I wrote this a long time ago for English after we read The House on Mango Street. Our teacher made us write our own vignette in the style of the ones in the book. It's based on real life, but you could kind of see it as a vignette Esperanza might write if she were more middle class. I don't know, It's short, so just read it.

MANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGO

Grab the plastic cups.

And the plastic spoons.

Don't forget the plastic forks.

Or the plastic knives.

Oh, and the paper plates.

The water's out, again, Mom says.

The water goes out a lot. No one is surprised. They are not happy, but they are not surprised. By now, we are used to it. We do not complain, we simply sigh and continue with what we are doing.

Its too early to decide whether or not to do anything yet. The water could just come on in an hour. Or it could take days. It doesn't really make a difference to us.

They say a tropical storm is coming through tonight, Mom says. Make sure you put out the buckets.

Can we bring Phabela inside?

She is not even our cat.

But she will get blown away in the storm.

I'm sure she will just hide under the deck or the car.

But she is afraid to go under the deck.

Eventually, I win, and we get to let Phabela, the cat who just showed up one day, no collar, into the house. She wanders around for a while, until she decides to take a cat nap on the couch.

Ty is not to pleased about there being a cat in his house. After all, he is a dog, and that is just what dogs do.

It's time for bed, Mom says. Put the cat in the garage.

But she doesn't like the garage.

It's the garage or outside in the rain.

I put Phabela into the garage, and then I go upstairs to brush my teeth with a gallon of drinking water, because the water has still not come back on, so Mom went to the store to get some more water.

That in itself is harder than it sounds, but you get used to it after a while.

People always get used to things after a while.

MANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGOMANGO

The End. Please R&R. Pretty please.