A Nuyorican teen reluctantly transforms into a Mickey Rican with the help of her best friend, her family, and a little bit of brujeria.
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In 1987, Desiree Sanchez is a Model Rican in the eyes of The Parents: She won first place in the eighth grade...
Monotone voice in my head drones on and on like the hurricane chainsaws, period all over my white shorts, who wears white shorts, why am I wearing white shorts, why are the hallways halfway outside?
This school is so weird.
Don't want to be here.
Want to go home.
Dad says this is home now.
New York is not home anymore.
Dad doesn't understand anything about kids.
He says he was a kid once, but I don't think he really remembers.
He is 47! So old, there's no way he can remember what it's like to be 13!
I am freaking out. I can't breathe.
While I'm sitting on the toilet sniffling and rolling up paper into my underwear, I hear a knock on the stall door.
"Mira, I have a long-sleeved shirt you can wrap around your waist," says a voice with a slight sing-song Spanish accent, just like Mom's.
A black-and-white checkered shirt hurls over the door.
When I open it, I see it's the boy with the saxophone case. Except he is not a boy. He is a girl with a short haircut. "What's that accent from?"
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"I used to live in Puerto Rico...in Vieques," she says without the accent, then turns toward the mirror to pop a pimple on her chin. Her eyes are bright blue. Hair shaved so close to her head, she looks like one of those guys in the army; skin so mocha my cousins would call her morena, negrita, prieta.
"My cousins in Puerto Rico call me gringa," is all I can manage in a monotone because there is nothing that intimidates me more than another Puerto Rican girl.
The girl looks me up and down. "You're Puerto Rican? You don't look Puerto Rican," she says with the accent again. "And you don't talk like a Puerto Rican, either."
The way she flips her accent on and off like a switch is disorienting, so I flip on my New York switch because she's pissing me off. "You don't look Porto Rican eetha. And why is your hair so shawt? You look like a boy."
She doesn't seem fazed by my accent or my sudden aggression as she starts dabbing at her head while looking in the mirror. "My mom made me cut it. She wishes I was a boy."
I look at her reflection in the mirror. "Why does she want you to be a boy?"
Then she spins to look at me. "Because one day she came home from work and said that being a girl is really hard. Since then she made me cut my hair and started calling me Mars. But my real name is Marga."
"How is Mars the boy name for Marga?"
"I guess because she lives on planet Mars while the rest of us earthlings have to deal with reality. Plus, I haven't gotten my period yet so maybe I am a boy."
