Canutito and Freddy ride ‘las baicas’
Todos los libros had been put away pa’l verano. It seemed que todos los muchitos in Canutito’s class had passed pa’l otro grade. Los escueleros were happy and looking forward pa’las tres de la tarde when the teacher would hacerlos dismiss. En este último día de la escuela, la maestra was just killing time; haciendo la cháchara, by asking the kids what they wanted to be en el futuro.
Most of the kids en la clase tenían más o menos una idea of what they wanted to be cuando hicieran grow up: La Mara quería ser una cowgirl, la Jane quería ser una secretary y el Luis quería ser un soldão. El William quería ser un farmer y el Pablo quería ser un tap dancer. Pero cuando la mestra asked Canutito want he wanted to do cuando estuviera grande, he said que he wanted to work en el T,G&Y.
His teacher, la Mrs. Martínez, then asked him: “Canutito, do you have any higher ambiciones además de trabajar en el T,G& Y?” Canutito asked her, “Well, if I get real good at it, entonces quiero ir a trabajar en el K-Mart.” Antes que la maestra could react again, la campana rang y todos los escueleros ran out del building, todos listos for summer vacation.
Canutito waited por su amigo, el Freddy to return home con él. Era tradición que on the last day de la escuela instead of going home en el bós, the boys would ride their bikes back home. Canutito stood by su baica fooling around con el plastic fringe que estaba en la punta de los handle bars. Finally, el Freddy got there también y se salió on his bike. Los dos muchachitos rode back home by way of the unpaved caminito polviento that led back pa’la casa going past una vacas that were pasteándose in the meadow and some sheep that were feeding their borreguitos that wagged their colitas muy contentos as they drank de sus mamás. Suddenly, the two boys saw their friend Filimotas who was kneeling en el medio de la tira con un borreguito. They went over to see lo qué estaba haciendo with the lamb.
“Hey Fil,” they called out a su amigo. “¿Qué estás haciendo?”
“I’m trying to feed este borreguito,” Filimotas said. “He is un penco so I have to amamantarlo.”
“What’s a ‘penco’ and what does ‘amamantar’ mean?” they asked him.
“Un penco means que this lamb is an orphan; un huérfano, and I have to feed this motherless lamb con una teta.”
“Really?” los muchachitos asked, todos interesãos. “Are you really going to bottle-feed him? ¿Cómo vas a hacer eso?”
As the two boys watched, Filimotas took some leche de polvo and he mixed this powered milk con agua using un jarro viejo. Next he poured out the leche into una botella de 7-Up and pulled una rubber nipple over the opening. Finally, he stuck dos dedos en la boca del penco para hacerlo coax to open his mouth. Once que abrió la boca, pronto the lamb started drinking muy contento. El borreguito wagged his little tail just as he would if he had been drinking de su mamá. Canutito and Freddy laughed porque se les hizo muy foneh. They continued riding sus baicas back home where they found Grampo Caralampio leyendo el papel out on the porch. He sat there en el portal con el newspaper en sus manos.
“¡Abricias grampo!” Canutito called out to him. “School is over hasta el otro semester.”
“I remember mi último día de escuela cuando I was a little boy,” grampo said. “I used to go pa’la escuela de las hermanas and those nuns kept us busy hasta el último momento. I remember ese día because I was in the lunchroom con mi amigo Andrónico and I we didn’t want to eat our spinach de manera que we took los quelites off our tray and stuffed them into our half-empty milk cartons. Una hermana came by and discovered our crime y nos hizo take them out y tuvimos que comer quelites con leche before we could do home.”
“I’m glad que I wasn’t en la escuela with you, grampo,” Canutito told him. …