Free Until I Find Julian by Patricia Reilly Giff Page B

her shoulders. “So I’ve been walking ever since, grabbing food here and there. Sometimes people help.”
    I shake my head.
    “You see?” she says. “You see? I can’t read. I can’t write. And the odd part is that I love my grandfather. He feeds the animals outside, and when he holds out his hand, birds swoop down and rest on his wrist, eating small pieces of fruit.”
    I don’t know what to say.
    “I can’t do anything,” she whispers.
    “You know all about the desert,” I say. “And you swim better than anyone.” I reach back and loop her bag over my arm. Still she doesn’t move. “I’m here because of you, Angel.”
    The train explodes into the station with a blast of wind behind it. Bits of paper swirl onto the platform. Whatever Angel says next is lost. We close our eyes against the dust that rises up from the tracks below.
    “I’m really tired,” I tell her.
    “Mateo-Matty.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out Sal’s money, the paper bill and silver coins clenched in her hands, and gives them to me.
    I take them, because without them, she can’t change her mind and take the train away from here.
    We walk home together. Only a few cars are on the road, their lights beaming. The houses are dark; people are wrapped up in bed, sleeping.
    At the back of the house, Angel stops. “You left the kitchen door open.” She’s almost back to her old self.
    Inside, I close the door slowly, quietly. We stand there looking at each other. I reach into the closet and pull out a can of soup; I can almost taste tomatoes and onions.
    “I have no more secrets,” Angel says. “Not one.”
    I nod, opening the soup. Later I’ll write a memory about Abuelita. I know now why Angel’s so mean sometimes. I think about her grandfather and wonder if he wishes things were different.

Abuelita and I walked back along the creek road, carrying packages of fabric from the post office. They weren’t so heavy, but they were bulky, and the sun beat down on us. I could hear her heavy breathing; she began to walk slower.
    Halfway home, she tapped my shoulder. “Let’s do this…. ”
    “What?”
    Without answering, she put her package under a tree. In two seconds, her shoes came off, and her bare feet rested in the mud.
    She grinned, and for the first time I could picture her as a young girl.
    She went ahead of me, down to the creek, and splashed into the water, holding up the hem of her housedress. “Why are you waiting, my boy?”
    I dropped my package on top of hers, slipped out of my sneakers and into the water right behind her, both of us saying “Ah” at the same moment.
    As she reached down to splash me with a little water, we saw the miserable old woman walking along on the other side of the creek. She glanced at us and sniffed, then looked away as she kept going.
    “Old witch,” I whispered, thinking Abuelita would laugh. “Wretched.”
    “Poor thing,” she said instead.
    “Ha!” I cupped my hands and brought water up to trickle over my face.
    “People who act tough, who act mean, are usually unhappy,” she said, twisting the braid that hung over her shoulder. “And that one is surely unhappy. She has no one there to love.” Abuelita turned her head. “And I have you. So lucky.”
    I was the lucky one. I knew that.
    She looked serious. “I know you will be a writer; it’s easy to see that. But remember you have to study people like that one.” She pointed toward the road where the woman had disappeared. “And maybe,” she said, “you’ll understand.”
    After a while, we splashed our way out of the creek, shaking ourselves off to dry. I grinned seeing her wet dress, her braid dripping.
    “Yes, I was young once,” she said.
    “A thousand years ago,” I teased.
    She patted my cheek. “True,” she said as I smiled up at her.

In the morning, before Angel wakes up, I tear a piece of paper out of the notebook. I’m not such a hot artist, but still I draw, erasing every two