Coco Junior Novel Page 3

  “Some churros from my family,” said the traveler.

  “How wonderful!” The agent turned to the next skeleton. “Next! Anything to declare?”

  Again, an announcement boomed overhead. “If you are experiencing travel issues, agents at the Department of Family Reunions are available to help you.”

  Miguel followed his family to find their place in line for arrivals.

  While waiting, Miguel watched as skeletons exited the Land of the Dead through another gate marked DEPARTURES.

  “Next family, please!” a departures agent called out. An elderly couple stepped in front of a camera-mounted monitor. The monitor scanned their faces and displayed an image of their photos on an altar in the Land of the Living. “Oh, your photos are on your son’s ofrenda. Have a great visit!”

  “Gracias,” said the elderly couple, who then met the rest of their family at the edge of the bridge.

  “And remember to return before sunrise,” continued the announcement loop. “Enjoy your visit!”

  “Next family!” shouted the departures agent. A skeleton with a wide smile full of metal braces stepped up to the monitor. “Your photo’s on your dentist’s ofrenda. Enjoy your visit!”

  “Grashiash!” said the smiling skeleton.

  “Next!” the agent called out. A woman dressed in a colorful frock, with flowers pinned in her hair and a dark unibrow above her eyes, stepped up.

  “Yes, it is I. Frida Kahlo,” the artist said, pointing gracefully at herself. “Famous Mexican icon, beloved of the people. Shall we skip the scanner? I’m on so many ofrendas, it’ll just overwhelm your blinky thingie.…”

  The machine scanned the artist, but the monitor displayed a large X. An alarm blared. “Well, shoot,” said the agent. “Looks like no one put up your photo, Frida.”

  The artist ripped off her unibrow and threw off her frock. They could see that this was not the famous artist, but a young man instead.

  “Okay, when I said I was Frida…just now? That was a lie,” the young man said. “And I apologize for doing that.”

  “No photo on ofrenda, no crossing the bridge,” the agent warned.

  “You know what, I’m just gonna zip right over. You won’t even know I’m gone.” The man bolted for the bridge.

  A security guard blocked the gate, but the man split himself in two and slid past, half of him going over, the other half under. He reached the bridge at a sprint and tried to step onto it, but he slowly sank into the petals. It was just as the agent had said: without a photo on an ofrenda, the bridge wouldn’t let him cross.

  “Almost there…Just a little farther…,” he mumbled, forcing himself through the thick flowers.

  The security guards sauntered over to the bridge and pulled the man back to the Land of the Dead.

  “Upsy-daisy,” said an officer.

  “Fine, okay. Fine, who cares! Dumb flower bridge!”

  The guards hauled him away. Tía Rosita looked up just in time to see his back.

  “Oh, so sad. I don’t know what I’d do if no one put up my photo,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Next!” an arrivals agent shouted to Miguel’s family.

  “Oh! Come, m’ijo, it’s our turn,” Tía Rosita said to Miguel, guiding him forward. The family crowded around the gate. An agent leaned out his window.

  “Welcome back, amigos! Anything to declare?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” says Papá Julio. The family pushed Miguel to the front.

  Miguel pulled back his hood to reveal himself as a living boy. “Hola,” he said.

  The agent looked up, and his jawbone dropped—to the floor.

  A security guard escorted Miguel and his family to Marigold Grand Central Station. Dante happily trotted alongside Miguel. The family reached the end of the walkway and passed through a large door emblazoned with DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY REUNIONS.

  Inside, hundreds of caseworkers sat in front of computers at cubicles, helping travelers solve holiday snafus.

  “C’mon! Help us out, amigo. We gotta get to a dozen ofrendas tonight,” one traveler complained.

  In a far corner of the room, a woman’s voice boomed.

  “My family always—ALWAYS—puts my photo on the ofrenda! That devil box tells you nothing but lies!” In one swift movement, she removed her shoe and smacked her caseworker’s computer.

  “Mamá Imelda?” Papá Julio said. She turned her shoe on him. He stepped back and yelped.

  “Oh, mi familia!” she said, her voice softening. “Tell this woman and her devil box that my photo is on the ofrenda.”

  “Well, we never made it to the ofrenda—” Papá Julio began to explain before Mamá Imelda interrupted.

  “What!”

  “We ran into um…um…”

  Mamá Imelda’s eyes fell on Miguel. He looked at her.

  “Miguel!” she gasped.

  “Mamá Imelda,” Miguel said.

  “What is going on?” she asked.

  Just then, a door opened and a clerk poked his head in. “You the Rivera family?”

  Inside the clerk’s office, the Riveras waited for the clerk to explain the situation. He flipped through the accordion folds of a massive printout.

  “Well, you’re cursed,” he said to Miguel. The entire family gasped.

  “What!” Miguel exclaimed.

  “Día de los Muertos is a night to GIVE to the dead. You STOLE from the dead.”

  “But I wasn’t stealing the guitar!” Miguel protested, shooting pleading looks at his family.

  “Guitar?” Mamá Imelda asked with suspicion.

  “It was my great-great-grandfather’s. He would have wanted me to have it—”

  “Ah-ah-ah!” Mamá Imelda interrupted Miguel. “We do not speak of that…musician! He is DEAD to this family!”

  “Uh, you’re all dead,” Miguel pointed out.

  Dante balanced his paws at the edge of the clerk’s desk and tried to reach a bowl of sugary treats.

  “Achoo!” The clerk sneezed. “I am sorry—whose alebrije is that?” he asked.

  Miguel stepped up and tried to pull his dog away from the man’s desk “That’s just Dante,” he answered.

  “He sure doesn’t look like an alebrije,” said Tía Rosita, gesturing to the fantastical creatures fluttering on the other side of the window.

  “He just looks like a plain old dog,” said Tío Óscar.

  “Or a sausage someone dropped in a barbershop,” joked Tío Felipe.

  “Whatever he is, I am—ACHOO!—terribly allergic,” said the clerk.

  “But Dante doesn’t have any hair,” Miguel said.

  “And I don’t have a nose, and yet here we are—” The clerk sneezed again.

  “But none of this explains why I couldn’t cross over,” said Mamá Imelda.

  Miguel thought back to his family’s ofrenda room. He sheepishly pulled the black-and-white photo from his pocket. “Oh,” he said, and unfolded the photo of Mamá Imelda, Mamá Coco, and the unidentified man.

  “You took my photo off the ofrenda?” Mamá Imelda exclaimed.

  “It was an accident!” Miguel said.

  Mamá Imelda turned to the clerk with urgency. “How do we send him back?”

  “Well, since it’s a family matter”—the clerk flipped through the pages of a reference book—“the way to undo a family curse is to get your family’s blessing.”

  “That’s it?” Miguel said.

  “Get your family’s blessing, and everything should go back to normal. But you gotta do it by sunrise,” warned the clerk.

  “What happens at sunrise?” Miguel asked.

  “Híjole!” Papá Julio suddenly exclaimed. “Your hand!”

  Miguel looked. The tip of one of his fingers had started to turn skeletal. Miguel paled and began to faint, but Papá Julio caught him and slapped him awake.

  “Whoa, Miguel,” said Papá Julio. “Can’t have you fainting on us!” They had no time to waste. Miguel would turn fully skeletal
by sunrise.

  The clerk stepped over. “But not to worry! Your family’s here; you can get their blessing right now.” He knelt next to Tía Rosita and searched the hem of her skirt.

  “Cempasúchil…cempasúchil,” he said, looking for a flower. “Aha! Perdón, señora.” He plucked a marigold petal from her dress and handed it to Mamá Imelda. “Now,” he went on, “you look at the living and say his name.”

  Mamá Imelda faced Miguel. “Miguel,” she said.

  “Nailed it! Now say ‘I give you my blessing.’”

  “I give you my blessing,” Mamá Imelda repeated. The marigold petal glowed in her fingers.

  Miguel suddenly felt relieved. He was going home, and he was going to play in the talent show—but Mamá Imelda wasn’t finished.

  “I give you my blessing to go home…,” she continued. The glow surged higher. “To put my photo back on the ofrenda…” Miguel nodded as the petal’s glow surged higher with each condition. “And to never play music again!” The petal surged one final time.

  “What? She can’t do that!” Miguel protested.

  “Well, technically she can add any conditions she wants,” said the clerk.

  Miguel narrowed his eyes at her. Mamá Imelda stared back, firm in her resolve.

  “Fine,” Miguel said.

  “Then you hand the petal to Miguel,” said the clerk.

  Mamá Imelda extended the petal to Miguel. He grasped it. Whoosh! He was consumed by a whirlwind of petals, and then he disappeared.

  As quickly as he had vanished from the Land of the Dead, he reappeared in Ernesto de la Cruz’s mausoleum in a swirl of petals. As soon as the petals settled, Miguel ran to the window and looked out. “No skeletons!” he exclaimed, laughing. Then he saw Ernesto’s guitar. Once again, he snatched it from its mount. “Mariachi Plaza, here I come!” He took two steps toward the door, and whoosh!

  In another whirlwind of petals, Miguel appeared back at the clerk’s office in the Land of the Dead. His family turned, shocked to see him back so soon. Miguel realized that his hands were still positioned as if he were holding Ernesto de la Cruz’s guitar, though the guitar had stayed in the Land of the Living. Apparently, Mamá Imelda’s conditions were enforceable.

  “Two seconds, and you already break your promise!” scolded Mamá Imelda.

  “This isn’t fair—it’s my life! You already had yours!” Miguel said. He grabbed another petal. “Papá Julio, I ask for your blessing.” Papá Julio glanced at Mamá Imelda, whose brow hardened. Intimidated, he shook his head and pulled his hat down. Miguel looked at his other relatives. “Tía Rosita? Óscar? Felipe? Tía Victoria?” They all shook their heads. None of them dared to cross Mamá Imelda.

  “Don’t make this hard, m’ijo. You go home my way or no way,” Mamá Imelda said.

  “You really hate music that much?” Miguel asked.

  “I will not let you go down the same path he did,” she answered. Miguel pulled out the photo. He focused on the man, his great-great-grandfather, whose face had been torn from the photo.

  “The same path he did,” Miguel whispered to himself, looking at the man. “He’s family.…”

  “Listen to your Mamá Imelda,” Tía Victoria pleaded.

  “She’s just looking out for you,” said Tío Óscar.

  “Be reasonable,” Tía Rosita added.

  Miguel slowly stepped toward the door. “Con permiso, I need to visit the restroom. Be right back!” He showed himself out.

  The family watched Miguel leave, bewildered. The clerk glanced over at them.

  “Uh, should we tell him there are no restrooms in the Land of the Dead?” he said.

  Miguel hustled down a staircase with Dante following him. Once they reached the ground floor, they huddled beneath the stairs. He looked up and saw his family on the upper floor searching for him. Tío Óscar was speaking to a patrolwoman. After a few seconds, she picked up her walkie-talkie.

  Miguel scoped the ground floor, quickly spotting a revolving-door exit. “Vámonos,” Miguel said to Dante, and pulled his hood up to cover his head. Dante padded after him toward the exit. “If I wanna be a musician, I need a musician’s blessing. We gotta find my great-great-grandpa.” Miguel was within feet of the exit when a patrolman stepped in front of him.

  “Hold it, muchacho.”

  Miguel spun around so quickly that his hoodie loosened to reveal his living face.

  “Ahh!” screamed the patrolman. Miguel tried to pass him but couldn’t.

  Then a patrolwoman’s voice spoke on his walkie-talkie: “Uh, we got a family looking for a living boy.” The patrolman exchanged a look with Miguel.

  “I got him,” he answered.

  Suddenly, a large, chatty family with their arms full of offerings passed between Miguel and the patrolman.

  “Uh—whoa, excuse me, excuse me, folks!” the patrolman stammered as he tried to avoid bumping into the family.

  Miguel used the distraction to escape. He and Dante zipped down a corridor, but Dante doubled back to inspect a side room.

  “Dante!” Miguel shouted. He followed Dante into a room marked DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. Miguel overheard two men talking as he tried to grab his dog.

  “…disturbing the peace, fleeing an officer, falsifying a unibrow…”

  “That’s illegal?” another man asked in disbelief.

  “VERY illegal. You need to clean up your act, amigo,” said the corrections officer.

  “Amigo?” the young man repeated softly. “That’s so nice to hear you say that, because I’ve just had a really hard Día de los Muertos, and I could really use an amigo right now.”

  “Uh,” said the corrections officer.

  “And amigos, they help their amigos. Listen, you get me across that bridge tonight and I’ll make it worth your while,” the young man said. He spotted an Ernesto de la Cruz poster in the officer’s workstation. “Oh, you like Ernesto? He and I go way back! I can get you front-row seats to his Sunrise Spectacular show.”

  Miguel perked up at the mention of Ernesto de la Cruz.

  “I’ll—I’ll get you backstage. You can meet him!” the young man said. “You just gotta let me cross that bridge!”

  The corrections officer shook his head, rejecting the offer. “I should lock you up for the rest of the holiday,” he threatened. “But my shift’s almost up, and I wanna visit my living family, so I’m letting you off with a warning.”

  “Can I at least get my costume back?” The young man pointed to his Frida Kahlo outfit.

  “Uh, no.”

  In a huff, the ragged young man marched out of the room. “Some amigo,” he scoffed.

  Miguel followed him into the hallway. “Hey! Hey! You really know Ernesto de la Cruz?”

  “Who wants to kno—” the man said, and then stopped in shock once he got a good look at Miguel. “Ah, ay! You’re alive!”

  “Shhh!” Miguel said. He quickly yanked the young man into a phone booth to avoid a scene. “Yeah, I’m alive. And if I wanna get back to the Land of the Living, I need Ernesto de la Cruz’s blessing.”

  “That’s weirdly specific.”

  “He’s my great-great-grandfather.”

  “He’s your gr-gr—Wh-whaaat?” The man’s jaw dropped. Miguel caught it just before it landed on the floor, then pushed it back into place. “Wait!” the skeleton said. “You’re going back to the Land of the Living?”

  Miguel stepped back, unsure. “Ya know what, maybe this isn’t such a great—”

  The man snapped his fingers rapidly. “No, niño, I can help you! You can help me. We can help each other! But most importantly, you can help ME!”

  Suddenly, Miguel spotted his family coming down a staircase. Mamá Imelda saw Miguel and barreled straight for him. “Miguel!” she shouted.

  Miguel couldn’t let them catch him and send him back to the Land of the Living with a hundred conditions to never play music.

  Unaware that Miguel’s family was closing in, the skeleton extended h
is hand. “I’m Héctor.”

  “That’s nice,” Miguel said, gripping Héctor by the wrist and dragging him to the exit. Miguel and Dante burst out the door and sped down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, Miguel realized he was holding only Héctor’s arm. The rest of the skeleton was missing.

  “Espérame, chamaco!” Héctor yelled, trying to get Miguel to slow down.

  Miguel looked around. His family was stuck in a revolving door. Moments later, they emerged and scoured the area. But Miguel was gone.

  “Ay!” Mamá Imelda cried. “He is going to get himself killed. We need Pepita.”

  She brought two fingers to her mouth and whistled. A shadow whooshed over them, and then a giant winged jaguar landed in front of the family. Her wings glowed green and blue, and her eyes were bright in the night.

  “Who has that petal he touched?” asked Mamá Imelda.

  Papá Julio held it out to Pepita. “Nice alebrije…”

  Pepita focused on the scent and, moments later, took to the sky.

  In a dark alley, Miguel sat still on a wooden crate. Héctor hovered over him with an open can of black shoe polish. He smudged a thumb bone across the boy’s face.

  “Hey, hey, hold still, hold still. Look up. Look up. UP! Ta-da!” Héctor said after painting Miguel’s face to resemble a skeleton. “Dead as a doorknob.” Héctor and Miguel exchanged satisfied grins. “So listen, Miguel. This place runs on memories. When you’re well remembered, people put up your photo and you get to cross the bridge and visit the living on Día de los Muertos. Unless you’re me.”

  “You don’t get to cross over?” Miguel asked.

  “No one’s ever put up my picture. But you can change that!” He unfolded an old picture and showed it to Miguel. In the photo was a young, living Héctor.

  “This is you?”

  “Muy guapo, eh?”

  “So you get me to my great-great-grandpa, then I put up your photo when I get home?”

  “Such a smart boy! Yes! Great idea, yes!” Héctor said. “One hiccup—Ernesto de la Cruz is a tough guy to get to, and I need to cross that bridge soon. Like, TONIGHT. So, you got any other family here? You know, someone a bit more…eh, accessible?”