Page 11 - Mateo and the Gift of Presence audio flip book Ch 1-2

The Crack

These comparisons made Mateo feel very small indeed,
and we can’t blame him for having revenge fantasies against
Alex on a fairly regular basis: Alex failing out of second grade,
Alex getting booted off the baseball team, Alex in jail. If a bully
had tried to beat up Alex after school, though, Mateo would
have rushed to his brother’s aid. Down deep inside, where it

mattered, Mateo loved him.
Fortunately, for it is never a good idea to tell a lie (you
almost always get found out), Mateo discovered how to remove
the lavender stain from his fingers. After attempting to wash
it off with soap and water, ketchup, olive oil, orange juice, and
Happy Cow Organic Meatless Beef-Flavored Barbeque Sauce
(his parents were vegetarians and strictly enforced their diet
on him), he finally discovered that soda worked. And when his
mother came into the kitchen later and found all these items

lying about (along with Mateo’s unwashed silverware, which
I’m sorry to report he left in the sink), she simply put them
away without another thought.
After he was finished eating, Mateo was eager to get back
to the crack and do some more exploring. If almost touching the
crack had made his fingers tingle and turn lavender, what would
happen if he actually did touch it?”

His fingers would turn lavender again (that much was
obvious) but he knew how to remove the color now. And perhaps
something much more spectacular would happen that would
get him out of school the next day. This idea was appealing to
Mateo because the Academic Awards Ceremony was scheduled

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