Song of the Mockingbird: My Journey with Josefina

The bell rings and I stack my notebooks and head for the door. School is finally over for the day, and today has not been a success. On the surface, everything looks fine, but the truth is that I want to be back at my old school, and back in my old life. I miss Chicago. I miss the skyscrapers, and the horns blaring, and the stone apartment buildings all crowded together. I miss taking the El on Saturday afternoons with my friend, Danielle, and I miss my old school with its twisty iron gates. I miss Drama Club. I was supposed to be the lead in Annie this year. But that was all before our parents told me and my brother, Henry, that we were moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico.

We’ve been out here for two weeks now. It’s so different here. There’s rocks, sand, and cacti. Wind. Silence. The buildings are a tan, mud color, and they crouch low under the sky that seems like a huge blue bowl turned upside down. Our new house is made of mud, too. Dad calls it adobe. Dad said the houses have been built this way since ancient Indian times. In our apartment in the city, we could look right into the windows of the family across the courtyard. Out here, our house is set alone on a little road. Now, our neighbors are big rocks. At night, when the sunlight fades, there are no lights. No sounds either, except for an eerie noise that I thought at first was children screaming. Turns out it’s coyotes howling.

Henry loves it out here, of course. He always likes anything new. I’m trying to like it, after all, I’ve always loved adventures. Dad said I should trust him that life in New Mexico will be great. But on our first day here, me and my black German shepherd, Daisy, went out for a walk. We took a winding path leading away from the house, and we were just going along when we saw a strange little reptile on the path. Daisy barked at it and lunged, and all of a sudden, blood shot out of its eyes and splattered in her face. We both ran back to the house as fast as we could. Mom said it’s a horny toad and it does that trick to ward off predators. This was not the kind of adventure I had in mind.