Chapter Eleven:
Voices woke Mirabel up, two of them, arguing, which, considering who the voices belonged to, wasn't surprising, Abuela and her mama argued a lot.
"We aren't waking Mirabel up just to measure her for that form, Mama," Julieta was insisting, "It can wait until morning."
"I want to get a head start to the city first thing in the morning, and the only reason I'm going is to send in that wheelchair order."
"Actually Mama, I want to go with you as well," Julieta confessed, "I lost a lot of pots and pans and cooking utentials. I would like to replace them, and you know that we don't like the idea of you traveling alone, what if something happens?"
"Nothing happened last time."
"It only takes once."
"True, but it's a long walk, and we haven't filled out the form yet because you won't let me near Mirabel."
"You gave her a panic attack, Mama, she was so sure that you were going to punish her for distracting me and causing a scene, that she had a panic attack. I'm sorry if my first instinct is to remove the trigger from my daughter."
"Which in this case was me?"
"Yes, and if you wake her up, just so you can measure her for her wheelchair, she's going to have another attack."
It was at this point that Mirabel moved her head, letting out a loud groan, and looked at them, "You're loud," she grumbled.
Julieta face burned as she looked at her youngest, "I'm sorry we woke you, Abuela here wants to measure you for a wheelchair."
"A wheelchair?" Mirabel repeated, blinking in confusion.
"It will help you get around town and the house, once it's built again," Abuela explained, "When I went into town, the man at the medical supply store told me that, for a case like yours a more custom wheelchair, built to your measurements, would be more comfortable in the long run. Plus you get to pick the color, I know how much you like colorful things."
"You do?" Mirabel asked, "You told me that my skirt looked ridiculous," Mirabel paused, "What happened to my skirt and blouse that I was wearing?"
Julieta let out a sigh, "I had to cut them off you to check you for injuries, and they were so blood stained and torn up, that there really wasn't anything we could do to salvage it. I know that it was your favorite outfit, but we can make a new one."
"It wouldn't be the same," Mirabel insisted, "That was the first outfit I made on my sewing machine. Which is no doubt gone. Even if it wasn't, I can't use it anymore."
"What do you mean, you can't use it anymore?"
"I need to use my foot on the trundle to make it work. I've been trying all day, I can't move my foot. If I can't move my foot, I can't do the trundle, and if I can't do the trundle, I can't sew, and if I can't sew, I'll never graduate from School of Fashion. My life is totally over! Why couldn't that stupid tree have just killed me?"
"Mirabel!" Julieta exclaimed alarmed at the outburst, she had known that her youngest had been struggling, had been struggling for years, and there just hadn't been anything that she or her husband could say or do to help her.
"Now Mirabel, I know things are looking bad at the moment, but think on the bright side," Abuela insisted, sitting down on the chair next to the camp cot that Mirabel was laying on, "With Casita falling down we had the opportunity to change the layout a little, we've added a room for you on the main floor so that you don't have to worry about the stairs, and it isn't the nursery."
Mirabel shrugged, "Sorry if I don't believe you, but this isn't the first time you've promised me my own room and didn't deliver."
"You can't blame me for your failed gift ceremony."
"I'm not talking about the gift ceremony," Mirabel insisted, "I'm talking about the time when I was nine, you promised me that I wouldn't have to share a room with the new baby, that you'll give me my own room. You never did."
"I'm doing it now."
"Six years later doesn't count Abuela," Mirabel snapped, pulling her blanket over her head.
"You're making things worse, Mama," Julieta insisted, "She's already going through so much, don't add to it, please."
…
Mirabel sat on the edge of her camp cot, staring at the needle point project that Abuela had bought her. At least Abuela wasn't trying to punish her, although how she expected her to sew with her hand in a splint was beyond her. She was actually being nice to her, which was the weirdest thing ever. Abuela had even gone over to the city with Luisa to find her a wheelchair.
The door flew open and Isabela flew into the room, her hair flying out behind her, "Mirabel, how are you doing? I just saw Mama and Abuela leave, Papa went with them as well, we'll see how well that goes. Clumsy klutz that he is. I can't wait for you to get better enough to travel so that the whole family can go. It sounds amazing. It's totally unfair that Luisa got to go before us, isn't it?"
Mirabel shrugged, "Technically I've been there many times. There's this school for seamstresses, teaches them how to design dresses and all that stuff, I was, I was going to go there next year."
"Aren't you a little young to be heading off to University, you're what Thirteen?"
"I turned Fifteen a week before Antonio's gift ceremony," Mirabel grumbled, "And I skipped Kindergarten and First Grade."
Isabela nodded, before giving Mirabel a look, "You can't be fifteen yet, you haven't had your quince yet."
"Trust me, I know, but what's the point of having a party when no one wants to come anyway. Besides, Abuela told me it was too close to Antonio's gift ceremony to put a quince together. She said that there wasn't enough time."
"Yet there was enough time to put together an engagement dinner the day after," Isabela said, "Honestly, what was Abuela thinking, we could have easily pulled off a quince so close to a gift ceremony. We pulled off two quince three weeks apart. We were still eating leftovers from my party when it was time for Dolores's."
"Abuela just didn't want me to get embarrassed by inviting everyone and having no one show up. After all it isn't like I contribute to the village or anything."
"What about your friends? Surely they would have showed up?"
"What friends?" Mirabel asked, "The only reason anyone would talk to the smart girl was to get her to do their homework for them. I was three years younger than everyone else in my class. Everyone saw me as a freak."
"What about Camilo and the other kids your age? The school's small so surely you could play with them during recess?"
"Why would they want to hang out with the know it all kid?"
"You really don't have any friends?" Isabela asked in disbelief.
Mirabel shook her head, "Between being so smart and not getting a gift despite being a Madrigal, it didn't make me very popular with the kids my age. Antonio, Jauncho, Cecilia, and Alejandra on the other hand, worship the ground I walk on. Apparently you have to be super old or super young to like me. Although I kind of disappointed them the other day when they were asking me about the different gifts. Apparently they thought my gift was that I was super smart."
Isabela gave Mirabel a weird look, "You know, I read a book once, about this adventurer, who was super smart like you, and talented, he claims that those were the first two signs that someone was born with magic. A high IQ and a talent," Isabela pointed to the needle point that Mirabel had sat aside, "You have both."
"That's just fantasy, it doesn't work that way in the real world," Mirabel insisted.
"Our family lived in a magical house, and had magical gifts," Isabela pointed out, "Think about it, if we can have a magical candle give us gifts, then why couldn't you be born with one?"
"Because there's nothing magical about knowing how to sew," Mirabel insisted, "And Tio Bruno would sit me on his lap and read whatever he was reading out loud to me. I picked it up by the time that I was two, it's no big deal."
"And everyone says I'm the perfect child," Isabela muttered, "He sat all of us on his lap and read to us, yet none of us went to kindergarten reading the fifth grade science book."
"It wasn't like you were reading it," Mirabel muttered.
"Okay, how about this, if someone handed me a needle and some fabric and told me to make a dress I wouldn't know what to do."
"Obviously, you forgot the thread."
"Mirabel," Isabela exclaimed, chuckling, "I'm being serious."
"Well, in that case, you'll need thread, scissors, paper, pencils, pins, a measuring tape, and a whole list of other things. I'd write them down for you, but I'm right handed and as you can see, my right hand is kind of banged up at the moment. But the first thing you need to do is get some measurements, and learn what type of dress they want. Then you draw out the pattern, using the measurements that they gave you, cut the pattern out, cut out the fabric, baste it all together, sew it up, hem it and there you go.
"I have no idea what you are talking about," Isabela insisted.
"Neither does ninety percent of the Encanto," Mirabel said.
"You were going to go to school for that, right, for dressmaking?"
"Yeah," Mirabel said, "I had it all figured out, go to school then open up my own dress shop. I have quite a bit of money squirreled away. Enough to pay a down payment for a nice shop, and if a down payment isn't enough, well, I would be able to find work at a different dress shop. I'd be paid commission, of course that would depend on how much commission and dresses I make, but I figure that I should be able to save up enough to pay for the shop with cash, they love it when people do that. Either way, considering the initial start up costs, how many dresses I can make in a day, how much I can sell each dress, and other expenses, I think that I can be in the green and completely out of debt by the time I'm twenty five," Mirabel paused, "Of course getting paralyzed wasn't part of the plan. I'm going to have to re-figure everything."
"You really weren't planning on coming back to the Encanto after you left?"
"Out there they appreciate me for what I can do. Here all they can see is what I can't do."
"Well, maybe it's about time they see how talented you really are," Isabela insisted, "You're going to Escuela de Moda, and you're going to graduate top of your class and make gowns for Princessas and Queens from around the world. Maybe you can make me something. Something I can get dirty in. Not my normal frilly lacy stuff."