The Wild Book Page 5

  Flying

  So I fetch my album,

  and I show the ugly verse

  to my father.

  I tell what I know.

  I fly to the truth of words.

  Outraged, Papá shudders,

  then promises to remedy

  all that is wrong.

  Flying to the truth of words

  instantly helps me

  feel

  as secure

  as a flower

  with deep roots.

  Justice

  Men in uniforms gallop

  to the farm.

  Fausto tries to escape,

  but he ends up with his wrists

  trapped in handcuffs—

  he is the captive,

  not me.

  Our family is safe.

  Papá calls me a heroine.

  Mamá calls me an angel.

  José tells me that I am

  the slowest, most careful,

  observant reader

  he has ever known.

  I have finally received

  encouragement

  from a teacher.

  Blank

  Once the crisis is over

  and we have been rescued,

  I tear up the ugly poem's

  ragged words, destroying

  this thorny feeling

  of shame.

  My album

  is empty.

  At first

  the white pages

  seem lonely,

  but after a few minutes

  the blankness looks sunlit,

  like clear blue sky

  after a storm.

  Surprises

  I never expected a reward,

  but Mamá is making a lacy

  blue dress that I can wear

  to Carmen's Saint's Day feast,

  and Papá has given me

  the gift of his trust.

  José offers to take me

  on an adventurous outing,

  all the way to the tower.

  He is seated proudly

  on a coppery horse,

  but he says that I

  am too old to ride

  like a boy.

  I have to sit sideways

  on a spotted mare,

  wishing that horses

  were not quite

  so tall.

  There is nothing

  like a sidesaddle

  to test a young girl's

  courage.

  I wonder how many

  men could keep their balance

  in such a precarious position.

  Pre—car—i—ous.

  Women have no choice.

  We grow accustomed

  to sitting sideways,

  seeing only half

  of the dangerous road

  up ahead.

  Inside the Tower of Fear

  My brother stays

  with the horses

  while I climb

  and climb

  and climb.

  Darkness—

  a steep

  stairway

  of splintered

  rotting wood.

  On the fifth story

  I feel dizzy.

  By the sixth

  I am exhausted.

  On the seventh

  there are small

  welcoming windows

  bright with sun.

  I lean out

  and dare myself

  to enjoy

  the wide view

  of green hills,

  blue sea,

  and a sky

  so enormous

  and peaceful

  that I don't have to

  actually see

  all my thousands

  of guardian angels

  to believe that they

  are watching me.

  Magic

  When I finally

  climb back down

  from the tower,

  I sip a bit of water

  from the well.

  I don't really feel

  any different, but it's easy

  to imagine that today

  I have grown

  just a little bit

  stronger

  and wiser.

  Courage

  This is the last

  blank page.

  My wild book is full.

  I am surprised to discover

  that I can no longer bear

  the thought of an entire day

  without the natural flow

  of twining

  vinelike words...

  So I pick up one

  of the thick books

  I used to hate, and I open

  its gate-shaped cover,

  and I let my strong eyes

  travel,

  slowly

  exploring.

  Author's Note

  The Wild Book is fiction inspired by stories my maternal grandmother told me about her child hood. I have added numerous imaginary aspects, and certain events have been altered or condensed in time. For instance, baby Rubén was not born until 1914.

  Josefa de la Caridad Uría Peña was known to all who loved her as Fefa. Born in 1901, she grew up on a farm during the chaos following Cuba's wars for independence from Spain and the subsequent U.S. occupation of the island. It was a time of lawlessness, when bandits terrorized the countryside, kidnapping children unless their families agreed to deliver ransom money in advance. It was also a time when poetry was a treasured aspect of daily life. The kidnapperpoet who threatened the Uría family was their trusted farm manager. Well past the age of one hundred, my grandmother still remembered the verse he wrote "in her honor":

  Al verla tan jovencita

  y de tanta educación

  le busco la proporción

  que busco entre las demás

  y en este jardin será

  una rosa de Borbón.

  Seeing her so young

  and so accomplished,

  I seek a measure

  of her place among others,

  and in this garden she will be

  a rose of Borbón.

  My grandmother always chuckled when she told the story of her father's reaction to the scoundrel's threat. My great-grandfather said he had too many children to pay a ransom for all, and since he believed in equality, he refused to choose favorites. Rather than pay for some, he paid for none. Fortunately, Fausto was caught and went to prison before any of the children were actually kidnapped.

  Fefa (upper right) at a picnic with her family in 1914.

  Word-blindness was a medical term used in the early twentieth century for what we now call dyslexia, a range of conditions now known to be completely unrelated to any form of blindness. With patience, courage, and the help of reading specialists, dyslexic children learn to read and write beautifully. Many are exceptionally brilliant people who go on to accomplish great things. Throughout her remarkably long life, Fefa always wrote letters to her loved ones. She wrote slowly and carefully. She had the most elegant handwriting I have ever seen.

  Acknowledgments

  I thank God for blank pages.

  I am profoundly grateful to my abuelita for telling me stories about her childhood, and to my daughter, Nicole, for asking me to give her greatgrandmother's life a home on blank pages. I am thankful to my mother for filling in factual details and then allowing me to change them.

  For the encouragement of companionship, special thanks to Curtis, Victor, Kristan, Jake, Nicole, and Amish.

  Gracias a los primos for leading the way up the steep stairs of La Torre Manaca-Iznaga.

  For help with my humbling effort to understand even a tiny fragment of the complexity of reading disorders, I am thankful to Jossie O'Neill, the International Dyslexia Association, the Dyslexia Foundation, and LD Online. Any errors in my portrayal of reading disorders are mine, not theirs.

  For wonderful teamwork, I am deeply grateful to my brilliant edito
r, Reka Simonsen, and to everyone else at Harcourt, especially Betsy Groban, Jeannette Larson, Lisa DiSarro, Adah Nuchi, and Kerry Martin.

  PHOTO © MARSHALL W JOHNSON

  MARGARITA ENGLE is a Cuban American poet and novelist whose work has been published in many countries. Her books include The Surrender Tree, a Newbery Honor book and winner of the Pura Belpré Award, the Jane Addams Children's Book Award, the Américas Award, and the Claudia Lewis Poetry Award; The Poet Slave of Cuba, win- ner of the Pura Belpré Award and the Américas Award; Tropical Secrets; The Firefly Letters; and

  Hurricane Dancers. She lives with her husband in Northern California.