The Tom Birdseye Collection Volume Two by Birdseye Tom;

Author:Birdseye, Tom;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Published: 2017-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

The Questing Beast

Down the alley they rode, then along Nathan Avenue, stopping only for the light on Verde Road, weaving around manhole covers, going fast, Patrick even riding with no hands. Pellinore ran alongside them, trying to keep up, his short legs a blur of motion.

Celina laughed, and Patrick laughed, too. The sun seemed less intense, the temperature just right. The heat wave must have broken. It was going to be a perfect day. In no time they were at the river, looking out over a wide trough of dry sand, rocks, and scattered creosote bushes.

“My dad thinks it’s crazy to call this a river,” Celina said. “He says it should be called a wash, or better yet, an arroyo.” Her tongue fluttered over arroyo, shifting from English into perfect Spanish without the slightest hesitation.

Patrick looked at Celina, startled that he had forgotten about her brown skin, silky black hair, dark eyes, and her Mexican name, Celina Ortiz. He went to Dewey Elementary with lots of kids like Celina—Ramon, Leah, Carlos, Maria—but he’d never really gotten to know them outside of school. He knew how some people were about those who came from Mexico, or whose relatives had. Some people sneered and called them wetbacks, as if they’d all swum illegally across the Rio Grande into the country, as if they were less human than everybody else. He’d seen the looks in some people’s eyes. Andy was like that on bad mood days, and wouldn’t choose them for his team on the playground, even if they played well. Patrick didn’t feel that way, though. Paulette said people were people; nothing else mattered. She was right. It didn’t matter. Celina was Celina. Celina was his … yeah, his friend.

Patrick smiled at Celina, then looked back at the dry gully and shrugged. “It has water in it some of the time, like after a storm. It’s a river then, right?”

Celina shook her head. “Dad says rivers have to have water in them all the time to be called rivers. He looked it up in the dictionary.” She laughed. “Mom says where else but the desert do you get to see what’s underneath a river? She thinks it’s neat that you can see the bottom so much of the year. She says Dad is too picky. She says that’s what you get when you marry a history teacher.”

Patrick stared. “Your dad teaches history?”

Celina nodded. “Yep. World history, especially about how Europeans came to North and South America, and what they did to it. And Mom teaches literature—you know, all about books. She loves poetry the best. They both teach at the university.”

“You mean they’re …”

“Professors, both of them,” Celina said.

Patrick couldn’t believe it. Professors? He had never met a real professor before. He’d just heard Paulette talk about them as if they were special, and had imagined that they all were old men who wore sports jackets and smoked pipes. He had always thought that they lived in those nice old houses by Hughes Park.

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