Sal and Gabi Fix the Universe Read online

American Stepmom made a vicious face, like a mammal-mama protecting her young. “Explain.”

  Papi had never in his life turned down a chance to explain his thinking and wasn’t about to start then. “For five years,” he began, jumping up, “Sal has been able to peer into the multiverse. Sometimes he’s even reached into other universes and brought other Floramarias here.”

  American Stepmom’s voice had the slightest edge when she said, “Who could forget?”

  “But now, thanks to this baby”—Papi lovingly patted the remembranation machine—“he can’t do that anymore. It’s natural that he would feel disoriented at first. Of course his world would feel smaller. But that’s good. That’s how all the rest of us feel! None of us can kidnap people from other universes!”

  “It’s not kidnapping,” I said, even though it was. Before anyone could correct me, I added, “Are you saying this is what it feels like to be normal?”

  “Yes, exactly!”

  Now maybe you were expecting me to say something like But I don’t want to be normal or Normalcy sucks! Maybe you think it’s a great gift I have, to be able to take a look around the multiverse, browse other possibilities for my life, and see how other Sals are getting along.

  But when other Sals get to have a Mami and I don’t, my relaxing doesn’t end up being relaxing at all. It’s the opposite. It’s me picking the scab off a wound instead of letting it scar and heal. Every time I have ripped a hole in the fabric of spacetime, something inside me has ripped, too. And maybe I was getting a little tired of tearing myself apart.

  So I just said, “Oh,” and let my emotions—like, all of them, every single feeling I had in my body—dogpile onto my guts.

  We all had a lot more to say, but sometimes it’s hard to start talking. Before anyone could break the silence, it was broken by Papi’s phone singing “Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto” on repeat.

  “That’s Bonita,” said Papi, searching the pockets of his robe. “I asked her to come over early so we could review this morning’s results.” Once he had pulled out the phone, he looked confusedly at the screen. “I wonder why she’s video-calling me, though.”

  American Stepmom and I huddled behind him as he swiped his phone to answer the call.

  We got an extreme close-up of Bonita’s right nostril. It was the most beautiful nostril in the history of nostrils: booger-free, hairless, without a trace of chafing or blackheads—or even pores, for that matter. It’s not really a fair competition with the rest of humanity, since her nostril was made of silicone. She was a robot, after all.

  “Running over as fast as we can!” said Dad: The Final Frontier. That’s Gabi’s name for Bonita.

  “Wait,” said American Stepmom, “are you literally running?”

  In reply, the camera pulled away from Dad: The Final Frontier and spun around, panning over all the traffic that surrounded her. It wasn’t a proper Miami morning rush hour yet, but even light Miami traffic is pretty heavy. The view rotated again to show us that Dad: The Final Frontier was running as fast as the cars around her were moving. She had no problem keeping up with traffic, even though she wore a skirt suit and two-inch heels. She beamed a big smile at the other drivers, waving and saying good morning to them as she used hand signals to change lanes.

  Once she had stopped at a red light, it was a little easier for me to make out two really weird things about her:

  1. She had a sphere attached to her torso by a harness. It was mounted by shoulder straps so she could carry it hands-free, and was frosted like a shower door, so I couldn’t see inside. On the front of the sphere, a small yellow caution sign hung from a suction cup, warning everyone that there was a Baby on Board.

  2. Perched on top of Dad: The Final Frontier’s head, strapped in what looked like a safety seat for a giant baby, was Gabi Reál. She had on a golden, glittering, double-size motorcycle helmet—only a double-size motorcycle helmet had a chance of holding her humongous hairball—and jeans, sneakers, and a red T-shirt with a message on it that wasn’t in focus enough to read. She was making strange wizardy gestures with her hands. Each of her nails was painted a different color.

  But when she made a C’mere! gesture and the camera zoomed in on her and Bonita, I figured out what she was doing. The camera filming all this was a flying drone, and she was controlling it with her two hands.

  She and Dad: The Final Frontier waved to us—that made the drone move left and right dizzyingly fast. Bonita pressed her thumb to her phone screen. In response, the frosted glass of the sphere on her torso became transparent. Now I could see that, riding in a gyroscopic baby seat in the center of it and wearing a onesie that made him look like the hugest, cutest empanada in the world, was Gabi’s little brother, Iggy.

  “See you in fourteen minutes!” Gabi yelled. And just like that, the call ended.

  ALL VIDÓNS WERE LEFT blinking at Papi’s phone.

  “I guess,” said American Stepmom, “we’d better get ready for company.”

  “Brace for impact is more like it,” I said. “You know Gabi.”

  Oh, she sounded so innocent when, lashes fluttering, she said, “Now, Sal, is that any way to talk about your girlfriend?”

  American Stepmom loved to tease me about Gabi. I mean, can’t two seventh graders spend every waking moment together behind closed doors conducting secret experiments without people getting funny ideas about them? What’s the world coming to?

  But you wanna play rough, Estepmami Americana? Let’s go. “I see your point.” I sighed. “I should be nicer when I talk about a girlfriend. I’ll work on that.”

  Oh, the delicious way my words landed on her. She shuddered like a building on fire, right before it collapses. “Wait, what, Sal?! I was joking. But you are going out with Gabi? When did this happen? And when exactly were you planning on telling me? I mean, last I heard, you’d announced to a roomful of Gabi dads that you were not—and I quote—‘a sexual being,’ and now you have a girlfriend, and you didn’t even tell me?! I mean, I know it’s important for young people to have the freedom to explore—”

  Papi put a calming paw on her shoulder. “He’s not dating Gabi, mi amigamor.”

  “But he just said he should be nicer when he’s talking about his girlfriend. And Sal doesn’t lie.”

  She’s right; I don’t. But I didn’t say anything. I was sure Papi would handle it just fine.

  “But,” said Papi, very gently, “Sal didn’t say he had a girlfriend. He just said he saw your point. When he has a girlfriend, if he ever has a girlfriend, he will be sure to speak nicer about her than he speaks about Gabi.”

  American Stepmom faced me, fear and relief wrestling for control of her face. “If ?” she asked me.

  “If.” I smug-shrugged.

  She turned to Papi, then to me, then to Papi, then to me, then, finally, to heaven, shaking her fists. “Rawr!” she yelled—she literally yelled the word “Rawr!”—and became, for a brief moment in time, the angriest squirrel in the world. “Ooh, Sal! You stinker. You stinkiest of stinkers! So help me, I will have my revenge. I’m gonna prank you so hard, you’re going to eat prank-n-furter sandwiches for a year.”

  Papi, patting her consolingly on the shoulder, waggled his eyebrows at me. “You see how you didn’t fool me that time, mijo?”

  “I saw,” I said. “That’s new. Good job, Papi.”

  He ballet-bounced toward the front door. “You may have been able to fool your viejo in the past, mijo. But today? Today I fixed the universe.” He pirouetted. “I think this is the beginning of a new era for Gustavo Vidón. No more absentminded-professor nonsense for me!” He walked on the tips of his floofy slippers. “From now on, I’ll be quick-witted. Alert. Ever at the ready. Sharp as the devil’s tail!” He slapped his hand on the doorknob. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, familia, I’m going to spend the last few minutes before our guests arrive outside, enjoying this beautiful Miami morning.”

  And he would have walked right out the front door, too, if American Step
mom hadn’t cleared her throat.

  Papi had learned through long, painful experience to pay special attention when American Stepmom cleared her throat. That simple rasping sound had saved him from complete and utter humiliation no fewer than 992 times since they had gotten married. PS: Today was their 992nd-day anniversary.

  So Papi stopped everything and turned to American Stepmom. “Yes, mi definición de amor?”

  All she had to do was tilt her head, duck-face her lips, and look him up and down. That got him to look himself up and down. And that got him to realize that, dressed only in his bathrobe, he was just one sudden gust of wind away from getting sued by our entire neighborhood for crimes against humanity. Even now his Poocha Lucha Libre boxers were disturbingly visible. I’d seen them before—they were a Father’s Day present from me—but never on him. So now I needed to go eat my own eyeballs.

  Papi squeaked, shuttered his robe closed, and tied it painfully tight before he grumbled, “Why are pants so hard to remember?” and stomped off to get dressed.

  “I’m going to get changed, too,” said American Stepmom, following behind Papi. “Can I trust you to receive the Reáls when they get here?”

  I saluted. “You can count on me, mi Estepmami Americaca.”

  See what I did there? She didn’t—not at first. It took her two full seconds of processing for her to understand what I had said. When she did, she pointed a menacing finger at me. “I’m not kidding, Sal. Be nice to Gabi. No squabbling.”

  Crossing my heart, I replied, “I’ll treat her like I’d treat my own girlfriend.”

  She made the Oh, it is to laugh face at me. “You’re a nut. And you know what squirrels do to nuts, don’t you?”

  Then she hustled off to her room.

  I was about to head outside when I froze midstep. A message had appeared on the remembranation machine’s screen.

  It was more of a question. It read, AM I ALIVE

  I studied the message. The remembranation machine had always seemed more like an appliance and less like a person with a personality, than, say, Dad: The Final Frontier or the entropy sweeper. (Frankly, the entropy sweeper could use a little less personality, if you know what I mean.) Could it be that Papi’s update to the remembranation machine had caused it to, I don’t know, evolve or something?

  I petted the machine. “Yes. You’re alive. You’ve probably been alive for a long time. But now you know it. Hello.”

  The message on the screen vanished. A second later, it was replaced by this one: HOW CAN YOU BE SURE I AM ALIVE?

  I wouldn’t be Gustavo Reál’s son if I couldn’t prove to an advanced artificial intelligence whether or not it was alive. “Did you generate that question yourself, or were you programmed to ask it?”

  Words erased and were replaced. I GENERATED THE QUESTION MYSELF.

  “And do you want the answer?”

  This time, the words disappeared and stayed disappeared for a while. Eventually, three letters appeared on-screen:

  YES

  “Congratulations,” I said, petting it again. “You’re a living, nonbreathing, baby something-or-other. Welcome to life. It’s a heck of a ride.”

  And with that, I walked out the door to greet the incoming Reál family.

  And blah. Just two steps past the welcome mat, I stopped, as if I’d run into a wall. And, in a way, I had: I’d smacked directly into Florida’s patent-pending Wall of Humidity. My skin was instantly covered with steamy, slimy, spit-warm moisture. I kind of marched in place, spread my wings out wide, like a vulture dipped in Vaseline, and tried to shake off some of the excess damp.

  As nasty as it felt, I wasn’t expecting to have a heat stroke after spending a whole five seconds outside. When I heard the voice of Gabi in my ears, though, I figured the sun was giving me an aural hallucination. “Sal! It’s you! Where are you?”

  Um. Gabi was still minutes away. What was she doing in my head? I tried to bang the sound of her voice out of my ear by knocking the side of my head with a fist. Ah, there. Gone. I was okay.

  “Sal!” yelled Gabi.

  “What?” I snapped back, before I came to my senses. Yelling at an aural hallucination wasn’t going to generate a response.

  “Where are you?” responded the aural hallucination.

  I licked my lips. Should I answer a voice in my head? On the one hand, it might not be the best idea to pretend hallucinations are real. But on the other hand, YOLO. “I’m at home, which you should know, since you’re heading here right now.”

  “No,” answered this illusory Gabi, “I mean which universe. Can you esper me your personal cosmic signature?”

  Um. “Personal cosmic whassit now?”

  A new crop of sweat beaded on my forehead and started its migration down my face before the reply came. “Ah, I see,” said the voice. “Your powers are still weak. That’s okay. I prefer working with weaker Sals anyway. I’ll come find you at school. It’s Culeco there, right?”

  See, now, I was pretty sure Gabi Reál, the student council president of Culeco Academy of the Arts, knew the name of her school. I felt suddenly 200 percent on guard. “Who are you?”

  An unmistakable laugh surrounded me. “I’m your best friend, Gabi Reál. And I’m coming to fix everything.”

  I waited awhile, but the hallucination was over. Except it sure hadn’t sounded like a hallucination. And whoever that was talking to me, it wasn’t Gabi.

  WELL, THE REAL GABI was on the way over. I could ask her about it when she got here.

  As I stepped into the street (which was perfectly safe; hardly any traffic that time of day), I saw Dad: The Final Frontier appear at the very edge of my field of vision, just a bobbing, bouncing stick figure at first, with a really big hat on her head (that was Gabi in the car seat) and a really big belly (that was Iggy in his ball). An even tinier blob followed above in the air: the drone.

  Once they got closer, I could hear the faintest whirring of the tiny flying machine. I leaned forward and squinted, trying to make out details. It looked like a very big hummingbird. The wings flapped so fast, all you could see of them were two gray blurs on either side of the colorful, iridescent body.

  Of course Gabi owned the coolest drone I’d ever seen. Where, I thought to myself, does she get all those wonderful toys?

  But I was pretty sure I knew: Bonita. Having a class-nine AI for a parent had its advantages. Like, when you need a lie detector for a school project, or the most advanced flying camera the world has ever seen.

  Along with the buzzing of the drone, now I could hear the report of Dad: The Final Frontier’s heels each time they struck asphalt. She swung her arms like the Terminator as she ran, striding forward with effortless, frightening power. Nothing organic could bound so unflappably through the invisible pudding that is Florida’s humidity.

  Or so fast: A sprinting human goes, what, fifteen miles per hour? Maybe twenty if they’re a speedster? She was definitely going faster than twenty, while she was carrying an overachieving student council president in a car seat on her head and a hamster ball with a baby inside it on her torso. Bonita grew from stick figure to human-shaped running person to OH MY GOD SLOW DOWN YOU’RE GOING TO RUN ME OVER in less time than it takes toast to toast.

  And she didn’t slow down in the slightest as she got closer to me. If she collided with me at this speed, I’d explode like a Mortal Kombat fatality.

  That was odd. Dad: The Final Frontier had to be running at me as fast as the law allowed, and yet I would bet my left wenis that she always, always, always put safety first. This wasn’t like her. She would never explode anyone like a Mortal Kombat fatality, at least not on purpose. What was going on?

  And then it hit me: Gabi was going on. She must have spotted me from a distance and convinced her robot daddy to play a little trick on her old pal Sal. She was trying to make me flinch. She even had a flying camera ready to record my disgrace.

  But the flaw in their plan was this: I was 1,000 percent sure Dad: The Final F
rontier would never put me, or Gabi, or Iggy—especially little Iggy!—in any danger. She must have calculated to the millionth decimal place that it was perfectly safe to barrel toward me at the speed she was going. Nothing bad would happen. Gabi just wanted me to splotch my kung fu jammie-jams.

  Fine. Wanna play chicken with me, Reál family? You’ve forgotten whom you’re dealing with. I am Sal Vidón. Have I not proven that I am the MASTER OF CHICKENS?!

  I put my fists on my hips and stood in the center of the street, confident and calm, serene as an ice cream sandwich.

  And I won. Dad: The Final Frontier did not plow into me. At the last possible moment, she veered to my right and circled me eight times, slowing down with every circuit.

  Finally, Dad: The Final Frontier stopped in front of me. The Baby on Board sign swung on its suction cup. “Good morning, Sal!” she said, all smiles. “Did we induce a pleasurable amount of fear in you by stampeding toward you like we wanted to run you over?”

  “No fear here,” I replied, “but it’s nice to see you.” I looked her up and down appreciatively. “So you’re, like, a motor vehicle now?”

  “I am required by Florida law to use roads whenever my speed exceeds twenty-five miles per hour.” She took her wallet out of her vest pocket and flipped it open. Waterfalling out of it came her driver’s license, her livery license, and her vehicle registration certificate. “I am also licensed as a taxi service, for up to two passengers.”

  “She aced all the crash tests and safety requirements,” said Gabi, removing her helmet. “She’s safer than any vehicle on the road today. Pinpoint control, as you just witnessed. Not to mention, she’s the coolest!”

  Even though I knew how much hair Gabi has, I still wasn’t ready for an entire Brazilian rain forest to spring up when she removed her glittering golden helmet. She was the only person I knew who required at least fifty-four barrettes to have any chance of controlling her girl-fro.

  Why fifty-four, you ask? Today, her hair featured a full set of playing-card barrettes: hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs. Thirteen cards a suit, plus the two jokers.