CHAPTER 1
It took fifteen steps for her to die.
Fifteen—one for each year of her life before they snuffed it out.
I was supposed to be doing homework. I actually was doing homework, but my phone kept buzzing, so I tapped on the notifications, and there she was.
I never did learn her name. In the reports they would call her “an illegal fifteen-year-old” or “a fifteen-year-old immigrant.” It depended on who was talking.
The underground reporters would also call her brave, defiant, fearless.
And the government news would call her disease-ridden, illegal, criminal.
* * *
×
BUT AS I watched it with my own eyes, I saw that she was just a girl my age. Wearing a faded Mickey Mouse T-shirt and jean shorts that were rolled over on top but still looked like they might fall off her skinny waist. She had somehow gotten over a line of concrete ballasts and the chain-link fence stretching across the burnt-out field between Tijuana and San Diego. That rusty, mangled barricade that was supposed to keep people on the Tijuana side. It stood there as a scar. A reminder. A warning. Its sole purpose was to say
STAY OUT. YOU DON’T BELONG HERE.
That girl in the Mickey Mouse shirt had no time for warnings. She had no interest in being intimidated. She looked completely unafraid as she stepped away from the fence, entering the no-man’s-land between Mexico and the United States. The girl was alone, unarmed. Her dark hair was tied back in a bouncy ponytail, and she had a bright red scratch under her left eye. Besides that, her face looked clear, even calm, as she made her way across the dusty strip of scrubland between Tijuana and the wall.
Or really, the Wall. The Great American Wall.
There was nothing great about it. More like grotesque. It blocked out the sky, with fifty-foot-tall reinforced steel slats and thick metal mesh in between. Every few feet there were coils of barbed wire strung across, and on top there was a maze of cables spitting out electricity. The government had spent gazillions of dollars and called in all the Reserves to help build this monstrosity. Sealing us off from the rest of the Americas.
Stop where you are! snarled a voice through a speaker by the Wall.
Technically, that girl wasn’t even on United States soil. But as the President loved to say, America was the greatest nation in the history of greatness, and we needed to do whatever it took to protect our sacred borders. That was why there was a platoon of Border Patrol officers lined up on top of the Wall. Green zombies, I called them. Standing at attention in their olive-colored uniforms with pale, expressionless faces. They had the newest AK-87s strapped to their backs and German shepherds circling at their feet as they stared down that girl.
Because this was their land.
Because it was their duty to preserve and defend the United States of America.
Because whatever this fifteen-year-old intended, walking across in her flip-flops and saggy shorts, she had now become a national threat.
* * *
×
I WAS SO scared and awestruck by that girl’s slow, deliberate steps forward. I could even hear myself panting for her as I watched.
“Mi’ja, what are you doing?” Mami asked me. “If you’re done with your homework, get ready for bed.”
“Wait. You have to see this.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes, Mami, you do,” my little brother, Ernie, said, padding in from the bathroom in his pj’s. Last I knew, he was watching soccer on his phone, but he must’ve gotten the same alerts as me. “Something weird is going on at the Wall,” he reported.
Mami hated all the notifications and interruptions from our phones, even if we had saved up and paid for them with our own money. But when Ernie came in and made that announcement, Mami stopped wiping the kitchen counter and marched over to stand behind me at the table.
“¿Qué es eso? I can’t even see. The screen is too small,” she sighed.
Mami loved to tell us how when our family first came to this country, we watched the same show, all together, on a single television. Of course, that was before the government took over the broadcasting system. Before they censored any newscasters who disagreed or said too much, any movies or shows that seemed unpatriotic. If we wanted to see anything honest or original these days, we had to watch someone’s livestream on the dark web. Which is what we were doing now. The three of us pressed our heads together, watching the image blink in and out because of the poor connection. The camera panned around, showing faces caught between hope and panic.
“I don’t like this,” Ernie said. I didn’t either, but we couldn’t turn away from the screen. We couldn’t move. We could only gape at this staticky footage as that gutsy girl planted each foot down—one, two, three.
There were shouts from the crowd of people in Tijuana gathering behind the barricade:
¿Qué estás haciendo? ¡Cuidado!
An airhorn blasted. Another green zombie shouted through the speakers:
Get back behind the fence! he bellowed. You are not permitted on US soil. We repeat, you are not permitted on US soil!
The girl paused and raised both of her hands in the air to show that she meant no harm. She squinted into the bright West Coast sun with a sort of half grin. Her arms were loose and gawky. I wondered if she was born with this kind of wild bravery or if she’d just already lost too much to care.
She stepped forward again.
“Why’s she doing that?” whispered Ernie. “Why isn’t she listening to them?”
I tried to mumble some sort of response, but my tongue felt too big for my mouth. I flipped to another livestream in Tijuana—they were all filming this girl now. Some from so far away, she looked like a speck creeping across the frame, in between the concrete posts. Others zoomed in so close, I swear I could see the hairs in that girl’s nose. Yes, we were watching her on a screen from thousands of miles away, in the safety of a dusky Vermont evening. But my whole body was trembling for her. I wished I had even a smidge of her courage.
There is no trespassing in the demilitarized zone! the zombies ordered again. We repeat, no trespassing in the demilitarized zone!
“Dios mío,” Mami said in a low voice, clicking her tongue. She made the sign of the cross, and I swallowed hard. Mami was as tough as they came, the creases around her eyes holding on to all her worry and pain so that she could always face the world with composure. If she was asking God for help, then this was definitely a moment of truth.
Meanwhile, the girl took another step forward. And another. She looked like she was full-on smiling now. At least, that’s how I want to remember her.
This is your last warning! roared the zombies.