I Lived on Butterfly Hill Read online

  “Tom, Kim! I just realized the air has no borders. Someone in Seoul and someone in Valparaíso see the same sky right now!”

  “You need to bring your notebook with you when we watch the sky, Celeste.” Kim puts her elbows in the grass and, with her chin on her hands, looks at me with her dark eyes. “It talks to you.”

  “You like to write things down? You have a bad memory?” Tom laughs. Kim gives her brother a little shove in the rib cage and scolds him in Korean. “Ow! Okay!”

  “Celeste is going to be a famous writer. My friend will make many people happy with her books. I know.”

  “Kim, I think you are one of the angels I always see in the sky. The shy one who always flies away with the wind.”

  Tom closes his eyes and pretends to snore. “You girls are strange. No, funny. Different countries but made from the same clay.”

  I am learning that Tom is a lot like Kim. He is quiet, but he likes to laugh and tease more. I am the talkative one, the “chatterbox,” as Miss Rose sometimes tells me with her finger to her lips during math quizzes.

  The early April sky begins to turn shades of pink and purple. The sun is setting, and Tía Graciela must be on her way to pick me up. Suddenly I don’t want to leave my friends. I realize that we aren’t like the kids who grew up here on Juliette Cove, who have been friends all their lives and probably will know one another forever. We are from faraway places that we dream of returning to.

  “Someday we’ll all go to Chile,” I tell them. “I’ll take you to see Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America. So many old sailing ships were shipwrecked there that people say the whole island is filled with the ghosts of sailors!”

  They smile at me. “Are those ghosts as loud as you?” Tom laughs. Kim jabs him in the ribs again, but I am laughing too. It feels so good to laugh after so long that I don’t want to stop.

  “You’ll have to come to Chile and find out,” I say, “but beware, we are a country of tale-tellers, cuenta-cuentos!”

  Tom is chuckling softly to himself. He stretches his hands behind his head. “I love the colors of the sun going down,” he says. His voice goes serious. “The sun going down . . . until west becomes east again . . . all the way back to Korea—”

  His sister interrupts him. “Tom, why do you say sad things when everyone is happy?” She doesn’t pause for an answer as she turns to me. “Celeste, I’ll make tea so we can get warm before your tía comes.” Kim brushes the grass off her legs and, with her gait that is more like a pony’s trot, heads toward the trailer park.

  I’ve never been alone with Tom before. Strangely I find myself feeling a bit nervous. The silence feels different without Kim in between us. I search for something to say.

  “Why did you leave Korea?”

  “For political reasons. And you? Why did you leave Chile?”

  “For political reasons.”

  We laugh. Then softly I feel his hand move closer to mine. My body shivers a little, but as his hand brushes mine, I feel I know him. And all of his pain. In the stillness of the evening our eyes search and find each other, blinking like two timid butterflies.

  Dreaming in English

  That night I dream that Kim and Tom come with me to Chile. We fly all night atop a colorful blanket like the ones Delfina wove on rainy days. I breathe in the soft salty air. I feel so happy to be once again at my house on Butterfly Hill. All of a sudden I hear Delfina calling me. “Celeste! Celeste!”

  “I’m here on the roof, Delfina! That’s my nanny,” I tell my friends.

  Once again, Delfina’s voice like big silver bells: “I have been so worried about you! Where have you been for so long?” My Nana Delfina is speaking to me in English! When did she learn that? I wonder, but Delfina continues, “Your mother is looking for you! I am sending you a silver seashell to fly to her!”

  A seashell appears beside me, and I climb inside. The seashell rises into a sky filled with stars and flies toward the Southern Cross, so small in the distance. Are we going to see my parents?

  “Little Star, where are you?” a sweet melodic voice beckons from the south.

  “Mamá?!” I hear myself talk in my sleep and wake myself up. Then I realize: “I just had my first dream in English!” I shout down the hallway to Tía Graciela, my heart beating with joy.

  Daydreaming

  Miss Rose is talking about when the United States was an English colony and writing things like “Samuel Adams,” “Benjamin Franklin,” and “Live Free or Die” on the board. Everyone around me is scribbling away in their notebooks, jotting down notes so they can memorize everything before our final test of the year. Summer vacation begins in two weeks, and suddenly everyone is worried about the grades their parents will see on their report cards. Even though Tía Graciela always tells me that knowledge can’t be measured in numbers, I want to do well and I want to show Miss Rose how much more I can do this year because she has helped me so much with my English. But I just can’t seem to concentrate. Even the Boston Tea Party with its interesting name can’t hold my attention.

  I let out a sigh and gaze out the window. Kim glances over at me with a question mark on her face. Yesterday she told me, “All week you are like a cloud. Floating.”

  What if I told her, “I can’t stop thinking about your brother”? But I’d rather keep it secret inside me, as if even saying his name would make my daydreams crumble like a sand castle.

  I don’t know much about Tom. He doesn’t talk much, but he chuckles to himself a lot. Kim is my best friend here on Juliette Cove, I remind myself. Of course, she is the reason I visit the trailer park so often. But when Tom and I lie together in the grass and look at the sky, I feel a tingle in my throat.

  I sigh again. I wonder if he’s thought of me at all. Celeste, soñadora, what a dreamer you are.

  The Empty Seat

  For the seventh graders in Miss Rose’s class, the last week of school is full of exams but also excitement. Everyone can’t wait for the summer, and my classmates remind me of kernels of corn bursting into popcorn in a hot oily pan, the way they can’t stay still in their seats and wriggle this way and that to ask about plans for summer vacation. Everyone is giggling with their hands over their mouths and passing notes about meeting at the beach tomorrow, the last day of school.

  Charlie reaches back across the aisle and pulls my braid to ask me, “Hey, you’re coming with us to the beach, right?”

  “I don’t know yet.” Normally I’d look to Kim before answering. I still don’t feel like I completely belong with the rest of my class.

  “Hey,” he says, his voice coaxing, “I’ll even let you borrow my boogie board and teach you to ride the waves.”

  Charlie and I have become friendly, but he isn’t always this kind to me. It makes me nervous because he seems to be trying to console me, and I don’t want to think about the reason why. I smile at him, but it feels forced. I see him glance over to the empty seat beside me and then back again at me. His eyes look to me to tell him why Kim’s place is empty. All I can do is shake my head and look back down at my English grammar worksheets. My eyes burn, and my throat feels like invisible hands are squeezing it tight. I start to cough. I don’t want to cry. It’s not that I care so much about crying in front of Charlie, or the whole class for that matter. It wouldn’t be the first time. It’s that crying would make my fears true. Charlie has gotten up and grabbed a tissue from Miss Rose’s desk. “Here. Nobody noticed.”

  He looks over again at the empty desk and says, “Come with us to the beach tomorrow, Celeste. Everything will be okay.”

  “Thank you, Charlie,” I whisper as he turns to face forward in his seat because of Miss Rose’s sudden gaze in our direction.

  And now I can’t hold my tears back any longer. They rain on my worksheet, blurring the words I try so hard to learn, and making the ink run like dark, sad rivers. All week Kim’s place beside me has been empty. On Tuesday I walked to the supermarket where Tom works to ask him if she was sick,
and the manager told me that he hadn’t worked there since Friday. Where have my friends gone?

  Why didn’t they tell me anything?

  Will they be back?

  I feel like I am in Valparaíso again, when everyone began to go missing.

  The seats in the Juana Ross School emptied one by one until half of my class was gone. I remember when I realized that they wouldn’t be returning. It was the day I sat alone on the bench outside, where all of us friends would gossip and share snacks like sugar-coated almonds. Even in the winter the bench would stay warm from the heat of all our bodies crammed together. But that day the bench beneath me was an iceberg. Today feels just the same. The June sun shines through the classroom windows, and I am buried in icy dread. “Nana Delfina, if you can hear me, please help!” I clasp my hands tight and pray, “Send me some of your magic. Tell me, where have they gone?”

  “No More Pencils, No More Books”

  Today is the last day of school. I watch the cereal Tía Graciela has poured for me grow soggy. My throat feels too tight to swallow anything. “Tía, can you drive me to school so I can get there early?” Tía Graciela peers up from her tarot cards, surprised.

  “Celeste, for almost two years now you have never seemed eager to spend more time at school than you had to.”

  “I—I want to say good-bye to Miss Rose,” I stammer, “without anyone else around. She has helped me so much this year.”

  “Está bien, niña,” my aunt says, agreeing to drive me so I can arrive early enough to talk to my teacher alone.

  As Tía Graciela pulls her station wagon away from the curb in front of the Juliette Cove Middle School, I can hear throngs of sixth-grade boys running around the playground chanting: “No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks!” Last year Kim and I heard that song, and we could barely understand it. We just looked confusedly at each other and burst out laughing. Now I know what the words mean, but it still seems strange to me. Strange and sad: a school with no pencils to write with, no books to read . . . no Kim, my best friend.

  I run through the playground and up the front steps of the school. The halls are mostly empty because it is still ten minutes until the first bell. I turn down the corridor that leads to a door with a sign that says FACULTY. I have always wondered what the teachers say and do inside that office, when none of their students are watching. I wonder if they are more like their real selves and less like teachers. Students aren’t allowed in this office, but I gently knock on the door anyway.

  When it opens, the eighth-grade teacher Mr. Gary opens it. He looks down at me in concern. “Hello there! Can I help you?” Behind him I see a bunch of teachers at a table, chatting and laughing, drinking coffee and eating doughnuts.

  “Yes. Can I speak to Miss Rose, please?”

  Mr. Gary calls over his shoulder, “Theresa, one of your students is here!”

  Miss Rose comes to the door. “Celeste! What a surprise! I will be out in one minute. Wait for me there.” I nod. Mr. Gary smiles and shuts the door.

  Soon my teacher emerges with a bag of books and papers over her shoulder and a doughnut in her hand. “It’s butternut.” She holds it out to me. “You look as if you need a little treat.”

  “Thank you, Miss Rose.” I’ve tried doughnuts before, and I don’t like them very much, but I bite into it to be polite, and I am surprised to find there is something soothing today about its doughy sweetness. As we walk down the corridor, the click-clack of Miss Rose’s high heels makes a comforting echo that somehow steadies my heart and makes it easier to speak.

  “Miss Rose, why hasn’t Kim been in school all week?”

  My teacher puts her heavy bag down and turns to look at me. “Oh, Celeste.” She puts her hands on my shoulders, and I watch her kind eyes try so hard to blink back tears. “I don’t know. I have called the contact number we have on file for her, and the principal has checked with the police, and all the hospitals, to see if there have been any accidents. Then I found out that her brother has not been at school this week either, which makes us suspect that Kim and her family have moved on to another place.”

  My hands begin to shake. “Oh! No, not Kim! Why? Why? Why do people disappear?” My head spins until I am nauseous, and suddenly I am back in the halls of the Juana Ross School, and so many of my friends are disappearing, and I don’t know if it is Miss Rose or Señorita Marta Alvarado holding me tight in her arms. I want to howl and scream, but no sound comes out. I can’t get myself to stop shaking.

  Miss Rose pulls some tissues from her pocket and wipes my face, guiding me toward the classroom. I hear the noisy banter of my classmates who are already inside. Miss Rose turns to me at the doorway and speaks in her most serious “teacher voice.”

  “Now, you walk in there with your head held high, Celeste, and be proud of who you are today and always. You are my student, Celeste, and if you never remember anything I taught you, please remember this: Have faith. So much faith that you have faith in faith itself. And never, ever give up.”

  Solidarity

  “Celeste! Aren’t you coming to the beach?” Charlie calls after me as I run fast as I can out the door when the final bell lets school out for summer, to the roaring cheers of students in every classroom. “If you do, I’ll teach you to boogie-board!”

  “Another time, Charlie, I promise!” I call over my shoulder, and catch a glimpse of him in the hallway. For a second his face looks glum, but then he smiles and becomes teasing Charlie again.

  “Okay, Macaroni, but you’re missing the ride of your life!” he calls back as I wave and continue to run. My mind is racing even faster than my feet. I could take a taxi to the trailer park. Or maybe I should go home first and tell Tía Graciela. She could help me look for them.

  I decide to run home.

  Tía Graciela is sitting on the front steps reading a book about palmistry. “Happy summer vacation!” she calls out when she sees me.

  “Tía, I need your help.”

  “¿Qué pasó, mi amor? What’s happened?”

  I take a shallow breath, and my voice sounds raspy as I finally speak those awful words: “Kim and Tom haven’t been to school all week!” Tía Graciela sets down her book and springs to her feet.

  “Can we go look for them?” I ask.

  “Hop in the car!” my aunt says without a moment’s hesitation.

  As we drive through the leafy woods, she gives me a sidelong glance from beneath her sunglasses. “Celeste, I wish you would have told me sooner. I am always ready to help. And not just to help you but to help others. Remember, I belong to what Chileans call ‘the generation of solidarity.’ ”

  I nod. “Papá said that a lot, but I don’t understand what it means.”

  Turning onto the bumpy road that will take us to the trailer park, Tía Graciela explains, “When the government elected by the people was toppled, and the military began to persecute everyone for having their own opinions or for their long hair and jeans, it made everyone very frightened, and unfortunately, people you thought were your friends turned into enemies, and neighbors betrayed neighbors. But that is only half the story. Many Chileans began to help one another. They hid people in their homes, or found hiding places outside the city and brought them food, like the people who are helping your parents. Even if our own lives are in danger, we don’t abandon others. That is solidarity.”

  “That’s how I’ll be, Tía Graciela.”

  “That’s how you are, Celeste.”

  The trailer park is as dark as the clouds accumulating overhead. It has been a while since I last visited Kim and Tom at the trailer park. Everything looks so different, so empty. The grass is dry, and there are no longer any bicycles, children’s toys, lawn chairs strewn around the trailers. In fact, there are hardly any trailers left. Where have they gone? And of the half dozen or so left, where are all the people? Huddled inside, waiting for the storm to pass? I clutch Tía Graciela’s hand and lead her to Kim’s trailer. The door is open, wav
ing back and forth with a bang bang bang that goes straight to my stomach.

  I glance at Tía Graciela and she nods, so we climb the rusted stairs and step inside. “There’s nothing here!” I cry. “Tía, something must have happened to them!” Gone are the cots they slept in, the clothes they wore, the table where they served me tea and rice. All that remains is the smell of incense and orange blossoms.

  “It looks like they left in a hurry, Celeste. Is there someone we could ask about where they went?”

  “Tía Graciela, I don’t think anybody knows them.” All of a sudden I can barely breathe inside my friends’ empty home. I run down the stairs and into thick raindrops that have started plummeting from the clouds. Tía Graciela follows me.

  “Let’s ask the neighbors. It doesn’t hurt to try.” We knock on every door. Most of them remain closed. “Hmmmm, maybe they are at work . . . ,” my aunt says in a light voice that is meant to encourage me.

  Then we come to a silver trailer parked under a tall pine tree. The door opens, and a white-haired woman with a gap-toothed smile greets us. “Can I help you?” A little boy peeks out from behind her pink bathrobe. “This is my grandson, Jimmy. He’s a bit shy. I’m Bess.”

  “Hello, Jimmy. Nice to meet you, Bess,” my aunt says. “We are looking for some friends.”

  “A Korean family,” I pipe in. “A girl my age and a boy in high school. And their mother.”

  “Ah yes. Kim and Tom, right?”

  I nod eagerly.

  “Yes, I saw them around sometimes, but I never met their mother. They seemed to keep to themselves. Didn’t speak much English. Aren’t they in their trailer?”

  “No, ma’am. Not anymore. But thank you anyway,” Tía Graciela says.

  After we thank Bess and walk away, I stutter in protest, “But . . . but . . . they left no tracks. No traces of them at all, Tía.” Suddenly I think of Cristóbal Williams. Did he say the same thing about me when he visited our house on Butterfly Hill with his magic pendulum and found I was no longer there?