There were a bunch of Mexican kids at my school. One, named Enrique Marquez—Enrique was their way of saying Henry—hadn’t been here in America too long, so he was having trouble keeping up. He found out I liked to whittle when I brought some of my carvings to the school’s crafts display. After that, he started going out of his way to speak to me. At first, it was only “Hello” or “How’s it going?”
One day between classes, he showed me some pieces he’d carved. They were mostly Mexican things like burros and sombreros—stuff like that. They were pretty good though. So we talked a little about how we worked and got friendly enough for him to go along with me one afternoon to check on my sisters after school. The girls were okay, so we sat outside the door on some plastic milk crates and whittle
