Carmen Ferreiro-Esteban - Two Moon Princess

Enrolling at the university was pretty easy. My mother, Tío Ramiro told me, had asked him to register my sisters and me as citizens of this world when we were born. In spite of my hard feelings toward Mother, I was deeply impressed by her foresight.

More difficult to explain to my uncle was why I had been late to meet him. The fact that I didn’t have an alarm clock—one of the devices people use in Tio’s world to measure time instead of our marked candles—was no excuse, as he had specifically told Kelsey to lend me one the previous day. She had forgotten. Things got worse when he asked me how I had liked the library, and I stammered something like, “It was very nice,” but I could not tell him where it was or which books I had taken home.

My uncle sighed. “Andrea, I’m not going to ask you what you did yesterday. You are not a child anymore, and I cannot supervise your every move. But I do hope you didn’t do or say anything that would jeopardize the secrecy of your world.”

“Of course not, Tío,” I said, trying to look appropriately outraged at the suggestion.

Tío shrugged. He didn’t seem convinced, but at least he didn’t pry further.

“As we discussed yesterday,” Tío told me as we left the registration office, “the best thing to do now is to pretend you have come from Spain to stay for a month and improve your English. So I have signed you up for several classes in the English department.”

“Classes have already started,” he continued as I nodded. “But you’ve only missed a week, so I don’t think you’ll have any problem catching up.”

“I’ll work hard,Tío, I promise.”

Tío grabbed my arm to steer me away from a bicycle coming straight at me, and after warning me again to watch for the bicycles darting around us like arrows in the practice field, he handed me a book.

“Here is your schedule,” he said, and after opening the book, he pointed at the top of the page. “We’re at the beginning of the fall term—”

I had noticed the leaves on the trees were turning, but as Tío mentioned it, this struck me as odd: it had been early spring in my world, only two days ago.

“How come it is fall?”

Tío frowned. “Why not?”

“But in my world . . .”

“Oh, I see. That is because your world takes fourteen of our months to circle your sun. So the seasons in both worlds usually don’t match.”

“I’m glad I came now and not in a couple of months. Imagine, I could have ended up in the middle of a snow storm.”

“You don’t have to worry about that. There is no snow in California.”

“No snow! This world is indeed magic. I think I will like it here.”

Tío Ramiro laughed. “I’m sure you will, Andrea. But remember, you must go back to your world in a month.”

I sulked. How could I forget if you remind me constantly? I wanted to say. But I knew Tío was still mad at me for having come to his world, and as I did not want to upset him further, I said nothing. Eyes wide open, I followed him along perfectly straight paths flanked by trees and across square patches of green to a big rectangular building that seemed to be made entirely of glass. Through its walls, sitting on sofas randomly arranged, I could see young people talking.

Tío opened the door and motioned me inside. “This is the Recreation Hall where students come to relax,” he said, his words barely audible over the loud chattering.

I paused for a moment, longing to join them, but Tío urged me forward to a long table where a young man smiled at us from under a banner that read “Information.” At Tio’s request, the boy handed me a map. It was a miniature representation of the campus, with little drawings of buildings on it. They were so cool, I could not stop looking at them.

Tío snatched the paper from my hands. “We are here,” he said, marking the place with a cross. “This building is your dorm, and this is the English department.” Folding the map, he squeezed it into the outside pocket of my backpack. “Come on. You can study it later. Let’s go to the Coffee House now and get something to eat.”

Holding my arm, he led me through an open door into a big noisy room that smelled of spices and broiled meat. It reminded me of the kitchens in Father’s castle, only here students walked around the tall tables not cooking, but picking dishes and putting them on small trays. “Self-service,” Tío called it. I called it paradise.

Just like in the paradise of Ama Bernarda’s stories, some food was forbidden, at least until I had learned how to use a fork in the proper manner. For now, to be on the safe side, I chose only a bowl of soup and a sandwich, while promising myself I would practice hard that night so I could try anything I wanted to the following day.

After we had paid for our lunches, we walked into an open patio where around little tables symmetrically arranged under huge striped parasols, students talked, ate, and laughed with a contagious exuberance.

Once we were seated,Tío gave me one of the small boxes he had on his trays and showed me how to drink from it with a bright yellow straw. “It’s chocolate milk,” he said, laughing when I asked what kind of cow made such a wonderful milk. He also offered me crunchy chips from a fluffy metallic bag. He said they were potatoes, but they were nothing like the potatoes of my world. They were flat and crispy and made me hungry for more. But Tío, claiming I would get sick if I did not stop eating, forbade me to go back inside to get another bag.

“Besides,” he said, getting up, “I want to show you the library. And since I have to teach a class at two, we have to hurry.”

“May I come with you?” I asked after he had explained he was a professor in the anthropology department.

“Sure,” he said, but didn’t sound sure at all. “Just don’t ask any questions.”

I found Tio’s talk on “The Psychology of the Medieval Warrior” fascinating. His students kept interrupting him, and he answered their questions promptly. But when I raised my hand as everybody else was doing, he ignored me. Upset, I left as soon as the class was over without waiting for him and wandered around the campus by myself, intoxicated by the freedom I was allowed in this world with no Ama to chaperone me everywhere and no Mother to force me to act against my nature.

The following day, I attended my first real classes. I was nervous at first, but soon I realized I had no problem keeping up with the teachers, and I relaxed. In between classes I talked with some of my classmates, and by the end of the morning, I had already made friends.

John kept a promise he had made at Al’s and took me downtown for lunch. Happy to practice my newly acquired ability with the fork, I ordered a salad. But John insisted I try his “pizza.” He offered the triangular pie to me that he was holding in his hand, and so I dropped my fork and took the pie in mine. I imagined John sitting at my father’s table in the Great Hall, grabbing the food from the common trays with his bare fingers as he had done with the pizza, and smiled at the thought: He would fit right in.

I liked the pizza so much, John just let me eat his piece and bought himself another one.

Once we were finished, we strolled along the streets on our way back to the campus. Unlike the random pattern that the alleys of the villages in my world follow, these streets were neatly arranged in a perfectly straight grid. Although I found each and every one of the shops that occupied the first floor of the houses fascinating, the most amazing thing of all was to be close to John. And to stop staring at him required amazing effort.

Several days passed this way, swift and pleasant like a summer breeze. And every day I felt more comfortable in my new life. I loved the freedom this world allowed me. I loved its people and its food and the rhythm of the new language. And above all, I loved the thrill of knowing I would see John playing basketball the following Sunday.