Chapter Text
Camilo squints. He hems. He haws. And finally, with a grin growing on his face, he throws his arms up and shouts out the name of his second-eldest cousin, whose broad back flexes as she picks up brick after brick just outside of Señora Daniela’s garden. “Luisa!” He yells, waving his arms frantically, and she looks - startled to see him, but she’s smiling, which is good. “Hey Camilo!” she shouts, arms laden with bricks and her blouse still as crisp as if it had just been laundered.
He runs down the path towards her, every step shaping him closer to her broad stature, until he stands in front of her, a perfect mimic, smiling at Luisa’s delighted gasp. “I’ll never get used to that!” She declares good-naturedly, setting the bricks down, one-atop-another. Camilo notices the line of sand tracing Señora Daniela’s garden and the half-built brick wall where a white picket fence had stood not even a month ago. His brow furrows. Still, he turns back to Luisa, intent to catch up with his cousin - it’s rare to catch Luisa not doing something as massive as touting houses across the Encanto (occupants still inside) or with an armful of donkeys.
“It’s been ten years, prima” he teases, leaning against the sturdy wall, flashing her a smile. “I know that! It’s just…” she laughs again as he spins into the form of stern Abuela, waggling his finger at her, “really cool.” Camilo flushes. Good old Luisa, he thinks fondly, and waves away her admiring look as he squashes back into himself again. Back to business.
“What are you doing?” He questions, and she gives him a confused look. “Building Señora Daniela a wall…?” She sounds confused as to what exactly he means. Camilo laughs at that, and clarifies: “Why are you building Señora Daniela’s garden a wall?” She lets out a sound of realization, and gestures a large hand to a particular patch of the garden - Camilo looks - and there it is, a picked through circle of sugar blossoms, the dirt disturbed from where someone had plucked them from the earth by the bunches. “Someone’s been stealing Señora Daniela’s flowers - her sugar blossoms…” Luisa begins, and her eyebrows drop down over her eyes, “...and they can’t figure out who. So, she asked me to build her garden a better fence - so - y’know - the thieves can’t…get in.” She doubles-up her speed on setting one brick over the other, and Camilo newly notices the mortar bucket by her side, the straw beneath his cousin’s feet.
“Her sugar blossoms?” He asks with dawning horror, hand grasping uselessly at Mirabel’s love note within his pocket. Luisa nods her affirmation, now refocused on her task of building the Señora a sturdy wall. The thought bounces around his head - someone has been stealing Señora Daniela’s sugar blossoms - and he lets out a high-pitched noise of despair, throwing himself to the ground, earning him a worried look from Luisa. Someone has been stealing Señora Daniela’s sugar blossoms, which means it could be any of Mirabel’s classmates, which means 24 people to investigate (again) which is -
“Are you okay?” She asks, and his response is a wail that would make even the meanest of the Encanto’s stray cats sprint away in fear. He’s back to square one.
Luisa nods her way through Camilo’s tearful explanation of the situation, and, in the end, provides the most sensible advice the boy would’ve never thought of. She says, hand cupping her chin, “Why don’t you just wait here?”
Camilo’s head flies up from its place curled within his chest. “What?” he asks, and Luisa repeats her earlier statement. At his wide eyes, she elaborates, rubbing sheepishly at the back of her neck while as she does. “Well…” she gestures within the garden, and looks suddenly ashamed, “I can just…go on break and you can wait here, as Señora Daniela or like - a dog, or something, and wait for someone to come by. It’s not like they’re getting the flowers in mass loads, if each one is still fresh when Mira gets it.”
Camilo blinks. He blinks rapidly, before letting out a cheer of joy, and wrapping his arms firmly around Luisa’s middle. “You’d do that? For me?” Luisa nods, a flush rising to her cheeks. “Sure. But…” her face goes stern, and she waves a hand at him in a move that is so reminiscent of Tia Julieta he gapes, “...If you hurt Mirabel - or this person’s - feelings, you will be -” he stares at her, and she seems to realize what exactly she’s saying, before switching directions again, “Just don’t. Okay?”
He nods. “Okay.”
And that’s how Camilo ends up as a box-nosed old dog, skulking in Señora Daniela’s carrot patch and pushing his floppy ears out of his face, waving Luisa away with his paws as she journeys into the village to find something else to help with.
One hour, two hours, three hours , four hours, would deter a weaker soul, but he sits and waits and snuffles in abject doggy misery, and finally, finally, when his eyes are drifting shut in the high noon sun, there is a figure leaping over the half-finished wall, heading straight for the sugar blossoms.
Camilo’s saggy eyelids turn upwards in interest. Showtime.