The Skirt Read Online Free Page A

escape.
    “Hide,” Miata whispered.
    “Hide?” Ana asked.
    “Just pretend you’re asleep,” Miata said. She lay down, opened a book, and placed it over her face. Miata was staring at a mouse. One of the books she had borrowed was about a mouse that had moved from a wheat farm to New York City.
    Ana and Rodolfo did the same. Ana laystill, but Rodolfo was giggling behind his book. His body shuddered from laughter.
    Ana shivered like a leaf. She was scared of getting caught.
    They heard footsteps on the sidewalk and then the voices of adults. Miata’s mother and her friend were talking about the Sunday dance.
    “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Miata’s mother said. “Miata plays so hard, and her legs are always full of scratches.”
    “Kids are so hard on their clothes,” her mother’s friend said. “I had to buy my daughter two pairs of shoes, and …”
    Miata thought about the new scrape on her knee. It was true. She was always falling off the monkey bars or tripping over the garden hose, sliding into second base and coming up hurt, or climbing a fence and coming down face first. And it was true that the asphalt tore up her shoes.Her new shoes were only a month old, but they already looked like her old shoes.
    They heard a car door open. A few seconds later the engine started up with a roar. When the car backed out of its parking space, the three kids looked up.
    Rodolfo sat up, with grass in his hair. He was reading the book that had covered his face. “This is pretty good,” he said of the story about children lost at sea.
    Miata and Ana got up, brushing grass off their skirts.
    “Thanks, Rudy.” Miata beamed. She started to walk away with Ana. Then she stopped and said, “I didn’t know you were good at math.”
    “I’m better at shooting hoops,” he said, getting onto his bike. “Let’s play sometime.”
    Miata returned home with Ana.
    “I’m going to throw the skirt on theclothesline,” Miata said. “It smells like the bus.”
    She pinned the skirt to the line. It whipped bright as a flag in the May wind.
    Miata and Ana went inside. They were careful to wipe their feet. It was Saturday, the day her mother mopped the kitchen.
    “Hi, honey,” her mother greeted. She was at the kitchen table, opening the day’s mail. “Hi, Ana. Are you ready for tomorrow?”
    Miata and Ana looked at each other.
    “I guess so,” Ana said shyly.
    Miata’s mother took down two glasses from the cupboard. She got a plastic pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator. She looked down at Miata’s legs. “You scratched up your knee again?”
    Miata looked down at her knees and said, “A little bit.” She touched the scab gently. She winced even though it didn’t hurt.

    “How did you do that?”
    The secret almost spilled out. Instead, Miata spilled lemonade from the pitcher. Two ice cubes skated across the floor. The girls cleaned up the mess and went to the living room to read their library books.
    Ana left when Little Joe came into the house. His knees were caked with mud. She knew that he was going to be in trouble for dragging in dirt.
    “Ay, you little
chango
!” his mother cried. She made him undress on the back porch. He had to run from the porch to the bathtub in his underwear.
    When Miata’s father came home, he was whistling. He was happy because he had repaired a bus and earned a little extra money. He could look forward to ahundred-dollar check in next week’s mail.
    “It was easy,” he said after a long swallow of water. He refilled his glass and continued. “It was just
zip
, and that baby was fixed in a minute. All because I’m the best welder in town.”
    Miata’s mother smiled and said it was true. He was the best welder in the whole San Joaquin Valley. Little Joe came into the kitchen, a towel draped over his shoulders like a king’s cape. He looked around and ran away. He had spotted a small shoeprint on the floor. And it looked like one of his.
    “What a little