Guillermo Rosales - Leapfrog and Other Stories

“This,” Agrispina said, “is the kidney. Here are the bladder and the liver. And this is the urinary tract.”

And she tapped on the human map with her pinewood pointer.

Henry moved behind you, excited.

“Did you see that?” he whispered. “Agrispina pointed at the balls.”

Agrispina continued singing to her class in a soprano voice and walked around the room looking up at the ceiling. On the beach at Santa Fe, they said she didn’t have a husband. Was it true? In any event, the West Side Boys said it was, while talking in a circle at recess.

The Boys on one side and the teachers on the other. Both groups talking in low voices and looking at each other with reciprocal loathing.

Sometimes, Agrispina called someone from the group and made him stand up before her. She then turned to the other teachers and said with contempt,

“Look at this one!” And with that, she made a gesture, waving her hand. “You can leave now!”

They hated her. The West Side Boys had even made up a song about her. You remembered it now that you were drawing a naked woman.

Old Agrispina

has never seen a wiener.

Green grass, green grass,

she has a smelly ass.

“The human body is made up of 204 bones, as you all know,” she was saying, and then she brought the pointer down on Ulysses’ head, a hunched over and silent boy who spent the day drawing Martian spaceships. Then she turned to you and grabbed you tightly by the ear.

“Give me that piece of paper, you little cretin,” Agrispina Pérez Pérez said. “Do you think I didn’t see the filth you drew?”

You were livid. You stood up and quickly put the drawing in your mouth.

“He swallowed it! He swallowed it!” The voices sang.

“Spit it out!” Agrispina ordered. “Spit it out or I will keep your ear!”

Paper is paper. And notebook paper won’t go down a dry throat. You could feel the cartilage in your windpipe.

“Spit it out!”

You let it go. The rolled up ball fell to the floor and she calmly leaned over to pick it up.

“Ha!” She smiled with satisfaction. “How good is this?”

“This time, you can say goodbye, Agar,” expectant voices whispered. “They’re going to throw you out. They’re going to throw you out.”

Agrispina adjusted her wire-rim glasses and began to straighten out the saliva-ridden ball of paper on her desk.

To you, it seemed like the Earth was opening up under your feet, and that you were falling, falling, falling into the void again.

“Splendid!” Agrispina exclaimed. “So very illustrative, very illustrative, very. ”

And the bell rang. But you stayed inside. With Agrispina and the smell of the dead classroom.

The difference now. Without the children’s sweat. Without the leather of their book bags. From the walls, the patriots again looked at you strictly.

“Swear!” Papa Lorenzo said, suddenly emerging from your memory.

“What’s up, Doc!” Bugs Bunny said, hopping around inside your head.

Agrispina looked at you in silence. With the drawing of the naked woman in her hands.

“I would like to know,” she said, “what do all of you have in your heads? Do you think that I don’t know what you do when you get together in your circle at recess? Make fun of me, that’s what you do! And say dirty things and write terrible things about me in the bathroom.”

He looked at her, expressionless.

“And now you draw this!”

And she held up the drawing of the woman.

“Who told you that women are like this under their clothes? Tell me! Did your father tell you? Who? I’m waiting. come on!”

This is the island of Cuba, discovered by Columbus. Rodrigo de Triana also came along. What did Columbus do when he first set foot on the island?

“Place the other one behind it, dude. If he hadn’t, he would have lost his balance.”

Laughter. Laughter. Laughter.

“Names!”

“Who?”

“What’s up, Doc!” Bugs Bunny said.

Hardy har har.

We were in the West, son. in the West. in the W —

You shook your head. You would have liked to turn into an ant. You would have liked to say, Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock .

“Fuck the mouse!” You screamed in your head.

Agrispina slumped down in her desk, overcome by defeat.

“Come on.,” she said, exhausted. “What do the kids say about me? What’s that thing they sing?”

Come on.

Tell me.

Sing it.

At Thirteen, a Midget Can Be Seen

At noon, the guys from the Rotary club arrived. They came in a gray truck, with the words “Rotary Club International” inscribed on the door.

Papa Lorenzo went out to meet them in shorts and a T-shirt, and Mama Pepita ran to the bathroom to quickly get herself ready.

“One day they’ll take me for the maid,” she complained. “A rag is what I am, a rag!”

Agar watched the Rotarians get out of the vehicle with Carnival whistles and shakers.

“The terrible bunch!” Papa Lorenzo greeted them, trying on his best smile.

So they got out: old Mutt Martinez, shortstop for the Santa Fe Club softball team. The very fat Jeff de la Vega, pitcher. Ambrosio Choraliza, owner of the “La Principal” ball field and supplementary member of the club’s board of consultants. Mingo, the barber, “the man who, on the whole beach, knew the most about the Big Leagues,” in Papa Lorenzo’s words. Ciriaco Sardinas, the Club’s Honorary President, who was carrying the Rotarians’ bell and banging on it with a hammer, requesting: “Keep this party orderly.”

“So what says the old man?” Ambrosio Choraliza greeted him, giving Papa Lorenzo a big hug.

“We’ve come to take whatever we can get from you, you old joker,” Mingo confessed, rubbing his hands with a mischievous expression.

“Order!” Ciriaco Sardinas demanded, hitting the bell. “I won’t accept that bit about being a joker. As the club’s president, I forbid any such references.”

“Damn, people!” Papa Lorenzo said amid the group’s laughter. “It looks like you’re here to really come down on me.”

“Come on, Lorenzo, one day a year, old man.!”

Laughter.

Papa Lorenzo entered the house for a minute and went over to Agar.

“Go to Núñez’s house and get him to give you a dozen beers. Get them over here and bring them through the back.”

Mama Pepita came out of the bathroom. She had left her tragic air in the mirror and was now smiling broadly.

“Madame!” Mutt greeted her, bowing like a medieval knight.

“Man, it looks like time stands still around here!” Jeff de la Vega commented, looking at Mama Pepita mischievously.

“Oh!” She pretended to be embarrassed, going along with his joke. “You really are a joker, Jeff, such a flatterer. ”

“Madame, Jeff de la Vega does not flatter, but rather recognizes virtue. That is my motto.”

Another flattering phrase.

“Don’t bend over too much, old man!” Choraliza warns. “Mind your hinges don’t break.”

Laughter.

“I’m in great shape!” Jeff shouted amid the guffaws.

“You think?” Mutt said. “The other day, playing softball, you almost ended up hunchbacked forever. We’re going to have to drag you along on roller skates, old man!”

Renewed laughter.

“What’s wrong, Jeff?” Papa Lorenzo asked, pretending to be serious. “Are you going to let them shoot you down like that?”

“Just ignore them, old man.” Jeff said, with an air of resignation. “Today’s Sunday.”

Agar arrived with the bottles. Papa Lorenzo saw him come in the back door out of the corner of his eye and told Mama Pepita, “Lady, put some music on for us.”