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The Water Year
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Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Howard, Max.
Title: The water year / Max Howard.
Description: New York: West 44, 2020.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781538385111 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781538385128 (library bound) | ISBN 9781538385135 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Emigration and immigration--Juvenile fiction. | Immigrants--Juvenile fiction. | Human rights--Juvenile fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.H693 Wa 2020 | DDC [F]--dc23
First Edition
Published in 2020 by
Enslow Publishing LLC
101 West 23rd Street, Suite #240
New York, NY 10011
Copyright © 2020 Enslow Publishing LLC
Editor: Caitie McAneney
Designer: Seth Hughes
Photo Credits: Cover (dirt) Nopi Mohd Nor/Shutterstock.com.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer.
Printed in the United States of America
CPSIA compliance information: Batch #CW20W44: For further information contact Enslow Publishing LLC, New York, New York at 1-800-542-2595.
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!
- Langston Hughes
Chapter 1
Dear Mom,
Lucas Ross is a dung heap with a tongue ring. How is my best friend in love with him?
He gets Doritos stuck in his braces. He clicks his tongue ring against his teeth when other people are talking.
Amy and I usually see eye to eye, but whenever Lucas raises his dumb eyebrows, she laughs. He’s always raising his eyebrows. Or else he repeats what you say in a sarcastic voice. He’s like a walking meme.
A mean meme.
The worst part is, I hardly ever see Amy anymore.
I miss her.
And you.
Love,
Sophie
“Sophie, you have to go to the Sato twins’ Fall Bash,” Amy says. She swirls her french fries in ketchup. Her boyfriend, Lucas, nuzzles her neck. “Pretty please? I never get to see you anymore.”
“I don’t know. It’s weird the party’s on a weeknight,” Sophie says. She looks down at her lunch. Limp, slimy school pizza slumps on her tray. “I have to go study for my history quiz.”
Lucas slides his mouth off Amy’s neck. “Uh, Sophie? What’s a weeknight?”
His voice is serious, but his face is mocking. He clicks his tongue ring against his teeth.
“You know. Like a school night,” Sophie says.
“Here’s the thing: I don’t think weeknights exist,” Lucas declares.
“He’s right,” Amy pipes up. “The days of the week are just a social construct. You know. Just something humans made up.”
“Weekends are as made-up as Santa Claus,” Lucas says. He crunches a fry. “You don’t still believe in Santa, do you?”
“I have to go,” Sophie says. Santa might not exist, she thinks. But Mr. Orr is a real bear. History quizzes are the worst.
“Come to the party. There’s going to be a bonfire. In the desert! On a full moon,” Amy says.
“A full blood moon,” Lucas adds.
“If you come with us, I’ll sleep over Friday and Saturday. I’ll help you take care of Violet,” Amy promises.
“Who’s Violet?” says Lucas.
“Sophie’s sister,” says Amy. “She’s in second grade. She’s so cute. She’s obsessed with that cartoon movie—Ice Fairies.”
“That cartoon one about the fairy princesses? With the song about snow—”
Amy and Sophie burst out singing “Here I Am,” the hit song from Ice Fairies.
Lucas scoffs. “I can’t believe you guys like that princess stuff.”
“It’s about sisters who rescue each other!” Amy says. “And there’s no kiss at the end. It’s feminist!”
Lucas shrugs. “Is it feminist? Or are they just trying to sell little girls T-shirts?”
“And tutus,” Sophie says.
“What?” says Lucas.
“Yeah,” says Amy. “They sell tutus, too.”
“Violet only wears Ice Fairies T-shirts and tutus,” Sophie says.
“Whatever,” says Lucas. “Let’s focus. Sophie. You going to the party?” He clicks his tongue ring, making a ticktock sound.
Yuck. Imagine driving to the party with Lucas and Amy. How long would the car ride be? Would his tongue click the whole way?
But going to the party might be worth it, Sophie muses.
Maybe Amy really would sleep over.
Violet misses Amy, Sophie thought. Amy puts fancy braids in Violet’s hair. She teaches her dance moves. She microwaves mint ice cream and calls it “dinner swamp.” But yesterday Violet asked, “Did Amy move away? How come we never see her?”
“OK,” Sophie says. “If you sleep over on the weekend, I’ll go. The only thing is—what will I tell my dad? He’d never let me go to a party on a school night.”
“Just tell your dad that we’re going stargazing,” Amy says. “You won’t be lying. We’ll see some stars. The desert’s nothing but sky.”
Chapter 2
Dear Mom,
After school, I took Violet with me to work at the restaurant. Dad worried. “Keep Violet away from the soup warmer. Soup is at 180 degrees. Maybe you should take her home.”
You let me help out at the restaurant. You showed me how to roll silverware in napkins. You taught me how to fill salt shakers.
Back then, Dad made up songs about food. He sang while he flipped burgers. He changed the words to “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” He sang, “Old McDonald’s Serves You Horse.”
He doesn’t sing anymore.
Instead, he worries.
I let Violet put placemats on the tables. Dad snapped at me. “What’s your sister doing running around out there? Do you want someone to spill hot coffee all over her?”
I took a quiz online. My emotional intelligence score is off the charts, so I know Dad’s not really angry. He’s scared. He’s been scared ever since you died.
I still don’t like it when he yells at me.
Violet liked rolling silverware. She said, “It’s like making a napkin taco.”
I also let her count cupcakes. I tried to stop her from licking her fingers, but I got distracted.
Love,
Sophie
The phone rings in the restaurant kitchen. Sophie’s dad picks it up. “Fresh Ranch Restaurant, Breakfast All Day.” He flips pancakes while he listens. “Yep, that’s right. All our desserts are from Velez, the best bakery this side of the Mississippi. You want a dozen cupcakes? We should be getting a delivery any minute… can you come by around 4: 30 and pick them up?” He hangs up and turns to Sophie.
“Why don’t you take Violet out of here and go stock the bakery case? The kitchen’s too dangerous. The delivery guy should be coming soon,” her dad says.
Sophie blushes. Could he tell she’d been waiting all day for the bakery guy to show up?
Rubén Velez has delivered treats to Fresh Ranch for three years. He used to carry the bakery boxes on his bike. When he turned sixteen, he started driving the green Velez Bakery van.
Whenever she sees Rubén, Sophie tries to shoot pink laser beams of love out of her eyes at him. She wants to melt his heart.
She aims her love lasers at his chest. She can’t look him in the eye. It makes her stomach flip.
So far, t
hough, his heart seems unmelted. It seems as frozen as the castle in Ice Fairies.
The bell above the door jingles. Is it him? It’s him. It’s definitely him!
Sophie spies Rubén’s wild, brown curls poking up over the huge stack of white bakery boxes. He has great hair. Even Amy agrees. Plus, he always smells like dessert.
When Rubén passes them in the halls at school, Amy teases Sophie. She sniffs loudly and says, “I smell something. Oh, I smell sugar. Ooh, sugar, sugar.” (“Ooh, shut up, shut up,” Sophie always says.)
Rubén puts the bakery boxes on the counter. He’s so close Sophie hears the beats coming out of his earbuds. Sophie trains her love lasers on him. She leans in. He smells like carlota de limón. The icebox cake is a Velez specialty.
Sophie breathes in lemony heaven. She opens her mouth. She wants to ask Rubén if he’s going to the Sato twins’ party.
But he starts texting. He has beautiful, perfect thumbs.
Sophie opens a bakery box. Luckily, she remembered to paint her nails. Her hands look good. Passion pink is definitely her color.
When she opens the box, a cloud of powdered sugar poofs out.
“Ooh, sugar, sugar!” Sophie blurts.
Rubén looks up from his phone.
Blood rushes to Sophie’s face. Her ears start to ring. “The cookies. I mean, these are sugar cookies.”
Rubén shrugs and goes back to texting.
Who’s he texting? Sophie wonders. Does he have a girlfriend?
Violet tugs on Sophie’s shirt. “Can I help?”
“Here,” Sophie says. She opens a box of tres leches cupcakes. “We ordered two dozen cupcakes. Can you count them?”
Violet sticks her finger in a cloud of whipped cream.
“Don’t touch,” Sophie says.
“I’m not touching. I’m counting,” Violet says.
Rubén tucks his phone in his back pocket. “I have little sisters, too,” he says. He looks at Violet. “Are you in third grade?”
“Second,” says Violet.
“Do you watch Wild Kats?”
“I prefer Ice Fairies.” Violet licks whipped cream off the side of her finger.
“Oh yeah, that’s Princess Ellie on your T-shirt. I see it now. I’m more of a Princess Arabelle fan, myself.” Rubén grins.
“Princess Ellie has magic powers,” says Violet. “That’s why she’s my favorite.”
“But Princess Arabelle saves the day!” Rubén says. He raps the counter with his knuckles. “That everything? See you later.”
Sophie watches him go. Black jeans, black T-shirt, wild hair.
He scratches the back of his neck when he pushes through the door. There’s something so shy about his neck.
The bell jingles behind him—and he’s gone.
Chapter 3
Dear Mom,
Dad goes to “man camp” with the Desert Rangers three or four times a month. He says it’s good for him. Maybe it is.
I don’t mind shaking sand out of his sleeping bag when he comes back. I don’t mind emptying the cooler. I don’t even mind babysitting Violet all weekend.
But I wonder what the Desert Rangers do out there.
Uncle Matt says the point of the Desert Rangers is that I don’t have to wonder. “You just get to live your life, safe and sound,” he said. “The people who love you are looking out for you.”
His voice breaks up when he says “people who love you.” He’s sad because he and Aunt Rachel are getting divorced. He’s so sad that if you try to hug him, he pushes you away. He says, “God! Cut it out! I got to stay focused.”
Focused on what?
Dad says Uncle Matt has a long healing journey ahead of him. Maybe man camp is a healing journey. But when Dad comes back from the desert, he looks worried.
He triple-checks the door locks. He bought a motion sensor alarm. Quails keep setting it off in the yard.
Dad even made me memorize the passcode to the gun safe. “Just in case,” he said.
Just in case what?
Love,
Sophie
Lucas drives Amy and Sophie to the Sato twins’ desert party. Amy keeps one hand on his thigh the whole time. Lucas clicks his tongue ring in time with the turn signal. To Sophie, it feels like a long drive.
The Sato twins live far outside of town. At last, Lucas pulls into their winding driveway. Then they bump along a dark, dirt trail behind the Satos’ house.
“I heard Rubén Velez is going to be there tonight,” Amy says.
“So?” asks Sophie. She doesn’t want Lucas to know her business.
“Lucas, don’t you think Sophie and Rubén would make a cute couple?”
“I don’t really know him,” says Lucas. “But I doubt he’ll be there tonight. He hates the Sato twins.”
“Why?” says Sophie.
“Rubén’s a monk. He rejects the party mentality.” “He’s not a monk,” Amy scoffs.
“You ever see him hook up with anybody? You ever see him kick back with a few beers?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Rubén is totally normal. He hangs out with other people. Older people, maybe,” says Amy, hopefully.
“Think what you want,” says Lucas. He points toward a flare of light on the horizon. “That’s the bonfire, over there.” Lucas turns off the trail. He parks his VW between two tall saguaro cactuses. They walk toward the fire.
The full moon shines brightly. The desert stretches to the mountains. The tall cactuses cast long shadows into the pale sand.
As they near the bonfire, the sounds of laughter, shouts, and drumming grow louder.
“It sounds so primitive,” Amy says.
“Humans have been partying for literally forever,” Lucas says. “It is our true nature.”
Drinking is something Sophie might have done—if her mom were still alive. Whenever Amy drinks or breaks curfew, she gets caught. Amy’s mom, Becca, always waits up for her.
When Becca gets mad, she turns red. She shakes her finger. Her Velcro curlers fall out and stick to her pajamas. It’s almost cute.
But when Sophie tries to imagine her dad busting her for curfew, it doesn’t seem cute. It just seems sad. Her dad would get that tired look on his face. The one that says, I wasn’t supposed to be doing this alone.
So while Amy drinks, Sophie looks around for Rubén. She doesn’t see him. She wanders away from the bonfire. The moonlight makes a silver path on the sand. As she walks, the sounds of the party float away.
Sophie walks toward the mountain. When she reaches a heap of boulders, she stops. She presses her hand against the ancient rock formation.
People have been living in the desert for thousands of years, she muses. Living here. Dying here. Looking up at the stars and wondering, what are we doing here?
Something sparkles in the sand. Sophie follows the moonbeam to a spot just beyond the rock formation. She kneels down. She brushes away sand with her fingers.
The patch of sparkle grows. As she brushes sand away, Sophie sees that the glitter formed letters. E-L-L-I-E.
Oh, Sophie thought. Someone left an Ice Fairies T-shirt out here. That’s weird.
But as she sweeps sand away from the shirt, she realizes that whatever she has found is more than a T-shirt.
It’s bigger.
More solid.
More human.
Chapter 4
Dear Mom,
Today I found a dead body.
Wait.
That doesn’t sound right.
Tonight I went to a party in the desert. I stumbled across—
I don’t know who she was.
I don’t even know exactly what happened.
Did I scream?
I don’t remember.
I saw something sparkling in the sand. I don’t know what I thought it was. Maybe crystals?
I brushed away the sand. Something was buried. What did I think it was? Did I think it was treasure?
I had to keep digging.
I scooped sand.
Then I saw the hand—that’s when I knew for sure it was a body.
The skin was dried out. Like a mummy’s. The fingers were brittle. The nails were painted passion pink. Like mine.
The moon was so bright I could see for miles.
Do I keep digging until I’ve dug her all the way up, or do I stop and get help now? I wondered.
I dug a little bit more. Maybe I wanted to find her face. I couldn’t. Finding the face, digging it up, was taking longer than I thought it should.
Oh, my God, I thought. Maybe a coyote ran off with her head.
I didn’t want to find a headless woman in the desert. I think that’s when I started screaming.
I ran back to the bonfire, yelling, “Call 911!”
Love,
Sophie
Red and blue lights flash. Sophie counts three cop cars. One ambulance.
Two EMTs carry a stretcher into the ambulance. A long, zipped-up bag lies on top of the stretcher. There’s a body inside that bag.
A person. A girl. A girl wearing an Ice Fairies T-shirt.
Meanwhile, the Sato twins’ mom stomps around the dying bonfire. Every time she finds a beer can, she yells. She yells in Japanese, but clearly, she’s mad about the beer.
“God,” Lucas says. “It’s Coors. You’d think finding a dead body would put things in perspective for her.”
“Did you see the dead girl’s face?” Amy whispers. She snuggles into Sophie’s blanket.
Sophie thinks of the girl’s Ice Fairies T-shirt. Her tiny fingers. Her shriveled skin. Her pink fingernails.
“What did she look like?” asks Amy.
A mummy, Sophie thinks.
But she doesn’t say anything. In fact, she hasn’t said much since she ran back to the bonfire. “Call 911!” she’d screamed.
Nate Sato ran to get his mom. Nick Sato told everyone to hide the alcohol. When the cops came, Sophie led them out into the desert.
“Bodies dry out pretty fast in the desert,” Lucas says. “I bet she looked like a mummy.”
The Water Year
Fifteen and Change