The Other Half of Happy: Chapters 1–15

There’s even a stove with two ovens, the upper one like a dresser drawer. We can bake peach cobbler and cheesy nachos at the same time.

“This room needed a revamp.”

As soon as possible, I tuck the huipil under my arm and slink down the hall to my room, the only unchanged piece of real estate in this house.

“Photo!” yells Dad, running out in his bathrobe.
At the front door, I’m about to protest, but his phone is already poised.

Then I think of Mom and her practical mind. The way she stores items next to where they are used. The breadbox next to the toaster.

But when I leave Port 3 and clomp down the wooden stairs last and alone, my confidence wavers.

Being a little kid was easier than this. I wasn’t half anything. I was a whole continent then, like Pangaea. Unsplit. Now I have tectonic plates.

A few kids saunter out from the main building.

She nods and spares me the advice that grown-ups usually give.

“Remember the night we saw them charge across the beach? I tell you what, we protected those nesting beaches back when I worked for Fish and Wildlife—placed orange cones around the nests, got people to turn off their crazy-bright porch lights. Each turtle should get her chance, right? Tenacious little guys. You keep yours close.”

Since I was little, Grandma has taken me in her canoe to see the manatees. We paddle through shallow water, where their wide backs surface and sink. Sometimes a fat fan tail sticks up or a gray muzzle snarfs a tuft of grass.

Seeing me plod down the hallway, Memito lets out a happy squeal from his booster chair. He can’t tell that I’m sad.

“First comes testing, then we’ll see. We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet. It could be something simple.”
Sounds flimsy.

"I know you’re worried.” Her voice falters. “I am, too. We’ll know more soon."

“You’d think they could find us a classroom inside the building,” he says.
“I like Port 3,” I venture.

“It’s Spanish,” I say without elaborating.

I’m not named after a movie star or even a great-grandmother. My namesake is a fictional, delusional knight named Don Quixote who scattershot justice across Spain in the 1600s.

Tía Lencha, Tío Pancho, and my three cousins have settled in across town, and we’re invited to a “reunión," which Dad pronounces ray-oon-yone. It sounds like what Mom would call a shindig and I would call a party.

From a cluster of people, a man bounds forward.

“Oh!” I squelch a laugh. “Most people don’t own horses here.”

“Just hit the wall near her head. First we’ll do some reconnaissance."
“What?” Crista says.
“You know, get the lay of the land. Scope out the enemy.”

The adults move on, paddling their conversation out of that eddy, but open water stretches between me and my cousins as they turn to stare.

The spider orchids started blooming down at the bog, the blossoms you called hoodie fairies—a much better name!

She’s betting my toasted skin can conjugate verbs.

When we ramble back to class, Jayden walks on one side of me, Zuri the other.

It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s a start. I can sort out more details later. The main snag is bus fare.

I want to comfort us both. To make the house feel cozy instead of sprawling, lively instead of empty.

Jayden can do impressions of famous people better than TV comedians and ace Ms. May’s poetry tests, but he needs, well, practice with math, to put it politely.

We’re two factors of a composite number; we’re a solution set.

Dad says, "Smile, hija. A lovely smile you have.” I don’t smile. The button clicks. “Wait, do it again,” Dad says.
“The U.S. government prefers a neutral expression, sir.”