Free The Memories of Ana Calderón by Graciela Limón Page B

start off in school right away.”
    â€œâ€™Apá!…” Several voices shouted out in protest.
    â€œWe don’t know how to talk the way they do here. How can we go to school?” Alejandra confronted Rodolfo. “Why don’t we work with you? That way we can get a house right away.”
    Rodolfo and Reyes looked at one another and then at the children. “No, Aleja, you need just a little bit of school. After that, you can start working.”
    It was late September when the Calderón children joined the rest of the barrio kids who walked to Hammel Street School. Ana and Octavio were placed in the sixth grade and Alejandra in the third, and their fear of not knowing how to speak English disappeared once they saw that most of the children were just like them.
    Ana felt older than the other children in her class, but she liked school. It was difficult for her to forget the tomato fields and the women who had worked by her side. Her mind, however, was captivated from the beginning with learning the new language, and she concentrated on how her teacher used pictures and the blackboard to teach new words.
    At the end of the first day in school, as Señora Soto was serving them dinner, the Calderón and Soto children jabbered about their experiences. When the noise got so loud, the woman was forced to shush them into silence. After a few minutes, the talking began all over again.
    Ana looked at Octavio and said, “I learned to say some words in English. How about you?”
    Octavio smiled at her, exposing the contents of his stuffed mouth, but he didn’t answer her question. Alejandra made a face of disgust as she said, “I hated it. I don’t want to be by myself with a bunch of kids I don’t know. I wish we could go back home. I liked it better there.”
    â€œAna and me were put with the older kids because we’re smarter than you.” Octavio laughed, showing her that he liked being in the same classroom with Ana. But Alejandra resented it when he bragged about himself and Ana. She felt insulted and could only glare at him as she mumbled, “
Burro!
”
    Ana thought of the cove back home, the palm trees, andhow she, her sister, and Octavio spent most of their time playing by the water. She looked down at the plate in front of her and wondered why she felt so different now. Not much time had passed, she told herself, and yet she didn’t want to play with either Octavio or Alejandra any more. She spoke up again. “I liked the teacher a lot.” Looking at Alejandra, she explained, “Her name is Miss Nugent, and she told me that if I try, I can learn right away.”
    â€œLiar! How could she tell you that if she doesn’t know how to speak like us?” Alejandra challenged her sister’s remark.
    Ana stopped, fork in mid-air, wondering how it had happened. “No. I’m not a liar, and even if I don’t know how she told me, still, I understood her.”
    Alejandra jumped out of her chair with the pretext of putting her plate in the sink, but once she was behind Ana, she put horns over her head, making everyone laugh.
    The days that followed turned into weeks and months. Ana became fond of school. She learned new words every day until she began to put them together, and by the end of the term, she was able to stay after school to talk with Miss Nugent while helping to clean the blackboard and dust off the erasers.
    Octavio, on the other hand, was not interested in learning anything, and from the first day, instead of concentrating on what the teacher was showing them, decided to become the class clown. He had a winning way about him, so much that he even became the teacher’s preferred student almost immediately, despite his disinterest in her lessons.
    He noticed his impact on girls, and when he realized that there was something about him that made them like him, he fooled around, intentionally making them blush and