Final Project Part Two:
Alma Madrigal was having a rough couple of days, first Mirabel learned about the cracks in Casita, drawing attention to them in front of the whole village, and then Mariano's proposal was interrupted by more cracks, wayward gifts, and one of Bruno's prophecies. Then she had had that horrible argument with Mirabel, and Casita had fallen and for a second there, they thought that they had lost Mirabel too. Just because she had convinced her that the candle was more important then she was. Because of her, Mirabel had nearly died.
And then she had disappeared, vanishing from the rubble. It took them all night to find her, at the river where Pedro had been killed all those years ago. They had had a long chat, and Mirabel had told her that she forgave her, but now it was obvious that she was the only one.
Julieta had, right before everyone had turned in for the night, gave her a dressing down because of the way she had treated Mirabel in the past, and had encouraged the rest of the family, especially Isabela, to treat her.
Apparently her focus on the miracle and keeping it burning had really effected Mirabel academically, socially, and emotionally. Julieta had even showed her a worksheet that Mirabel had filled out. Across the top it read, My family and I, there was the basic information about herself, hair color, eye color, date of birth, age, what she liked the most about herself. Then there were spaces to fill out information about family members. Mirabel had several pieces of paper attached to the worksheet with even more family members. Alma hadn't been certain but she was sure that she had written more about each of them then she had about herself.
At first glance Alma hadn't notice anything amiss, until Julieta pointed out the birthdate and age, May 25th age 14, "It's supposed to be March 6th, age 15," she announced, "And you might want to read what she put down as a favorite family activity."
Alma turned the worksheet over and found the prompt, What is your favorite family activity? Why? What is something that you look forward to doing with your family? Why? It was a simple enough prompt, underneath Mirabel had written, Ignoring me, because then they aren't yelling at me. Dying, because then my family would be happy because I'm not causing them extra work and getting in their way. The last sentence was underlined with red ink and next to it, in what she assumed was Senora Hernandez's handwriting, was a note saying, "Talk to Julieta and Agustin about this during Parent-teacher conference."
Julieta had then charged her with fixing this. While Mirabel had forgiven her, apparently Julieta was not as willing to, not that she could blame her. Mirabel let her off easy.
…
Finally, after a restless night, morning was there, and Alma was sitted at the head of several folding tables that had been pushed together so that the family could all sit together. She stood up once everyone had sat down, like she always do to start morning announcements, "Today is a good day," that was how she always started off her announcements, but then she froze, she didn't know what else to say, they had no gifts, they couldn't do the chores around Encanto like they always do.
She had obviously paused to long because Mirabel spoke up, "Is everything okay Abuela," she asked nervously.
"Yes, I'm just trying to think of what needs to be done today, you and Camilo have school, and we need to work on rebuilding Casita, is there anything else that needs to be done today?"
"I need to head to the optometrist today," Agustin admitted, "I lost my spare pair of glasses when Casita fell, I would like to get them replaced. I don't really like being down to one pair," he froze frowning at Mirabel, "When was the last time you had your eyes checked?" he asked.
Mirabel frowned, taking her glasses off to clean them, not that it helped any, her glasses were really badly scratched up, "Umm, I believe it was while Tia was pregnant with Tonito, just a little before he was born, but I could be wrong."
"That would make it over five years ago," Julieta said with a frown, "that might be part of the reason why you are struggling so much in school right now. You should go with your father and have your eyes examined."
…
Her eyesight turned out to be part of the problem on why she was struggling so badly in school, and that afternoon when she returned back to the church she had a pile of papers that Senora Hernandez had gave her to help her catch up, and a new pair of gold rimmed glasses perched on her nose.
"That's a lot of homework," Luisa said from where she was reading a book on one of the pews. She had helped with rebuilding Casita all morning and Abuela had surprised her by telling her to take the afternoon off.
"Yeah, Senora Hernandez gave me a bunch of make up work to help me catch up," Mirabel confessed, "If I can get this done I won't be held back."
"Would you like some help?" Luisa asked, "I just happened to be top of my class, I'd be happy to help."
"Gracias," Mirabel said, handing Luisa the pile of papers, "Maybe you can make sense of these."
"Sure," Luisa said, looking at the first paper, "Hmm, let's see Botany?" she looked up at Mirabel in surprise, "You're studying Botany?"
"Is that a problem?" Mirabel asked nervously.
"No, but I think you should ask Isabela for help with that one, she's the one who helped me with Botany," Luisa suggested.
"But Isa told me that she wasn't good at school."
"Except for Botany," a new voice said as Isabela appeared behind her, "That was a breeze, of course a lot of it probably just had to do with my gift, but yeah, I was pretty good at botany."
Mirabel turned to look at her sister, eyes pleading, "think you can help me?" she asked.
"So long as it isn't Math or English, I'm good," Isabela insisted.
…
Julieta smiled as she finally made her way into the church, a box full of spices and herbs that had miraculously survived Casita falling to find Isabela and Luisa helping Mirabel with some homework.
Isabela was busy drawing different parts of a flower, labeling them with a different color pen.
"Now this is a sight that I like seeing, I can't remember the last time I've seen all three of you together, and without fighting either," She said smiling brightly as she gave each one of the a hug, which caused them to grumble good naturely at her. She glanced at the paper with a frown, "Mirabel, why did you write your name with a W?"
"I did?" Mirabel asked, squinting at it, "Oh, I sometimes mess my Ms and Ws up," she admitted, quickly correcting the mistake.
"She's like me," Isabela announced, seemingly proudly, "But that's okay, because I know how to help her."
"Yeah, Isa's been giving me all kinds of tips on how to make sure that I'm not messing my letters and numbers up, and to help me remember things," Mirabel admitted.
Julieta nodded her head, "That's great, what about you Luisa, are you helping her as well?"
"Yep, Isabela's great with explaining the different parts of the plants, but she can't spell them for the life of her," Luisa insisted.
"You try spelling receptacle when the letters like to jump all over the page," Isabela snapped.
Julieta smiled as she said, "How long have you three been working on Mirabel's homework?"
"Since I got home," Mirabel insisted, "Except for a little break when we went and got things I needed."
"Great," Julieta said, "Can I see what you've done so far?"
"Sure," Mirabel said, handing over several notebooks, including one of graph paper.
Julieta frowned flipping open the graph notebook to find several math problems worked out.
"The grid paper makes it easier to keep your number placement straight," Isabela explained, shrugging, "It's something my tutor suggested for me to do. I figured it might help Mirabel."
"That's very smart," Julieta said, "I'm glad you're figuring out things that can help Mirabel," she admitted, as she flipped through the notebooks, noting Mirabel's handwriting on her homework portion, while notes, and in the case of her math homework a step by step explanation on how to do the problems where done mostly in Luisa's hand, with a few, especially in her science notebook, done in Isabela, although, Luisa had corrected a bunch of Isa's spelling. As far as she could tell the problems and questions were answered correctly, and only a few spelling corrections from Luisa was not in Mirabel's handwriting while the notes were mostly not in her handwriting.
"This looks great, Mira," she announced, "And it certainly looks like Luisa and Isabela are trying to help you as well. Why don't you take a break and find something else to do?" she suggested, "You don't want to burn out with all of this work."
"You know, I have been wanting to do some shopping," Isabela confessed, "I lost a lot of clothes when Casita fell and I want to change up my look."
"I want to go to the craft store and replace a bunch of things that I lost too," Mirabel confessed, turning to Luisa, who shrugged.
"Shopping sounds fun," she admitted.
…
The three sisters were laughing and talking together, excited about the clothes that Isabela had found and the books Luisa had gotten when they had walked through the bookshop at her insistence. None of them were paying much attention to where they were going, so it wasn't that surprising when they ran into a woman exiting the craft shop as they were entering.
"Oh, I'm sorry Senora Cortes," Mirabel exclaimed, helping her up, and gathering the supplies she had dropped.
"Thank you Mirabel," Senora Cortes said brightly, "I didn't see you today at school, were you feeling alright?"
"Si, Papi just wanted to take me in to get my eyes checked, it's been a few years, and my old lenses were really scratched up," Mirabel explained.
"Oh, si, you have new glasses, don't you, your old ones were green, were they not?"
"Si," Mirabel agreed, before gesturing to her sisters, "Do you know my sisters, Isabela and Luisa?" she asked, "They're older so they aren't in school anymore. Isa, Luisa, this is Senora Cortes, she moved to Encanto last year, she's an art teacher," Mirabel explained, "She comes into the school and gives lessons."
"Teaching art must be fun," Luisa admitted, "I liked art when I was in school, it was really relaxing."
"Yeah," Isabela said, "Now I'm super jealous Mira, no demanding gift, no pressure to be perfect, and a proper art's teacher, I loved art, I always wanted to try painting, but I had no one who could teach me."
"You know, I offer private lessons, and I'm doing a summer art program for anyone that's interested," Senora Cortes turned to Mirabel, "I'm hoping that you'll be able to help out some with the younger kids, seeing as you are so good with them."
"I'd love too," Mirabel said, "But I'm kind of behind in school, and should really focus on getting caught up."
"While I agree that you should catch up in school, I think that a couple of hours a week away from the books might be beneficial."
"Mama did said that you need to take breaks every once in awhile," Lusia pointed out.
"And taking art lessons does sound like fun," Isabela agreed, "Do you think Mama and Abuela will allow us?"
"Mama will, the question will be Abuela," Mirabel said, "But she's promised to do better, so she might. It won't hurt to ask," she turned to the art teacher, "We'll let you know what Mama says," she promised before she and her sisters hurried back to the church.