The Pool Party

  OTHER YEARLING BOOKS YOU WILL ENJOY:

  THE SKIRT, Gary Soto

  MIEKO AND THE FIFTH TREASURE, Eleanor Coerr

  SADAKO AND THE THOUSAND PAPER CRANES, Eleanor Coerr

  OTHER BELLS FOR US TO RING, Robert Cormier

  AMONG THE VOLCANOES, Omar S. Castañeda

  YEAR OF IMPOSSIBLE GOODBYES, Sook Nyul Choi

  ECHOES OF THE WHITE GIRAFFE, Sook Nyul Choi

  MAKE A WISH, MOLLY, Barbara Cohen

  MOLLY’S PILGRIM, Barbara Cohen

  BETWEEN MADISON AND PALMETTO, Jacqueline Woodson

  YEARLING BOOKS are designed especially to entertain and enlighten young people. Patricia Reilly Giff, consultant to this series, received her bachelor’s degree from Marymount College and a master’s degree in history from St. John’s University. She holds a Professional Diploma in Reading and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University. She was a teacher and reading consultant for many years, and is the author of numerous books for young readers.

  Published by

  Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers a division of

  Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.

  1540 Broadway

  New York, New York 10036

  Text copyright © 1993 by Gary Soto

  Illustrations copyright © 1993 by Robert Casilla

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Delacorte Press, New York, New York 10036.

  The trademarks Yearling® and Dell® are registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-83021-0

  Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Yearling Books You Will Enjoy

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  THE POOL PARTY

  Chapter 1

  It was Saturday, summer vacation, but a workday for the Herrera family. The sun, a yellow bonnet of summer heat, hung above the trees. Rudy’s entire family—father, mother, sister, and grandfather, who was known throughout Fresno as “El Shorty”—were working in the yard. Father was a gardener, but his yard was brimming with tall, scraggly weeds.

  Rudy was in the kitchen slapping together a sandwich for his older sister, Estela. He owed her a favor. She had promised to do more yard work if he sneaked into the house to make a sandwich.

  “Make it thick,” Estela had told Rudy. “Three slices of bologna and some cheese.”

  Rudy layered the sandwich with only one slice of bologna, tomato, and potato chips. When he pressed his palm against the sandwich, the chips crunched. He liked that sound, and liked how the sliced tomato would bleed a faint pinkish juice. He peeked into the sandwich. The bologna looked like a tongue wagging at him.

  He picked up the sandwich and looked out the kitchen window. His mother, hair tied with a bandanna, was vacuuming the trunk of their battered Oldsmobile. Rudy imagined the vacuum sucking up marbles, bottle caps, candy wrappers, and leaves. He saw one of his gym socks gag the hose. Mother made a face and wrestled with the sock.

  When his mother turned around, Rudy ducked down, his back to the wall. His heart pounded, not from fear but from the giddiness of sneaking around behind his mother’s back.

  As Rudy stood up, he saw a letter on the kitchen table. The letter was addressed to him. He put the sandwich down and licked his salty fingers before opening up the letter. When he tore it open, glitter rained onto the kitchen table. It was like magic, or a rainbow that had collapsed in his own house. He read

  You are invited to Tiffany Perez’s

  Pool Party

  Saturday, from 12 noon–4 P.M.

  1334 The Bluffs

  “What’s a ‘pool party’?” he wondered aloud. He sniffed the envelope, nostrils quivering. It smelled like the stuff his mother would dab on her wrists on those evenings she went dancing with his father.

  Rudy ran out the back door with the sandwich and the invitation, which trailed a sweet scent of perfume. His grandfather, El Shorty, was sitting in the yard, taping a splintered shovel.

  “Abuelo, mira!” Rudy shouted, waving the invitation. The sandwich flopped in his hand, a slice of tomato falling out.

  Not even thinking about it, Grandfather took the sandwich from Rudy and chomped a big corner from it. He chewed and cleared his throat. “Mira, it’s good as new,” he said of the shovel. “I had this shovel fourteen years. It dug up and buried a lot of things, mi’jo.”

  Grandfather took another bite of the sandwich and began a long story about how once when he was a young man hitchhiking to California his shoes were stolen and he had to use cardboard to jump from place to place.

  “Like this,” Grandfather explained. He demonstrated how he would pitch the cardboard in front of him, step on it, let his feet cool for a few seconds before he would step off the cardboard and pitch it again in front of him. That’s how he jumped from place to place and ended up in Fresno, working as a gardener. That’s how years later he would be sitting in the backyard taping a splintered shovel back to life.

  Rudy was familiar with this story. He had heard it a hundred times, maybe more, and other stories about the usefulness of electrical tape, another topic that made Rudy wonder if his grandfather was all right in the head. His grandfather was always telling stories about the poor days in California, just after he arrived from Mexico with the dream of a home and an orange tree in the backyard.

  Rudy stopped his grandfather’s monologue by shoving the invitation in his face. “Grandpa, what’s a pool party?” he asked.

  His grandfather studied the invitation, and then, scratching his stubbled face, said, “That’s when a bunch of guys get together and shoot pool. Like me and my compa Pete Salinas when we—”

  “Shoot pool?” Rudy interrupted. It didn’t seem right. Tiffany was the richest girl at his school. Rudy couldn’t picture her leaning over a pool table, muttering, “Eight ball in the side pocket.”

  “Yeah, like when me and Pete Salinas,” his grandfather started, “were down to our last quarter and we found ourselves without shirts—”

  Rudy rolled his eyes, because the story sounded familiar. Pretending to be startled, Rudy shouted, “It’s the phone,” and ran away. He ran to the side of the house where his mother was vacuuming the car. “Mom!” he screamed over the wail of the vacuum. “Mom, I got invited to Tiffany’s pool party! What’s a ‘pool party’?”

  His mother turned and, by accident, the invitation was sucked into the hose, which gagged and moaned before the card descended into the belly of the vacuum.

  “The invitation!” Rudy screamed. He hastily turned off the vacuum and opened it up. He plucked out the invitation, which was crinkled but still sweet-smelling. He also plucked out and pocketed a marble he had been looking for.

  “Look,” Rudy said, flapping the invitation at his mother.

  Mother took the invitation and read it slowly. She smelled it, a wrinkle cutting across her brow. “¿Quién es Tiffany Perez?”

  “A girl at school.”

  “A girl?” Rudy’s mother looked curiously at him. She smelled the invitation a second time and handed it back.


  “No sé. I don’t know what a ‘pool party’ is,” Mother finally said. “Ask Estela.”

  Rudy trotted away, his untied laces slapping around his ankles, and passed his father, who was carrying a plastic trash bag over his shoulders. “Hey, Dad! I’m invited to a pool party,” Rudy boasted.

  “That’s good,” Father said. “Give me five, hombre. No, ten! No, fifteen and twenty.”

  They slapped palms and spun away. But Rudy’s father stopped in his tracks. He looked back at his son, his head tilted in wonder. “What’s a ‘pool party’?” he asked. He shrugged and lifted the trash bag onto his shoulders.

  Rudy approached his sister, Estela, who was raking grass clippings. Her hair was tangled, and she looked hot. A mustache of sweat clung to her upper lip.

  “Where have you been?” Estela snapped. “Where’s my sandwich?”

  “Grandpa ate it.”

  “Grandpa ate it!” she screamed. Her eyebrows became arched with anger. “Forget it. Don’t expect me to do extra work now. Rudy, you’re such a—”

  “Look, Estela,” Rudy said. He shoved the invitation at his sister. She unfolded the invitation and read it. She looked at her brother and asked, “Tiffany Perez invited you to her house? Isn’t she real rich?”

  “I guess,” Rudy said, shrugging his shoulders. He figured that anyone who had more than a dollar fifty was rich. He had a pinch of dimes and nickels, and a few pennies tucked away in his drawer. At last count he had almost two dollars to his name.

  She sniffed the invitation. “Why would Tiffany want you there?”

  Rudy thought about that for a second and answered, “Maybe she likes my style.”

  “Get real,” Estela growled, then added with kindness, “Rudy, a ‘pool party’ is a swim party. You have to be polite. You can’t eat with your fingers.”

  “Oh, it’s that kind of party,” Rudy said, a light coming on inside his head. He pictured himself wiping his mouth every time he took a bite of food or sipped a drink.

  Just then Rudy’s best friend rode up on his bike.

  “What’s happening?” asked Alex.

  “Look at this, Alex,” Rudy said, shoving his invitation at his friend.

  Alex read the invitation three times, his lips moving over each word. He licked his lips. “Híjole, Tiffany Perez is rich. You’re going to eat good.”

  Chapter 2

  “We got a job. Let’s go! Ándale!” Rudy’s father called from the back steps. Rudy and his grandfather were in the yard playing cards. They wore baseball caps that shaded their eyes like gamblers.

  Rudy’s father was a gardener in spring and summer and a house painter in fall and winter. Now that they were deep into July, his knees were stained green, and his hands resembled roots dug up from the earth. He worked for widows and retired people, and a few rich families whose driveways were long and smooth as glass.

  Today, it was a rich person’s house in North Fresno. Rudy, his father, and grandfather, all dressed in khaki, were climbing into their Oldsmobile. The mowers, rakes, and broom stuck out from the trunk.

  Just as they were ready to leave, Rudy’s mother came out of the house with a Polaroid camera dangling from her wrist.

  “Espérate,” she yelled, and waved.

  “Look, Mom’s gonna take a picture,” Rudy said. A big, queso smile cut across his face.

  Grandfather smoothed his work shirt and played with his collar. He combed his hair with his stubby fingers.

  “Let me take a picture,” she said. She looked into the viewer. “Rudy, you’re smiling too big.”

  Rudy relaxed his smile.

  The three of them stood, arm in arm, with Rudy in the middle. They smiled like pumpkins when Rudy’s mother, one eye squinted, sang, “Queso.” The camera shuddered and clicked, and a picture the size of a slice of cheese rolled noisily out of the camera.

  Rudy’s mother tore off the picture. She was known for her shaky hand. Sometimes their heads were cut off, and other times they were completely out of the frame and only their lean shadows on the ground would be seen. Still, she would proudly prop them up on the television or tape them to the refrigerator, a family of blurred faces.

  Rudy’s father tapped his work boot as they waited for their faces to develop out of the fog of Polaroid land.

  Today, only the tops of their heads were cut off.

  “Baby,” Rudy’s father said, “you almost got it right.”

  “Yeah, Mom, you did a good job,” Rudy said in encouragement.

  They piled into the car and drove across town, their equipment rattling in the trunk. The small houses gave way to large houses, all set way back from the street.

  “You see, mi’jo,” Rudy’s grandfather said. “This is how to live.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind having a little casita like one of these,” Father said. A toothpick dangled from the corner of his mouth.

  They admired the houses and the calm lushness of shrubs and bushes deep with shadows. The sprinklers were hissing on the lawns and pampered dogs with tags jingling a tinny music on their collars paced up and down the walk.

  Father stopped at a large house, and all of them got out and stretched.

  “Híjole, es muy grande!” Grandfather whistled.

  “Like Club Med,” Rudy’s father remarked as he untied the trunk and took out a bundle of rakes and shovels. “Come on, let’s go.”

  A woman appeared on the front steps. “Yoo-hoo,” she called, waving a delicate finger that sparkled with a blue diamond. “Mr. Herrera, perfect timing. My children are at ballet.”

  “Hello, Mrs. Gentry,” Father greeted her. “Want us to cut the front first?”

  “That’s a perfect idea.” Mrs. Gentry scanned her yard and inhaled the morning air. “Isn’t it just lovely?”

  “What?” Rudy asked, looking around. “What’s lovely?”

  “The morning,” she said. She smiled and walked away with her nose lifted and sniffing the air.

  The three of them looked at each other, and shrugged their shoulders.

  “Qué loca,” Grandfather said as he returned to the car for his hat and work gloves.

  They started the mowers, the engines coughing blue smoke. While his grandfather and father cut and edged the lawns, Rudy gathered the clippings. He raked most of them into a burlap sack, and then swept up the blades of grass from the walk. With shears he snipped the grass around the sprinkler heads. He felt like a barber and giggled when he remembered how a friend had cut his hair and left him as bald as the belly of a green-spotted frog.

  While they were working on their hands and knees, Father found a nickel minted in 1949.

  “Hey, Little Rudy, check this out,” he yelled.

  Rudy was standing on a small ladder, pruning flowering quince. He jumped down and, with his grandfather in tow, ran over to see what his father was yelling about.

  “Mira, hijo,” Father said. He handed Rudy the dirt-caked nickel. “It’s worth mucho dinero. See that ‘D’?”

  “Yeah,” Rudy said, examining it closely.

  “That means it was minted in Denver, Colorado,” Father explained.

  Rudy took the coin in his hands. To him, 1949 seemed like the beginning of the world—long, long ago, just about the time the dinosaurs died out.

  “Wow,” Rudy sighed as he turned it over admiringly. “Can I have it—please?” Rudy gave his father a pleading puppy-dog look.

  “I’ll flip you for it,” Father said.

  “Fair deal.”

  Father flipped the nickel into the air, almost tree level, and when it came down and smacked against his father’s wrist, Rudy called, “Heads.” Father peeked with a squinting eye. It was tails. But Father turned his wrist and whined, “Ah, man, it was heads. You win, Rudy.”

  “All right!” Rudy yelled. He pocketed the coin, and even listened with patience to his grandfather’s story of how he was once down to a nickel, two oranges, and a sweater with worn elbows. This was way before 1949, in the time of dinosaurs.


  They returned to work. They cut the backyard lawn, the air scented with the smell of cut grass. They worked continuously, stopping only to drink from the garden hose.

  In the backyard, the Gentry’s kidney-shaped pool gleamed a blue tint. Rudy stood at the pool’s edge, looking down where sunlight danced on the water. He knew from experience that his face was sweaty from work, and that a necklace of dirt darkened his throat. He remembered Tiffany Perez’s pool party the coming Saturday. Rudy wondered if her yard was as large as this one. Even in the far corner, near a fig tree, a white doghouse stood tall as a wedding cake.

  Grandfather tiptoed up from behind. He grabbed Rudy’s shoulders and pretended to shove him into the water.

  “No!” Rudy screamed.

  “You look hot, chamaco,” Grandfather laughed. He held Rudy over the water. Rudy kicked his legs and begged not to be thrown in.

  “Knock it off, we’re almost done,” Father yelled. He was holding up a pair of shiny pruning shears. “Let’s do the bush.”

  Finally, when they finished and had piled the equipment back into the trunk, Mrs. Gentry came out to inspect the work. She was happy. Her smile made folds in her face.

  “Now, let’s see, Mr. Herrera,” she said. “We agreed on forty-five dollars.”

  “That’s right, ma’am,” he said.

  “I thought it was fifty-five,” Grandfather said in Spanish. “Did she charge us for drinking from her hose?”

  “No, hombre, forty-five,” Father said in Spanish. “I got it right.”

  The three stood in a line. Mrs. Gentry counted out dollar bills. “One, two, three …” When she counted out fifteen, Grandfather snatched a bill from Father’s palm. Mrs. Gentry shot a curious look at Grandfather, then continued counting out the dollar bills. When she got to twenty, Grandfather snatched another dollar bill. She looked at him even more curiously. Rudy’s father whispered in Spanish, “What’re you doing?”

  “I don’t know,” Grandfather said. “I can’t help myself. The money looks so tempting.”

  “Knock it off, hombre,” Father growled. He smiled at Mrs. Gentry and said, “Grandpa’s been in the sun too long.”