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Lazy Day
Bruno is within a couple of steps of catching Pepa when he stops running so abruptly that he trips over his feet and goes sprawling.
“Bruno! Are you alright?” Julieta asks, running up to check on him.
Bruno looks up at her, and she sees his eyes filling up with green.
“Oh,” Juli says, as Pepa joins them, panting from sprinting back. Julieta glances at her sister and then puts on a smile. “You’re glowing, luciernaga.”
Bruno looks around a bit dazedly, like their yard is suddenly unfamiliar territory. “I- I have to go to my room,” he says, standing up carefully.
“Should we help?” Pepa asks.
Bruno continues to look around tensely, not responding.
“Hey!” Julieta waves a hand in front of his face. “Bruno? Want us to come with you?”
“No. No, I’m okay. I just-“ He winces and touches his forehead. Then he starts toward the house without another word.
Julieta and Pepa both stand and watch until he enters the house.
“I guess he wants to be alone for it,” Pepa says.
“Maybe he has to be?” Julieta suggests.
Almost an hour later, Bruno comes back outside. He plops down on the grass and watches his sisters chase back and forth. Spying him, both wave vigorously for him to join them.
Instead, Bruno lies back in the warm grass. He’s so tired, and mama’s mad at him again, and he’s going to have to be careful to stay close to his sisters in town for a long time after this. He had thought for sure he’d earned a punishment this time. But mama had just paced back and forth in front of him for a couple of minutes as he stood in her parlor, gripping his hands tightly together in an attempt not to fidget. Then she just stood and looked at him in silence for another long moment before turning away and telling him to go back outside.
He wishes he could do better.
His sisters soon run over and stand looking down at him.
“Is he dead, do you think?” Pepa asks.
“Could be,” Juli says. “He looks dead.”
“Smells dead.” Pepa wrinkles her nose.
“Arrgh,” Bruno groans, throwing an arm over his eyes.
“Sounds dead,” Juli remarks, smirking.
“Wait-“ Bruno says belatedly, opening his eyes.
“Feels dead!” his sisters squeal simultaneously, attacking both his sides with a spate of vicious tickling.
“St-stop it!” Bruno pleads through his laughter, rolling around. “I- I give! Okay! I give!”
Juli pins him with a hand on his chest while Pepa moves her attack to his more sensitive belly. “Tell us, baby brother,” Juli says evilly. “Who rules, again?”
“Girls!” Bruno gasps, giggling hysterically. “Girls rule!”
“Correct,” Juli says, removing her hand.
Pepa sits back on her heels. “He’s smart, for a boy.”
“Our influence, no doubt,” Julieta says primly.
Bruno rolls onto his side, glaring at them. “You guys suck.”
“Nonsense,” Pepa says airily. “We’re just trying to educate you. You ought to thank us.” She flops down next to him, stretching her arms above her head.
“I ought to put spiders in your beds,” Bruno retorts.
“You’re too scared of mama.”
“Like you aren’t?”
Pepa shrugs. “Just saying. So, can I ask you something, hermanito?”
“Uh-huh,” Bruno says, lying back down. Julieta idly picks wildflowers, starting to string them into a chain.
“What do things look like when your eyes get like that? I mean, can you still see us?”
“Yes. Kind of? You don’t really look… real.”
“What’s real, if not us?” she asks curiously.
“The fire.”
“You are creepy.”
“Pepa!” Julieta scolds.
Bruno shrugs. “You drown people when you’re unhappy. I- I lay curses on them. What do you think, big sister? Do you think Julieta’s goodness is enough to save us?”
Julieta rolls her eyes. She shoves Pepa’s shoulder, and lightly taps Bruno’s arm, to get them to make a space between them and lies down in the warm, flattened grass.
“So?” Pepa asks, snuggling into Juli’s side. “Thanks for joining us, by the way, Juli. You smell nice. Like cooked sugar and honey. Bruno smells like rats.”
“Make Pepa stop being mean, Juli,” Bruno says, doing a very poor job of hiding his smile. Affecting a whine he adds, “My head hurts…”
“Pfft. Baby,” Pepa says.
“Pepa, stop being mean,” Julieta says indulgently. She snags both of her siblings’ hands and closes her eyes in contentment, enjoying the sunshine and the familiar feel and scent of them (even if there is a hint of rat in Bruno’s smell).
“So?” Pepa asks again.
“What, my little storm?” Julieta answers.
“So, what did you see, Bruno?”
Juli feels Bruno shiver. “Insects. Swarms of them.” He extracts his hand from Juli’s and moves it to grasp a fold of her dress instead. “Mama was mad,” he adds quietly.
“Mama was worried,” Julieta corrects him.
“No. She was mad,” Bruno says flatly.
“Are… are the crops going to fail?” Pepa asks unhappily.
“Yes. More than half. Maybe all of them. There were… there were a lot of bugs.” Bruno sighs. “I’m sorry, Pepa. I know you’ve worked hard on getting the weather right for them this year.”
“It’s okay,” Pepa says, sounding forlorn. Clouds begin forming over where they lie, and Pepa’s voice hitches a little. “Oh. So much for lying in the sun. Sorry, mis hermanos.”
The three of them sit up, Bruno already shivering in the sudden shade and the slight breeze, Pepa pulling at her hair and hunching her shoulders. Julieta gathers them both against her sides. In moments like this she wishes ‘oldest sibling’ meant more than ten minutes in Pepa’s case and forty-five minutes when it came to Bruno. She wishes she was old enough and big enough to pull them both into her lap and shelter them.
Bruno pulls off his ruana, his body looking strikingly small and thin in just his short-sleeved shirt and pants. He holds it up as a canopy, handing it across for Julieta and Pepa to hold so it can cover all three of them.
“You two don’t have to stay,” Pepa murmurs lowly. “I’ll get it under control soon.”
Julieta kisses her cheek. “We don’t mind, hermanita. Anyway, Bruno could use a bath.”
“Why are girls so mean?” Bruno says with a pout. “I think rats smell good…”
“Why are boys so weird?” Juli asks Pepa. They all laugh together as the light rain gradually lessens to a pleasant mist.