“Ella,” I whisper. She sticks her head out and looks down. “Should I come up?”
She shakes her head. “It’s stuck, but I almost have it. I’ll bring it down to you in a minute,” she whispers back, and then yanks her head back in and disappears. I can’t take the suspense of not knowing what’s going on up there. I look at the base of the column and take hold of it; and just before I’m about to try climbing it, I hear a noise behind me that sounds like somebody kicking a pew. I spin around. The Virgin Mary blocks my view. I walk around her and scan the nave, but I don’t see anything.
“I got it!” I hear Ella exclaim.
I rush back around the statue and look up, waiting for her to appear. I can hear her grunt and struggle to drag the Chest to the nook’s opening, and I have no idea if it’s because the Chest is heavy or because the tunnel is so narrow. Little by little the dragging continues. I feel nothing short of ecstasy at finally having the Chest in my possession, and I don’t even consider the problem of getting it open. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Just as Ella is almost to the opening, I hear something else behind me.
“What are you doing up?”
I whip around. Divided equally on each side of the Virgin Mary, Gabby and Delfina stand under the statue’s left arm while La Gorda and a wiry Bonita, the champion of the dock game that almost got me killed at the lake, position themselves beneath the right arm.
I glance over my shoulder and see two small eyes peering down at us from the nook’s opening.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“I wanted to see what the little tattletale was up to, that’s all. You know, it’s funny because I saw you sneak out of the room and I thought that I would get up and finally see what it was you’re always looking at on the computer, but you weren’t there.” Gabby paints a sarcastic, confused look on her face. “You were in here, which is really weird.”
“Really weird. It’s really weird,” La Gorda says. To my relief, I don’t hear Ella dragging the Chest anymore.
“Why do you even care?” I say. “Seriously. All I ever do is keep to myself and keep my mouth shut.”
“I care a lot about you, Marina,” Gabby says, stepping forward. She flips her long dark hair. “In fact, I care so much that I worry about you hanging out with that loser drunk, Héctor, all the time. Do you get drunk with him?” She pauses. “Do you drink from his bottle?”
I don’t know if it was because she called Héctor a loser, or because she thought our friendship was anything more than just that, or because she is snooping on what I’m doing at the computer, but it just happens. I close my eyes and reach out with my mind, grabbing all four of them at once. La Gorda screams, while the other three whimper in shock. I pick them up off the ground—their bare feet kicking at the air, their shoulders smashed against each other’s—and thrust them all across the smooth floor until they bounce off the steps leading to the raised dais at the back of the nave.
La Gorda slaps the floor with her open palms and gets to her feet like an angry bull ready to charge the conquistador. I run to her instead, making up the ground in a matter of seconds. La Gorda swings a wild punch and I duck, only to spring up and jam my right fist into her chin. She falls backwards with a gasp, and her head thuds against the floor. She’s out cold.
Bonita jumps on my back and pulls at my hair. Someone punches me in the left cheek, and the other kicks me in the shin. Bonita slides down my back and hugs my upper arms so I can’t move. Delfina swings and I duck. The punch glances off Bonita’s mouth and she loosens her grip enough for me to twist away. I grab Bonita’s right arm in my hands and I drive her towards Gabby.
“You’re dead, Marina! You are so dead!” Bonita shrieks, and I pull her sideways and knee her in the gut, knocking the wind out of her. I shove her to the ground next to La Gorda.
Delfina’s confidence is broken. She looks for the door. “You ready to leave me alone?” I ask her.
“Doesn’t matter. I’m going to get you tomorrow,” she says. “Right when you’re not looking.”
“You’re going to wish you didn’t say that.” I fake right and lunge left, tackling her around the waist. Gabby tries to grab my hair but I whip Delfina around to block her. Then I pivot on my heels and release Delfina down the middle aisle of the nave. Her back hits the first step at the altar, and her groan echoes off the vaulted ceiling.
Gabby circles me. “I’m telling Sister Dora. You’re going to be in so much trouble.” I turn my body to keep my eyes on her. She stops right next to the column. I can tell she’s about to charge and I’m ready for it.
Suddenly I see a flash of white above Gabby’s head. It takes me a second to recognize that it’s Ella, and she’s jumped from the nook all the way down onto Gabby’s shoulders. Gabby flails around until she can get her hands on Ella; and when she does, she tosses her onto the floor with a horrible cracking sound.
“No!” I yell, and then I punch Gabby in the sternum as hard as I can. Her feet leave the ground and she hits the wall, knocking dust from the stone wall’s mortar.
Ella’s on her back, wailing, writhing in pain, but I notice she keeps her right leg completely still. I kneel beside her and pull up the bottom of her nightgown to see a sharp white bone sticking out of her skin just below the knee. I don’t know what to do. I put my hand on her shoulders to try to console her, but she’s in so much pain, she doesn’t feel it.