Hello, I'm back! Thank you SO much to those of you who left reviews and followed/favorited this story! There aren't that many people in the West Side fandom these days (which is QUITE shocking), so it's really very encouraging when I see that people are actually reading my stories! Now, this chapter is a couple of years after the first one. Maria is ten here, meaning that Bernardo and Anita are thirteen, and I've decided to make Chino older than Maria, but slightly younger than Benardo, so Chino is approximately twelve here. Thanks so much, please leave more reviews and tell me what you think!
PS I apologize if some of their actions and the way they speak to each other isn't time period appropriate I tried to be as accurate as I could while still showing the sassiness that is Anita and the stubbornness that is Bernardo. Ok I'll shut up now enjoy!
"Maria?"
"Yes," Maria answered, not looking up from her sewing.
"Do you ever wonder what the boys talk about when we are not around?" Anita said, gazing out the window at Bernardo, Chino, and the other boys who were busy hitting around a rolled up shirt with a stick.
"No," Maria said simply.
"I do." Anita put down her sewing and rushed to Maria's side.
"Why?" Maria said, still not looking up from her work.
"Because!" Anita said, pushing Maria's hands into her lap so that she would look up at her.
"Because why?" Maria sighed exasperatedly. Now she would have to re-do several stitches. "Why would you ever want to know what boys talk about?" Maria scoffed. "They talk about such silly things when they are all together," she concluded. She liked her older brother a lot better when he was not with his friends. He paid closer attention to her, and he treated Anita more respectfully when they were not around. In Maria's ten year old mind, boys were still quite the silliest thing she'd ever heard of.
"Do you think they talk about…about me?" Anita said.
"About you?" Maria asked. "Why would you want them to talk about you?"
"Well, not all of them," Anita sighed. "Oh Maria, promise you will not tell!"
"Tell what?" Maria looked skeptically at her older friend.
"First you must promise!" Anita said.
"I promise!" Maria cried, putting her sewing aside on the small table beside her. "Now tell me!"
"Alright." Anita took a deep breath and pulled Maria onto the floor so they were sitting facing each other. "Have you ever looked at a boy and just thought they were the most wonderful thing in the world?"
"No!" Maria said, appalled.
"Oh, you are just still too young to understand!" Anita sighed.
"No, no! Tell me!" Maria was growing impatient. Anita was so strange sometimes.
"Well, even if you haven't, I have." Anita was smiling again. "I do not even know why! But he is just so lovely…Oh Maria I must be mad!"
"Who?" Maria shook Anita's arm. "What boy?" Although Maria would never understand why Anita found boys so very wonderful, she just had to know who it was that Anita was so fascinated by.
Anita cupped her hands to Maria's ear and whispered: "Bernardo."
"Bernardo?" Maria gasped.
"Shh!" Maria clamped her hand over Maria's mouth. "You must not tell, remember? You promised."
Maria nodded, unable to speak because Anita's hand still covered her mouth. Anita then removed her hand from Maria's mouth. "Oh Anita!" Maria whispered loudly. She then giggled. "I cannot believe it!"
"I cannot either!" Anita said. "That brother of yours can have such a thick head…" she threw her hands up in frustration. "I hate him."
"But Anita…you just said…"
"I do not hate him…" Anita sighed. Maria looked at Anita like she had three heads. What was wrong with her? "Do you think he likes me Maria?"
"I do not know!" Maria said. "Why don't you ask him?"
"Ask him?" Anita seemed dumbfounded by this. "Oh Maria, you have much to learn."
"If you care so much, I do not see why you cannot ask him."
"Because!"
"Because why?"
"I do not know!" Anita leaned back until she was lying on the floor. Then she shot up and walked once again to the window. "I just wish I could hear what they are talking about."
"They are just playing a game," Maria said, sitting back on her chair and picking up her sewing. "I wish 'Nardo would let me play with him. When his friends are here he ignores me."
"I know!" Anita once again pushed Maria's sewing out of her hands. "We will go out and play with them!"
"Anita!" Maria was shocked. "We cannot! Mama said I was to finish my sewing, and Papa likes me to stay inside, and so does 'Nardo."
"Why can they be outside?" Anita said. "In here, it is boiling hot! Outside, at least we will have fresh air!"
"Bernardo will be upset," Maria said simply, and reached for her sewing again.
"Well then let's go!" Anita laughed at the thought of aggravating Bernardo.
"Anita, we cannot!" Maria said.
"Let's go querida!" Anita pulled Maria off the couch and towards the front door. Maria's stomach flipped nervously. She hated doing things she wasn't supposed to. Anita however seemed to revel in the fact that she was breaking the rules.
When they were outside, Anita dragged Maria closer and closer to where the boys were playing their game. Maria was constantly looking around for her mama and papa to jump out and scold her.
Anita suddenly pushed Maria out in front of her. Maria watched in awe at the complex game that they were playing. Del Campo threw the rolled up shirt at Indio, who was standing a few feet away holding a stick. Indio swung the stick at the shirt and it went soaring into the air and Indio started running.
"I got it!" Bernardo shouted. Maria watched as Bernardo jumped up to catch the rolled up shirt. When he landed, he fell onto his back, but soon stood up, triumphant. He was smiling that devilishly handsome grin that he always wore proudly. Maria beamed and clapped her hands. Bernardo's head whipped around and his grin disappeared. Maria waved at him, still smiling.
Bernardo stormed over to where the two girls were standing. "Maria! What are you doing! You were told to stay inside!"
"But I wanted to play with you!" Maria said. "You never let me play with you!"
"Maria, I tell you this every time," Bernardo sighed. "It is dangerous. You could get hurt."
"Nothing has happened to you," Anita quickly stated. "What makes you think something will happen to us?"
"Us? No. Get back inside," Bernardo said to Anita.
"What if I do not want to?" Anita crossed her arms.
"Maria," Bernardo ignored Anita and bent down so that his and his sister's eyes met. "Be a good little girl and go back inside before something happens to you."
"I just wanted to play with you," Maria downcast her eyes sadly.
"Si, I know," Bernardo lifted Maria's chin so she was looking at him again. "I will play with you later when all of the other silly boys are gone."
"Really?" Maria's face lit up.
"I promise. Now go," Bernardo turned her around and patted her back.
"She is not going anywhere," Anita put out her arm to stop Maria from walking back to the house and turned her back around.
"You are not in charge of her," Bernardo said angrily. "I am. She is going inside."
"No, she is not."
"Yes she is."
"No, she is not," Anita said, and before Bernardo could say anything else, she added: "And neither am I."
Bernardo was now red in the face. "Fine!" he spat. He pointed his finger right in Anita's face. "But if something happens to you, I will laugh!"
"Fine," Anita said coolly.
"And if something happens to her," he pointed at Maria. "Then I will…I…"
"You will what?" Anita challenged, daring him to threaten her.
"Never mind," he scoffed. He turned on his heels and stormed off back to the game.
"You see, we did it," Anita said proudly.
"But he is angry," Maria said tentatively.
"Yes, he is!" Anita laughed to herself.
More confused than ever, Maria tried not to think about Anita's strange motives behind everything. She sat down in the shade beneath her and Bernardo's favorite tree and simply watched her brother play. Through watching them play, Maria was beginning to understand the rules. Whenever Anita cheered, so did she, and now she was able to recognize when something good happened.
Anita was cheering less and less after a while. "They are losing now," Anita said to Maria.
"Oh," Maria said.
They watched as Pepe attempted to hit the ball, but he missed three times. After that he stopped trying. Suddenly Anita leaned over and whispered in Maria's ear: "Watch this."
Maria's face screwed up with confusion.
"Let me try!"
Oh no…
"Anita wants to play?" Indio scoffed. The other boys chuckled to themselves.
"She cannot! She is a girl!" Pepe shouted from behind her.
"Go sit down Anita," Bernardo said, walking toward her. "This is no game for a girl."
"You are going to lose anyway," Anita said. "You know I am right. Just let me try. If you lose because of me, you can do whatever you want with me. But if I help you win, then I get to do whatever I want with you."
The boys standing behind Bernardo laughed and chuckled amongst themselves. Bernardo turned to look at them, then back at Anita.
"Ah, let the chicka play, 'Nardo!" Pepe shouted.
"Whatever I want, eh?" Bernardo smiled slyly. "Alright, she plays!"
Maria clapped her hands joyously. Anita had accomplished what Maria had always wanted to, but had never dared to try. The boys laughed uproariously. A proud smile crept across Anita's face and she walked triumphantly to where the stick was. The boys whooped and clapped their hands as obnoxiously as they could. She hiked up her skirt a bit higher so she could run easier.
"Ai, ai!" Many of the boys called and chanted and laughed.
"You laugh now, but you will not forget Anita Josephina Teresita Beatrice – "
"Just hit the ball!"
Anita rolled her eyes and picked up the stick, ready to hit the rolled up shirt that they called the "ball". Maria watched nervously from under the tree. Chino threw the ball and Anita swung, but she missed. The boys took this as another opportunity to laugh as hard as they could. Anita paid no mind to them. Before they had quieted down again, Chino threw the ball again and Anita swung once more, but still she missed. This made them laugh even harder; one of them was even doubled over with laughter. Maria noticed though that Bernardo was not laughing. He was merely smiling and shaking his head.
Now Anita was determined. She took a deep breath, and Chino hurled the ball at her again. Maria was on the edge of her seat. Anita swung at it and to Maria's utter surprise, the stick collided with the shirt and it went flying. The laughter immediately ceased, and Anita ran faster than Maria had ever seen her run. Three other boys that were standing around also ran.
"I cannot find the ball!" someone called.
"What? How can you not find it?"
Soon, the boys and Anita had both made it back to the spot where the stick was, and Maria knew that meant they had won. Maria stood up and clapped and cheered for her friend. She hoped to someday be as brave as she was.
Now Anita was the one who was laughing. The boys who had lost were cursing themselves for allowing a girl to beat them, and the boys who had won simply didn't know what to say.
"Ha! I told you!" Anita said. "Ai, ai!" she teased them, just as they had teased her merely minutes before.
"Well, well," Bernardo said walking up to Anita. "You have helped us win."
"I know," Anita said coolly.
"So, now you can do whatever you want with me," he crossed his arms, waiting for her to say something.
"I know," Anita said, mirroring him by crossing her own arms.
"Well, what is it you want?"
"I don't know," Anita shrugged. "I will have to think. For now, you just remember that you were wrong, and I was right."
Bernardo raised his eyebrows and held his stare on her. Anita stood there and stared right back at him, not being one to stand down. They continued to stare each other down until Maria called nervously for Anita.
"Anita! My mama is walking up the road, she will see us!"
Reluctantly, Anita turned around and walked away, that proud smile still playing across her face. "Stubborn ass," she whispered to herself.
"I have not even finished my sewing!" Maria said, dragging Anita inside as quickly as she could. "Mama will be angry…"
"Do not worry. I can tell her you fell asleep." Anita picked up her own sewing that she also hadn't finished.
"Anita, you were wonderful," Maria said, beginning to sew rapidly.
"I know," Anita smiled.
"I think Bernardo knows too," Maria giggled.
"Really?" Anita gasped, putting down her sewing again.
"When the boys were laughing, he and Chino were the only ones who were not," Maria said.
"Really?" Anita sighed. "Do you think he is talking about me now?"
"You did give him something to talk about," Maria giggled again.
"Yes, I did," Anita chuckled to herself, picking up her sewing again. "Chino was not laughing either, you said?"
"No," Maria said.
"Chino is a nice boy, no?"
"Si," Maria said, hardly paying attention to Anita now.
Soon Maria's mama had come home and began making dinner. She wasn't angry at all that Maria hadn't finished her sewing; she merely saw it as the ordinary for a child of her age to have a wandering mind, especially when her friend was sitting near her.
While Maria's mama was making dinner, a knock came at the door. Maria went to answer it, and there was Chino.
"Hola Maria," he said shyly. "You left your shoes outside."
"Oh!" Maria gasped. She'd taken them off while she was sitting in the grass and had forgotten all about them in the excitement. "Gracias, Chino." Maria smiled brightly at him, taking her shoes.
"You are welcome," Chino said, quickly running back to his friends, who had apparently started another game.
"Ah, Chino is a nice boy, no?" Mama looked up from her cooking and smiled at Maria.
"Si, Mama," Maria nodded and returned to her sewing, and Anita chuckled to herself, unnoticed by Maria.