Miranda

Miranda stretched her shoulders, aching more than usual after a long day in the orchard. The evening meal with her parents and brother and all her tíos and tías, usually a boisterous affair, had been tense and subdued. It felt like the time she had crouched in hiding from a cloud of wasps.

Yawning, she flopped onto her bunk. She wrapped her arms around Abu, the doll her grandmother had made for her when she was small. She knew a piece of her Abuela’s soul hugged her back.

Mamá stroked her hair with her rough, tree-scented hand. “Sweet dreams, mija.”

Miranda woke to a raised voice in the dark. “It’s not right. Just because he dared stand up for himself!”

Her mother answered Papá, more quietly: “He knew that was dangerous.”

“So—Jaime should just let that pig foreman steal his wages? Why not offer to work for free!”

Mamá said nothing.

“He’s cheating us too,” Papá said bitterly. “Thinking we don’t notice he undercounts.”

“But at least he can’t have us deported.”

Miranda‘s heart pounded. “What happened to Tío Jaime?” she called.

Mamá hurried over, shushing. “Go back to sleep.”

Miranda finally drifted into a vivid dream. She was reaching for a round, rosy apple. Every time her fingers brushed the fruit, the branch yanked it upward, out of reach.

“It’s not right!” she said to the branch. It eased downward, and she plucked the apple. She bit into it and woke up.

The next morning when the truck delivered them to the orchard, Papá glared at the foreman, until Mamá pulled him away.

Miranda strapped on her collection bag and began moving down the row across from her mother, her hands quick as pistons, her mind churning. She reached for an apple, like the uncounted thousands before, then unaccountably her hand wavered.

It’s not right. It’s not right.

“Where are you going?” Mamá cried, but Miranda was already approaching the muscular foreman.

“You shouldn’t have deported Jaime,” she told him. The foreman looked shocked, then amused, then angry—and then, ashamed.

“It’s wrong to cheat and bully people,” Miranda said, looking up at him steadily. “Do the right thing.” Then Miranda turned and walked back to her row of trees.

At dusk, the foreman met the weary crew at the truck with a stack of envelopes.

“Your back pay,” he said meekly. “With interest. I’m sorry.” He handed Papa an extra envelope. “Will you get this to Jaime’s family, please?”

At dinner the family roiled with speculation and skeptical jubilation, but Miranda kept quiet. Only her mother eyed her with wonder.

That night Miranda held Abu extra tightly in her arms. I can make things right, she whispered, and smiled to herself. In her dream, apples rained down into outstretched hands.

~~~~

A/N: I didn't make the deadline for the challenge, but I felt I still owed it to Miranda to share her story. Dedicated to the uncounted thousands of migrant minors working in produce fields in the U.S.

See "Children in the Fields", and this resource from the National Farm Worker Ministry:

Another P.S.: The side benefit of missing the deadline is that I was saved the agony of trimming the word count! Made me *extra* appreciative of everyone who "made the cut", as well as the gargantuan accomplishment of you story-a-day authors holding to those 366 words (cough-cough Rachel Deeming, Girard DiLeo, and L.C. Schäfer)