Agustin watched as Julieta and Mirabel walked down the path, into the jungle, until they were out of sight, and then he quickly turned on his heels heading over to his parents' house, he needed to double-check to make sure that it was okay for him to give Mirabel the old sewing chest, as well as borrow their wagon to haul the things that were unsalvagable to the dump. There was still some old furniture that they weren't sure of what to do with, it really wasn't what they wanted for Mirabel's room, but it wasn't bad enough to throw away. He wondered if Felix's family would want those, they owned a carpentry shop, and often times restored old furniture. That was why Felix was helping with the sewing chest.
"Whoa!" a voice called out, causing to Agustin to look up in surprise, he hadn't been paying attention to where he was going and had stepped right in front of Osvaldo's donkey cart.
"Lo siento," he said, "I really should be paying more attention to where I'm going, especially since Julieta's gone for a couple of days."
Osvaldo frowned, "What do you mean, Julieta's gone for a couple of days," he demanded, "What's going to happen if someone gets hurt?"
"She made some hard tack before she left, those who are badly injured enough will get one of those, the rest will just have to deal with it, we want the candy to last at least a couple of weeks."
"But why?" Osvaldo demanded, "Why would she leave Encanto, and why won't she be back to her food stand for a couple of weeks? It's her job. I can't believe she's being so lazy."
Agustin fought back a laugh, wondering if Osvaldo even heard himself, the poor man was out of breath just by walking up the steps to a porch to make a delivery. He would probably break into a heavy sweat just thinking about all the things that Julieta did during the day.
"She's not being lazy," he insisted, "She just has other things that take more precedence over her food stand at the moment."
"What can be more important than healing people," Osvaldo demanded, crossing his arms in front of his ample belly.
"Our Daughter," Agustin said gruffly, "She's having surgery done in the city, and Julieta's taking time off to make sure she heals properly."
"Why, feed her an arepa and she'll be good as new," Osvaldo insisted "There's no need for her to have to ignore her other duties."
"Outside Encanto, surgeries are based around the natural healing process," Agustin explained, "they use special materials that will dissolve during the natural healing process, by healing Mirabel quickly, the material will not dissolve correctly, causing more damage. Damage that will be easily avoided by not eating any of Julieta's food until it's completely dissolved. Now if you excuse me, we're on a tight schedule. Julieta and Mirabel will be home in just over three days, and we want to get Mirabel's room done before then. I need to talk to my parents about some things."
"Mirabel's room?" Osvaldo asked, confused.
"Well, yes, she's fifteen, she really needs to get out of the nursery, and well, we've decided that with her gone, we'll be able to surprise her."
"Do you need anything?" Osvaldo asked, "I have a whole selection of room decor at my shop, and I'm willing to deliver."
"At the moment we're focusing on cleaning out the room and getting furniture, but I'll let the ninos know that you have room decorations they might look into, Thank you for the offer, Osvaldo, I'll see you later."
…
Mirabel stared at the building in amazement, eight rows of windows rose up above her, sure there were a few buildings it size around it, but she had never been in any of them before. Her mother opened the door and shooed her inside. The inside was just as big as the outside, with a huge desk that held several people, most of them had strange banana-looking things pressed to their ears, while one was looking through a thick stack of paper and another one picked a key up from a board filled with them and handed it to a man.
Julieta glanced around the room, this didn't look anything like the inn back in Encanto, but the sign on the door said it was, so she'd have to believe it.
"Can I help you?" a young man who couldn't have been much older than Mirabel asked, flashing them a dazzling smile.
"Yes, I need a room for two for three nights," Julieta announced, sweeping Mirabel up to the desk with her so that she could talk to the man easier.
He smiled at Mirabel, "You must be her daughter," he said brightly, "I can tell that you have inherited her beauty."
Mirabel just blinked, and Julieta shifted nervously, she hadn't considered the possibility that someone might try to flirt with Mirabel.
The boy's smile deflated a little at Mirabel's lack of response, "Okay room for two for three days, let's see what we have…" he grabbed a binder and flipped through it, "You'll be in room 216, Elevators are just down that hall, have a good day," he said brightly as he waved them off.
...
Agustin smiled as he entered his old childhood home, "Mama, Papa!" he called out.
There were several footsteps and the next thing that he knew he was being tackled by several young children.
"Agustin," his mother cried out, "What a wonderful surprise, ninos get off your Tio," she snapped, pulling the young children off of him, "Babysitting for your sisters," she explained.
"I can see that," Agustin said, "I just wanted to ask you something will quick. We're working on making Mirabel her own bedroom while she's in the city for surgery, and Luisa found your old sewing chest, and the ninas are wondering if they can fix it up for Mirabel. She has a talent for sewing, and I think she'll absolutely love the chest."
His mother smiled, "You're right about that, she'll get good use out of that old thing, and none of your sisters even remember it. Go ahead, Gussie, it's about time you gave that girl her own room."
…
It didn't take them long to find the stairs and make it up to their room, which was about the size of the nursery back home, with two beds and a dresser. Mirabel immediately collapsed onto one of the beds while Julieta checked the time, "We better eat and then get to your appointment," she insisted, grabbing the basket of food that they had carried with them and pulling out some arepas and other food that was easy for her to carry with them.
…
'Abuela's food isn't nearly as good as Mama's," Isabela announced as she chewed the overly dense arepa. Luisa nodded in agreement as Antonio tried to sneakily feed his arepa to his animal friends.
"Tonito, don't feed your animals at the table, por favor," Abuela insisted, "It will teach them to beg and be naughty."
"Lo siento, Abuela," the boy said meekly.
"It's okay," she assured him, "Just make sure that you don't do it again," she smiled at him before clapping her hands together softly, so as not to upset Dolores, and asked, "So how is the new room coming along?"
"We finally got all of the stuff out of the room," Isabela announced.
"It took two wagonloads to the dump and three to Abuelo's carpentry shop," Camilo announced, "I didn't realize that the room was so big."
"But Abuelo offered to pay us for the furniture with in-store credit, he said that we could have any furniture we need as well as have the sewing chest fixed in exchanged for the old furniture," Dolores announced, "He was quite happy with the quality of the stuff we brought him. They'll be easy to sell once they're fixed up a little."
"I'm glad Pa is happy with what we brought him," Felix announced, "So what's next."
"Scrubbing," Isabela announced, "The whole floor is covered in grime and the walls have cobwebs all over them. It's probably going to take us the rest of the day to get it clean enough to paint."
"We'll have to paint first thing in the morning," Luisa insisted, "Give it time to dry, then we'll get all the furniture set up the next day, and, I think we just barely have enough time to get this all done."
…
Mirabel seemed rather pale as they left the doctor's office. Julieta didn't blame her, they had taken a lot of blood.
She tapped the girl on her shoulder and signed, "We have some time now, and we won't tomorrow, why don't we find something to do now."
"Can we shop?" Mirabel asked, eagerly, "I wonder if they have different styles of dresses than what we have back home., and different fabrics."
Julieta nodded her head, as she chuckled, "Let's find a fabric shop then."
…
There had been five stores that not only sold fabric and patterns but other arts and crafts items, some of which hadn't made their way to Encanto as well. There was a toy store and a book store, and a trip to the zoo. Julieta was dragging by the time they had found a place that served food for cena.
"I wonder what everyone at home is doing?" Mirabel asked.
"Probably eating cena right now."
…
Isabela was falling asleep on her feet, it had taken hours to scrub the new bedroom clean, hours, even with everyone helping. She barely had enough energy to eat cena. Luckily tomorrow wasn't going to be as big of a day. All they needed to do was paint so that it could dry before they add the furniture. She hoped that Mirabel liked her room. They were working really hard on it, and she was worried that they wouldn't get it done on time. After all, they only had two more days to go.
