"I don't really care," Mirabel lied, as she forced herself to look her mother straight in her eyes, "Whatever you and Abuela come up with will be fine."
"We really would prefer to have your opinion," Julieta insisted, her hand resting softly on Mirabel's shoulder.
Opinions, huh, what was the point of sharing them if they were going to be ignored anyway, "Like I said, Mama, I don't really care," it was better to not ask for anything, that way you won't get disappointed when you didn't get it. She learned that the hard way long ago.
"Mira…" Julieta began.
"I have to go, Mama, I'm going to be late for school," Mirabel insisted, rushing past her mother, unaware of the person lurking in the shadow watching their every interaction.
…
Camilo hadn't meant to eavesdrop on his tia's conversation with Mirabel, but the house they were staying in while Casita was being rebuilt was small, so small in fact that he was sharing the attic with his siblings and three cousins with nothing but a curtain for privacy between them.
He followed Mirabel through the streets of Encanto, calling out greetings to his friends as they joined him on the daily trek to school. Even then he watched his prima as she walked with her head down, books hugged tightly to her chest. No one called a greeting to her, no one fell into step with her and started chatting about her day, not even when they finally reached the schoolhouse.
Most students were on the playground, the younger ones chasing each other around while the older ones chatted about how awful it was that Casita had fallen down and the Madrigals had lost their gifts. Mirabel didn't even look at the other students as she rushed past them and into the building before the first bell even started to ring.
Camilo excused himself to his friends and followed Mirabel into the building, all the way to their classroom, where Mirabel headed straight for the desk in the back corner, next to the garbage can, and plop down.
Nobody else was in the classroom, not even their teacher, yet Mirabel was already copying down the writing prompt that their teacher had written on the board as their first assignment. Camilo glanced at it, Write about your favorite birthday memory. Huh, he wondered what Mirabel would write about. He stood there, wondering if Mirabel would ask him what he was doing, or if she would start writing and he would be able to read over her shoulder. It bothered him that he didn't know what Mirabel's best birthday memory was. They used to know everything about each other.
…
Mirabel knew that Camilo was standing behind her, watching her every move, which was weird, he usually hung out with his friends before the bell rung, but she didn't call him out on it. It was best not to draw too much attention to her, so she focused instead on the writing assignment on the board. The birthday she could really remember was her fifth, and that wouldn't work for the assignment. Her sixth was a no-go either, it was spent sitting on the balcony next to where her door had been, pleading for it to come back. Her Tenth Birthday had been totally forgotten due to the high-risk pregnancy of Tia Pepa. The others weren't any better for her seventh-ninth birthday, her mother would ask what she wanted for dinner, what she wanted for dessert, and what she wanted for presents, and then not do a single thing that she had said. Birthdays Eleven-thirteen were even worse because they stopped trying to get her things she might actually enjoy, and just gave her the first thing they could find.
Mirabel had discovered just how good she was at lying and acting when she opened Isabela's old paper doll collection, she was thirteen and had already given up on dolls, and most of them were missing their heads anyway. She lied and told her mother that she was going out to celebrate with friends for her fourteenth birthday, and everyone was so hyper-focused on Antonio's upcoming gift ceremony that Mirabel's big Quinceanera had been totally forgotten. Not that she wasn't surprised.
…
Camilo watched Mirabel stare at her paper and occasionally brush a stray tear away. He was about to ask her what was wrong when the teacher stepped into the classroom and the bell announced the start of the school day.
He sighed as he slid into his desk and started to work on the writing assignment as everyone else filed in and their teacher, Senora Hernandez, walked up and down the aisles of the desk and gathered everyone's homework file.
The day dragged on as it normally did, as they went from one topic to the next until there was finally only an hour of class before school let out for the day.
"Class," Senora Hernandez announced, clapping her hands together to get everybody's attention, "As you all know the town is in the process of rebuilding La Casa Madrigal, and I thought that it would be fun for you to pair up, and create your own dream house. Get creative, draw it, write a story about it, build it out of wood, I want to be able to see every room and how they relate to each other. Each house will need a living area, a bathroom, and a kitchen as well as a bedroom for both of you. You have the rest of class to pair up and work on the assignment, due at the end of the week."
Camilo's eyes lit up, this was perfect, just perfect, he could ask Mirabel to be his partner and she can design one of the bedrooms, and then Tia Julieta could use what she did for the assignment to do her actual bedroom.
"Camilo!" his best friend called out, waving him over, "Be my partner?"
"Not this time,' Camilo insisted, "I have someone else in mind."
"Camilo!" another voice called out, this one belonging to a girl with golden locks, "Will you be my partner."
"No thanks," Camilo insisted, dodging around her, "I want to ask Mirabel."
He raced to the back, hoping that Mirabel hadn't already been partnered up. She was still at her desk, not even trying to pair up.
He slapped his hand down hard on her desk, "I want you to be my partner," he announced, all while wondering why she wasn't trying to get her pick of partners.
"Won't you rather be with Carlos or Marcel?"
"Nope, I want to do it with you," Camilo insisted, "I figure that we can look at the catalogs at the house where we're staying to get an idea of what we want to do."
"Okay, I guess."
…
Camilo always thought that he had infinite patients like his papi, but after trying to work with Mirabel on their school project for half an hour he was about to lose what little patience he had.
"What is wrong with you Mirabel!" he snapped, "We only have a few days to get this project done, and it's a team project, I can't do all of it by myself, you need to work with me!"
"Just tell me what to do and I'll do it!" Mirabel snapped back.
"What I want is some feedback!" Camilo snapped, "What do you think about maybe having a kitchen out back, we can have an oven and stove against the wall but have it open on the other sides, you know for when it's nice out and we want to eat outside. That way we can cook outside."
"If that's what you want that's fine."
"That's not the question Mirabel, I want to know if you like the idea!" Camilo groaned, slumping down in his chair, "This is supposed to be our dreamhouse, not mine. You have as much say of what goes in it as I do."
"I've told you, Milo, I… don't… care."
"Why don't you care, this is graded, don't you want a good grade?"
"Not caring is easier," Mirabel insisted, "You can't be disappointed if you don't care about what happens," she said, shrugging, "So you can do whatever you want for the project I really don't care."
Suddenly Camilo remembered the conversation that he overheard that morning, "That's why you won't tell Tia what you want for your room, isn't it? You don't want to be disappointed with your new room, and if you don't set any expectations…" he trailed off his eyes wide.
Mirabel shrugged again, "It's less painful to think that everyone doesn't know then to know that they just didn't care," she confessed, "Same reason I don't have friends our age. Better to think that they don't know me then to know that they just hate me for being giftless, it makes it so the insults don't hurt so much. Marcel used to be my best friend, but she wouldn't play with me after my gift ceremony."
"Does Marcel bully you?" Camilo asked quietly.
"The whole class bullies me," Mirabel admitted, "I'd either be stuck doing the whole project by myself, or they'll do the project without me and then tell the teacher that I didn't help with the project. Both happened a couple of times."
"Therefore you don't care what I do for the project because you expect me to do the project by myself and completely cut you out?"
"Or have me do it and then claim that I didn't help at all, had that happen a few times. So why should I go through the trouble of doing the work if I'm going to be punished for not doing it?"
"Have you told Senora Hernandez about this, or your Mama, or Abuela?"
Mirabel snorted, "Why would anybody believe me? I'm just some lying attention-seeking drunk, remember? Honestly, I don't know why I even bothered to warn you about the cracks, I should have just let Casita fall on top of you. I should have known that no one was going to believe me, no one ever did."
"Why don't we take a break," Camilo suggested, "I need to get a snack," he insisted, hopefully, he would find his tia in the kitchen.
…
Julieta was in the kitchen as was Alma. The two were deep in conversation and didn't notice Camilo enter the room.
"I just don't know what to do Mama," Julieta insisted, "I've tried talking to her, multiple times, but it's like there's a wall around her that I just can't penetrate."
"Mirabel is young, and she's going through a hard time," Alma said softly, "She's probably feeling overwhelmed with all the changes that have been happening lately."
"I've talked to Mirabel," Camilo announced, leaning against the doorframe, "And I just have this to say, We all messed up terribly with her. She doesn't care about her new bedroom because she doesn't want to be hurt. She doesn't care about anything because that will just bring her pain. She doesn't have friends or even really trust anyone, and why, because of the way we, and I'm adding the other kids in our class, treat her. We need to fix this, somehow."
