to be tricky,” Danya muttered, watching her mom and aunt. She'd decided on the way home that she and Sancho should hide out for a while—just until after her dad got home. Then Danya would brew a cup of his favorite tea, explain everything, and apologize for leaving the market when he needed help. But if she tried to lead Sancho around the house to his pen, it would bring them directly into her mom's line of sight. Danya's mom would be furious that she'd left the market with Sancho after she'd been told to leave him behind.

Suddenly a staticky, fuzzy voice sounded from Danya's writing bag, interrupting the silence in the yard.

“Danya? I've been waiting, but . . .” Static crackled from the walkie-talkie, interrupting her cousin's voice. “Hey, can you hear me? Snap?”

Pia! Danya grabbed for her bag quickly, digging around for the walkie-talkie. Sancho blew breath from between his lips, telling Pia
“shh!”

“Snap?” Pia said again. “Snap, you there?”

“Hello?” Maritza called from the patio. The chair creaked as her mother stood.

Danya fumbled nervously, dropping her bag before she could find the walkie-talkie. She threw her body over the bag to muffle Pia's staticky voice. From somewhere beneath her, she thought she heard her cousin say, “Over.”

“Danya? Is that you?” her mom said. For a moment there was silence. Danya inched forward on her hands and knees and peered around the tree to make sure her mom hadn't seen her. Sancho mimicked her, pulling himself forward on his hooves. His breath warmed Danya's neck as he, too, tried to peer around the tree.

Maritza stood at the edge of the patio, shielding her eyes from the sun as she scanned the yard. Then she turned and snatched the box from the table.

“Better put the mailbox away,” she said to Tía Carla. “Before Danya finds it.”

Danya frowned. Her mom was being pretty weird about some old shoebox. Why didn't she want Danya to find it? Maritza adjusted the box in her arms and Danya inhaled sharply. The word
Angie
was written across it in large block letters.

Angie Ruiz? Danya's
abuelita
, the famous novelist adventurer? Danya's heart leapt into her throat, like it always did when she thought of her grandmother. She leaned in closer, as though it would help her see inside the box, but Maritza slipped into the house. Above her, Sancho whickered in frustration, blowing a thick curl over Danya's eyes.

Though she was still curious about the box, Danya seized her opportunity to make their escape. She gathered her things as quietly as she could and led Sancho around the house, behind the old toolshed.

As they approached the remains of the stable, however, she froze. There were still a few blackened boards lying across the grass, and the ground below was scorched and dead, with just a few tiny shoots of grass starting to grow up near it. Danya edged around the boards and burned grass, holding her breath and keeping her eyes clenched shut. She felt like she was walking on a graveyard. Sancho seemed anxious, too. All of his muscles tensed up—it made Danya feel terribly guilty. He trotted faster, anxious to put the spot behind him. Neither of them liked to be reminded of what happened that day.

Beyond the toolshed, her dad had set up a faded orange tent that was now Danya and Pia's secret hideout. Christmas lights twinkled from the tree branches above, and a shadowy figure moved inside the orange canvas. Danya pulled Sancho along, racing for the tent. Every step she put between herself and the burned grass and boards made her feel a little better.

She tied Sancho's reins to the nearby tree, where he would be safely out of view of the house, and was just lifting the canvas flap of the tent when Pia shot out, knocking her over with a hug that was really more of a tackle. The girls rolled backward into the grass, laughing as they tried to untangle themselves. Instantly Danya was happy again.

Danya and Pia liked to say they were practically twins, even though they didn't really look much alike. They were both eleven and three quarters, though—their birthdays only three days apart—and they'd been celebrating them together for as long as they could remember. Pia had the same deep, golden skin and chocolaty brown hair as Danya, but she was tall and gangly, almost entirely made up of sharp elbows, pointy knees, and limbs that seemed to stretch forever. Her hair was curly like Danya's, but Pia wore it so short that it stuck out of her head in angles and spikes and gave her the look of someone who'd stuck her finger in an electric socket.

“You're here you're here you're here!” Pia hooted. She leapt to her feet and pulled Danya into the tent, yanking so hard that both girls toppled back onto the ground. “Secret handshake?”

Danya bumped Pia's fist with her own, then the girls tapped elbows and leaned back to slap their feet together, causing the orange tent to shake around them. The tent was small and already crowded with books stacked along its sides in wobbly towers. Half the books were old library copies from the school where Maritza worked part time as a librarian. She got to keep the old, crumbling books for Danya when the school replaced them with new copies.

“How're things in Danya Land?” Pia asked, plopping on the ground. Her lips widened into a smile, showing off the hollow space where her last baby tooth had been. Danya's baby teeth had fallen out early on, but Pia's last baby tooth had stayed put, like it was staging a protest, until Pia's dentist finally had to pull it out himself. Her grown-up tooth still hadn't come in, and Pia liked to make up stories about how she'd
really
lost her tooth in a motorcycle accident when she tried to perform a triple flip through a ring of fire.

Danya thought about the weirdness of the morning—the man at the farmer's market and how her mom was hiding an old shoebox. But the weirdness was more a feeling than anything else, and she didn't know how to explain it, so she simply shrugged.

“Good,” she said. She didn't like to look in Pia's eyes when she lied, so instead she focused on the hollow space in Pia's smile. “How 'bout you? Where's your dad? I just saw your mom out on the patio.”

“He's visiting his sister or something,” Pia said. “Oh! I finished that book you gave me.” She grabbed the very first Adventures of Ferdinand and Dapple book out of her overnight bag and handed it to Danya. “It was pretty cool. I liked the part about the heroic tasks.”

Danya took the book from Pia's hands and ran a thumb over the cover picture of Ferdinand on top of his horse. In the first Ferdinand and Dapple book, Ferdinand realized he wanted to be a great hero, so he set out with Dapple, his trusty steed, to complete the Fifteen
Heroic Tasks. Danya used to daydream about completing the tasks herself, with Sancho. But that kind of stuff only happened in stories.

As usual, she flipped to the very last page and studied the black-and-white photograph of Angie Ruiz.

“Something kind of weird just happened,” Danya said, looking up from the book. Then, before she could stop herself, she blurted out what she'd just seen: her mother gripping the shoebox, saying she didn't want Danya to find it. The name,
Angie
, written in black letters.

“Dude! A
secret box
!” Pia bounded to her feet and nearly knocked over a wobbly stack of books. Her mouth twisted into a smile again, showing off her missing tooth. “What are we waiting for?”

Danya couldn't help grinning. Pia made everything an adventure.

The girls left Sancho safely hidden in the trees (even though he grunted and pawed at the dirt—Sancho
hated
being left behind) and crept toward Danya's house, sticking to the shadows and darting behind trees to keep their mothers from seeing them. Danya and Pia's moms were once again sitting at the patio table, sipping their
café con leche
and talking in low voices. Just as Pia and Danya ducked behind a clay pot filled with herbs, Maritza leaned across the table and wrapped Tía Carla into a hug. For a second, it looked to Danya like her aunt had tears in her eyes. But before she could get a better look, she felt a yank on her arm.

“Now,” Pia hissed, dragging Danya forward. They darted across the patio, slipped into the house, and eased the door shut with a barely audible
click
. Once inside, Danya pushed aside the curtain covering the back door window and stared out onto the patio. Her mom and Pia's mom were still hugging. It definitely looked like Tía Carla was crying.

“Is your mom okay?” Danya asked, watching Maritza pat her
tía
Carla on the back.

“She's fine. Come on. If you don't hurry, they'll see us.” Pia grabbed Danya's arm and pulled her down the hall.

Light filtered into the bedroom from around the curtains over the window, giving everything a dusty gray glow. Danya pushed the door shut behind her, feeling a shiver that was part guilt, part excitement. She wasn't supposed to go into her parents' bedroom without being asked, and she definitely wasn't supposed to go through their closet.

But then Pia glanced over her shoulder, grinning her wide, gap-toothed smile, and Danya shivered again. Maybe this was against the rules, but Danya just couldn't shake the feeling that her parents weren't telling her something. Ferdinand would have figured out what the secret box meant—and so would she.

Danya tugged on Pia's sleeve, motioning to a set of folding doors in the corner. Pia nodded, and the girls crept across the room and pushed the closet doors open.

“Bet it's up there.” Pia pointed to a row of shoeboxes lining a shelf at the top of the closet. Danya recognized the red one from the patio table. The “mailbox,” her mom had called it. She went up on her tiptoes, but the closet shelf was too high. Her fingers were a good two inches from the bottom of the shoebox. “Give me a boost?”

“Let me try.” Pia jumped—once, twice, three times. She caught the box with her fingers, causing the whole thing to tumble off the shelf. The shoebox hit the floor and the lid popped off, spilling photographs, letters, and postcards everywhere.

“Oops!” Pia said. She and Danya dropped to their knees and started gathering the photographs from the floor. Mostly they were old, faded pictures of Danya's parents back when they were very young. Danya pushed them aside. Beneath a few dozen more photographs was a stack of old letters bound together with a faded green ribbon.

Danya slid the ribbon off and studied the first envelope. It was her mother's handwriting again:

Angie Ruiz c/o The Palace Retirement Community

1869 West Cervantes Street, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830

“Wait . . . what?” Danya studied the letter, confused. This couldn't be right. Her
abuelita
lived in
Cuba
, not Florida. She didn't own a phone, and she was too busy traveling around South America to write or visit—that's why she'd never answered any of Danya's letters. Danya's heart beat wildly in her chest. She tore the letter open. Inside was a photograph from Danya's first birthday, when she got frosting up her nose from the birthday cupcake her mother had made.