Shine On, Luz Véliz!: Chapters 37–52

Each day, I consult my paper map, then pull up to the keyboard.

He still acts a little stilted around me, barely getting out his sentences sometimes, and is more relaxed with Solana.

I know it’s silly, but she seems more alive or something. Maybe it’s because she’s not ditching me right now, like she did that one time. Or maybe it’s been too convenient to ignore her.

Solana made the quetzal fly around the jungle meeting animals, from tiny tree frogs to a sleek jaguar.
All three girls gush about it for so long that I sit down at the keyboard and bring up my game program.

“If you guess a letter right, a new part is added to the robot on the screen. If you guess wrong, this conveyor belt moves it closer to the trap door. Solana made all the graphics.”

The real robot on the workbench erupts in a trumpet fanfare.

I don't hear the whir of the computer’s fan.

My daughter has an evaluation lined up for me with some doctor in the city.

“You destroyed it. You messed up my only chance,” I say bitterly. “Why did you even leave Guatemala? Did you come here just to ruin my life?”

I step around the tree’s knees, roots that stick straight up like gnarled arms cut off at the elbows.

The water lies still and serene.

The light has shifted from bright to muted. It’s getting late.

But it won’t even matter because Solana won’t trust me now, and my parents will be baffled.

A pang in my chest reminds me that my best program is gone now.

In a few more steps, the writing curved around the seal becomes clear: Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I left before they did.”
“So you left,” Mom clarifies, “and then the girls. So Solana left last?”

“We don’t know for sure. But she was shot in front of her house, Luz.”
“With Solana inside,” Dad says gravely.

I keep thinking I’ll see her bounding up the driveway.

I click open the Files folder and scan the list. There are about ten versions of ConnorTracker. I look at the dates. Some are a month old or more, and they say “draft.”

Even with titles, my confidence is waning. The screens go on and on.

But this time, a map unfurls across the screen.

I hear their pounding footsteps in the dark. Then they are towering above me in the garage’s light, breathing hard, faces flushed.

Soon I hear the officers’ voices, clipped and clear.

I can’t make out the conversations, but they take Mom and Dad’s flurry of words and make it into short sentences.

They explain that we’re in his garage. “Is he inside? Do you have permission to be on the premises?”

The average pedestrian walks three or four miles per hour.

“I bet she’s in one of the dugouts,” Dad says, pointing to two covered awnings.

The dugouts are not actually dug out of the ground, but just benches set up under the awnings.

And the black-truck guys—they took a survey, is all. Just easy questions.

Over frothy mugs and cinnamon sticks, we talk quietly, reliving the whole evening.

I close the gap between us before she scurries away. “Um, Alicia?”
She looks at me warily.

The morning is already warm and what Mom calls muggy. She means the air is heavy and wet feeling.

The colored command blocks stack on top of each other just as I had them. The commands for the graphics cluster in their spot. The word lists are intact.

We take the hump seat on the bus, and as the engine lurches into gear, I put together what this means.

Ms. Freeman waves, her bright sleeves billowing around her.

It really does look like those Segways that tourists and sometimes police officers ride around town.
“But why doesn’t it fall over?” I ask. “It’s balancing perfectly. Does it use a gyroscope like the real ones?”

The brick forms a base, with two motors and wheels, like a two-wheeled car. Above that, a vertical motor creates a body with some beams for arms, and a little head decorates the top. Then I see it! The ingenious part is a color sensor plugged into the brick near the bottom.

You’re using custom sound files, graphic changes that update with user results, and iterative code.

You’re using custom sound files, graphic changes that update with user results, and iterative code.

Luz told me this morning that you made these images for her game, and I saw your quetzal animation during club time. You have a knack for graphic design.