“Don't cry, Margarita.”
It was a dream—a memory—and she knew it. Every bit of detail was there: the rhythmic hammer blows bouncing their staccato notes off the plasticrete floor and walls. The cold seeping out of the nearby crack in the corner of the garage/basement. Big Brother Guillermo's hand patting her shoulder.
He wasn't really her brother--not biologically anyway. Guillermo and Raoul were actually her cousins.
]It didn't change the fact that they belonged to her family as far back as her earliest memories went, and called Father “Pappa” and Mother “Momma” too. They also had teased her all the time about being a “girl” and a “princess”, never once had they bullied her about her size or features.
On reflection, that might have been why one of her first mistaken beliefs were that all 'boys' were Human and all 'girls' were Trolls...
As she remembered, the hammering stopped, followed closely by the rattle of tools. Guillermo straightened up and looked toward the center of the shop, hidden from her place in the corner by stacks of tires, drums of lubricant and a solvent tank. “Any luck, Poppa?”
“No need for luck...good as new. See?”
Guillermo looked relieved. She'd taken it as a hopeful sign and stood up to take a look herself.
There, in her father's strong, calloused hands was the frame of her hand-built tricycle—her birthday present.
A mere hour before, it had looked like a pile of cooked soy-getti noodles. It still had various marks of vice-clamp and hammer, and the paint was a lost cause (all fixed later). She hadn't cared. To her, Poppa had brought her freedom--her first step into the mystical speeds of the bicycled—back from the dead.
“Thank you Poppa,” she had snuffled, her nose far too runny at that point for even a child's dignity.
“No need to thank me. Just don't make it a habit, Kiddo” he added, but even then she knew he was happy.
“Oh, I don't know about that,” Momma answered from the door. Margarita had yet to figure out how her gigantic, hulking, wonderful mother could enter a closed room without being noticed. Raoul (easily) convinced her during most of her childhood that Momma was a Special Agent for the gift-giving Father Christmas. The Munoz matron took the Big portion of the steps down to the shop floor, pulling a handkerchief from her apron. After making quick work of her daughter's face, she grinned and whispered (loud enough for the whole room) “I think your Poppa deserves more than a 'thank you'. I think this calls for a great big hug.”
Margarita had needed no further encouragement. Years later, she would have to tone back her enthusiasm for his safety, cherishing the earlier opportunities to give all the affection she could muster.
Poppa got no kiss on the cheek however: she was still learning that talent. Her 'baby' tusks had grown out far enough to fully bypass her lips and perforating her mouth just by eating or speaking happened less frequently...but still.
“As for habits,” Momma continued after a length of time that only mothers can gauge as appropriate, “Raoul told me you freely loaned your trike. Is this true?”
“Yes Momma. But--”
“But?” Dragons hoped one day to be as fear-inspiring as Margarita's mother, much less do so in cut-offs, a t-shirt and an apron.
Margarita remembered the confusion. “Timmy Turnbull said he just wanted to have a ride, and he didn't have a bicycle, and you tell Raoul and Guillermo to share with me when I don't have things...”
“That's true, but the boys don't loan you their bikes, do they?”
“Guillermo did. But I don't know how to ride.”
“I said 'Okay' to make you shut up!” In spite of herself Margarita felt like laughing at the memory of Guillermo's panic. “Because I knew you didn't know how to ride!”
The sigh Momma released had sounded like a judge's gavel. Still, she had gone to one knee to pass judgment: “Kiddo, listen closely. Sharing is still a good thing, but not everyone is good at sharing.”
“Really?”
“Sad, but true. You will meet some people in life that will treat your 'sharing' as...something else. So, I'd like you to take two lessons to heart. Learn them, or you'll fix the next 'shared' thing yourself. Am I clear?”
“Yes Momma.”
“Good. The First Lesson is this,” her mother's eyes were dark and serious. “If you're going to 'share' something, look deep, deep into your heart and ask yourself--”
“...ask myself...”
“Will it make me sad if I never get it back? Or if I do get it back, but it's all messed up? If the answer is 'Yes', then 'it' is too special to share and you shouldn't, no matter how much the other person wants you to.”
“Yes Momma.” Later 'Lessons' would include advice on Sharing special things with family and close friends, Intangible things as special things and How to keep the number of Too-Special-to-Share things to a reasonable number, but Margarita couldn't fault her mother's advice to the child she was.
“Good. The second lesson is from Guillermo.”
Margarita remembered the surprise from not only her, but the whole room. “A lesson from him?”
There it was; the twinkle in Momma's eye. “If someone makes you 'share' what you don't want to, make sure they can't go farther or faster than you.”
The Second Lesson was quickly tested and expanded on the next time she went to ride. True to the First Lesson, Margarita had refused to share a second time with Timmy. He tried to take it from her; it was a struggle, but she managed to flip the trike over and add her weight to it. Timmy left.
She had the trike righted when Timmy returned with friends.
Friends with baseball bats.
Margarita pulled her thoughts away from that particular memory; there was no need to relive a nightmare if one could help it. It could have been much, much worse: Raoul and Guermo had reached her. She escaped damage to anything vital.
Still...
The corner of her right eye socket had been fractured. Her right arm and leg pulped. Both hands little more than gloves filled with gelatin and jigsaw puzzle pieces.
Pain Killers kept the early stages of recuperation blessedly blank.
What she could remember of that time was the palpable sorrow from her family and the love and attention they lavished on her.
...And the restrictive confinement of her casts. And the sheer boredom and sameness of the walls of her room. Her brothers tired their best to help but stories, crafts and trid could only do so much. Even the new datajack that her parents had included during her 'down time' lost its novelty.
She had been at the end of her pre-schooler-sized wits by the end of her first conscious week. The last straw was learning that Poppa and the boys had been busy in the shop and had finished a couple of hobby motorcycles. Margarita had been sure that her life was over; chasing her brothers had been bad enough when their two-wheelers required their own power.
Poppa's 'surprise' was clearly foreseen and orchestrated; the datajack the dead giveaway. Still, she remembered his triumphant entrance into her room, the simple rigger control console in his arms. “This may not be the best way to learn to get around, but it should give you a chance to practice...”
It would be months before she actually got to see the actual 'body' of the three-wheeled trike drone she drove all over the neighborhood. That was probably for the best...Poppa's retooling of her tricycle for remote control and electric drive turned the 'rear' wheels into the trike's front and steering. It was no wonder the times she would start to move out, only to have Raoul jump to intercept: it looked like a runaway toy, forever in reverse.
Maybe it was silly—even childish—back then. Her father could have designed and built a better training drone from scratch.
Now, she wouldn't have had it any other way. Not for the message it sent.
And not for the lessons it taught her about herself. Thanks to the power of remote control, her slow, gangly body was unnecessary to get up to speeds where the world was a blur passing around her. With practice, time and a little patience no obstacle was insurmountable. Her horizons were limited only by her imagination.
And yet, she realized over time, it left her too detached: only her trike drone went and did and saw. She wasn't really there.
And she really wanted to be there, too.
The pounding on her apartment door jarred her back from sleep. “Get your troll hoop outa there right now! I said no pets, and I mean NO PETS!”
An extra pound on the door assured Margarita that a) hers was the door in question and not a theoretical neighbor troll's, and b) the idiot beyond was not intending to break it down. she wrestled her still-foggy thoughts into order. 'What pet is he talking about?'
Then her stomach growled. Of course.
She made a cursory scan of the room: everything important was properly stashed out of sight. The thud as she rolled out of her hammock stopped the door-drumming. She crossed the room swiftly; the last thing she wanted was to let her landlord inhale enough for a long, top-of-his-lungs rant. A short top-of-his-lungs rant was plenty.
Margarita thought of the last home cooked breakfast she'd had with her family, opened the door and leaned out.
He recoiled, but stopped himself from taking more than a half step back. “I said No Pets--”
Her gut roared through the polar fleece of her pajamas.
Even she was a little surprised. Her landlord went pale.
“No pets here” she grunted, then pulled back and closed the door.
Margarita waited until she heard him walk away before crossing the room to the kitchenette. There was no point trying to sleep. Sleep wasn't going to keep her fed.
...Or get her wheels.
...Or get her a job. Well, a constant money-maker, anyway.
Still, she grinned to herself. This was simply a setback: after taking two-steps forward and two steps back, the proper response? Take three steps.
“Time to get to work.”
