A Handful of Stars Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The only reason I ever spoke to Salma Santiago was because my dog ate her lunch.

  Sometimes life is like a long road leading from one “if” to another. If Lucky hadn’t slipped out of his collar, I wouldn’t have been running across the blueberry barrens in late July, yelling, “Lucky! No! Come! Treats!” trying every phrase that dog knew, praying one of them would slow him down long enough for me to grab him.

  “Leash! Bacon! Go for a ride? Cheese!” But for a blind, old, black Labrador retriever, Lucky’s really fast. Especially on those wide-open barrens where there’s nothing to bump into and every which way to go.

  Wild Maine blueberry bushes grow less than a foot high, but they’re thick and pokey. My ankles were scraped up and stinging as I sprinted past another WINTHROP BLUEBERRIES. NO TRESPASSING sign.

  On Sundays, I always see Mr. Winthrop at church, dressed up and sitting in his family’s pew. I hoped he’d remember the whole “Forgive those who trespass against us” part of the Lord’s Prayer if he saw me. I was praying, too, but with my eyes open, afraid if I closed them, Lucky would be gone.

  Please stop Lucky. Please stop him. No, not the road! I begged, terrified Lucky would get hit by that big Winthrop truck coming, carrying tall rainbow stacks of plastic bins of blueberries.

  Brakes squealed. “Hey!” the driver of the truck shouted at me. “Get off those bushes!”

  “It’s my dog!” I yelled.

  If that driver hadn’t slammed on his brakes, and if we hadn’t yelled at each other, the girl might not have noticed me running after Lucky. I saw her from the corner of my eye: a flash of long black ponytail and orange T-shirt leaping over the strings that marked off the blueberry fields into lanes for raking. She ran as fast as a gale wind across those barrens, dropping her blueberry rake and grabbing a backpack off a pile. As she got closer to Lucky, she pulled a sandwich and a little bag of chips out of her backpack.

  Lucky wasn’t listening to “come” or any of his favorite words, but the crinkle of that chip bag pulled his ears right back.

  If she hadn’t given him her lunch, Lucky would probably still be running across Maine—maybe all the way into Canada by now.

  When I caught up, I was so out of breath that I couldn’t even speak. All I could do was nod at the girl giving Lucky her sandwich. She looked about twelve years old, same as me. Her hair was wispy around her face where it was coming loose from her ponytail and she had a smear of dirt on her cheek. Even so, she was pretty. She was probably from one of the migrant families that drive here for a few weeks every summer. They come in old trucks, campers, and cars from Mexico and Florida and other far-off places to rake the blueberries that grow wild in the barrens. I don’t usually talk to those kids and they don’t usually talk to me. They don’t stay here long enough for us to be friends.

  As Lucky licked peanut butter from his mouth, I wrapped the collar around his neck—a tighter fit this time. By the time I had it buckled and the leash clipped on, the girl was walking back to her blueberry lane.

  “Thanks!” I yelled. “And sorry about your lunch. I didn’t mean to let him eat your whole sandwich!”

  But I guess no one would want a half-eaten-by-a-dog sandwich anyway.

  Surrounded by people in other lanes, she swept the bushes with her aluminum blueberry rake. A blueberry rake looks like a metal dustpan with teeth. The back end is an open box with a handle or two on top. The front end has a row of sharp tines. You push the tines through the low-growing bushes and then tip the rake up and back so the berries are scooped off and roll down to collect in the back. It’s hard, tiring work. A man near the girl yelled something in Spanish and she laughed. She didn’t look up, though. Just kept scooping and tipping.

  Walking home, I scolded Lucky, but he didn’t seem one teeny bit sorry for all the trouble he’d caused.

  Maybe because he got a sandwich out of it.

  Or maybe because it felt so good to run wild again; full-tilt across those wide-open barrens the way a blind dog barely ever gets to run anymore.

  Or maybe because Lucky can sense things people can’t. Dr. Katz, our veterinarian, says that when a dog loses his sight, the other senses get sharper to make up for it. She may be right, because Lucky sure heard that chip bag and smelled that peanut butter.

  But I think it’s more than that.

  If Lucky hadn’t led me over those blueberry barrens, we might never have met that girl, Salma Santiago. And I think Lucky knew that we needed her, maybe even more than she needed us.

  “I’ve raised you better than that,” my grandmother said that night when I told her how Lucky ate a girl’s sandwich and chips. “Lily, you’re going to bring that child something else to eat, in case that was all she had.”

  “But Mémère, it happened at lunchtime,” I said. “She’ll think it’s weird if I show up with food now. And how am I going to find her? I don’t even know her name!”

  “Pépère will take you over to their camp.”

  My grandfather opened his mouth, like he was going to protest. Then he shut it. Pépère likes to say that when Mémère gets an idea in her head, she’s like a hurricane and everybody else should dive for cover.

  “Mrs. Lamont brought in some frozen tourtière for the store this morning,” Mémère said. “I still have a couple to sell. You’ll bring that child’s family one of those.”

  “You want me to bring a pork pie? To the camp? But I don’t even know if she likes tourtière!” I said. “Maybe she’s a vegetarian.”

  Mémère tipped her head down to look at me over her eyeglasses. “I’ll get you a sturdy bag. Those pies are heavy.”

  “If I bring her anything, I should bring bread and peanut butter so she can make a new sandwich,” I said.

  “Groceries? No, that won’t do at all!” Mémère said. “It might look like we think the child’s poor, and that’d be insulting.”

  “But she is poor. Isn’t she?” I thought that’s why migrant workers kept moving, because they didn’t have enough money and needed to find work—even if it was far away.

  “Tigerlily Marie!” Mémère said.

  I cringed. When Mémère uses my whole, real name like that, the conversation is over. Because Mémère is the only person who hates my name as much as I do.

  The story is that when Mama looked out the hospital window right after I was born, she saw orange tiger lilies blooming. It was such a pretty sight; she picked my name right then and there.

  I wish Mama had seen roses or violets or daisies out the window that day. But as Pépère always says, there’s sunshine on the other side of every rain cloud. So it could’ve been worse. Mama could’ve named me Ragweed.

  Lucky jumped up when he heard us walking toward the door. “Go lie down!” Mémère said. “You’ve caused enough trouble today.”

  Lucky flopped on his dog bed under the window. If Pépère or I had scolded him, Lucky would’ve whimpered and wrinkled his brow into the saddest dog face ever, trying to change our minds. But those tricks didn’t work with Mémère.

  A long time ago, he wa
s Mama’s dog. Pépère says Maine was never enough for her, and after high school, Mama went off to Boston and then Florida and then New York. But I guess those places weren’t enough, either, because she came back, bringing Lucky and me with her.

  I wish I knew what Mémère said when Mama came home with a puppy and a two-year-old. Even though I was there, I don’t remember that day or anything about being two. I don’t even remember Mama—except for photos I’ve seen or stories people have told me. To me, Mémère and Pépère’s apartment above the store has always been home, Mama has always been gone, and Lucky has always been grown-up—and now, old.

  I didn’t even know he was losing his sight. Dr. Katz said it had come on slowly and there was nothing I could’ve done to stop it. Still, when something bad is happening to your best friend, it seems like you should know.

  “I’ll be back,” I promised Lucky. Then I followed Mémère downstairs from our home above the store.

  I shifted my feet, waiting while she put a frozen pork pie in a paper bag.

  “It’s a nice night,” Pépère said. “So we’ll walk.”

  I sighed. If we took the truck, the whole embarrassing trip would be over quicker, but he only used the truck when he had to. Gas is expensive and the truck is old.

  “Be safe,” Mémère said, as usual.

  It’s a long walk to the barrens, especially if it’s the second time you’ve had to take that trip in one day. On the way, I took extra steps to keep up with Pépère. We walked quietly out of town and down the road that cuts the barrens in half, past all the NO TRESPASSING signs and toward the line of little blue cabins for the workers at Winthrop Blueberry.

  Coming along, the migrant camp just seems to pop up suddenly in the middle of the wide, flat barrens. It always reminds me of The Wizard of Oz when the Emerald City appears in the distance over the poppy fields. Except the camp buildings are blue, not emerald green, and there’s a big group of orange Porta Potties in the center.

  As we left the road, there was another sign, ALL VISITORS MUST REGISTER AT THE SECURITY BUILDING. I’d never actually gone into the camp before. I swallowed hard as we passed men smoking cigarettes around a picnic table. A few of them turned to look at us, like Pépère and I didn’t belong there. I wished I could just stash the bag with the pork pie behind one of the towers of empty blueberry bins so I wouldn’t have to give the girl this ridiculous thank-you present.

  “The girl who helped you was Hispanic?” Pépère asked me quietly.

  I nodded.

  “Miguel might know her, and he speaks English,” Pépère said.

  The migrant workers mostly keep to themselves, but they all get to know Mémère and Pépère eventually. Our store is the closest one to the camp, and we can wire money to faraway places. So they come in to send some of their paychecks home to Mexico or Honduras or Quebec or wherever the rest of their family lives. Helping out at the store, I know some of the workers who come each year to live in those tiny blue houses. There’s Charles Wabisi, a Micmac from Nova Scotia, and the Perez family, who stays through December to work at the Christmas wreath–making factory. Diego Perez is in my class at school until holiday break every year. We have a going-away party for him before he leaves each winter.

  And there’s Miguel, who brings the blueberry rakes to Pépère any time they need fixing.

  Only some of the workers speak English. If they’re from Canada, sometimes they speak French, but Pépère has no trouble with that. He can switch between French and English in the middle of a sentence—sometimes without even meaning to. Both of us know only a handful of words in Spanish, though. And gracias was the only word I thought would be helpful right now.

  “Miguel?” Pépère asked the men at the picnic table. A man in a black T-shirt pointed to the office, a bigger building than the cabins, but painted the same blue with white trim.

  Sure enough, we saw Miguel as soon as we stepped inside. He was standing beside a desk, helping another man fill out some paperwork.

  “Excuse me, Miguel?” Pépère said.

  Miguel and the man looked up. “Armand!” he said, smiling. “What can I do for you?”

  I hoped Pépère would explain, but he pushed the back of my arm. “Lily needs a little help.”

  I took a deep breath. “My dog got loose today and ran all the way here. A girl who was raking helped me catch him, and my dog ate her peanut-butter sandwich. Mémère thought Mrs. Lamont’s pork pie would be a better thank-you present than another sandwich, though. So I brought one.”

  I knew I was babbling because the man with Miguel was looking back at his paperwork. He’d already given up trying to understand me.

  “I don’t know how to find the girl because I don’t know her name,” I continued.

  “Where was she raking?” Miguel asked.

  “Near the road,” I said.

  “Yes, but where?” he asked. “The fields were lined with string for raking. If you could tell me where, I might know which family had that section.”

  “I could show you,” I said.

  Miguel and Pépère and the man with the paperwork trailed behind me, until I was pretty sure I had the right area.

  “I’d guess it was the Santiagos. Cottage number fifty-seven.” Miguel pointed down the row of little blue cabins. “Their daughter’s name is Salma.”

  I hesitated. It was one thing to tell Mémère I’d do this and another thing to walk up to the Santiagos’ cabin and hand over a pork pie.

  “Come on,” Miguel said. “I’ll introduce you.”

  That made me feel a little better. Pépère and I followed Miguel past campers and trucks and lots of little blue houses, some with picnic tables and others with boxes and coolers beside the door. In the dirt driveway between #57 and #58 was an older green pickup truck with Florida license plates and some trash cans with the lids tied down to keep the raccoons and bears and seagulls from helping themselves.

  My heart beat hard as Miguel knocked on the door. A man with a dark mustache answered, squinting a little, looking worried when he saw us. Miguel spoke to the man in Spanish, and the man said, “Salma?”

  Miguel nodded. “Eduardo, this is Armand Dumont who runs the general store in town with his wife, Marie,” he said in English, “and here is their granddaughter, Lily.”

  “Hello,” said Pépère. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Come in,” the man said.

  Whew. He speaks some English. But as I followed him inside, I couldn’t help staring. On the outside, the cabin was painted light blue with white trim, as cute as a dollhouse. But inside there were only four bare wood walls, the beams all showing. Hats and shirts hung on nails, and bunk beds lined two of the walls. A table and chairs took up the opposite corner. A woman sat in one of the chairs. She had long brown hair and she stood up as we entered, smoothing the sides of her jeans. A radio played quietly on the table next to a roll of paper towels, a gallon jug of water, and a little pile of upside-down playing cards, like we’d interrupted a game.

  “This is Rosa Santiago,” Miguel said, motioning to the woman. “And their daughter, Salma.”

  Salma was sitting on one of the bottom bunk beds, her feet up on the bed, her arms hugging her knees.

  My hands twisted the edge of the bag. Smile, I told myself.

  “Hi.” Salma stood up and crossed her arms over her stomach. “How’s your dog?”

  “He’s fine.” I pulled in a deep breath. “I wanted to say thank you—gracias—for giving my dog your lunch today. I don’t know how I would’ve caught him if you hadn’t. And he’s blind, so he would’ve been in trouble if he’d reached the woods. He doesn’t bump into stuff at home, because he’s memorized everything—well, unless we forget and move something—but he definitely would’ve hurt himself here if he’d run into a tree. But anyway, I felt bad that, um, maybe you didn’t get to eat any lunch, because Lucky ate yours. So I wanted to bring you something to make up for that, and my grandmother thought you might like this pie. It’
s called tourtière—that’s French. But it’s not dessert pie. It’s dinner pie, with pork. So I hope you aren’t vegetarian.”

  Mrs. Santiago asked something in Spanish and Salma answered her.

  I wish I knew enough to translate what they’d said to each other, because I worried it was something like this:

  Who is this crazy girl and what does she want?

  I have no idea. Something about pie.

  “Mrs. Lamont makes them,” I continued. “And they’re kind of famous—well, in the pork pie world.”

  The pork pie world? I should just stop talking.

  “Bake it for forty-five minutes at 350 degrees,” Pépère added. “The instructions are on the bottom.”

  As he spoke, I suddenly realized the cabin didn’t have a whole kitchen. Just some boxes and cans of food stacked up in plastic crates near the table. I’d brought something for her family to cook and they had no stove. They didn’t even have a refrigerator to store it in. I didn’t dare look at anyone as I set the pork pie on the table beside the playing cards. “Anyway, gracias,” I said, but I was so nervous it came out sounding more like “gracious.”

  Salma said something to her parents in Spanish, but as I walked away, she spoke in English. “Thank you for the famous pork pie.”

  Was she making fun of me? But when I turned to look, she wasn’t smirking. Arms down by her sides, she was smiling.

  I didn’t even have to tell my face to smile back—it did it all by itself.

  “I’m really glad your dog is okay,” she said.

  I nodded. “Me too. But you’re the reason he’s okay—well, you and your sandwich.”

  “And don’t forget the chips!” she said.

  None of the adults seemed to think that was funny. But Salma and I laughed like it was the funniest joke ever.

  As I walked out of the camp with Pépère, I turned around every few feet to wave to Salma standing in the doorway of #57.

  She waved back, until the road took us out of sight.

  Early the next morning, I helped Mémère bake blueberry pies upstairs while Pépère went down to open the store, make the coffee, and take care of the first customers.