Falling Short

Marco, who narrates the chapters bearing his name, envies Isaac’s luck in having a mother who is a good cook. Back in his own house, he confesses to his mother that he already ate at Isaac’s house. As she clears away the unappetizing breakfast she has set out for him, she jokes that he should bring her a plate next time. He thinks about the arguing he overheard from next door the night before and thinks about how his father, in contrast with Isaac’s father, would never fight with his mother about custody because he is uninterested in Marco. Marco thinks about the upcoming school year and resolves to become more involved in athletics so that his father will finally be proud of him.

Isaac gets into Marco’s mom’s van; Amá runs out to give him his lunch. He is disappointed in himself that he has already forgotten something. After nearly failing fifth grade last year, he worries that, at some point, his disappointed and overburdened mother will simply give up on him. Isaac is impressed by how busy and exciting the middle school seems. He urges Marco to carry his backpack like everyone else is doing, but Marco explains that kids are not supposed to carry more than 15% of their body weight. He demonstrates the rolling backpack’s smooth operation again, and Isaac gives up.

They head inside to pick up their schedules; Isaac notices that Marco’s backpack keeps clipping other students in the crowded hallways. Marco has trouble navigating among the much larger students, and he comments that they are “like sharks.” Isaac explains that Marco classifies people according to a fish-based system: “aggressives,” are like betta fish, “semi-aggressives” are like fish that coexist peacefully unless provoked, and “community fish” are the peaceful ones who get along with everyone. Marco sees Isaac as a “community fish,” but Isaac wonders if he is “semi-aggressive.” When they look at their schedules, they realize that the only class they will share is PE. Isaac can see that Marco is worried about not having Isaac around all day, and he gives Marco a friendly pep talk, promising that they will meet up at lunch.

On the way to his first class, Marco is relieved to see his friends, Mauricio and Amanda, but he is disappointed to learn that they are not in any of his honors classes. Wishing he could be in regular classes with his friends, he continues alone. He stops to use the bathroom. A tall boy with frosted tips on his hair makes fun of him for using the lowest urinal, telling him he is “cute” and a “big boy” for going to the bathroom all by himself. When the boy holds up his hand for a high-five, Marco tries to show that he is unphased by returning the high-five, but he must jump up to complete it as the boy mockingly raises his hand even higher. On his way out of the bathroom, Marco points out that he did not wash his hands before returning the high-five, and the boy’s friends laugh.

By the time Marco finds his first classroom, he is a little late and even more nervous. He is delighted to meet his first-period teacher, Mr. Slaughter, however. Not only is Mr. Slaughter funny and kind, but he is also very short for an adult man—only about half a foot taller than Marco. Marco meets three other students, Oscar, Jorge, and Orlando, and he discovers that they have a lot in common. He begins to feel much more positive about middle school.

In his first-period language arts class, Isaac meets a boy called Alexxander, who goes by the nickname “Dos Equis.” This nickname makes Isaac uncomfortable, because his father, who has an alcohol addiction, often drinks a beer with this name. Dos Equis tells Isaac that the teacher, Mrs. Kempe, is very nice and does not give homework. They realize that they have played basketball against one another before and look forward to being on the middle school team together.

Isaac is relieved when it is time to meet Marco for lunch. He spots some teammates from fifth-grade basketball first: Nick, Luis, Ryan, and Saul. Although he wants to catch up with them, he decides he should find Marco. Marco is sitting with Oscar, Jorge, and Orlando, and they invite Isaac to join them. Isaac feels out of place with these polite, scholarly students and wishes he could sit with his teammates, but he sits down and tries to keep up with their conversation about coding. Finally, feeling embarrassed and out of his depth, he pretends to be uninterested in the lunch Amá packed for him and excuses himself to get a snack, killing time in the line until the bell rings.

By midday, Marco is enthusiastic about middle school. He has many new friends and has been invited to join the robotics team. Instead of doing this, however, he thinks he will try to find a sport to join. After lunch, he goes to the locker room for PE. He is nervous when he realizes that eighth graders are also dressing for class, and he feels even worse when he sees that his assigned locker is very close to the locker the boy with frosted tips whom he encountered earlier is using. He reads the name written on the boy’s gym shorts: Byron Miller. As Marco begins to get dressed for class, feeling self-conscious about his out-of-shape body, Byron points and laughs. Before Byron can say anything, however, Mr. Chavez enters to get class started and makes it clear that he will not tolerate any bad behavior in the locker room. Marco watches Byron’s reaction and thinks that Mr. Chavez’s rules may not have much effect on Byron.

When Isaac gets to the locker room for PE, he realizes that he has left the paper with his locker combination at home and is disappointed in himself again. He sees Dos Equis getting dressed for the same PE class and strikes up a conversation; when Dos Equis invites him to sit at his table for lunch the next day, he declines, even though he is excited at the idea of getting to know the eighth graders with whom Dos Equis is friends. He does not want to abandon Marco. Dos Equis makes a rude remark about Marco and his friends being “dorks,” and Isaac is upset.

He is happy to see that Ryan, Saul, Luis, and Nick are also in his gym class. Once the class is outside, Mr. Chavez has them run laps. Isaac runs with Marco, even though Marco is slower than nearly everyone in the class. Byron starts making fun of Marco, calling his rolling backpack a “cooler” and then suggesting that Isaac can use it as a stroller for Marco. Marco looks hurt, and Isaac leaves him behind, intent on humiliating Byron and his other eighth-grade friends by beating them on the track. Isaac runs hard and beats them, but he has run so hard that he ends up throwing up on Mr. Chavez’s shoes.

Marco feels bad that Isaac made himself sick trying to punish Byron for making fun of Marco and has now been sent to the nurse’s office. He continues running with the rest of the class, but he finishes last and is alone when he heads to the water fountain afterward. Byron and his friends catch him there, and Byron picks him up and carries him to the entrance of the gym. One of Byron’s friends wraps Marco up in a sweatshirt. They carry him around like he is a baby, and several other students see it happening but do not intervene. Byron pulls Marco’s shorts down partway, pretending to check to see if he has “had an accident” (62). Nick and Ryan see what is happening and tell Byron and his friends to stop. Nick pretends that he has recorded everything on his phone and will show it to the principal if Byron ever bothers Marco again.

Isaac is glad to see that the nurse at the middle school is Ms. Ornelas, the nurse from his former elementary school. Ms. Ornelas tells him he will need to have a parent come to pick him up. He knows that Amá will be too busy running her restaurant to come to get him, so he agrees that she can call his apá, who should be able to step away from his work supervising his contracting crew. As the minutes tick by, Isaac tries to make excuses for his father taking so long to pick him up, but Ms. Ornelas tells him that when she called, his father said it was his day off and he was not far away. Isaac is used to his father forgetting his commitments, but he is embarrassed that it is happening in front of Ms. Ornelas. He also worries that his father will be drunk. Isaac is aware that his mother has told Apá that he cannot see Isaac when he has been drinking and that she has threatened to end their visits if Apá cannot abide by this condition.

In the locker room, Mr. Chavez, who is also the basketball coach, announces that tryouts for the team will be next week. Because he has seen them play in elementary school, he tells Nick and Ryan that he expects to see them there, but it becomes clear that he has confused Ryan with Isaac. They explain that the player Mr. Chavez is most excited about is the same boy who threw up on him earlier. After Mr. Chavez leaves, Ryan suggests that Marco also try out. Marco tries to explain that he is not a basketball player, but the way he explains it is unintentionally confusing, and they end up thinking he is a great player. They compare him to a famously small professional basketball player, Muggsy Bogues, and begin calling him “Mugs.” Marco is so caught up in their excitement that he decides he will learn to play before tryouts and try to make the team.

After an entire hour passes, Isaac’s father finally shows up to get him. Isaac immediately realizes his father has been drinking and gets shaky with nerves. When Ms. Ornelas asks Apá to sign Isaac out, Isaac quickly takes care of it, trying to keep as much distance between the two adults as possible. He does not want Ms. Ornelas to smell the alcohol on his father. Fortunately, just as it looks like she is getting suspicious and taking a step toward Apá, Ms. Ornelas gets called away to take a wheelchair to a girl who has sprained her ankle. Isaac finally feels like he can breathe again.

After school, Marco decides to focus on the positive parts of his day when he tells his mother about it. She is surprised when he tells her why Nick and Ryan are calling him “Mugs.” She tells him, not for the first time, about his father’s successful high school basketball career. Marco remembers the last time his father ever visited him at home; his father was disgusted that Marco would spend time baking and kicked Marco’s crossed legs, telling him to “sit like a man” (84). Once he is home, Marco researches basketball on the computer, taking copious notes. He hurries through dinner and then goes over to Isaac’s to practice shooting the ball using Isaac’s hoop. He practices for hours but does not make a single basket.

Isaac’s father has made him promise never to get in a vehicle with him when he has been drinking, but when Isaac sees a school police officer outside the school, he does not want to draw any attention. Because he is afraid that his father will get arrested, he quietly gets into his father’s truck. Apá offers to take him to one of his favorite restaurants, Don Francisco’s, but Isaac declines. He asks to go to his father’s new apartment because it is close. This way, his father will be off the road quickly.

Isaac thinks about how his father’s drinking got out of control after the deaths of his father and sister. He remembers how his father started disappearing for hours and the fights this would cause between his parents. Finally, Apá promised not to drink in front of Isaac, which meant that Isaac saw less and less of his father. Inside his father’s apartment, Isaac sees a huge new television and a fancy reclining sofa. His father shows him a refrigerator full of soda and Lunchables, saying that all these things are his way of trying to make the apartment somewhere Isaac wants to spend time. Suddenly, Isaac feels much better.