1st 5 Pages February Workshop- Walsh Rev 1

Name: Michelle C. Walsh

Genre: Middle Grade - Realistic Fiction

Title: DREAMS OF FLYING

CHAPTER 1—THE CAR THIEF

The bus lurches forward as I get up from my seat. I stumble to the front, nearly slamming into the other standing passenger.

“Cuidado!” Mama says behind me, warning me to be careful. She hardly talks to me in Spanish except for a few words that come out, mostly when she’s excited or nervous.  

“Yeah, I know.” I groan, clutching onto the metal pole.

It’s been years since I’ve last taken the bus and I had forgotten how bumpy it is. Already, I miss our car. When Mama told me that it was stolen this morning, I didn’t believe her. I ran to the window and stared at the empty space on the corner, where our car should have been. Just like that, it was gone. Mama called the police and they came right away, but they didn’t make any promises. Of all the cars on our block, why did the car thief have to take ours?

“Now, remember the plan,” Mama says, stepping closer to me. “Belkis should be outside waiting for you, but in case she’s not there….”

“Yes, Mama, I know how to get to Belkis’ house from Wilson Avenue,” I remind her.

She smiles at me with her lips pressed together, but she can’t hide the worry in her eyes. “I know you do, mi’jita.”

Belkis Velasquez is my mom’s best friend. I go to her house in the summer so that I can hang out with her daughter, Maritza, who’s 12 years old like me.

The bus driver pumps on the breaks and I brace myself as we come to another stop. This time it’s mine. Mama pecks me on the cheek. “I’ll call you from work.”

I look outside the window for Belkis’ familiar face, but as the doors swing open, I see Maritza waving at me with her big smile. I smile back and hurry off the bus. On the curb, I turn around to wave at my mom, just as the bus pulls away.

“Oh my God, Raquel!” Maritza says. “I’m so sorry about your car! I couldn’t believe it when my mom told me.”

Maritza looks prettier than the last time I had seen her, some months ago. Her brown eyes are bright and her dark hair practically touches her waist in beautiful, spiral ringlets. Unlike my hair that’s pulled back in a ponytail because it’s so straight I can’t do anything else with it. Maritza knows how to dress well, too, with her white shorts, yellow top, and big yellow hoop earrings to match. I wish we could go to the same school, but we’re a few blocks away from being in the same district.

“You must feel so terrible,” she says. “What do you wanna do?”

“Actually, right now, I’m really hungry. Can we stop at the bakery?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. I didn’t have breakfast, either.”

We walk down Wilson Avenue to the Portuguese bakery. Maritza’s neighborhood looks a lot like mine, with two and three-floor family houses built closely together. But instead of living in an apartment like me, Maritza’s family has their own house—a red-bricked two-story home with a backyard and basement that makes it three floors.  

Inside the bakery, we each order a buttered Portuguese roll to go so that we can eat along the way to Maritza’s house.

“Mmm, this is delicious!” Maritza says, breaking off a piece of her bread, while keeping the rest inside the brown paper bag.

“Hmm, hmm!” I agree, in between mouthfuls. I eat in bite-sized portions, too, breaking off the bread as I go.

“So what’s your mom gonna do without the car?” Maritza asks.

“For now, she’s going to take the bus to work.”

“And what about Billy? Don’t you pick him up on Fridays?” Maritza asks.

I stop chewing for a moment and hold myself still. Billy’s been on my mind this morning, but I hardly ever talk about my brother. He’s older than me by two years and goes away to a special school for autism. Besides Maritza, only my two closest friends from my sixth grade class, Natalie and Estrella, know that I have an autistic brother who only comes home on the weekends.

“We used to pick up Billy on Friday nights,” I tell Maritza. “But my mom arranged for a social worker to bring him home on Friday after school, to help split the driving. So it’s really on Sundays when we need the car.”

“What if you get the social worker to drive Billy on Sundays, too?”

I know Maritza is trying to help, but she doesn’t understand. None of my friends know what it’s like to have an older brother who can’t talk, who goes to a special school that’s two hours away because there’s no other program for him nearby. They don’t know how it feels like to be an only child during the week and a sister only on the weekends.  

“The social worker can’t drive Billy on Sundays because that’s her day off,” I explain. “She’s actually doing us a favor by driving him on Fridays.”

“Oh. I don’t suppose….” Maritza begins.

“What?” I ask.

“Well, do you think your parents can buy another car?”

I feel my cheeks flush. I don’t think my parents can afford another car right now, especially since my dad’s not working again.

“Never mind,” Maritza says softly, as if reading my thoughts.

We sit on the front steps of her porch to finish our rolls.

A car turns at the corner coming our way. From the front, it looks exactly like my parents’ white Chevrolet.

My heart races as I stand up to get a better look.

“What is it?” Maritza asks, but I don’t answer. My eyes are all over the car.

First, I look for the dent on the passenger’s door, but I don’t see it. Then, I check the license plate in the back, just to be sure.

The beginning of our Chevy’s license plate is easy for me to remember because it starts with the letters of my initials, RC, for Raquel Cameron. It was a coincidence that Mama pointed out to me when we first got the car. But as this Chevy drives away, there’s no ‘R’ or ‘C’ anywhere on the license plate.

“What happened? Was that your car?” Maritza asks.

“No, I thought it was. But it’s not.” I sit back down, disappointed. 

“Too bad. That would have been somethin’! Imagine that—finding your car right here on my block.”

“Yeah, imagine that,” I say, staring at the street.

If only my parents’ car would come around the corner and park in front of the Velasquez house. The chances of that happening are like a miracle. But what if our Chevy isn’t that far away, after all? What if the car thief hasn’t left Newark? If that’s the case, then there’s gotta be a way to get our car back, maybe even this week before Billy comes home. I just have to figure out how.