ELEVEN
By Sandra Cisneros
Directions: Read
the story carefully. As you read, make inferences by using the clues in the
text. Underline the clues that help you make your inference.
What they don’t
understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re
eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and
four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh
birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and
everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at
all. You feel like you’re still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes
you eleven.
Like some days
you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of you that’s still ten. Or
maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama’s lap because you’re scared,
and that’s the part of you that’s five. And maybe one day when you’re all grown
up maybe you will need to cry like if you’re three, and that’s okay. That’s
what I tell Mama when she’s sad and needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling three.
Because the way
you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or
like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the
next one. That’s how being eleven years old is.
You don’t feel
eleven. Not right away. It takes a few days, weeks even, sometimes even months
before you say Eleven when they ask you. And you don’t feel smart eleven, not
until you’re almost twelve. That’s the way it is.
Only today I
wish I didn’t have only eleven years rattling inside me like pennies in a tin
Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was one hundred and two instead of eleven because
if I was one hundred and two I’d have known what to say when Mrs. Price put the
red sweater on my desk. I would’ve known how to tell her it wasn’t mine instead
of just sitting there with that look on my face and nothing coming out of my
mouth.
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“Whose is this?” Mrs. Price says, and she
holds the red sweater up in the air for all the class to see. “Whose? It’s been
sitting in the coatroom for a month.”
“Not mine,”
says everybody. “Not me.”
“It has to
belong to somebody, ”Mrs. Price keeps saying, but nobody can remember. It’s an
ugly sweater with red plastic buttons and a collar and sleeves all stretched
out like you could use it for a jump rope. It’s maybe a thousand years old and
even if it belonged to me I wouldn’t say so.
Maybe because
I’m skinny, maybe because she doesn’t like me, that stupid Sylvia Saldivar
says, “I think it belongs to Rachel.” An ugly sweater like that, all raggedy
and old, but Mrs. Price believes her. Mrs. Price takes the sweater and puts it
right on my desk, but when I open my mouth nothing comes out.
“That’s not, I
don’t, you’re not…Not mine.” I finally say in a little voice that was maybe me
when I was four.
“Of course it’s
yours, ”Mrs. Price says. “ I remember you wearing it once.” Because she’s older
and the teacher, she’s right and I’m not.
Not mine, not
mine, not mine, but Mrs. Price is already turning to page thirty-two, and math
problem number four. I don’t know why but all of a sudden I’m feeling sick
inside, like the part of me that’s three wants to come out of my eyes, only I
squeeze them shut tight and bite down on my teeth real hard and try to remember
today I am eleven, eleven. Mama is making a cake for me for tonight, and when
Papa comes home everybody will sing Happy birthday, happy birthday to you.
But when the
sick feeling goes away and I open my eyes, the red sweater’s still sitting
there like a big red mountain. I move the red sweater to the corner of my desk
with my ruler. I move my pencil and books and eraser as far from it as
possible. I even move my chair a little to the right. Not mine, not mine, not
mine.
In my head I’m
thinking how long till lunchtime, how long till I can take the red sweater and
throw it over the schoolyard fence, or leave it hanging on a parking meter, or
bunch it up into a little ball and toss it in the alley. Except when math
period ends Mrs. Price says loud and in front of everybody, “Now, Rachel,
that’s enough, ”because she sees I’ve shoved the red sweater to the tippy-tip
corner of my desk and it’s hanging all over the edge like a waterfall, but I
don’t care.
“Rachel, ”Mrs.
Price says. She says it like she’s getting mad. “You put that sweater on right
now and no more nonsense.”
“But it’s not
–“
“Now!” Mrs.
Price says.
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This is when I wish I wasn’t eleven because
all the years inside of me—ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three,
two, and one—are pushing at the back of my eyes when I put one arm through one
sleeve of the sweater that smells like cottage cheese, and then the other arm
through the other and stand there with my arms apart like if the sweater hurts
me and it does, all itchy and full of germs that aren’t even mine.
That’s when
everything I’ve been holding in since this morning, since when Mrs. Price put
the sweater on my desk, finally lets go, and all of a sudden I’m crying in
front of everybody. I wish I was invisible but I’m not. I’m eleven and it’s my
birthday today and I’m crying like I’m three in front of everybody. I put my
head down on the desk and bury my face in my stupid clown-sweater arms. My face
all hot and spit coming out of my mouth because I can’t stop the little animal
noises from coming out of me until there aren’t any more tears left in my eyes,
and it’s just my body shaking like when you have the hiccups, and my whole head
hurts like when you drink milk too fast.
But the worst
part is right before the bell rings for lunch. That stupid Phyllis Lopez, who
is even dumber than Sylvia Saldivar, says she remembers the red sweater is
hers. I take it off right away and give it to her, only Mrs. Price pretends
like everything’s okay.
Today I’m
eleven. There’s a cake Mama’s making for tonight and when Papa comes home from
work we’ll eat it. There’ll be candles and presents and everybody will sing
Happy birthday, happy birthday to you, Rachel, only it’s too late.
I’m eleven
today. I’m eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and
one, but I wish I was one hundred and two. I wish I was anything but eleven.
Because I want today to be far away already, far away like a runaway balloon,
like a tiny o in the sky, so
tiny—tiny you have to close your eyes to see it.
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