Calling the Moon by Yamile Saied Méndez

Author:Yamile Saied Méndez [Salazar, Aida; Méndez, Yamile Saied]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781536224474
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2023-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

“¡Edelmira!” my mom calls when she walks in the door that evening. She always calls me by my full name because she’s the only one who likes it. My dad thinks Edelmira is an old lady’s name, so he and everyone else call me Mira (pronounced Mee-ra) for short. The only problem is “Mira” also means “Look!” in Spanish, so it can get confusing.

My mom waves me toward her room. “¡Ven a ayudarme!”

While my dad entertains my three-year-old brother, Diego, I help my mom. She just did a big Discount World shopping trip for supplies to send to Nuria and Sonia. First we dump the bags onto my mom’s bed. We don’t want to mail all the bulky packaging the stuff comes in, so I grab a box of Ziploc bags.

We pour the contents of Tylenol and vitamin bottles into the bags, then we add individually wrapped beef-flavored bouillon cubes and frutas secas, which you would think means dried fruit but really means mixed nuts. Then we get to the tampons and pads, tossing the folded instructions when we take them out of their boxes.

“The nurse gave us some samples today,” I mention casually.

“¿Samples de qué?”

My face feels a little hot. “You know. ‘Equipo femenino.’ It was the class where we get the talk? About periods.”

“Equipo femenino” is what my dad calls pads and tampons. This is probably why he doesn’t help my mom with packages for Cuba: he would be afraid to even touch the stuff. Sometimes when my mom laughs, it’s like a cackle, sort of croaky. This is one of those times. “They sent you to that class?” She flicks her wrist as if she’s waving away a bug, but it means, We’re a long way away from that. “¿Y tú tan pequeñita? Me parece que te falta.”

I roll my eyes and try to pretend I don’t mind. “Yeah, I know I’m not going to get it for a long time because I’m small for my age. I was just telling you.”

As my mom zips the brown packing tape across the box, she clears her throat.

“You know what to do when it happens, right?”

“I’m informed.” I try to sound like it’s no big deal, and my mom looks relieved. I guess it would be pretty unpleasant if she had to explain periods and sex and all that to me. Leila and her mom have these marathon heart-to-hearts, but my mom and I are mostly business. Then I remember how Leila thought she would be the first in our class to get her period because her mom was the first to get it in her fifth-grade class.

“Mami,” I ask, “do you know when you got your period? Then maybe I’ll know when mine is coming.”

“I was the last one.”

“The last one in your class?”

“Nope. The last one in my family.” My mom reaches for a permanent marker and writes the address on top of the box.

My mom’s parents weren’t exactly around, so she was raised by her grandparents, with Nuria, her cousin in Cuba, and her other cousin, Beatriz, who lives in Boston.

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