Muckers by Sandra Neil Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

enchiladas and taking care of ten kids, three of them snot-nosed and barely potty-trained. They run around the Barrio with mud-covered feet, their painted-pony-colored hair flapping in the wind.
    “You still have a rusty ol’ icebox, Cruz. What do you know about keeping food fresh?” I tell him.
    He cuts the burrito in two with a bottle opener he found in the sink, but it’s not an even half. He slides the plate in my direction, leaving me the bigger piece, before wiping his forehead with the bandanna because of the heat.
    “We may not have a big fancy white Frigidaire, but we don’t go hungry, Ugly,” Cruz says. “You tell that shift boss—”
    “Just worry about your own performance, amigo. And I don’t need your food,” I say, giving that half burrito a fierce stare like it’s a vulture-pecked rat. The same way Mrs. Hollingworth and those ladies on Company Ridge looked at Maw when she turned.
    I remember when they first took Maw up the hill, the Hatley women would leave all sorts of things in our kitchen: buttermilk biscuits, spaghetti-and-meatball casseroles, chocolate cream pies with notes pinned to them. Like we couldn’t take care of ourselves. Like we were a bunch of lowlifes or eejits or something. That’s what Pop used to say. The gifts lasted two, maybe three months.
    I pretend like I’m just casually opening the fridge to see if there’s any eggs I might’ve missed. The ones from Mrs. Palermo’s chickens that I scramble up with the half-rotten cabbage heads I find behind Peila’s—if the burros haven’t gotten them first.
    There isn’t an egg in sight, just a few pickles in a jar.
    I know it’s stupid turning away food when I’m starving, but I don’t want anyone knowing how it is behind these walls and getting all righteous like Sims or judging what they don’t even know.
    “You tell that shift boss to stuff this fridge before he does anything else tonight, you hear me, Ugly? I know he eats plenty. I’ve seen him at the Copper Star with—” Cruz shuts his mouth in midsentence when he sees me glaring at him. Not that he’s about to tell me something I don’t already know.
    “Hear those Rim Valley players ain’t been anywhere near five thousand feet since last season,” Cruz says. “Hello, nosebleeds.”
    I don’t like it when Cruz changes the subject, especially after smarting off at me. And there won’t be any Copper Star for my father tonight. He’d rather work a double shift than watch me play.
    “I can’t wait to shred their knees and elbows into Hell’s Corner.”
    “Too dry for Hell’s Corner,” I snap back. “And they beat us last year, remember?”
    “That’s because the chalk line was wrong.”
    “You mean
you
slipped on your ass and never got the ball over in time, so you said the chalk line was wrong.”
    Cruz’s mouth is full, but by the look he’s giving, I’m thinking he’ll spit out what’s in it and tear a verbal strip into me. Then he grins. A few pieces of rice and beans fall out, so we both start laughing and he nearly chokes on the rest of the burrito. “Whoever made that call must’ve been born in Phoenix, no?” Cruz mumbles.
    “No,” I tell him.
“Cottonville.”
    Cruz swallows before laughing this time. “They promised to go heavy on the markings for tonight, so they can’t make us lose.”
    It’s just like Cruz not to see that we might get beat tonight fair and square or how small we are. And it’s no use telling him any different. Cruz has never given a horse’s ass about the other teams or what people think. But he’s not the one throwing the ball. I am. And I’ve got to be pretty much perfect this year.
    Cruz doesn’t know much about Hell’s Corner anyway. Not the way Bobby did. He’d take me to the field on Sunday afternoons and teach me all about that northeasterly patch of ground. How it’s hiding the rocky elbows of a boulder embedded in the sand and that you need to set your spikes around the edges and dig so you