After Peaches (10 page)

I shook my head. I wished
I
'd known who to complain to about the
patrón,
and I wished I'd told the
patrón
what I thought of him. I imagined marching up to his office and telling him how horrible he was. I pictured his furious red face and loud shouts, his fists shaking as he rushed toward me and—

I shivered. Mamá was right. Even with perfect English, I couldn't have fought the
patrón
.

I plunked cutlery onto the table, sat down and propped my head in my hands. I wished we were all back in Victoria, working on the friendly farm, going to the library on Sundays, and living exactly as we had before my impossible traveling idea.

How had I ever imagined that picking our way across the province would give me Normal Canadian Kid stories? Nothing about my life was ever going to be normal. I could see that now.

Papá returned from the shower, walking slowly, as if he didn't have the energy to move faster. He sat down at the table and offered us a weary smile.

“Remember when we went picking with Julie and her mother?” I asked.

“That was a good day,” he said.

“I think they had fun,” I said. “Julie liked all the colors.”

“Remember how Ms. Norton said she never thought about how tulips grow or who picks them?” Mamá smiled at the memory.

Papá took a slice of bread and bit into it. “Why would she?” he asked. “If we could speak English as well as Rosario does, maybe we could tell people our stories, and they would listen, but who has time to learn English when we're this busy working?”

That evening, we drove from one farm to another, comparing them.

I sat in the backseat with my notebook, remembering the first time I met José and everything that had happened since. I wrote down stories he'd told me about his family and about how excited he was to be working in Canada. I wrote about him getting sick and being afraid of being fired, and about Analía. I tried to imagine her all grown up, a teacher with a big smile.

I hoped it was possible. If there was one thing I'd learned, it was that you could never know exactly what was going to happen. I'd tried so hard to keep my English to myself until it was perfect, but it all bubbled out at the hospital. José said I saved his life. No one could have imagined
that
happening.

I wondered what my own life would be like when I grew up. Would I write for a newspaper, or become a doctor like the one who helped José? Maybe I'd be something else that I couldn't even imagine yet. And one day, I might even feel like Canada was home.

I stared out the window at the brown hills with the orange sky behind. If I had had the money, I would have called Julie. I wanted to know what life was like in a skyscraper in Vancouver, and I wanted to tell her about my life here. And after all, if I could speak English to doctors and nurses and an angry
patrón
, I could certainly speak English to my best friend on the phone.

CHAPTER 13
After Peaches

“Look at this!” I shouted.

Julie had barely stepped into our new apartment when I raced across the living room, waving a fat envelope. “Analía's letter arrived this morning,” I said. “She put many things in it!”

Sending it from Mexico must have cost her family a fortune, but in her last e-mail, Analía said it was the least they could do to thank us. Besides, José might be working again soon. A tomato packing plant a few hours from his house was looking for workers. He'd have to spend most of his time away, but he could go home every ten days. That was something anyway.

It had been two months now since he went back, and a week since Mamá, Papá and I had finished harvesting peaches and returned to Victoria. Even after a whole summer of picking fruit and saving money, we still couldn't afford a fancy apartment with a swimming pool, but Julie says pools in apartment buildings aren't so great anyway. The one at her father's place turned out to be tiny, and the adults never wanted to share it.

Julie's mum helped us find a bright, sunny apartment with smooth linoleum floors perfect for sliding on, right down the street from her house. As soon as we moved in, I took off to the library to e-mail Analía our new address and to tell her what I needed for my book. Now the envelope had arrived, and Julie looked as excited as I was. We flopped onto the floor, and I pulled out everything I had asked Analía for: hand-drawn maps of her neighborhood, pictures of her house, copies of letters that José had sent from Canada and family photos.

“Wow,” Julie said when we'd studied every piece. “Your book will be fabulous. Way more interesting than my story.”

“You always say that,” I told her, “and then you write something wonderful.”

She shrugged. “I know what my cover will look like, at least.” From her backpack she pulled four pieces of thick cardboard, a pile of magazines, glue, a roll of clear tape and a brown paper bag. She showed me how she'd crinkled up the bag and rubbed until it was smooth and soft, like an old leather book. “I'm going to glue it to my cardboard and use a fancy pen to write the title,
The Exciting Summer Adventures of
Julie Norton
.”

“But I thought you said your summer was boring.”

“It was,” she admitted, “but you can't let the reader know that. You've got to pretend you have a really good story to tell. No one's going to read a book called
Julie
Norton, Lonely in Vancouver
.”

I laughed.“I'm glad we're together again.”

“No kidding.” She made a fish face at me, and I laughed again.

I went to the kitchen to get scissors and felt markers, and when I came back, Julie was arranging two kinds of cookies on a plate. “Mum made these last night,” she said. “A special treat for bookmaking day.”

I looked down at the plate and grinned. Four chocolate-chip cookies sat beside four puffy Mexican
galletitas
.

“She used the recipe your mum gave us,” Julie explained, looking a bit worried. “I hope you like them.”

I began munching right away. “Delicious,” I said, through a mouthful of crumbs. The
galletitas
were heavier than Mamá's, and the flavor was different, but I didn't care. I loved the idea of Ms. Norton making Mexican cookies and not worrying about whether they turned out properly, knowing that we'd appreciate them just because she'd tried.

That's the thing about doing something new: you never know if it's going to work, and it'll definitely take practice. People might even laugh at you, but eventually you'll do it so well that no one will remember your mistakes. Sometimes having the courage to make mistakes is the most difficult thing of all.

Next time Robbie Zec laughs at my mistakes, I'll have a secret weapon: that feeling I had when José said I saved his life. No matter what Robbie thinks, my English was good enough. All the insults in the world can't take that memory away.

I'll write that memory in my book, along with all the others from this summer. Way back in the spring, I wanted my book to look like one you'd buy in a store, but now I prefer one you could never buy anywhere. My cover will be a crazy mixture of magazine clippings, drawings and words—bright and colorful and all my own—and the story inside will be the same. I may not tell it perfectly, but it's mine to tell, and that's what I'm going to do. Just watch me.

Author's Note

In this story, José comes to Canada as part of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). Each year, through this program, Canadian farmers bring close to twenty thousand Mexican and Caribbean workers north to Canada to help harvest fruit.

In some ways, the program is good because Canadian farmers get steady workers, and Mexican workers earn enough money to feed their families back home. Sometimes, though, foreign farm workers can find themselves in difficult situations.

The program has specific rules about who is allowed to join. The Mexican worker must have farm work experience and no university education. He or she must have a family waiting back in Mexico. The Canadian government made these rules because it wants the workers to return to Mexico and not to stay in Canada.

The workers who come here have made a hard choice to leave behind their families for much of the year. Once in Canada, they want to work hard to earn as much money as possible. Many workers are afraid of making their bosses angry, because they want to keep their jobs. If a worker is fired, he or she must find a job on another farm or get sent back home. For workers who don't speak English and don't know where to look for help, finding a new job seems impossible, and so they don't complain, even if the boss doesn't treat them well or makes them do dangerous work (like spraying pesticide without a good mask).

Of course, there are always good bosses and bad bosses. In my research for this book, I talked to farmers who gave their workers good homes and healthy workplaces while in Canada. Not every farm worker enjoys that situation though. In this story, I have tried to show both.

The van accident that Rosario's parents talk about in Chapter Eight is based on a crash that really happened in March of 2007, when three farm workers were killed and fourteen were hurt because the van for the farm workers didn't have proper seats or seatbelts.

The details about the cherry farm are based on the combined experiences of many farm workers in British Columbia.

Glossary

Abuela
—
grandmother

Allá
—there

Bien
—
fine

Cómo estás?
—
How are you?

Cuéntale
—
Tell her.

El viejo
—
the old one

Estofado
—
stew

Galletitas
—
cookies

Hicimos suficiente
—
We made enough.

Hierbas malas
—
weeds

Hola
—
hello

Llegamos
—
We're here.

Loco
/
loca
—
crazy

M'hija
/
m'hijo
—
my daughter / my son. Some adults use these for any young person, whether their child or someone else's

Mi amor
—
darling

No te preocupes
—
Don't worry.

Ojalá
—
hopefully

Para tí
—
for you

Patrón
—
boss, in this case, the farmer

Por favor
—
please

Qué día
—
What a day.

Quesadillas
—
a piece of flatbread (
tortilla
) folded in half with beans or cheese inside.

Sabes
—
you know

Señor
—
Mister, sir

Señora
—Mrs., madam

Señorita
—
Miss

Sí
—
yes

Suficiente
—
enough

Todos
—
all, everyone

Tortillas
—
a flatbread made of wheat or corn

Tranquila
—
Calm down.

Tu amiga
—
your friend

Vamonos
—
Let's go.

Veo veo
—the Spanish name for the game “I spy”

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Erika Del Carmen Fuchs (Justicia for Migrant Workers BC) and Miguel Angel Zenón for their stories, comments and suggestions; to IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) for the Frances E. Russell Award that helped make this book possible; to Alvera Mulder, Ev Brown, Ruth Copley, Ian Vantreight, Raj Chouhan and Holly Caird for research help; to Susan Braley, Margo McLoughlin, Holly Phillips and Robin Stevenson for their constructive criticism; to Sarah Harvey for her brilliant editing and generosity of spirit; to my husband Gastón Castaño for his love and support; and to our baby girl Maia Elisa Castaño for bringing so much joy to our lives.