La Linea Read Online Free Page A

chiles had grown fat and shiny and long.
    â€œI bet you can’t grow ones as good as mine,” Elena had taunted in the spring. I took her bet, to shut her up. I checked my plants every day. I tried to do what Elena did with hers. I even gave them extra water, but it was useless. I couldn’t compete.
    And that wasn’t all. When Abuelita put me in charge of the animals last year, the cow quit giving milk and a goat dropped dead for no reason. Under Elena’s care, the cow gave more milk than ever. Good thing. We needed the money we’d get from selling it to Señor Gonzalez.
    Abuelita said I didn’t pay enough attention. She said my mind was always somewhere else. Anybody could grow a plant or raise an animal! But Abuelita didn’t scold. She didn’t even seem to blame me. To Abuelita, both my strengths and weaknesses were facts, as true as the rising sun or the drought that the sun caused.
    â€œÂ¡Fíjate!” she said last week. I hadn’t latched the gate and three chickens disappeared. “Elena is younger, and already she can take care of the rancho better than you.” There wasn’t a bit of rancor in her voice.
    Abuelita was right, and I didn’t care. Each failure I had on the rancho was just more proof to myself that my future lay across la línea, in California. If I’d ever belonged in San Jacinto, I didn’t belong now.

CHAPTER 7
    â€œElena, I need your help. ¡Levántate! ” I shook her shoulders roughly. She groaned and pushed my hand away.
    â€œLet me sleep, Miguel. Please, please.”
    â€œNo, come on. Now!” I pulled off her blankets and jerked the pillow out from under her head. It was already late and I had a lot to do. The goat needed to be slaughtered for the fiesta, and I needed Elena to do it.
    An hour later Elena finally made it down to our little barn. I’d already tethered the goat and gathered the tools for the slaughter. Tío used a gunshot to the brain to kill his goats, but Elena preferred a hammer.
    â€œTío should at least have the guts,” she always said, “to get up close to an animal he’s going to kill.”
    Elena held the hammer tightly in her small hands and looked the goat right in the eyes. She took a deep breath and raised the hammer above her head. I turned my eyes, but I heard the sure, solid blow that Elena brought down on the goat’s skull. Its knees buckled and it fell to the ground. The goat lay motionless.
    â€œ Pronto, Miguel,” Elena admonished.
    I gripped my sharpened knife and cut swiftly through the jugular vein. Together, we strung up the goat and hung it head-downward so the blood would drain out of the body and into the bucket below. The metallic odor of the freshly spilled blood made me gag. I breathed through my mouth to block out the smell, and to stop my stomach from churning.
    Elena pulled a wrapped torta out of her pocket and gobbled it up in several quick bites. How could she eat with a dead, bloody goat hanging right next to her? She stood, arms crossed. Her eyes moved up and down the carcass.
    â€œWe won’t get a lot of meat out of this one.” She looked at me and waited, daring me to say the truth out loud.
    â€œIt should be enough, though, for the fiesta,” I replied. “I bet I won’t get cabra like this in California.”
    â€œI was dumb to think Papá would send for both of us,” she said. “I know it’s your turn.”
    I picked up the knife and cut a slit from the hind legs to the neck of the goat.
    â€œIt won’t be long, Elena. Papá and Mamá won’t let you stay here alone for long.” I continued skinning the goat. I did it the way my godfather taught me, being careful not to contaminate the carcass with feces from the colon.
    I felt sick again, this time from the lie I’d just told Elena. We’d both waited years longer than anyone thought. When Papá left, he’d