No Apple Pie NI Empanadas Here
by Alfie Casaus Salazar
When I was living in Monte Vista, Colorado, we lived en un rancho. We had to catch the bus to school, que estaba en la plaza. I was in the second grade y mi hermanito y primo were in the first grade. Mi hermanita was in 'chart class' as it was called in those days. It is now called 'kindergarten'. After school, we had to wait, como viente minutos, for the bus to pick us up, so we had a little time to play.
Un día, we decided to follow some older kids who had gone across the street. They were under un árbol de manzana, whose fruit was ripe and ready to pick. The kids started knocking down the ripe fruit, laughing and throwing the apples at each other.
La tierra was covered with leaves, broken limbs and apples. They went back to the bus stop and we stood there looking with awe at todas las manzanas lying on the ground. We couldn't resist the urge to pick them up and take them home, so that grandma could bake us some pasteles de manzanas y empanaditas.
Each one of us had a small, folded paper bag that had carried our lunch to school ese día. We filled them up con las manzanas lying on the ground; after all, sabíamos que they would all get rotten if left en la tierra y all we could picture, in our minds, were those delicious apple pies and empanadas.
We started walking back across the street, cuando out of nowhere, esta viejita came out screaming and waving una escoba at us. No sabíamos why she was so mad. The other kids all laughed and made fun of us porque nos pescaron con las manzanas en las manos. The kids were all laughing and chanting, "You're all going to jail, ha ha. You're all going to jail." We didn't know what they were talking about.
No habiamos hecho anything wrong. All we had done was pick up the apples que ellos had thrown down. We didn't want them to rot and go to waste. Well, we really got scared y comensamos a llorar. We didn't want to go to la cárcel, that's for sure. We ran as fast as we could and hid on back of the school. No sabíamos que ibamos hacer as we huddled together like scared rabbits.
"Ya viene el bos. The bus is coming," they all hollered. We decided if we didn't have las manzanas con nosotros, they couldn't prove anything. Could they? Cuatro paquetitos llenos de manzanas were left on the back door de esa escuela as we ran to catch the bus home. Los muchachos kept asking us what we had done con las manzanas and teased us all the way home. We swore to each other not to tell our folks about it.
En la mañana cuando Mamá asked where our lunch bags were, so she could fix our lunches, nomas dijimos que they had gotten wet and we threw them away. No creí que she believed us, but that's all we would say. Back then, we used the bags over and over, hasta que they were ragged and couldn't be used otra vez, not like today when you throw them away after one use. Nunca más, did we want to follow the older kids around. As to what happened to las manzanas, no sabemos. We were too chicken to go check them out. Esta es otra estoria de: "Don't count your chickens before they hatch."
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Despues de la escuela—After school
Un árbol de manzana—An apple tree
La tierra—The ground
Pasteles de manzana y empanadas—Apple pies and turnovers
Una escoba—A broom
Porque estaba tan nojada—Why she was so mad
Ya viene el bos—Here comes the bus
Esta es otra estoria de—This is another story of