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A Mummy in Her Backpack / Una momia en su mochila
A Mummy in Her Backpack / Una momia en su mochila Read online
James Luna
Spanish translation by Gabriela Baeza Ventura
PIÑATA BOOKS
ARTE PÚBLICO PRESS
HOUSTON, TEXAS
A Mummy in Her Backpack / Una momia en su mochila is made possible through a grant from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance.
Piñata Books are full of surprises!
Piñata Books
An imprint of
Arte Público Press
University of Houston
4902 Gulf Fwy, Bldg 19, Rm 100
Houston, Texas 77204-2004
Cover design by Mora Des!gn Group
Cover illustration by Ted Dawson and Mora Des!gn Group
Inside illustrations by Ted Dawson and Giovanni Mora
Luna, James (James G.), 1962-
A Mummy in Her Backpack / by James Luna; Spanish translation by Gabriela Baeza Ventura = Una momia en su mochila / por James Luna; traducción al español de Gabriela Baeza Ventura.
p. cm.
Summary: Flor returns to school from a vacation in Mexico, only to find she brought back a small man with dark yellow skin and thin, stringy hair, who emerges from her backpack and introduces himself as Rafa, a mummy from the famous museum in Guanajuato.
ISBN 978-1-55885-756-8 (alk. paper)
[1. Mummies—Fiction. 2. Mexican Americans—Fiction. 3. Spanish language materials—Bilingual.] I. Ventura, Gabriela Baeza. II. Title. III. Title: Momia en su mochila.
PZ73.L86 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2012026030
CIP
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Text copyright © 2012 by James Luna
Una momia en su mochila © Arte Público Press
Printed in the United States of America
September 2012–November 2012
Versa Press, Inc., East Peoria, IL
12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Brenda who went on a trip and brought me an idea.
To Flor who let me borrow her name.
To my students who inspire me every day.
" It’ll be okay,” Flor said to her little brother, Adrian, as she walked him to his first-grade class. After being out for two weeks, Adrian was a little scared about going back to school. “See? There’s Gabriel,” she said, pointing to a boy walking with his sister. Adrian ran up to Gabriel, and together they went into the classroom. Flor walked up to the girl, her best friend, Lupita.
“Finally!” Lupita said when she saw Flor. “When did you get back?”
Flor tucked her long brown hair behind her right ear. “Last night,” she answered. “Super late. We were so tired that I fell asleep on the ride from the airport. My mom said that I could stay home an extra day, but I wanted to get back to school.”
Lupita shook her head and wagged her finger at Flor, “You can’t be absent for two weeks again! I had no one to play with, and Sandra is so annoying!”
“Promise,” Flor said, laughing. She reached into one of the side pouches of her backpack. “I brought you this.” She handed Lupita a cloth bookmark with a rainbow design and the word “Guanajuato” woven in white over the colors. “I got one for myself too, so we can use them when we read.”
“Thanks!” Lupita said.
The bell rang, and the girls walked to their class. As they entered the room, Lupita told Miss King, “Flor’s back from her trip to Mexico.”
“Welcome back to school, Flor,” Miss King said. Flor smiled and sat down at her desk. “Did you have a nice trip?” Miss King asked.
“Yes,” Flor answered. “I brought you something,” she said as she reached into the other side of her backpack. She pulled out a small ceramic sun that also had the word “Guanajuato” in dark blue letters.
“Thank you.” Miss King looked at the letters on the sun and tried to say it, “Ju won . . . Wanna toe . . . Oh! I’ll never be able to say that.”
Lupita giggled. Flor smiled. Her teacher couldn’t say a lot of things in Spanish, but that was okay.
“It’s good to have you back,” Miss King said.
“It’s good to be back,” Flor answered. She and Lupita went to their desks, hung their backpacks on their chairs and compared their bookmarks. Slowly the other students in the fourth grade also took their seats while Miss King started taking roll.
“Class, please take out your homework,” Miss King announced. Then, turning to Flor she added, “Flor, I hope you did the homework I sent with you for the two weeks you were gone.”
“I bet she didn’t,” Sandra said.
Miss King turned to Sandra. “That wasn’t very nice, Sandra. Oh, and now that Flor’s back, I won’t need you to help collect homework.”
“But, Miss . . . ” Sandra said.
“Thank you, Sandra,” Miss King said. “You can sit down now.”
Sandra glared at Flor as she went back to her desk. When the teacher wasn’t looking, she made a fist at Flor.
Miss King asked Flor, “Will you be our homework collector again, after you give me your homework?”
Smiling, she nodded.
As the teacher walked down the rows of desks, Flor turned to her backpack and unzipped it. When she put her hand in the backpack she felt something cold and dry. She looked at the boys who sat behind her to see if they were playing a joke, but Jason and Matt were tying to explain to Miss King why they didn’t have their homework. I must have imagined it, Flor thought. Slowly, she reached in again. Once more, she felt something cold. Pulling her hand out she tried to scream, but nothing came out. Flor stared at her backpack. It had now fallen on the floor and was moving on its own!
Wait, she thought. It must be those dumb boys. They always played tricks like that. She remembered how they had thrown paper balls into her backpack like it was a basketball hoop.
I’ll show them, she thought. I’ll just open my backpack and show Miss King whatever those boys put in there. Flor opened the backpack.
Two yellow eyes smiled back at her.
“Are we there yet?” A voice called from inside her backpack! Flor put her hand to her mouth. She wanted to scream, but nothing came out.
“Did we make it to los Estados Unidos?” the voice inside her backpack asked. “I thought I heard English.”
Flor looked at Miss King, then at the kids around her to see if they heard the voice. Her classmates were searching their backpacks for their homework. Lupita was re-writing the numbers on her math pages so they looked perfect. Armando was explaining to Miss King how he lost his homework at soccer practice, and Sandra was copying answers off Miguel’s paper.
Flor quickly zipped up her backpack. She walked quietly up to her teacher and whispered, “Can I go outside? I think I left my notebook on the playground.”
“Okay,” Miss King said. “But use the buddy system. Take someone with you.”
“Can Lupita go with me?” Flor asked.
Miss King agreed, so Flor got her backpack and dragged Lupita outside.
Flor led Lupita between two classrooms. Lupita protested, “Why are we outside? What did you lose? I walked with you to class, and you didn’t even take anything out of your backpack before the bell rang.”
“Be quiet, Lupita!” Flor said. “I want you to look in my backpack for me.”
“Why?” Lupita asked.
“I think there’s something in there,” Flor said. “Something talked to me. It had yellow eyes.”
“Then you look,” Lupita said, backing away. “It’s your backpack.”
“Who’s your amiga, Flor?” the voice said. The girls screamed and dropped the backpack.“¡Ay!” the voice yelled. “What did you do that for?”
“Who’s in there?” Flor asked trying to sound brave.
The voice answered, “My name’s Rafael, but everyone just calls me Rafa. Do you remember me? I saw you in the museum in Guanajuato.”
“No,” Flor answered. “Who are you?”
“And what are you doing in her backpack?” Lupita added, with her hands on her hips.
The backpack moved back and forth.
“Well, it’s kind of hard to explain. Basically, I’m what you’d call a mummy.”
“A mummy?” Flor asked.
Lupita hid behind her friend, “Run, Flor! That mummy’s going to destroy the school!”
Rafa laughed. “I would never do such a thing! Flor, tell Lupita about the mummies.”
“We already read a story about mummies, and I also saw a movie,” Lupita said. “You’re from Egypt. You’re a pharaoh, or some rich person. They took your guts out and . . . ”
“Not quite,” Rafa said. “Basically, we’re, well . . . Flor, tell her about the museum already.”
Flor turned and explained to Lupita, “The most famous museum in Guanajuato is the mummy museum, but not mummies from Egypt. It’s full of mummies from Guanajuato. The people, when they bury them in the ground in Guanajuato, sometimes don’t fall apart. The body stays together. So the city made this museum to show off the mummies. There are all kinds of mummies in glass cases. We went to see them when I . . . ” She stared at her backpack, “You’re a . . . How did you . . . ”
“I can explain,” Rafa answered. “But, before I do, can I get out of this backpack and stretch a little?”
Flor turned and looked at Lupita. Lupita had her eyes covered.
“Okay,” Flor said. “But you better do it quickly, because someone might see you.”
Flor stared as a worn cowboy hat slowly emerged from her backpack. Under the hat came a thin head with dark yellow skin. Flor scowled. Remembering her manners, she tried to hide her fear. Finally, Rafael stood up. He wasn’t very tall. He wore a torn shirt, black pants and black leather boots. Thin and stringy hair curled out from under his hat. Large brown eyes twinkled with a smile as he looked at Flor. She felt her heart pounding, but she managed to smile back at the mummy with the weird face and cowboy hat. Rafa turned his head to look at Lupita, who hid behind Flor.
“Gracias,” he said. “It feels good to stand up. I’ve been in that backpack for three days.”
“Ew!” Lupita said again. “Flor, you’ve been carrying a mummy in your backpack?”
“No,” Flor protested, then she turned to Rafa with a worried look, “Have I?”
Rafa nodded.
Flor asked, “How did you get in?”
“Well,” Rafa began. “It’s like this.” The mummy folded his arms, put his head down and curled up into the backpack. “See?” he called from inside. “I fit perfectly. There’s a lot of room in here.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Flor said.
Rafa stood up again, “What did you . . . ?”
Suddenly, a boy ran out of a classroom. Lupita grabbed Flor’s arm and said, “Flor, we better get back to class before someone sees us!”
“Oh, yeah,” Flor said. “Rafa, what are we going to do with you?”
“Basically, I can stay in your backpack. I won’t cause any trouble. I promise,” Rafa reassured her.
“I don’t know,” Flor said.
Lupita interrupted, “Yeah, Rafa. Get back. We have to get to class before Miss King sends someone out to get us.”
Rafa was folding himself back in Flor’s backpack when she remembered her homework.
“Hey, Rafa, I need my homework!”
“¡Ay, sí!” Rafa said.
The girls heard the rustling of papers, and finally, they saw Rafa’s dried hand holding out some wrinkled pages.
“Rafa, you messed up my homework!” Flor scolded.
“Phew! It smells funny, too!” Lupita said.
“Sorry, sweetie,” Rafa apologized, “but I probably sat on it. Besides, I checked the math, and it looks right. That’s if you still multiply the way we did a hundred and twenty years ago.”
Flor zipped up her backpack, and the girls returned to class. Flor handed Miss King the papers shyly. The teacher looked at them and said, “Flor, what happened?”
“It’s a long story, Miss King,” Flor answered. “And I don’t know the ending,” she added, returning to her seat.
Before the teacher could say anything, Lorenzo yelled, “Ouch! Miss King, Sandra stabbed me with her pencil!” Miss King took Flor’s paper and went across the room to handle the problem.
As Flor returned to her seat, she looked at each kid, hoping they wouldn’t notice how her backpack hung very low on her seat.
When recess finally came, Flor and Lupita asked if they could stay inside the classroom. Miss King explained that she had yard duty, but added that if they behaved, they could stay in the room by themselves. Sandra asked to stay too.
“Last time I let you stay in, my desk was a mess,” the teacher said.
“That wasn’t me!” Sandra protested.
“Just come outside with everyone else, please,” said Miss King. The rest of the class left the room quickly and as soon as the last kid walked out, Flor called, “Rafa! You can get out and stretch until the bell rings.”
“Gracias,” Rafa whispered back. This time he jumped out of the backpack. When he was out he looked around the room with wide, dry eyes. “¡Caray!” he yelled. “This is some place! It has more things than the museum.”
“Not so loud!” Flor scolded. “Someone’s going to hear you. Besides, you never finished telling us why you hid in my backpack.”
“Well, basically,” Rafa said, “ever since I was a kid, I wanted to see los Estados Unidos. But I never got a chance. I’ve been in the museum for almost thirty years. From my glass case, I’d see people coming from Texas, Florida, New York and California. I learned English from listening to people talk. Hearing everybody made me want to come here even more than when I was alive. I almost got out a couple of times. I’d see people with big bags, and ladies with huge purses. They’d leave them in the museum, and I knew that I could fit in them. But a new group would walk through, or someone would come back for the bag, and I was stuck. I waited a long time. I knew that if I was patient, I’d get my chance. That’s why when I saw you walking so slowly, hiding behind your mamá’s legs with that big empty backpack, I knew that was my chance. It was perfect. You put your backpack down to pick up your brother and when you walked out of the room, I climbed in. Thank goodness you walk so slowly.”
Flor pouted and shook her head. Lupita giggled.
“So you live in the museum?” Flor asked.
“Well, basically, I don’t really live there. They keep me in the room with the baby mummy and the shy mummy.” Rafa stood a little taller and said proudly, “I’m the oldest mummy there.”
“When were you born?” Flor asked.
“The fourth of October in 1884.” Rafa felt the carpet and stared at the lights. “¡Vaya! I always wondered what I’d see when I got here, but I never dreamed it would be like this!” Rafa moved slowly around the class, waddling in a funny way, as if he had just gotten off a horse. While he walked, he stared at the walls, the desks and the computers.
“I can’t believe it!” he said. “In all my time in the museum, I’ve always wondered how you keep the lights burning. I don’t see the flame.”
Flor didn’t understand for a second. Suddenly, she ran to the light switch. “Look,” she told Rafa. Flor flicked the lights off and on. “It’s electricity, not fire light.”
“¡Caramba!” Rafa yelled.
“Quiet!” Lupita said. S
he was looking out the window and she saw that Sandra was running to Miss King. Lupita saw her talking excitedly and pointing to the classroom.
“Flor!” Lupita yelled. “I think Sandra saw Rafa!”
“Oh, no!” Flor said. “What are we going to do?”
“Maybe I can hide somewhere else,” Rafa said. “I was in that glass case in the museum for so long that I can stay still anywhere.”
“Yeah, but we can’t show you off,” Flor said. “We have to hide you.”
“Maybe in the cabinet,” Lupita said.
“No. Miss King gets stuff out during math,” Flor told her.
“How about in the cafeteria?” Lupita asked.
“Where in the cafeteria?” Flor answered. “Every kid in school walks through there. Besides, we can’t just walk through the school without an adult asking us where we are going. Where can we go where no one else can go?”
Lupita said, “I don’t know, but hurry! I have to go to the restroom.”
Flor smiled. “Lupita! You’re so smart! Let’s go!”
Lupita frowned at Flor and then smiled. “Hey! I am smart,” she said. “But wait! Rafa can’t go in until I come out.”
“I know that,” Flor told her.
Just then Sandra opened the door. Miss King had given her the keys.
“Flor! Lupita!” she yelled. “Miss King wants you! I told her that you were talking to someone.”
Flor didn’t answer.
“You’re going to get it, Sandra!” Lupita said.
“Don’t worry about her,” Flor said. She picked up her backpack and walked to the door.
The two girls walked out slowly. Flor glared at Sandra as she passed her. Lupita shoved Sandra against the door with her elbow.
“Ow!” Sandra said.
“Oh! Excuse me. Are you hurt?” Lupita pretended to apologize.
Sandra answered, “No.”
“Too bad. I’ll try harder next time!” Lupita said, looking back at Sandra. Sandra reached for one of Lupita’s braids to pull, but wasn’t fast enough.
When the girls walked up to Miss King, she shook her head at them. “Girls, Sandra said there was someone else in the room. If I can’t trust you, I won’t allow you to stay in the classroom by yourselves anymore.”
A Mummy in Her Backpack / Una momia en su mochila