When I Am Singing to You

By Rebecca Burke

When I Am Singing to You has won First Place, YA fiction ebook (English/Spanish) in the 2012 International Latino Book Awards.

When I Am Singing to You is also named one of the "16 Essential Latino Children's Books by ¿Qué Más?, the blog for MamasLatinas, the leading bilingual online site for Hispanic moms. This site has 780,000 unique visitors a month.

With her family, fourteen-year-old Carmen Delgada puts in long days in the Iowa farm fields. The work is backbreaking and the paychecks don’t always arrive on time.

To survive, the Delgadas live off and on in an old school bus, avoid doctors, and use the local food bank. Carmen's mother Zoila makes life even harder by having another baby and falling into a deep depression. Zoila kicks Carmen out after a terrible misunderstanding.

After some dangerous run-ins with people she meets hitchhiking, Carmen lands safely at the Des Moines YWCA, a homeless shelter for poor women and teens. Despite making new friends and not having to work in the fields, Carmen aches to return home. She writes emotional letters to her mother, unsure if Zoila even receives them.
When Carmen discovers her friend Hazel is pregnant, she vows to help her—a decision that results in tragedy and a scandal for the Y.
When I Am Singing to You is a coming of age story that is also about a daughter’s fierce determination to go home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rebecca Burke
• Release date: May 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458154903

Rebecca Burke

The young women in my three Young Adult/crossover novels face tough tests with humor, intelligence, and a fierce heart. Of course, this is easier for fictional characters than real human beings!When I was a teenager, I worked in fields and factories like Carmen, the main character in When I Am Singing to You. And like Valerie, in The Ahimsa Club, I've always been passionate about animals and wish they never had to suffer. But I've never gone on a cross-country road trip with my mother, like Piccolo in What If the Hokey Pokey Really Is What It's All About? Too bad--we would have laughed our way up and down the interstate, feasted on good food whenever possible, and stayed only with people we liked. We never would have adopted a stray Irish Setter because our family dog was a setter (the runway models of the dog world). We'd never make that mistake again.Two and one-fifth of my books are set in Iowa, where I grew up and now live with my family--a husband, two teenagers, and another neurotic dog, a Yorkie named Smokey.In between teaching and work as an editor and professional book reviewer, I've lived and sometimes taught in Mexico, England, Spain, and the Netherlands. I am always plotting the next trip.*****My novel When I Am Singing to You has won First Place, YA fiction ebook (English/Spanish) in the 2012 International Latino Book Awards! I am so honored.When I Am Singing to You is also named one of the "16 Essential Latino Children's Books by ¿Qué Más?, the blog for MamasLatinas, the leading bilingual online site for Hispanic moms. This site has 780,000 unique visitors a month*****Listen to my latest interview with Bill Thompson, host of The Bookcast: http://www.thebookcast.com/ya/its-not-snooping-read-this-14-year-olds-hilarious-diary/See my latest interview with Ben Wallace: http://benjaminwallacebooks.wordpress.com/See my interview at Kindle Author with David Wisehart:http://kindle-author.blogspot.com/2011/06/kindle-author-interview-rebecca-burke.htmlWhen I Am Singing to You is featured at Kindle YA Authors. See excerpt plus my thoughts on writing Young Adult novels, especially one with a Latina teen. http://www.kindleyaauthors.com/2012/01/when-i-am-singing-to-you-by-rebecca.html

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

"Ándale, ándale!" The second the gears on the bus stopped grinding, Zoila started cawing like a mad crow. Get a move on! She reached across the aisle and flicked her daughter’s shoulder with the back of her fingers.

Carmen clung to her delicious dream. Fading, fading…the beautiful white mansion, the oval swimming pool in which she floated like an Aztec goddess. Her long black hair fanned out around her body, and the glittery turquoise water buoyed her sore back and scabby legs.

A world away from the grimy old school bus, her family’s home for now. In real life, she had never even owned a swimming suit. In t-shirts and cut-offs, she had waded as high as her chest in plenty of dirt-brown farm ponds and rivers. But always with a sense of dread. Fear of drowning had that effect.

"Apúrate, Carmen!"

"Ay, Mamá. Mud seemed to be running in her veins this morning. She envied Clara and the others who were snoring gently at the back despite Zoila’s squawking and the stiff, narrow seats, held together with duct tape. Pobrecitos. The day would soon come when they’d be dragged from their dreams, too.

Waking up a second time was the purest torture. This time no warm tortillas with beans or hot chocolate awaited her, no radio blasted out music to jolly her along. Each morning she swore she would stay awake, but the miles of smooth highway between campsite and fields lulled her back to sleep.

Carmen could tell from the dew-drenched windows that today would be a scorcher. Hot and humid—perfect weather for an ear of corn.

The worst part about the job was the stink of the nearby pickling plant. At six a.m., when she stepped off the bus into the heavy July air, her stomach did an instant, queasy flip. And the stench grew steadily worse as the day drew on, the hot sun radiating the unnatural, chemical smell. The air stank like the inside of a jar of pickles.

Anything Carmen put in her mouth tasted strange and sour, so the first few days she couldn’t eat the lunch her mother had packed. The odor clung to her hair and wafted into her dreams at night.

Zoila and Ramón, her mother’s novio, worked next to each other in near-silence. Ramón would joke with other Mexicans as they waited in the line to get their corn weighed, but most folks worked quietly, only stopping to wolf down their lunches or use the nearby cornfield for a toilet.

Husking corn was a competition, not a popularity contest. Whoever filled up the most bushels in a day won. But Carmen knew she was only working against herself, betting that she could husk more corn each day than the last one.

Almost worse than the smell and the unnatural quiet, for Carmen, was the lack of privacy. They husked in an open area, just wide enough for corn pickers with overflowing bins to drive in and out, leaving heaps of freshly picked corns in the middle of the huskers. So, she was never out of sight of her mother. Sometimes, when she grew daydreamy and slow, she’d sense Zoila staring at her. Sure enough, when she looked up, her mother’s jaw would be jutting upward, meaning "Move it, m’hija."

Elsewhere, she’d been able to sing to make the day go faster. Deep in a corn field, alone, she’d been a regular one-girl variety show, belting out one song after another, all of them off-key. Not here. The others would laugh her out of the fields. Besides, she’d have to find songs that went with the rhythm of husking—slash-husk-toss. If she fought it, her hand might get the knife instead of the corn.

At mid-day, the plant siren tore a hole through the hushed quiet. From where Carmen sat, she could see the locals hustle out the door and pile into aging four-door sedans and trucks, headed home for their lunch hour.

Imagínate, a whole hour for a lunch break. Under a thick shade tree in the farmer’s yard, she would lie on a cool cotton blanket and savor her lunch, instead of devouring it like a starving coyote. Mmm…a nice, meaty burrito and a Hostess Suzy-Q, washed down with an ice-cold can of RC-Cola. Afterwards, she’d open up a book, something from Mrs. Moore’s suggested summer reading for eighth grade. Sounder. The Diary of Anne Frank. Stories she could chew on when it was time to go back to work.

Without question, husking corn was the most boring job she had ever done. By the third day, she thought she might go completamente loca.

To keep from going crazy, she pretended to explain the art of husking to Clara. Lucky Clara got to hang out in the bus and watch six-year-old Susana and two-year-old Guillermo. For now she was safe, but when she turned twelve she would be old enough to pass for legal and start working side-by-side with her sister. No one outside the family would know or care much that she was deaf in one ear and hated getting dirty.

"Fíjate, Clara. I’m going to tell you what to do, so you don’t screw up and get hurt. Find yourself a good spot to hunker down, first. No, there aren’t any trees in the middle of a corn field. The sun’s gonna’ blast a hole through your back no matter what.

"You want to be right in the middle of a big pile of corn, so you don’t waste time getting up and down for more. You can sit on one of these bushel baskets or kneel or squat. You’d be amazed at all the options.

"Your job is to strip the husks off and not hurt the kernels when you do that. Y qué? What? I don’t know who eats this stuff. Maybe midgets. No importa.

"Bueno, pay attention because in your right hand you hold a very sharp razor and in your left a tiny, skinny ear of corn. You want to slide the razor all the way down the ear without ripping up the kernels. Baby corn is a delicacy, as the boss keeps telling us.

"Then you strip the husk off, toss the ear in your basket and the husk on the ground. Slash-husk-toss. Three, four basic moves, y basta.

"Now do it about ten thousand times a day. By bedtime, you’ll be too weak to even brush your teeth, I swear it. Lo juro."

Clara would not like to hear any of it. She was like one of these miniature ears of new corn herself—slight and silky-haired. Easily hurt. Didn’t belong around knives or rough-voiced people.

Zoila, Carmen’s mother, was not a big talker. She claimed that it slowed her down too much, but Carmen knew the real reason she kept to herself: Ramón. If anyone found out he didn’t have his papers, he would be sent back to Mexico for good. Maybe even put in prison for a while. Zoila often told Carmen that she spoke too much and too freely to strangers, that it was going to get them all in trouble some day. Her mother didn’t trust anyone. She told them that people who acted like friends were the ones most likely to turn them in.

On Carmen’s first day, some vato named Arturo had been fired for planting weighted pop bottles in the bottom of his basket.

It was mid-morning, the part of the day when the sweat started to drip down her forehead, calling for a fourth move: slash-husk-toss-wipe. Harsh shouting startled her out of her little world.

Arturo was arguing with the big farm woman who weighed all the baskets. " No sé," he claimed. But he shrugged his shoulders so dramatically that Carmen could tell he did know.

The woman’s angry blush matched the red cotton bandana on her big head. She brandished one of the dirt-and-rock-packed bottles she’d found in the man’s basket.

You must think we’re stupid, she said hoarsely. "Just get. She jabbed her index finger at the livestock truck that had brought him to the fields. I don’t want to see your face here again."

Fear passed over his face. "Sí, es mi culpa, Arturo admitted, looking down at the ground. I do."

Of course it’s your fault, Carmen thought. Pop bottles don’t magically fly into the bottom of a basket of corn. It was a stupid stunt to jack up his take-home pay. Now he’d lose his job for what—one or two measly dollars?

"Lo siento, he said, looking down at the ground. I sorry."

But it was too late. The lady was wagging her fat fingers at him. Cheaters aren’t welcome in this operation.

"Por favor, he pleaded. Necesito trabajo. I need work."

He pronounced work with a heavy Spanish accent—whowark. Carmen winced. What was he going to do now? With English that bad, he’d be lucky to get another job.

The weigh-in lady hated cheaters. All that morning she wagged her chin back and forth, her thin lips pursed in outrage. Like now she’d seen everything—the far horizon of criminal behavior.

"Qué tontería," Zoila muttered loudly as she watched the vato slouch back to his truck. Make us all look bad.

Ramón didn’t reply. Carmen glanced around her at the other huskers. They were all going flat-out, their sharp razors nestled in the palms of their hands like a dangerous sixth finger. If they had any opinions about the man who had been fired, they were keeping it to themselves.

Slash-husk-toss, slash-husk-toss.

Carmen knew that her dreams tonight would be filled with mountains of baby corn and flashing knives.

CHAPTER TWO

When the harvest was in full swing, the huskers were ordered to work on the weekend. The corn had to be husked within a few days of being picked, or it started to lose its moist, sweet flavor. And so that everyone understood the critical stage they were at, the company’s head man showed up to keep an eye on them. Despite his ponytail and hippie headband, Carmen didn’t detect any peace and love in his tone. Hard cement—sí.

To make sure they weren’t gouging the corn to bits with their knives, he went basket to basket, checking their work. If they were mutilating the corn, it wouldn’t be good for anything except pig feed. His favorite word to the huskers was "Cuidado," so Carmen named him Señor Be-Careful.

By mid-morning, Carmen was so sticky-hot and bored, she sliced the palm of her left hand wide open. A geyser of hot, red blood shot out and spattered onto the pale-green pile of husks around her.

"Mamá! she yelped. Míra! Look." She stared at the bloody ground.

"Ay, chica. Look what you’re doing," Zoila glared at her, cutting hand poised in the air for one split-second before she went back to ripping open the ears of corn and pitching them into her basket.

Ramón leaped over to Carmen’s side and pressed his hankie up against her cut palm. "Ay, pobrecita. You poor ting." His thick accent was a comfort.

Señor Be-Careful came running over, skirting the piles of fresh corn. He tried to edge Ramón aside, but Ramón wouldn’t budge. "Es serio, " Ramón told him, winking at Carmen so she wouldn’t be scared.

The boss patted the top of her head, upsetting Carmen even more—did he think she was a dog or something? We’d better get you to town. First, though, he stared a hole through the few people who hadn’t immediately gone back to husking.

Jerry! he yelled into his walkie-talkie. No, this ain’t no joke. He pushed his sweat band higher across his brow, revealing a pale stripe of skin. "Got an accident with a husker. Yes, by the plant. Pronto."

The way he pronounced pronto— prahn-toe-made Carmen’s ears hurt almost worse than her hand. It’s prone-toe, you fake-hippie jerk.

Finally, Jerry pulled up in a new company truck that looked like a shiny red toy against the dusty green of the corn field. Out of the corner of her eye, Carmen could see her mother’s scowling face as the two men helped her over the hardened ruts of field mud. Why was Zoila angry with her? For calling attention to the Delgada family? For losing precious time that could be spent making money? Her mother was pregnant and didn’t need any more problems.

In a few minutes, Carmen was being whisked to town by Jerry. She’d always wondered what function he had in the husking operation; his entire job seemed to consist of running around the countryside in his red toy truck. Ramón called him a corn cowboy. Guys like him wanted to believe they were in the Wild West, not the Midwest. They wore tooled-leather boots and big shiny belt buckles. And even on the hottest days, like today, tight Levi jeans.

Jerry decided to turn his errand into pleasure, ditch-surfing the crests of the deepest, roughest dirt tracks in the vast corn fields. The truck jerked and vibrated, making her cut hand pound with pain.

When they finally hit the blacktop that led into town, Carmen caught him staring at her in alarm. He nodded curtly with his chin at her bloody-bandaged hand. Would she hold her hand over the rubber floor mat so it wouldn’t drip on the seats?

Maybe sí, maybe no, she wanted to say but bit her tongue.

Jerry turned the rock station up to an ear-splitting level, chewing his mouth-tobacco off the beat. More torture.

Carmen stared out the window at the endless rows of green corn. She imagined her family toiling away, getting pickled in the midday heat. Zoila no doubt fuming about the money Carmen wasn’t earning and the doctor bill to come.

Soon they wheeled into the sun-baked parking lot of a small medical clinic, which looked deserted. A sign on the door said: SAT. HRS: NOON-3. EMERGENCY CONTACT 258-0000.

Damn, we just missed her. Jerry rapped his fist on the top of the dashboard. He stared out the window, still chewing violently on his tobacco chaw. After a moment, he cracked open the driver’s side door and leaned down to spit out a dark wad of chew.

He cleared his throat. What did you say your name was?

Carmen. Delgada. Carmen-Skinny, that’s me.

Jerry rolled his shoulders back and sighed. He seemed to be considering something. Again he broke the silence. Does it really hurt that bad?

Meaning what, bad enough for him to be wasting his time like this? Bad enough that the company might get a safety violation? It hurt worse than any pain she’d ever known, how about that.

Without waiting to hear her answer, Jerry made his move. He lurched across the space between them, over the top of the gear stick, and reaching in back of her neck pushed her head toward his. Before he clamped his lips on hers, Carmen saw his bulging blue eyes narrowing to mean slits. She fought him, pushing at his shoulders with her good arm. He wasn’t really kissing, but crushing his thin, tobaccoey lips on hers. When he tried to force his