Chapter 1

D ad says punk rock only comes in one volume: loud. So when I slipped my headphones over my ears, I turned the music up until bass strings thumped, cymbals hissed, and guitar strings squealed like they were having a conversation with each other. Mom says my music is a racket, but to me it’s like the theme music to my life. And it’s always helped me concentrate.

I ripped a page out of a magazine, then squeezed my fingers inside the blue plastic holes of an old pair of school scissors. It was a little too close for comfort, but my real scissors, the ones made of steel with a black handle, were packed away, and I had to get this done. It was now or never.

I maneuvered the blades carefully around the page. I liked the feeling of the scissors slicing through the glossy paper. Especially when I got to the very last snip and freed the exact piece I wanted. The word I cut out stuck to my sweaty fingertips, and I carefully placed it on the floor, where my zine supplies were spread out around me.

There were sheets of unlined paper and old magazines Dad had given me, an uncapped purple glue stick, and a folder so fat with clip art that papers spilled out of the opening. The yellow Whitman’s Sampler box that held my colored pencils, stickers, and scraps of paper still smelled of chocolate but no longer contained a delicious assortment of candy.

While hunched over the magazine, looking for more letters to cut out, a pair of leather-sandaled feet suddenly appeared. I looked up at Mom, who stood over me in her HECHO EN MEXICO T-shirt and a knee-length gauzy skirt. Her lips moved, but her words were no match for my music. Finally she pointed to her ears.

“SuperMexican strikes again,” I said, pulling the headphones down around my neck.

SuperMexican is my nickname for Mom. She’s always trying to school me on stuff about Mexico and Mexican American people. I think her main goal in life is to make me into her ideal Mexican American señorita. Plus, she likes to wear these embroidered dresses and skirts, and wraps called rebozos. I call this her SuperMexican uniform. Mom acts like it annoys her, but I think she secretly likes the nickname.

“Funny,” Mom said. “You all done packing?”

“I guess.” I glanced over at the pile of boxes and bags next to the door.

Mom told me to bring everything I needed but not to overpack, which didn’t make any sense. My room wasn’t my room without my things. There were only a few belongings I decided to leave behind, and they became the only signs that I’d ever lived here. I felt like someone had taken a giant Pink Pearl eraser and rubbed me out of the picture.

“Great,” Mom said. “Your dad will be here in an hour, so get ready.”

“I am ready.” I looked down at my T-shirt and shorts.

Mom’s eyes moved over my clothes with their super-scanning powers, looking for holes, stains, and other un-señorita-like offenses to point out. But before she could comment on anything, she noticed the magazine I was cutting.

“Malú, that’s not my new magazine that just came in the mail, is it?”

I gave Mom an unapologetic smirk to let her know that it was.

“I’ll take that, thank you very much,” she said, holding out her hand. “If you need magazines, check the recycling bin.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and saluted before I handed her the copy of Bon Appétit .

I put my headphones back on and grabbed a blank sheet of paper. I had to get this zine done before Dad came to pick me up.

I started making zines earlier this year when I discovered Dad’s collection of punk music zines from his high school days. Zines are self-published booklets, like homemade magazines, and they can be about anything—not just punk. There are zines about all kinds of topics, like video games and candy and skateboarding. A zine can be a tribute to someone or something you love and nerd out about or a place to share ideas and opinions. Dad said they’re also a good way to write about what you’re thinking or feeling, kind of like a diary that you share with people. Mine are mostly about stuff I find interesting or want to know more about. But ever since Mom told me we were moving, a lot of my zines had become about that.

Mom made it seem like this move was no big deal because we’d be back when her new job contract expired. But two years might as well be forever. Two years meant all of middle school. And I couldn’t even imagine what two years away from Dad would feel like. It was a very big deal. So for the next hour I wrote and cut and pasted a final plea to Mom. I glued the last letter onto a page just as the doorbell rang to signal that my time was up.