Return to Sender by Julia Álvarez

learned how the ice caps are melting and the poor penguins and polar bears have nowhere to go. Riding home on the bus, I looked out the window at all the red- leaved trees that looked like they were burning up with fever. “Are you sure they're okay?” I asked Tyler, who just sighed because this wasn't my first time asking.
“Mari, it happens every year.”
In North Carolina, where we used to live, the trees changed color in the autumn, and the leaves fell, but here everywhere you look the trees are on fire.
“Tyler.” I lowered my voice. I didn't want the other kids to hear. Tyler might get impatient with me, but he keeps being my friend. “Do you think what Mr. B. says is going to happen to the world will happen?”
“Sure, only like a hundred times worse.” The way he said so, it sounded like he was looking forward to the opportunity to be brave. “But not till we're really old.”
“How old?”
“I don't know. Maybe like Grandma.” Then he unzippered his backpack and showed me a notebook with his plan. According to Tyler, if the planet gets into trouble, farms will be the best place to be. In fact, farmers are going to be the most important people in the world because they will be in charge of the food! But since on this farm I only see cows, I think we will all get very tired of milk for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But Tyler says that out of milk we can make cheese, and the dead cows will be meat, and from the garden we will have vegetables. As for dessert, we will make a syrup from a tree called the maple. I am so glad Tyler has a plan. I feel even more lucky that we have landed on his family's farm.
Also in his notebook was a list of all the people who would be allowed on the farm in case there's an emergency. My family's names were on it, but also the names of some classmates who are not so nice, Clayton and Ronnie. “How come you're inviting them?” I asked. “I'm inviting everyone in our class,” Tyler explained. Later, I was shocked to think I wanted to leave those two boys out … just like I'm being left out of this country.
But, Mr. President, I would not ask you to let in any criminals, and these boys are like criminals. They pick fights and say mean things.
They behave themselves in class but when we are out at recess they turn nasty. I've tried asking Mr. B. if I can just stay inside when the others go out, but when he asks if I feel ill and I say no, he says that fresh air is very important for the human body. These boys say the very same things as the kids in North Carolina used to say about me being an “illegal alien” who should go back to where she came from.
Usually an older brother picks up these two boys at the end of the day. But yesterday for some reason, they rode the bus home. I was sitting with Tyler, who was drawing the night sky and showing me where all the different constellations would be in the next few nights.
“¡Hola, buenos días!” a voice called out. I could tell it was Clayton without looking up. But Tyler was so absorbed in his lesson that it took him a moment before he realized Clayton was talking to us.
“You got yourself a little Mexican girlfriend.” Clayton and Ronnie had ducked back a few seats and squeezed in with Rachel and Ashley in front of us. The two girls were giggling into their cupped hands like these bullies were funny. Meanwhile, Mr. R., who drives our bus, is so hard of hearing that unless he happens to catch troublemakers in the rearview mirror, they can get away with making somebody's life very unhappy.
“Stop it,” Tyler said, but instead of continuing with his lesson, he put his notebook away in his backpack.
“Stop it,” Ronnie imitated in a whiney girl's voice. “Hey, María, how do you say stop it in Spanish?”
If Luby had been there, she would have remembered. But I was too frightened to think of anything except how I could get away from these two boys and still not break the rule of staying in your seat while the bus is moving.