Tumble: Chapters 24–39

The smell of food from the concessions stand and the electric excitement of the crowd filled the air.

I’d seen a real owl pellet before. It’s all the stuff an owl can’t digest from the prey it swallows whole—bones and fur and talons and feathers—regurgitated into a mass.

Guapo lay on the mat, writhing in pain.

But before we could get to three, Uncle Mateo’s body convulsed off the mat, sending Rosie flying.

“Instead of choreographing a dance, you’re choreographing a fight.”

“Will you be my abuela?” Cy asked, sidling up next to Rosie.

Manny had explained that a lot of wrestlers spent their careers working mostly in obscurity, moving from territory to territory. They were the guys in the opening matches, the ones who wrestled before the main event.

“They told me they wanted to, but I didn’t fit the gimmick. They were hung up on the idea that there were no Black Founding Fathers. Said it wasn’t believable.”

“Some people choose to improvise and write their own story.”

I followed the twins down a paved road past a mausoleum with little built-in vases along its front wall.

Next to the vases were tiny plaques with people’s names and dates of birth and death.

But just when it seemed that he might be getting comfortable with us, he would go back to acting like his usual grumpy and aloof self.

When she stopped moving, she started thinking. But not just thinking, ruminating.

“I’ve been trying not to pry too much about your father, you know,” Mom started.

“Were you snooping?” he asked, acting all affronted.

“The worms are going to be my illegal weapon,” Gus said. “The Rain of Worms! Or maybe the Worm Wallop. I haven’t decided.”

The branches of a pine were adorned with recycled tin ornaments.

Mom said they were women who persevered despite the difficult situations they found themselves in, whether voluntary or not.

I walked away, leaving behind the poet and any notion that I’d get to hear all the things Manny knew and loved about me.

“Got it," she declared victoriously, holding out a disgusting dirt-covered tooth, its pink retainer mangled by Hijo’s bite marks.

“I have a sprained ankle and zero sympathy from the deranged director."

Marlene turned on her orthopedic shoes and walked away.

The backstage area thrummed with the noise and energy of seventh graders dressed as soldiers and mice and snowflakes and partygoers.

A couch from the teachers’ lounge covered in an afghan sat on one side.

The Nutcracker overture played on the sound system and snowflake lights reflected on the walls of the auditorium.

While the Mouse King goaded the booing audience, I slipped behind the Christmas tree and tied on the red cape from Rosie’s old wrestling outfit.

The mice holding the side of the ring closest to me raised it, and I ran under it into the ring, Rosie’s red cape billowing behind me.

“The thing is, I have to reestablish myself for a bit,” he said. “Before I can get that title shot.”

“Small potatoes can be good too,” I insisted, thinking about the baby yellow potatoes Alex would sauté in butter in a cast-iron Dutch oven.

She wanted Manny to leave his demanding father, to have a future that was different, one that wouldn’t mean being in pain, always traveling and never with his family. One where he didn’t have to live in the shadow of a legacy.

Mom looked taken aback, and for a moment, I thought she was mad.

On the back, on index cards, I had written a series of short family myths about powerful fathers who hold their offspring under their spell, strong mothers who raise their children alone, daughters looking for their ghost lineage, a dog that transforms into the greatest fighter when no one is around to see, star goddesses who come to Earth in the form of teenage girls, a best friend whose bond is as strong as that of a sister—stories about heartbreak and loss and found family.

Gus began to dig a hole in the ground with the small gardening trowel I’d brought.

“Manny commissioned it. That means he asked me to make it for you,” he explained.

Rosie and Pancho flanked the snowman on one side.