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was,
How can I live here for two months without suffocating from boredom? How can I live in a place without even a sofa?
    They led me through a patch of weeds to a wooden shack with a tin roof.
    “Here you will sleep,” Abuelita said. “Your father’s old room.”
    Inside it was cool and dark. There was no furniture except for a thin mattress on a rusted bed frame, and some broken crates piled against the wall. What creatures lived in that heap of scraps? Mice? Snakes? Definitely spiders; I spotted one crawling casually across the floor, as though this were his territory, not mine.
    “Would you like to eat now or rest first,
mi amor
?” Abuelita asked.
    “Rest,” I said, trying not to let my voice shake. I let my bangs fall into my face to hide the tears welling up.
    “You will be happy here,” Abuelo said uncertainly. “You can take walks in the woods. You can help us with our work….” His voice trailed off.
    Abuelita patted his hand and led him out. “Rest now,
mi amor,
” she told me, and closed the door, leaving it cracked.
    Once they had left, I lay on the blanket and breathed in the musty air. Everything was a little damp—the planks of the floor, the scratchy wool blanket beneath me. I heard a noise under the bed, the faint rustle of tiny footsteps.
    Sixty days stretched before me, empty and endless as sand dunes. No movies, no computer, no entertainment. My portable CD player’s batteries would run out soon, and then there wouldn’t be music, either. It was a naked feeling.
Who am I without all these things that fill up my life?
    I closed my eyes tight and tried to imagine my bed at home, the fresh flannel sheets, the down comforter, the pile of pillows. But it was impossible to ignore this lumpy pillow stuffed with balled-up fabric scraps. Or the springs inside the mattress that jutted into my back. Or the ancient, moldy odor.
    I turned onto my side and pulled my shirt over my nose. I breathed in the last remnants of fabric softener. When I was a little kid, at sleepovers, sometimes everything would suddenly feel wrong, and I’d call Mom at midnight to come get me. Wishing for a phone, I fell asleep.

    A patch of light on my face woke me up. It was coming through the crack of the heavy wooden door. I got up and walked outside and squinted in the bright sunlight, only half knowing where I was. I stood, dazed, rubbing my sore shoulders. To my left, fields of leafy stalks waved in the breeze. Behind them towered green lumps of mountains. Over the peaks, a few clouds spotted the deep blue sky.
    I slipped on Abuelita’s sandals and walked to the back of the hut. From here, the plants—corn plants, maybe—stretched over the hills. There were a few shacks way in the distance. I walked farther around the building, skimming my fingers along the rough plank walls.
    When I turned the corner, I faced a garden overflowing with petals and leaves of all shapes and sizes. Their scents mingled together on tiny breezes—a honey-sweet smell, a sharp spicy one, a cool mintiness. All of a sudden, the urge to explore this place swept through me. It was the same feeling I had that first night I went into the woods in Walnut Hill. The feeling that something was calling to me, something waiting to be discovered.
    I reached the front of the hut again, and there stood Abuelo, in the big patch of dirt and weeds between the four shacks. Chickens swarmed around him, pecking at the corn he scattered from a sack.
    “Finally,
m’hija
! You’re awake!” he called out. “Do you know you slept all morning?”
    I shook my head.
    “Why don’t you go into the kitchen and meet Loro?” He motioned toward a bamboo shack where smoke rose from the roof. Who was Loro? A neighbor, maybe? Someone my own age might be nice. Maybe he had a TV.
    Inside the kitchen it was dark and smoky. Once my eyes adjusted, the first thing I saw was a giant green parrot, perched on a rafter. He opened his beak and screeched,
“¡Hola hola