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    Bridge
    Bridge
    Bridge
    Ebook68 pages40 minutes

    Bridge

    By Patrick Jones

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    About this ebook

    José can't keep up. As the only English speaker in a family of undocumented immigrants, he handles everything from taking family members to the doctor to bargaining with the landlord. Plus he works two jobs. With all this responsibility, he's missing a lot of school. When he does make it, he falls asleep in class. José knows he has to turn things around if he wants to graduate from Rondo Alternative High School. Can he raise his grades enough to have a shot at college and a better life? Or will he be forced to drop out of school for good?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLerner Publishing
    Release dateAug 1, 2014
    ISBN9781467773799
    Bridge
    Author

    Patrick Jones

    Patrick Jones lives in Minneapolis and is the author of many novels including the Support and Defend series. A former librarian, Jones received lifetime achievement awards from the American Library Association and the Catholic Library Association.

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      Book preview

      Bridge - Patrick Jones

      1

      EARLY MORNING / MONDAY, JANUARY 6

      ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA

      It was six in the morning when José discovered his pinche Chevy Impala wouldn’t start.

      José turned the key, but there was no roar. Just the sputter of the ten-year-old car’s failing engine on a frozen Minnesota morning. In the familiar driver’s seat, José cursed in Spanish and thought about everything he needed his car for that day. School, working second shift stocking groceries at Rainbow Foods, and handling whatever crisis of the day came up at home. He was jammed in a two-bedroom apartment with his always-exhausted mom, his disabled dad, his frantic aunt and her two young children, seven statues of the Virgin Mary, and one hundred plastic flowers, so it was always something.

      If the Chevy wouldn’t start, it meant a long bus ride to school for José. It also meant bus rides for his mom, to the first of her two jobs, and his dad, to physical therapy. José checked his phone. He thought about calling his best friend Tony for a ride and decided no, only in an emergency. Except my life has seemed like one long emergency for the past ten years, José thought.

      José set his phone on the torn and frayed passenger seat, grabbed the ice scraper, and headed into the cold with his thin coat and a red wool cap to keep him warm. As he scraped the windshield, he wondered why his parents had left the warmth of Mexico for the cold of Minnesota. At school he’d always wanted to ask the Somali, Hmong, and other Latino students the same question: What were our parents thinking, moving to this icebox?

      The scraping sound on the stubborn frost seemed louder than normal in the quiet of the early morning. José scraped the other windows with alternating hands, switching as each arm got tired. He knew too well from his dad how much losing the ability to use one hand mattered.

      Even in the cold, José worked up a sweat removing the ice from the windows. Back inside the car, he tried the engine one last time, hoping somehow that clearing the ice would make a difference, but nothing. Maybe his mom could pray the car would start, he thought, as she prayed for everything.

      José picked up his phone and found the numbers he’d need to call between classes: the Metro Mobility van, to pick up his dad; the landlord, about the rent being late again; and the pharmacy, to tell them they had messed up the medicine for his aunt’s oldest kid. José would need to communicate for her, as he had to for most appointments and other errands, because he was the only fluent English speaker in his house. His unlimited phone minutes were filled with unlimited tasks, translating and beyond, for his family.

      As he thought about going back to school one last time, José wondered if he could stand the stress. At what point, he asked himself, would he buckle under the pressure?

      2

      MORNING / MONDAY, JANUARY 6

      RONDO ALTERNATIVE HIGH SCHOOL

      PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE

      Do we understand each other, José? Mrs. Baker asked. She sat at her desk, looking very much in charge of the school. José stood in front of her, head bowed, his red cap in his hand. "This is your fourth try here

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