User:Jmugerio/second sandbox

Plot

Chapter One begins with the family finally arriving at their new home in Central Valley after driving for hours in a cramped station wagon. The family starts to unpack their belongings into the bungalow. The younger kids run off to explore an abandoned barn next door. As Estrella goes to fetch her younger siblings from the barn, Perfecto enters and yells at the children to leave the barn at once. He blames Estrella for allowing her siblings to enter, explaining she should have known it was dangerous as the walls are ready to collapse. Estrella leaves angrily.

California's Central Valley

The chapter switches to Alejo and his cousin Gumecindo picking peaches, and their memory of the same barn. The first time the cousins discovered the barn was on a dark and eerie night. Gumecindo warned Alejo from entering the barn, telling him it was getting late, and it was time to go home. Struck by curiosity, Alejo enters the barn swearing he heard a noise. Out of nowhere he sees a young boy. Spooked by the creepy silence, Gumecindo grabs Alejo to leave at once. Upon leaving, Alejo sees the boy trip and fall, scraping his elbow on broken glass. Alejo demands they stop to help the boy. He cleans up the little boy's cuts, and stops him from crying by creating shadow animals with his hands.

This first chapter is important in setting up the family dynamics. As Estrella is scolded for not preventing her siblings from entering the barn, Estrella flashes back to a memory of her real father, who she often remembers peeling an orange. Her mother Petra also thinks back to her husband that abandoned her with their young children. Petra has heard of sightings of her estranged husband in Whittier and in Mexico. In present time, Estrella delineates Perfecto as her stepfather as there is an apparent distance in their relationship. The distance starts to close with a memory of Perfecto teaching her about tools as she watches him work on their car.

The two families meet at the end of the chapter when Alejo and Gumecindo bring a sack of peaches to Petra to the family’s home. They barter, with Petra trading the peaches for Pinto beans. She tells Alejo to give them to his mother, but Alejo tells her that he can’t, because she is dead. As the chapter closes, Alejo gets his first glimpse of Estrella.

Chapter Two opens with Estrella going out to the grape fields to work in the morning. Dressed in overalls, she packs a peach for her lunch, then hops on her ride to the fields. On the way to the fields, Alejo notices her and tries to strike a conversation. He is shocked to learn they had worked in the same fields the whole time. Annoyed by his questions, Estrella gives him quick responses, hoping to get the work day over with.

Petra flashes back to first time she started working in those very fields. At the time, Estrella was four, and Petra brought her to the fields as she worked. She was also pregnant at the time, and remembers the harsh conditions of the inescapable California heat, and the low-paying struggle of manual of the labor.

At lunch time, Alejo continues to try and converse with Estrella. He offers her a drink of his cola, and she accepts. The two get to know each other as Alejo asks her about her family. The two become friends as they playfully try to blow musical notes out of the cola bottle. Estrella says she will see Alejo tomorrow, and begins on her long walk home. Both Estrella and Alejo go their separate ways.

biplane spraying fertilizer over a grapefield

Alejo meets his cousin as they prepare to go home. Alejo hears the sound of an approaching biplane spraying fertilizer over the fields. He yells to Gumecindo to run and avoid the plane, so the cousins separate, running home. Alejo runs through the bushes, but gets snagged by the twigs. The moisture from the plane reaches Alejo, and he tries everything not to fall. He makes it home, but not unscathed. The poison sprayed over him, and enters his lungs.

The chapter ends with Perfecto asking Estrella if she would help him tear down the barn. Curious as to why it needed to be tore down, he tells her so they could make money for doing the work, and that someone had died there.

In Chapter Three, after the incident with the biplane, Alejo still manages to wake up and go to work. He sees Estrella on the truck that brings the piscadores to work, and he manages to converse with her again. This time she is more willing, and the two of them bond. When they take a break for lunch, Alejo kisses her. Shocked by the kiss, she runs home.

In the following days, Alejo gets gravely ill. Gumecindo goes to Petra’s house to tell her is worried about his cousin. Afraid for Alejo, Petra decides to take him into their home and take care of him. Perfecto tries to dissuade her, reminding her she already has a lot on her plate. Petra refuses to listen to Perfecto and demands Gumecindo carry his cousin to their home so that she can care for him.

At their home, Petra tries to nurse Alejo back to health with home remedies such as rice water to calm his nausea. Weak and bed-bound, Alejo finds comfort in Estrella's conversation. The chapter ends with Petra feeling nauseated.

Chapter Four begins with the fact that both Petra and Alejo are sick. Petra can feel in her belly that she is pregnant. It has been a few weeks, and Alejo has not gotten any better. Perfecto tells Estrella that both her mother and Alejo need medical help, and she must choose one. Deciding that Alejo is on the verge of death, they decide to bring him to the clinic. The family's station wagon almost runs out of gas and gets stuck in the mud. Nearby onlookers help push their car out of the mud and the family reaches the rundown, white clinic trailer. Unaware of Alejo's citizenship status, she lies saying he is her cousin. The nurse tries to diagnose Alejo to the best of her ability, stating the doctor is out of town. Baffled by how ill Alejo is, she tells the family to take him to the hospital, which is 20 miles away.

The nurse charges the family $10 for the office visit. Only coming up with $9.07 collectively, Perfecto offers to fix the plumbing as a barter. The nurse accepts the money, letting them slide for the rest. Realizing the family does not have enough money to get to the hospital, Perfecto tries to load the family into the car to head home. Estrella, understanding the urgency to get Alejo to the hospital, decides to take brazen action. She grabs a crowbar and returns to the trailer. She threatens the nurse to return their money, using the crowbar to smash a picture of her kids on the desk. Fearful and in tears, she gives the money to Estrella. Perfecto looks on, shocked, but he understands Estrella's desperation. Using $5 to fill up on gas, the family reaches the hospital. The family leaves the ignition on so the battery doesn't die, and Estrella walks Alejo through the hospital doors. The family heads home, and Estrella tells Perfecto that she will help him tear down the barn.

Chapter Five concludes the novel with Estrella understanding she may never see Alejo again. Petra, looking under the feet of a jesus statue, sees the birth certificates of her five children, and the marriage certificate from when she married her husband in Santa Ana. She views these documents as proof against immigration if anyone tries to wrongly deport her children. Petra is contemplative about her life, her struggles, her daughter's affection for someone liker her first husband, and the growing life in her belly. Perfecto, too, worries about how he can afford to bring another life into the world when they are struggling to survive. He feels old and too tired to be starting another family.

Estrella wakes up the next morning, puts on her overalls, and begins to tear down the barn. The intensity of her work wards off the spirits and she finds a newfound courage; a strength that believes can bring lost souls home.