Breaking Through Read Online Free Page B

lined up behind him. The gray clouds sailed above us, breaking up into smaller ones, leaving little openings of blue sky.
    Starting that following Monday, Roberto and I spent more time at school and work than at home. Roberto picked me up after school, and we drove directly to Main Street School to clean it. We headed down to the basement of the main building to the janitor's room to get the cleaning cart. Roberto had keys to every room and building. He carried them on a key chain attached to the
side of his belt. The keys clanged as he walked, and the more noise they made, the more he stuck out his chest and lifted his chin. We worked like clockwork. While Roberto cleared off and dusted the tables, I emptied the trash. Then I placed the chairs on the tables to clear the floor for him to sweep with a dust mop. After he swept, he placed the chairs back in their place while I cleaned the blackboards. We cleaned the boys and girls bathrooms last. At nine o'clock we went home, ate dinner, finished our homework, and went to bed. On Saturdays and Sundays we continued working in the fields, picking carrots and thinning lettuce.
    At the end of every two weeks, Roberto got a check from the Santa Maria school district, which he cashed to buy groceries and other necessities. Any leftover money he hid underneath our mattress and later sent to our family in Mexico in care of our
tía
Chana, Papá's older sister, with whom our family was staying in Tlaquepaque, a suburb of Guadalajara.
    One evening when we got home after work, we discovered that someone had broken in our house and stolen our cash. That month we could not send money to our parents. From that day on, Roberto hid the cash inside a chipped ceramic bust of Jesus Christ that we had found in the public dump.

Stepping Out
    Every time Roberto and I went home in the evenings to an empty house, I felt lonely. Sometimes I imagined hearing the laughter and bickering of my brothers and sister. I longed for the smell and taste of home cooking, especially flour tortillas,
frijoles de la olla,
and
carne con chile.
I missed seeing Papá's eyes water when he listened to Mexican music on the radio and hearing him repeat stories about Mexico when he was young. I even missed his bad moods and his constant complaints about his back pain and headaches. I buried my head in my schoolbooks. I wanted to keep on learning and to escape the loneliness I felt for my family.
    At school I felt alone most of the time, but I did get some attention from my classmates because I did well in math. Mr. Milo arranged our desks according to how well we did on math tests. The student with the highest score
had the honor of sitting in the front seat, first row. A few times I took the first seat, but most of the time I sat in the second one. Marjorie Ito, the daughter of the Japanese sharecropper for whom we picked strawberries, almost always took first place. My classmates called me "hotshot" and teased me because I worked hard. I did not mind it. I knew they were being friendly. Besides, I wanted to be accepted and, most of all, respected. Papá insisted on our being respectful and respected. "If you respect others, they will respect you," he often said.
    To make friends, I began to pay close attention to what my classmates did and talked about. During recess, the girls talked about boys, music, and dancing. The boys discussed sports, cars, and girls. When they got together, they talked about different songs and singers and about going to dances on Saturday nights at the Veterans Memorial Building, which was across the street from El Camino Junior High. Sometimes their animated conversations turned into arguments about the best singer or song. Many of the song titles were funny: "Jailhouse Rock," "Rock Around the Clock," and "Venus in Blue Jeans." I tried to make sense out of them and pictured them in my mind. Why would a rock circle a clock? Why would the planet Venus dress in jeans? I soon discovered