My Fate According to the Butterfly by Gail D. Villanueva

Author:Gail D. Villanueva [Villanueva, Gail]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2019-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

IN MOMENTS LIKE THESE, I’M so glad I’m not allergic to peanuts.

This kare-kare must be life’s way of rewarding my heroism, bringing me to this carinderia. Because this canteen has the best kare-kare ever.

Swimming among the orange peanut sauce are beef chunks and pieces of ox tripe with melt-in-your-mouth texture. It also has a generous amount of soft eggplants, string beans, and pechay greens. The peanut sauce isn’t too thick, nor is it too thin. It’s the perfect sauce on a cup of steamed rice. Add a dash of their sweet-and-spicy shrimp paste, and you’ve got a saucy, savory, and slightly sweet combination that’s like heaven on earth.

I wolf down the last of my kare-kare and rice, licking the back of my spoon. The Butterfly’s prediction could come true at this very moment, and I wouldn’t mind.

“If you start licking your plate, I’m disowning you,” Ate Nadine quips. She’s far from being finished with her own food. Still, it seems like she’s had enough to improve her mood.

Cling! Cling! Cling! There’s a loud tinkling coming from the street.

“Ice cream!” Pepper pushes her empty plate away and bounces off the stool. She turns her begging eyes across the table to Ate Nadine. “Let’s get some before an angry woman pelts us with skin whiteners again.”

Ate Nadine rolls her eyes, but nonetheless she brings out a small wad of cash. I reach for it, but she hands it to Kuya Jepoy instead. “Don’t let them have more than three small cones of dirty ice cream each. And stay away from the street. Sab’s too oblivious; she might get run over by a car.”

If Mom were here, she probably wouldn’t let me have dirty ice cream. When she was a kid, “dirty ice cream” really was dirty until children started getting sick. The government has created laws to ensure these treats are made in clean conditions, but the name has stuck. It’s still called dirty ice cream, even if it’s safe to eat.

Well, Mom’s not here now. She doesn’t have to know I had a cone. Or two.

“I am not oblivious.” I pout. I don’t really know what oblivious means, but it sounds eerily similar to that Harry Potter spell that erases someone’s memory. Whatever it is, it doesn’t sound like a compliment.

Anyway, it’s not my fault I don’t know how to cross a busy street. Mom doesn’t let me commute on my own, and cars in a gated subdivision like ours follow an unspoken rule to stop if they see kids on the street. It’s not as if I ever have to worry about getting run over or anything.

I follow Kuya Jepoy and Pepper out of the canteen, where an elderly man is pushing a wooden ice cream cart a few yards away. He’s about to round the corner when Kuya Jepoy lets out a piercing whistle, raising his hand. The vendor turns his cart and heads back our way.

“Thanks.” If not for Kuya Jepoy, Pepper and I would have had to call the dirty ice cream vendor the hard way—by chasing him down.

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