Set a Purpose

There’s a new girl in school. Find out what José does to get her attention.

For three weeks José tried to get the attention of Estela, the new girl at his middle school. She’s cute, he said to himself when he first saw her in the cafeteria, unloading her lunch of two sandwiches, potato chips, a piece of cake wrapped in waxed paper, and boxed juice from a brown paper bag. “Man, can she grub!”

On the way home from school he walked through the alleys of his town, Fresno, kicking cans. He was lost in a dream, trying to figure out a way to make Estela notice him. He thought of tripping in front of her while she was leaving her math class, but he had already tried that with a girl in sixth grade. All he did was rip his pants and bruise his knee, which kept him from playing in the championship soccer game. And that girl had just stepped over him as he lay on the ground, the shame of rejection reddening his face.

He thought of going up to Estela and saying, in his best James Bond voice, “Camacho. José Camacho, at your service.” He imagined she would say, “Right-o.” Then they would go off together and talk in code.

He even tried doing his homework. Estela was in his history class, and so he knew she was as bright as a cop’s flashlight shining in your face. While they were studying Egypt, José amazed the teacher, Mrs. Flores, when he scored twenty out of twenty on a quiz. Then he scored eighteen out of twenty when she retested him the same day because she thought that he had cheated.

“Mrs. Flores, I studied hard—¡de veras! You can call my mom,” he argued, his feelings hurt. And he had studied, so much that his mother had asked, “¿Qué pasó? What’s wrong?”

“I’m going to start studying,” he’d answered.