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Abuelita gets up and adjusts the shawl on Mamá Coco's shoulders. She beckons Miguel to follow her, and they tiptoe out, making their way to the ofrenda room. It's set up as a memorial to their ancestors, with an altar decorated with embroidered cloth, flowers, and candles illuminating portraits of relatives who have passed away. In the flickering light, the portraits seem to move as if the ancestors were still alive. Abuelita lovingly adjusts a sepia-tinted photo of Mamá Imelda with baby Coco on her lap. A man stands beside her, but his face has been torn away. The only clue that this is the mysterious musician is a charro jacket with fancy trim, the kind that mariachis love to wear.
“Come along,” Abuelita says, and she leads Miguel across the courtyard to the shoemaking shop. Cabinets along the walls hold trays of buckles, shoelaces, brackets, threads, and chisels. Half-finished shoes hang from clotheslines, and different-sized mallets are thrown about. The floor is scuffed from so many years of the Rivera family hard at work. Even now, they are busy making shoes. Miguel's papá and tía Gloria use rivet guns to make eyelets for shoelaces. His mother and grandfather run fabric through sewing machines. Tío Berto carves into leather with a swivel knife, and Tía Carmen traces patterns on a cutting board. It's very noisy in the shop, but the tapping, punching, and sewing sound nothing like music to Miguel.
Abuelita waves her hand across the room as if showing Miguel a grand kingdom. “Music tore our family apart, but shoes have held it together.” Then she giggles to herself. “In fact,” she says, “I captured the heart of your grandfather when he realized that I made the most beautiful and comfortable cowboy boots in all of Mexico.”
“I never got blisters,” Papá Franco says.
“No one gets blisters when they wear my shoes,” Abuelita proudly announces.
“Okay, okay,” Miguel says. “Shoes. I get it.” He slips a red hoodie over his tank top, grabs a shoeshine box, and heads for the door. “Why don't I make myself useful and go shine some boots in town?”
“Be back by lunch, m'ijo,” his mamá says.
“And don't forget to use the brush on suede and the cloth on leather,” Abuelita reminds him.
“Got it!” Miguel says, rushing to shine shoes like a proper Rivera boy. But, and this is the part he's left out, he plans to shine shoes near the musicians in Mariachi Plaza!
On his way to the plaza, Miguel says hello to a woman who is whistling as she sweeps her stoop. Then he passes a lone guitarist playing a classical piece with lots of tremolo. Miguel nods with appreciation, and the man nods back. The closer Miguel gets to the plaza, the more music he hears and the happier he feels. Young girls sing while jumping rope, the slap on the sidewalk setting the tempo for their song. The church bells chime in harmony with a tune played by a street band, and when a radio blares a cumbia rhythm, Miguel does a few crossover steps to the beat.
He's humming when he reaches a pan dulce booth and grabs his favorite type of sweet bread, the cochinito, a gingerbread cookie shaped like a pig.
“Muchas gracias!” Miguel says as he tosses the vendor a coin.
“De nada, Miguel!”
As he walks along, he feels something at his leg, and when he looks down, he sees the scraggly cat from Mamá Coco's window. It scurries off, then glances back to see if Miguel is following. Where does that cat want me to go? he wonders.
He shrugs and moves on to a street vendor at a booth full of alebrijes, colorful sculptures of fantastical creatures, like lizards with feathers, rabbits with horns, and giraffes with multicolored spots. Miguel stops a moment, tapping a rhythm on the table. He's about to take a bite of pan dulce when a familiar street dog sidles up. The dog is nearly bald, with a few hairs sticking out here and there like thorns on a nopal. He goofily licks his chops because he's hungry.
Miguel breaks off the rump of the cochinito and holds it over the dog's nose. “Want some of this?” he asks, laughing.
“Roo, roo!” the dog answers.
Miguel goes through the commands he has taught the dog. “Sit, roll over, shake.” The dog performs each trick perfectly. Miguel finishes with his favorite, “Fist bump,” and he laughs as the the dog laps his long tongue against his closed hand. “Good boy, Dante!”
Miguel drops the pan dulce, and Dante gobbles it up.
