Thursday, July 22, 2010
Chapter One: A Boring Summer?
“I'm bored,” thirteen-year-old Katrin Perez said out loud. She was washing the breakfast dishes in the kitchen sink and there was no one to hear her. Her little brother was playing with his toys in the living room. Her father had gone to work, and her mother was selling vegetables at the market with the help of her two other brothers. Katrin was left at home to do the household chores.
“If only there were other girls living nearby!” she said. Their little house was situated in a charming spot, near the riverbank in Purok Riverside, Sto. Niño, South Cotabato, but oh, they did not have any nearby neighbors. Katrin wished that the Barrioses, whose daughter Alexsyl had been her closest friend in elementary school, had not moved away two years before. The Barrios family had lived in the house closest to the Perezes, a house that now stood empty and lonely.
“The neighborhood is full of houses, all abandoned,” Katrin remarked to nobody in particular. There was another nearby house, one that she and her brothers used to pretend was a haunted house, as it stood by itself on a little knoll a little way up the road. It was a big house, built in the old Spanish style, and people in Purok Riverside called it “the Mansion.” One of the old people in Riverside said that it had belonged to a rich family with a tragic history. Katrin and her brothers had wanted to explore the mansion and were expressly forbidden to do so by their parents.
Her cellphone's message tone sounded. It was her mother, reminding her to pick the remaining vegetables while it was still early, and one of her brothers would be home later to fetch them. Sighing, Katrin finished the dishes and put them on the rack to drip-dry.
“I want to come, too!” exclaimed seven-year-old Kyle, when he saw Katrin put on a wide-brimmed straw hat and pick up a basket. So Katrin got his own hat and led him out of the house. The black dog that had been lying down beside the door with its head in its paws thumped its tail and stood up and followed them.
Katrin and Kyle went to the vegetable gardens that stretched out over their wide back yard. Here, ampalaya climbed trellises, along with squash and jicama and beans. Eggplants hung like purple jewels, and sweet potato carpeted the ground. There were also tomatoes and peanuts in their own plots.
Katrin picked eggplants first, admonishing Kyle and the dog, Bantay, when they would chase each other through the garden. Bantay went back to his post beside the door, and Katrin taught Kyle to choose what fruits to pick. Then she looked through the ampalayas, string beans, and snap beans. Red, orange and yellow tomatoes went into Kyle's little basket, which he carried proudly back to the bench beside the back door when it got full. Lastly, Katrin chose and picked five plump squashes, which her mother would sell either by the piece or by the slice at the market.
The two of them had almost finished tying the eggplants, ampalaya and beans into little bundles when the family tricycle raced into the front yard, driven by one of their neighbors, Manong Tino, since none of Katrin's brothers were actually old enough to drive. Katrin's twin brother Aian was in the tricycle.
"How's the market?" asked Katrin as she put the bundles of vegetables into a basket. Kyle helped Manong Tino and Aian load the baskets into the tricycle.
"Lots of people," and Aian grinned. The two of them looked very much alike, with unruly black hair, expressive golden-brown eyes, and golden skin, except that Aian had a more aquiline nose than his sister. Both were also at the moment wearing baggy denim shorts, loose white t-shirts, and flip-flops. "Saw some of our classmates. That Rodin Reyes asked after you."
"Shut up, Aian." Rodin was one of the boys who were always following Katrin around at school, trying to get her attention.
"Shall I give him your regards?" Aian asked, and Katrin threw one of the squashes at him, with effort. "Ouch! Easy there, sis. Luckily I caught it, else you'll have wasted over twenty pesos."
"If you didn't catch it, it would have been your fault, egghead," said Katrin and made a face at him. "So. Has Almie Santos been by? She texted me this morning asking if we were going to be at the market today. I told her I wouldn't but you would be."
"Aw, Kat." Almie had a crush on Aian.
"So she has been by! I hope she bought a lot of vegetables," Katrin couldn't resist teasing her twin.
"Oh, she did. Told Mama we were classmates, too, and Mama gave her a discount."
"Gee, we should have more girls crushing on you then, bro... then we'd sell all our vegetables."
"Aw, shut up, Kat." Aian finished loading the baskets of vegetables and got into the tricycle as Manong Tino revved the motor. "Well, we're off!"
Katrin looked at the clock in the sala. It was ten o'clock, and she settled Kyle in front of the TV to watch cartoons while she loaded the day's laundry into the washing machine. These were the ordinary everyday clothes; the ones with stubborn stains she left for her mother to deal with later. She made a face at the whirling clothes. She and her brothers had finished getting their grades and year-end requirements from school the previous day, and today, Friday, Market Day, was officially their first day of summer. But while her brothers were at the market, here she was, slaving away at the household chores.
By the time she had finished hanging the laundry up to dry on the backyard clothesline, it was already eleven-thirty and Kyle was asking for something to eat. They had the fried fish that their mother had left them for lunch, then Katrin tried to settle Kyle down for a nap. She finally succeeded in making him lie down when she promised him they'd go to the barangay cooperative store for merienda when he woke up.
It was such a warm, drowsy summer afternoon that Katrin nodded off to sleep herself. She was awakened some time later by Kyle, asking about merienda. So she got her hat, her wallet, and Kyle's hat, closed up the house, took her little brother by the hand, and set off on the long walk to the purok center, where the co-op store stood beside the purok basketball court.
It was nice walking down Riverside Road, as there were tall trees along both sides of the road, which ran high in some places as the road cut through a hillside. Up ahead, Katrin and Kyle could see the houses in the main purok, and the corner where Riverside Road met Acacia Street.
Suddenly they heard frenzied barking, and a little brown dog ran out into the road. Katrin immediately swung Kyle up into her arms.
Then she saw the little girl running after the dog. She was dressed in a pretty little pink sundress and pink sandals, and had her hair up in two ponytails with pink ribbons.
"Robin!" she scolded. "Bad dog! Come back here!"
Kat looked along the way the little girl had come from and realized that the wide stone steps that led up the hillside were those that led to the mansion.
The dog, Robin, was now running around Katrin, still barking, and she kept turning around, trying to keep facing it in case it suddenly decided to bite her.
The little girl came running up to them.
"Robin! Leave them alone!" she said, and grasped the brown collar Katrin had not seen hidden in the dog's fur. To Katrin, the little girl said, "I'm sorry! He won't bite you-- he doesn't bite. He just got away from me." She looked to be about Kyle's age, with dancing dark eyes, an impish little face, and long straight black hair.
A voice called "Jenny! where are you!" Soon a girl about Kat's own age, dressed in a spaghetti-strap top and leggings, the kind that Kat saw other girls wearing on TV, came running down the steps. "There you are!" she called. "Hi! I'm sorry, did our bad dog frighten you? I'm Pia Nolasco and this is my sister Jenny."
Kyle now wriggled, asking to be put down, and Katrin put him down-- he was getting heavy-- and bemusedly shook Pia's hand.
"I'm Katrin Perez, and this is my brother Kyle. I've never seen you around here before, and we've lived here forever," she said. "Are you visiting people around here?"
Pia laughed.
"Please call me Pie, and may I call you Kat? We just moved in," she gestured up the hill, "yesterday."
"Yesterday! Where did you live before you came here?" Katrin asked in surprise. Kyle, meanwhile, walked over to talk to Jenny and pet the little brown dog.
"Manila," Pie answered. "Mommy's family used to live here a long time ago, before I was born, but then they moved to Manila and that was where she met Daddy. And now because my-- because Daddy wanted to live in the province, they decided to bring us back here to Mommy's old house." She pointed towards the mansion.
"Wow," Katrin said. "That old house has been empty for as long as I could remember. We live down the road, the last house before you get to the river. Please do come and visit us sometime."
"Sure!" Pie said. "And won't you come in and have merienda with us? I was going to call Jenny in for merienda anyway."
"Oh, no, we couldn't impose on you," Katrin said hastily. "Kyle and I were on our way to the purok center.. to buy merienda."
"They have a swimming pool, Ate!" Kyle said in awestruck tones, after Jenny whispered something to him. "A swimming pool of their very own!"
"I'm bringing Kyle home to see the swimming pool," Jenny announced. "Come, Robin." And she led the way back up the steps to the mansion. Kyle looked at his sister, then followed his new friend. Exchanging amused glances, the two older sisters followed them.
A pretty woman was standing in the garden at the top of the steps, looking around her. "Where could they be?" she asked.
"Mommy!" Jenny ran to her and hugged her around the knees. "This is Kyle. I want him to see the swimming pool. Come, Kyle. It's around back."
"Jenny! We are going to have merienda!" her mother called after her.
"In a minute!" And Jenny was off with Kyle in tow.
"Michael! Go with Jenny!" Mrs. Nolasco called, and a boy about the age of Katrin's oldest brother Andy came out of the house and went after the two little ones.
"Mom, this is Katrin Perez. She's Kyle's sister. They were passing by in the road when Robin got out," and Pie told her mother what had happened.
"Maring, we are going to have guests with us for merienda," Mrs. Nolasco told the woman who was carrying a pitcher of iced tea out of the house and putting it on a table in the garden.
"Yes, madam," Maring answered before going back in.
"Don't worry about your little brother," Mrs. Nolasco told Katrin with a smile, handing her a glass of iced tea. "They will be perfectly safe with Jenny's older brother Michael. I hope you like spaghetti, my dear?"
Katrin sat down in a garden chair with a sigh of contentment and accepted a plate of spaghetti with meat sauce and plenty of cheese, and two slices of toasted bread with butter.
"This is so yummy," she declared. "Mmmm!"
"Mommy made it!" Pie said as she helped herself to the spaghetti.
"Thank you, Katrin. Speaking of mothers... I hope yours won't be worried..?" Mrs. Nolasco said.
"Oh, Mama and my brothers are at the market. They sell our vegetables there every Market Day," Katrin said. "Of course when we're at school she takes Kyle with her, but now that school's out, she left him with me."
"Fresh vegatables!" Mrs. Nolasco exclaimed. "Oh, how wonderful! Those are so hard to get in the city."
Katrin explained that sometimes the neighbors even came all the way to their house to buy and pick their own vegetables from the Perez garden.
"Fruits, too, when they are in season," she said. "Papa is just waiting for the watermelons and melons to ripen, maybe next week. And there are some lacatan and saba bananas in the orchard, too, just waiting to ripen. And we have santol, and avocado, and suha, although Papa despairs of our lanzones tree, for it looks like it doesn't want to bear any fruits."
"Mangoes, too?" Pie asked eagerly.
"Well, the mango orchard really belongs to the Barrioses-- see that empty house up the road, before you get to ours? So I don't count the mangoes as ours, really. But when the Barrioses moved away, they told Papa that we could harvest the mangoes when they ripened, because otherwise they'd just be wasted. So yes, we have mangoes when they're in season, although I think Papa sends the money to the Barrioses whenever we are able to sell the fruit."
"Mangoes are my favorite fruit!" and Pie's eyes sparkled.
"I'll bring over the first of the season," Katrin promised, and Pie clapped her hands happily.
"Wow! Spaghetti! Is it someone's birthday?" Kyle exclaimed when he and Jenny came back to the garden. Mrs. Nolasco just laughed and gave him a plate.
"Where's Michael?" she asked Jenny.
"He went to his room. Says he doesn't want merienda," Jenny answered, already forking up her spaghetti.
Mrs. Nolasco sighed and shook her head.
"Shall I fetch him, Mom?" Pie asked.
"No, he'll come down when he gets hungry," her mother said and turned to Katrin. "So where do you go to school, Kat?"
"Sto. Nino National High School. I'll be in Second Year this June," Katrin said proudly. "Where will Pie be going to school, Ma'am?"
"Please, call me Tita Anna," said Mrs. Nolasco. "I went to the Notre Dame of Marbel for Girls many years ago... it's the Notre Dame of Siena now, isn't it? Pie still hasn't made up her mind if she wants to go there, though."'
"Oh, the one in Marbel," Katrin said, referring to the capital city of the province. "It's a good school, yeah. They beat us in last year's science fair, when they teamed up with the Notre Dame of Marbel University. But we trumped them in the Quiz Bee, anyway. We're just a public school, but we aren't that backward, if I do say so myself. And I love my teachers," she declared loyally. "Next year maybe they'll choose me to be one of the delegates to the FHP. That'll be fun."
"FHP?" Pie asked. She and her mother exchanged glances.
"Future Homemakers of the Philippines," Kat said. "It lasts for a week and there are all sorts of contests, from sewing to cooking to dancing. But of course, the Notre Dame of Siena is a very good school," she repeated. "I'm just loyal to my alma mater, that's all." And they all laughed.
Just then something buzzed in the pocket of Kat's shorts, and she jumped, then pulled out her cellphone. It was a text from her mother, saying that they were on their way home.
"I guess we better be on our way home too," she said to Mrs. Nolasco. "Thank you for the delicious merienda, Tita."
"When will you come back?" Jenny demanded.
"Tell you what, Jenny, why don't you and your Ate Pie come over to our house tomorrow? If it's okay with Tita, of course," and Katrin looked to Mrs. Nolasco for approval.
"Yes, of course," Mrs. Nolasco said at once. She and Pie and Jenny waved goodbye from the top of the stone steps as Katrin and Kyle went down them.
A tricycle was coming up the road as Katrin and Kyle emerged from the mansion steps. It came to a stop and Katrin realized it was their own tricycle, driven by Manong Tino, and with her mother and Aian and Andy in it.
"Mama!" Kyle eagerly scrambled in to hug his mother, and Aian vacated the seat beside her for Katrin and went to the back to sit beside Andy.
"Where did you come from?" Mrs. Perez asked, and Kyle told her about his new friends. Katrin met her mother's questioning glance and grinned.
"Simply put, Mama, we have new neighbors," she said.
"Oh! New neighbors! Well!" her mother said. "I suppose your Papa and I will have to pay them a visit sometime, then."
"I asked Pie and Jenny to come over tomorrow, if that's okay, Mama?"
"Of course it is, dear," and Mrs. Perez was pleasantly surprised when Katrin flung her arms around her neck and gave her a hug. "What was that for?"
Katrin grinned.
"This summer just got a lot better," she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment