My dad circles around the table and gives me a big hug before smashing something on my head. Confetti streams down over my face, tangling in my hair and sprinkling the ground.
I scream, shrieking with laughter, and touch my fingers to the top of my head to find cracked eggshell. “Dad! You jerk! You’re dead, old man!”
Everyone is silent, except Willowdean, who gasps like she’s watching the best kind of guilty-pleasure reality TV. (Which is obviouslyThe Bachelor, just to be clear.)
Abuela places two egg crates of cascarónes on the table, which are hollowed and dried-out colorfully dyed eggshellsfull of confetti. “No need to wait for revenge!” she says.
Cascarónes are my favorite Mexican Easter tradition, and since my birthday always falls around Easter, they’ve become a birthday staple. Plus I dare you to find something more satisfying than cracking an egg over an unsuspecting person’s head.
Dad backs away slowly. “Respect your elders,” he reminds me, bouncing on his toes.
I grab two eggs and stand, my chair falling over behind me. “No mercy,” I tell him, and race around the table. Just like when I was a little girl, he lets me catch him, and I smash a cascarón on either side of his head.
All the girls sit frozen, except for Hannah, who reaches for an egg when no one is looking and crushes it against Amanda’s hair.
Amanda gasps and turns to Hannah, who is absolutely gleeful.
Amanda grabs an egg, and Willowdean and Ellen are quick to follow. I get Millie, and Abuela even cracks one down the back of my shirt.
It’s like a water-balloon fight, though, and while it’s furious, the cascarónes are gone in a matter of minutes.
We all collapse into our chairs, the carton of eggs sitting empty and stray confetti littering the table and the floor.
“How about some of that cake?” asks Willowdean, a little breathlessly.
“Save me a piece,” says Dad. “I’m gonna take the four-wheeler out to the barn to scare up some camping supplies for y’all.”
I hold up the knife. “Dibs on a corner piece.”
After we eat cake, our hair full of confetti, and help clean up the mess we made, we all spray ourselves down with bug spray as Abuela pulls out her big torches to give us some “mood lighting,” she says.
Setting up the tents is lots of trial and error, and by the time both tents are put together, all of our bedding is set up, and we’re all changed and ready for our night in the wilderness, it’s half past midnight.
The six of us lie out on a huge blanket for a bit and watch the stars while Dad and Abuela go inside and get ready for bed.
“Oh my gosh, Callie!” says Millie, shaking my shoulder. “I think that’s a shooting star.”
Willowdean props herself up on her elbows. “I don’t know. That might just be a tiny plane.”
“For the first time in my life, I actually agree with you,” I say.
Millie nudges me in the ribs. “You should make a wish just in case.”
I look up to the flickering light in the sky and I am 99.9 percent sure that Willowdean is right, but on the off 0.10 percent chance that she’s not, I suspend my disbelief in wishes and close my eyes.
I wish to feel like this all the time.That I’ve found my place, and that my place isn’t just a geographical coordinate, but a living, breathing thing that I carry inside of me. That is my 0.10 percent wish.
I open my eyes. “Done,” I say. “Just in case.”
Slowly everyone slips into their tents—Willowdean, Ellen, and Hannah in one, and the rest of us in the other—until it’s just me, Amanda, and Millie lying on the blanket outside. Except Amanda is definitely asleep, and when she’s not asleep, she’s fighting to stay awake.
“Amanda, you should lie down inside the tent,” says Millie.
“I’m awake, okay?” Amanda says, her lips barely moving. “Let me live.”
Millie shrugs. “So, Ashley Cheeseburger,” she says. “How does it feel to be officially seventeen years old?”
“Huh. It’s after midnight, so I guess it feels pretty much the same as sixteen felt yesterday.”
