Manuel was the fourth of seven children and looked like a lot of kids in his neighborhood: black hair, brown face, and skinny legs scuffed from summer play. But summer was giving way to fall: the trees were turning red, the lawns brown, and the pomegranate trees were heavy with fruit. Manuel walked to school in the frosty morning, kicking leaves and thinking of tomorrow’s talent show. He was still amazed that he had volunteered. He was going to pretend to sing Ritchie Valens’s “La Bamba” before the entire school.
Why did I raise my hand? he asked himself, but in his heart he knew the answer. He yearned for the limelight. He wanted applause as loud as a thunderstorm, and to hear his friends say, “Man, that was bad!” And he wanted to impress the girls, especially Petra Lopez, the second-prettiest girl in his class. The prettiest girl was already taken by his friend Ernie. Manuel knew he should be reasonable, since he himself was not great-looking, just average.
Manuel kicked through the fresh-fallen leaves. When he got to school he realized he had forgotten his math workbook. If the teacher found out, he would have to stay after school and miss practice for the talent show. But fortunately for him, they did drills that morning.
During lunch Manuel hung around with Benny, who was also in the talent show. Benny was going to play the trumpet in spite of the fat lip he had gotten playing football.
“How do I look?” Manuel asked. He cleared his throat and started moving his lips in pantomime. No words came out, just a hiss that sounded like a snake. Manuel tried to look emotional, flailing his arms on the high notes and opening his eyes and mouth as wide as he could when he came to “Para bailer la baaaaammmba.”
After Manuel finished, Benny said it looked all right, but he suggested Manuel dance while he sang. Manuel thought for a moment and decided it was a good idea.
“Yeah, just think you’re like Michael Jackson or someone like that,” Benny suggested. “But don’t get carried away.”
During rehearsal, Mr. Roybal, nervous about his debut as the school’s talent coordinator, cursed under his breath when the lever that controlled the speed on the record player jammed.
“Darn,” he growled, trying to force the lever. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Is it broken?” Manuel asked, bending over for a closer look. It looked all right to him.
1.
Mr. Roybal assured Manuel that he would have a good record player at the talent show, even if it meant bringing his own stereo from home.
Manuel sat in a folding chair, twirling his record on his thumb. He watched a skit about personal hygiene, a mother-and-daughter violin duo, five first-grade girls jumping rope, a karate kid breaking boards, three girls singing “Like a Virgin,” and a skit about the pilgrims. If the record player hadn’t broken, he would have gone after the karate kid, an easy act to follow, he told himself.
As he twirled his forty-five record, Manuel thought they had a great talent show. The entire school would be amazed. His mother and father would be proud, and his brothers and sisters would be jealous and pout. It would be a night to remember.
Benny walked onto the stage, raised his trumpet to his mouth, and waited for his cue. Mr. Roybal raised his hand like a symphony conductor and let it fall dramatically. Benny inhaled and blew so loud that Manuel dropped his record, which rolled across the cafeteria floor until it hit a wall. Manuel raced after it, picked it up, and wiped it clean.
“Boy, I’m glad it didn’t break,” he said with a sigh.
That night Manuel had to do the dishes and a lot of homework, so he could only practice in the shower. In bed he prayed that he wouldn’t mess up. He prayed that it wouldn’t be like when he was a first-grader. For Science Week he had wired together a C battery and a bulb, and told everyone he had discovered how a flashlight worked. He was so pleased with himself that he practiced for hours pressing the wire to the battery, making the bulb wink a dim, orangish light. He showed it to so many kids in his neighborhood that when it was time to show his class how a flashlight worked, the battery was dead. He pressed the wire to the battery, but the bulb didn’t respond. He pressed until his thumb hurt and some kids in the back started snickering.
But Manuel fell asleep confident that nothing would go wrong this time.
The next morning his father and mother beamed at him. They were proud that he was going to be in the talent show.
“I wish you would tell us what you’re doing,” his mother said. His father, a pharmacist who wore a blue smock with his name on a plastic rectangle, looked up from the newspaper and sided with his wife. “Yes, what are you doing in the talent show?”
“You’ll see,” Manuel said with his mouth full of Cheerios.
2.
The day whizzed by, and so did his afternoon chores and dinner. Suddenly he was dressed in his clothes and standing next to Benny backstage listening to the commotion as the cafeteria filled with school kids and parents. The lights dimmed, and Mr. Roybal, sweaty in a tight suit and a necktie with a large knot, wet his lips and parted the stage curtains.
“Good evening, everyone,” the kids behind the curtain heard him say. “Good evening to you,” some of the smart-alecky kids said back to him.
“Tonight we bring you the best John Burroughs Elementary has to offer, and I’m sure that you’ll be both pleased and amazed that our little school houses so much talent. And now, without further ado, let’s get on with the show.” He turned and, with a swish of his hand, commanded, “Part the curtain.” The curtains parted in jerks. A girl dressed as a toothbrush and a boy dressed as a dirty gray tooth walked onto the stage and sang:
Brush, brush, brush
Floss, floss, floss
Gargle the germs away—hey! hey! hey!
After they finished singing, they turned to Mr. Roybal, who dropped his hand. The toothbrush dashed around the stage after the dirty tooth, which was laughing and having a great time until it slipped and nearly rolled off the stage.
Mr. Roybal jumped out and caught it just in time. “Are you OK?”
The dirty tooth answered, “Ask my dentist,” which drew laughter and applause from the audience.
The violin duo played next, and except for one time when the girl got lost, they sounded fine. People applauded, and some even stood up. Then the first-grade girls maneuvered onto the stage while jumping rope. They were all smiles and bouncing ponytails as a hundred cameras flashed at once. Mothers “awhed” and fathers sat up proudly.
The karate kid was next. He did a few kicks, yells, and chops, and finally, when his father held up a board, punched it in two. The audience clapped and looked at each other, wide-eyed with respect. The boy bowed to the audience, and father and son ran off the stage.
Manuel remained behind the stage shivering with fear. He mouthed the words to “La Bamba” and swayed from left to right. Why did he raise his hand and volunteer? Why couldn’t he have just say there like the rest of the kids and not say anything? While the karate kid was on stage, Mr. Roybal, more sweaty than before, took Manuel’s forty-five record and placed it on a new record player.
“You ready?” Mr. Roybal asked.
“Yeah…”
3.
Mr. Roybal walked back stage and announced that Manuel Gomez, a fifth-grader in Mrs. Knight’s class, was going to pantomime Richie Valens’s classic hit “La Bamba.”
The cafeteria roared with applause. Manuel was nervous but loved the noisy crowd. He pictured his mother and father applauding loudly and his brothers and sister also clapping, though not as energetically.
Manuel walked on stage and the song started immediately. Glassy-eyed from the shock of being in front of so many people, Manuel moved his lips and swayed in a made-up dance step. He couldn’t see his parents, but he could see his brother Mario, who was a year younger, thumb-wrestling with a friend. Mario was wearing Manuel’s favorite shirt; he would deal with Mario later. He saw some other kids get up and head for the drinking fountain, and a baby sitting in the middle of an aisle sucking her thumb and watching him intently.
What am I doing here? Thought Manuel. This is not fun at all. Everyone was just sitting there. Some people were moving to the beat, but most were just watching him, like they would a monkey at the zoo.
But when Manuel did a fancy dance step, there was a burst of applause and some girls screamed. Manuel tried another dance step. He heard more applause and screams and started getting into the groove as he shivered and snaked like Michael Jackson around the stage. But the record got stuck, and he had to sing
Para bailar la bamba
Para bailar la bamba
Para bailar la bamba
Para bailar la bamba
again and again.
Manuel couldn’t believe his bad luck. The audience began to laugh and stand up in their chairs. Manuel remembered how the forty-five record had dropped from his hand and rolled across the cafeteria floor. It probably got scratched, he thought, and now it was stuck, and he was stuck dancing and moving his lips to the same words over and over. He had never been so embarrassed. He would have to ask his parents to move the family out of town.
After Mr. Roybal ripped the needle across the record, Manuel slowed his dance to a halt. He didn’t know what to do except bow to the audience, which applauded wildly, and scoot off the stage, on the verge of tears. This was worse than the homemade flashlight. At least no one laughed then, they just snickered.
4.
Manuel stood alone, trying hard to hold back the tears as Benny, center stage, played his trumpet. Manuel was jealous because he sounded great, then mad as he recalled that it was Benny’s loud trumpet playing that made the forty-five record fly out of his hands. But when the entire cast lin