Free The Skirt by Gary Soto

A fter stepping off the bus, Miata Ramirez turned around and gasped, “Ay!” The school bus lurched, coughed a puff of stinky exhaust, and made a wide turn at the corner. The driver strained as he worked the steering wheel like the horns of a bull.
    Miata yelled for the driver to stop. Shestarted running after the bus. Her hair whipped against her shoulders. A large book bag tugged at her arm with each running step, and bead earrings jingled as they banged against her neck.
    “My skirt!” she cried loudly. “Stop!”
    She had forgotten her
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skirt. It was still on the bus. She and her best friend, Ana, both fourth graders, had been bothered by boys. The two girls moved from seat to seat. The boys followed and taunted them with a rubber frog. Giggling, the girls moved away from Larry and Juan. They especially moved far away from Rodolfo, a boy with green eyes and hair so shiny black that it was nearly blue. He was trying to write his name on their arms and asked them to play basketball with him after school.
    “Come on,” he had argued. “It’s Friday. There is no school tomorrow.”

    But Miata and Ana had ignored him as they moved from seat to seat. They looked out the window and nibbled secretly on animal crackers when the boys weren’t bothering them.
    “Please stop!” Miata yelled as she ran after the bus. Her legs kicked high and her lungs burned from exhaustion.
    She needed that skirt. On Sunday after church she was going to dance
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. Her troupe had practiced for three months. If she was the only girl without a costume, her parents would wear sunglasses out of embarrassment. Miata didn’t want that.
    The skirt had belonged to her mother when she was a child in Hermosillo, Mexico. What is Mom going to think? Miata asked herself. Her mother was always scolding Miata for losing things. She lost combs, sweaters, books, lunchmoney, and homework. One time she even lost her shoes at school. She had left them on the baseball field where she had raced against two boys. When she returned to get them, the shoes were gone.
    Worse, she had taken her skirt to school to show off. She wanted her friends to see it. The skirt was old, but a rainbow of shiny ribbons still made it pretty. She put it on during lunchtime and danced for some of her friends. Even a teacher stopped to watch.
    What am I going to do now? Miata asked herself. She slowed to a walk. Her hair had come undone. She felt hot and sticky.
    She could hear the bus stopping around the corner. Miata thought of running through a neighbor’s yard. But that would only get her in trouble.
    “Oh, man,” Miata said under her breath. She felt like throwing herself on the ground and crying. But she knew that would only make things worse. Her mother would ask, “Why do you get so dirty all the time?”
    Miata turned the corner and saw a paper plane sail from the rear window. It hung in the air for a second and then crashed into a ragged rosebush as the bus drove off. She carefully plucked the plane from the bush. When she unfolded it she discovered Rodolfo’s math quiz. He had a perfect score. A gold star glittered under his name.
    “He’s smart,” she said. “For a boy.”
    She crumpled the paper plane and looked up. The bus was now out of sight. So was her beautiful skirt.
    “Darn it,” Miata muttered. Shrugging her book bag over her shoulder, shestarted walking home. Miata wanted to blame the boys but knew it was her fault. She should have told the boys to leave Ana and her alone. She should have snatched that frog and thrown it out the window.
    What am I going to do now? she asked herself. She prayed that Ana would find the skirt on the bus. She’s got to see it, Miata thought.
It’s right there. Just look, Ana
.
    As Miata rounded the corner onto her block she saw her brother, Little Joe, and his friend Alex. They were walking with cans smashed onto the heels of their shoes, laughing and pushing each other. Their mouths were fat with