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“Mrow.”
Bruno could almost pretend he was still dreaming. Almost.
“Mrrrraw.”
Scratch. Scratch scratch.
“Annntoniioooo,” Bruno groaned, throwing his pillow over his head. “Come get your cat.”
No reply. Betrayed – and by his own family, too. After all he'd done for them. Better off in the walls, I swear.
“Mow. Mow. Mowwww. Mrrrrrrrra.”
Scratch scratch. Scrabble-scrabble scratch.
“Mow. Mow. Mow mow mrrra mowww…”
Wasn’t his cat. Jaguar. Whatever. He could just...ignore it. Go back to sleep. Have at least an hour – maybe two! – before he needed to be up for breakfast and Morning Briefing…
What followed was the indescribable but unmistakable sound of Parce, up on his hind legs, attempting to knock over the big green plant pot just outside Bruno’s room. The one that, when it did tip over last month and nearly broke, had brought Bruno running to see what the noise was. As well as the entire familia. At six in the morning. Ever since then, the jaguar had held it over Bruno’s head like a threat.
“Alriiiiight,” Bruno groaned again, swinging his spindly legs out of the bed and disturbing poor Rosa as she slept on his pillow, “I’m comin’, I’m comin’ I’m comin’…
Parce wound happily around Bruno’s legs as soon as he opened the door; practically knocking him off his feet. He wasn’t the most co-ordinated at the best of times, but especially not first thing. “Yeah, good morning to you too. C’mon, let’s go get your –”
Parce was already halfway down the stairs; glancing back over his massive shoulder to make sure he hadn’t been tricked, and that Bruno wasn’t heading straight back to bed. He’d pulled that stunt before. Bleary-eyed, Bruno knocked on Mirabel’s door as he passed.
“Kiddo. C’mon. Let’s go, up up up.”
“Mrrrrrrrph…”
“Don’t care. Come on.”
“Tio Bruuuunoooooooo, it’s eeeaaaarrllyyyy…”
“If I have to be awake with someone else’s pet, so do you. Up.”
Sunrise in the Encanto had, secretly, always been Bruno’s favourite time of day. The sky was painted pinkish-bluish-gold, the cicadas were still singing off somewhere in the distance, and the entire town was slowly, gently starting to stir. Before it was filled with gossip, and bustle, and history – both good and bad. It could just be home, for a little while. Uncomplicated, for an hour or so every day. Bruno grabbed Parce’s curry-comb from the dresser where he kept it, shrugging on his ruana for a little bit of warmth. He dug a chicken leg out of Julieta’s larder – she’d portioned off a section just for Antonio’s animal friends to keep perishable food in – and smiled as he heard Mirabel’s footfall coming down the main staircase behind him. “G’morning, mija.”
“Bleeeeuurrgh.”
Mirabel’s hair was sticking up at random angles, and she was still wiping sleep from the corners of her eyes. “Coffee. Coffee would be good.”
“Can I tempt you with some fresh air an’ a morning run, instead? Really sets you up for the day ahead, y’know –”
“Blllleeeerrrrrrruuugghhh”.
“Okay, okay. Make enough for your tio as well, then.”
Parce had already chomped down his chicken by the time Mirabel emerged onto the front lawn, two cups of pitch-black coffee in hand. Bruno was sitting under one of the wax palms; legs cross, curry-comb in hand, as Parce wandered back and forth, butting his head against Bruno’s knees.
“He likes you,” Mirabel said, sitting on the floor next to her tio. He laughed.
“Nah. I just got bony knees. Good for scratching on, huh buddy?” He reached out, and the jaguar rubbed his gums on Bruno's hand. “Thassa good boy. Gonna let me brush you this morning?”
Parce huffed. Bruno rolled his eyes with a long-suffering sigh. “H-hey, it’s not you that gets into trouble when your fluff starts tumble-weeding around La Casita. It’s me, for some reason.”
Parce gave Bruno a side-eye, then lay down.
“Yeah, thas’ right. Oh, thanks, kid,” Bruno said with a grateful smile, accepting the cup from his sobrina – inhaling the rich, delicious aroma. “Ahhh, coffee. My one true love. Y’know, i-if I could marry coffee, I would. But it would just turn cold on me in the end, heh.”
Mirabel sat beside him with a deadpan glare that was far too world-weary for a nearly-sixteen-year-old to make. Bruno grinned back at her. “Get it? Because coffee…i-it gets…no-one in this family respects me, I swear.”
They fell to their tasks; Bruno to brushing Parce, Mirabel to sipping her coffee and gazing into the middle distance. Parce stretched himself into a U-shape, eyes closed as Bruno ran the brush down his back.
“So,” Bruno asked, never taking his eyes off the big cat. “You wanna talk about it?”
“About what?”
“Y’think I didn’t see you come in crying last night?”
“I wasn’t crying,” Mirabel said, pulling her knees up to her chest. “I, um, was…I’d been crying. But I wasn’t crying. Not when you saw me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, my mistake. I’ll just drop the whole thing because you weren’t directly crying in my presence, then.” Bruno bonked Mirabel on the knee with the curry-comb. “Is it about that boy?”
Mirabel turned to her tio and, in a pitch-perfect impression, said; “Mmyeh.”
Okay. Okay. Bruno didn’t push it. The only time he knew when to shut up was when it pertained to the kids in his family. Especially Mirabel. She’d talk when she was ready. He was the only one who knew about her hopeless crush on the wood-cutter’s apprentice, after all. Mirabel shared what she was willing to share, always had. For better or for worse.
The sky was fully blue, now; the colour of an eggshell he’d once found as a kid. He never did work out what bird it was from. Maybe he should ask Antonio, in return for looking after his stupid cat –
“He says ‘now isn’t the right time’. But last week, he asked me if I wanted to take a walk with him! And he said my skirt was cute! I mean,” Mirabel groaned, passing Bruno her coffee so she could throw herself on the ground, “what does that mean, anyway? ‘Not the right time…’”
“Iunno. Your tio hasn’t got the most, um, conversational experience. Nuance fails me, y’know?”
“But you’re a guy.”
“Apparently.”
“So what does it meeeeean?” Mirabel asked again, eyes crossed, jaw jutting.
“Iunnnooooo,” Bruno replied, copying her expression. Mirabel flicked a blade of grass at him.
“You’re no help.”
Bruno shrugged, returning to his brushing. Parce was behaving himself this morning, which was a rarity.
“It’s not the first time he’s blown hot and cold though, is it mija?”
Mirabel said nothing for a long while. She was embarrassed. Bruno knew enough about how Mirabel’s mind worked to know that. He focused on brushing Parce, and letting the silence stretch as far as she wanted it to.
“Tio Bruno,” Mirabel said in a small voice about five minutes later, looking up into that eggshell-blue sky. “What if…what if I really am just not good enough? What if I’m kidding myself, here; what if I really am, just, maybe…not worth it?”
Oof. That just made Bruno’s heart hurt. “Oh, kiddo. That’s not…”
“Why else would he keep changing his mind? It’s like,” Mirabel’s voice cracked, and she swallowed it with a cough. “Like he thinks I’m nice, cute or whatever one day, then the next he’s like ‘oh, actually I see who she really is. She’s weird, and kinda sad, and obsessed with her family and…and I don’t want to date that person. Better wait ‘til the fun, cute Mirabel comes back.’”
Ay. That sounded familiar. Bruno winced as he thought back on when he, Pepa and Julieta had hit, oh, maybe about sixteen, seventeen? And suddenly all the darker, weirder, less appealing sides of their personalities couldn’t be contained by Cute Kid smiles and Mamá’s excuses. When he went from All-Powerful-Seer to Weird-Kid-Bringing-Constant-Bad-News. When his sisters went from Sunny-Little-Pepa and Oh-So-Kind-Julieta to Pepa-You-Have-A-Cloud and What-Do-You-Mean-You’re-Tired-The-Town-Needs-Arepas. His sisters had become pros in hiding those weird, sad sides of themselves – for the family, for the community, for the Encanto. Smoothing out the cracks. He hadn’t. And he had thought, now that things were better, no-one else would ever have to do that. Obviously, he was wrong.
“Wee-lll,” Bruno continued, carefully, picking at the curry-comb to keep his hands busy, “all I know is that, um, there’s a case for waiting. If it’s true love. An’ if he’s, y’know, working out how he feels or whatever. But if he’s, y’know, just…just stringing you along, then maybe…” Bruno drew the curry-comb over his throat, making a gross noise with his mouth, eyes wide and staring.
Mirabel sat up. “Then I should kill him. It all makes sense now.”
“No! No, no no. What I mean is, like, cut him off. Never speak to the guy again. Show him what he’s missing, y’know? Because,” Bruno fell back onto the ground with Mirabel, “because my baby sobrina is the best, coolest, funniest, smartest, bravest girl in the Encanto. And her family love her, and her tio loves her, a-and Parce loves her –”
Parce chuffed.
"See? He agrees."
Mirabel giggled, and Bruno beamed. “Even when she’s weird and sad. Part’ve life, you know? Being weird and sad. And if some big, dumb lunk who chops wood for a living – like, c’mon, your Papi can do that – can’t see that? He’s not worth losing any sleep over.” He prodded her gently in the side. “You deserve better, kiddo.”
Mirabel scooched a little closer and gave him a hug. Bruno’s heart swelled with affection to the point of pain. He would, quite literally, die for this kid. He would ride into hell for this kid. He kinda had; following her and his Mamá to the river that day Casita fell. He wasn’t to know everything was resolved, was he? Not when he stole that dumb horse from a neighbour (ha; neighbour) and rode off to save his newly-reunited family from itself.
“Thanks, Tio Bruno,” Mirabel whispered. “Te amo. So much.”
Bruno responded by placing a ball of Parce’s fluff on her nose.
“Pfffffbttttffffffphhhh – stop laughing! Eww, Bruno, that was so not funny –”
“You called us the Family Weirdo Club for a reason, kiddo – ay! No tickling, no tickling, staaaahppit…”
Bruno scrambled to his feet and took off around the side of the house, Mirabel in hot pursuit. Parce watched them go. Then, he put his huge head on his paws, sighed deeply, and went back to sleep.
It was very early, after all.