Brighter Than the Sun by Daniel Aleman
Author:Daniel Aleman [ALEMAN, DANIEL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2023-03-21T00:00:00+00:00
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS, I TRY MY HARDEST to be Sol. Itâs easy, somehowâalmost like slipping on an old coat that you didnât remember you had in the back of your closet.
âI swear to God, I donât know how it happened,â Tony says in the cafeteria on Monday. âBut when I got home, my underwear was full of sand. Like, full of sand.â
âI donât think I had that problem,â I reply, in between bites of pizza.
âNone of us did,â Olivia says to me quietly. âWell, no one except for Tony and Ana MarÃa. Iâm pretty sure they were fooling around somewhere when they said they were going to the bathroom.â
I let out a small laugh. It feels nice to understand what everyone is talking about when they tell stories about the weekend. Itâs nice to be a part of the conversation, to lean forward and say, âWhat?â whenever I donât hear someone elseâs comments, instead of pretending I did and nodding awkwardly.
Even in the stockroom, I can feel something has shifted. When Bill passes by the big table, nosing around as he always does to make sure everyone is doing their job correctly, he stops the second he sees me inserting a security tag into a silky blouse.
âNicely done,â he says to me. Nick taught me a while ago that, when working with silk or satin, I shouldnât insert the tag directly through the fabric. Instead, I inserted it in the label on the inside of the shirt.
For a moment, I hold my breath, waiting for Bill to say something else, but he simply moves on.
âItâs what Iâve been saying all along,â Nick says to me, throwing me a sideways smile. âYouâre an expert.â
The only issue is that schoolwork is starting to pile up, and even though Iâve tried my best to do homework between my shifts at Wallenâs, itâs still not enough. Iâm sitting in the bio classroom on Thursday when, suddenly, Mr. Vázquez says, âEveryone please hand over your essays!â and my heart stops. I vaguely remember there was an essay I needed to work on for bio, but when I try to think about the details of what itâs about or when it was due, my mind comes up blank.
While everyone around me starts shuffling, walking up to Mr. Vázquezâs desk to drop off their essays, my neck starts feeling very hot. And after class, when I have to go up to him and ask if I can get an extension, he gives me a stern look that makes my hands sweat uncontrollably.
âYou can have one more day, but thatâs it,â he says.
âThank you, Mr. Vázquez. Thank you so much.â
It is while Iâm making my way down to Ariâs after school that I realize just what this one-day extension will mean. Because there are other things that have been piling upâa trigonometry quiz that I need to study for, another essay for history, and an entire book I have to read for English lit before the start of next week.
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