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have to put him on the team. Cuéllar laughed happily, blew on his fingernails and polished them on his 4A jersey, white sleeves and blue chest: you’re already on, we told him, we already got you on but don’t let it go to your head.
    In July, for the intramural championship, Brother Augustine authorized the 4A team to practice two times a week, Mondays and Fridays at the hour for drawing and music. After the second recess, when the courtyard was left empty, dampened by the drizzle, polished like a brand-new boot, the chosen eleven went down to the field, we changed uniforms and, with soccer shoes and black warm-up suits, they came out of the changing room Indian file, jogging, led by Lalo, the captain. At every schoolroom window appeared envious faces to catch a glimpse of them running laps, there was a cold breeze wrinkling the water of the swimming pool (would you go swimming? after the match, not now, brrr it’s cold), of their goal kicks, and stirring the crowns of the eucalyptus and fig trees in the park peeping over the academy’s yellow wall, of their penalty kicks, and the morning flew by: great practice, said Cuéllar, terrific, we’ll win. An hour later Brother Luke blew his whistle and, while the classrooms were emptying out and the grades were lining up in the courtyard, we team members got dressed to go home for lunch. But Cuéllar lagged behind because (you copy all the pro shots, said Chingolo, who’d ya think ya are? Toto Terry?) he always jumped into the shower after practice. Sometimes they all showered, gr-r-r, but that day, gr-r-r gr-r-r, when Judas appeared in the doorway to the locker room, gr-r-r gr-r-r gr-r-r, only Lalo and Cuéllar were washing up: gr-r-r gr-r-r gr-r-r gr-r-r. Choto, Chingolo and Manny jumped out the windows, Lalo screamed he escaped look man and he managed to shut the shower door right on the Great Dane’s snout. There, shrunk back, white tiles and trickles of water, trembling, he heard Judas’s barking, Cuéllar’s sobbing and only barking and a lot later, I swear to you (but how much later, asked Chingolo, two minutes? longer man, and Choto five? longer much longer), Brother Luke’s booming voice, Brother Leoncio’s curses (in Spanish, Lalo? yeah, and in French too, did you understand him? no, but you could tell they were curses, stupid, from the anger in his voice), the shits, the my Gods, the get outs, the scrams, the get losts, the get goings, the brothers’ desperation, their terrible fright. He opened the door and already they were carrying him out, wrapped up, you could hardly see him between the black robes, passed out? yeah, naked, Lalo? yeah, and bleeding, man, I swear, it was horrible: the whole shower was pure blood. What else, what happened afterwards while I was getting dressed, Lalo asked, and Chingolo Brother Augustine and Brother Luke put Cuéllar in the school station wagon, we saw them from the stairway and Choto and Manny they tore off at high speed, honking and honking the horn like firemen, like an ambulance. Meanwhile, Brother Leoncio was chasing Judas who was racing back and forth in the yard, taking leaps and tumbles, he grabbed him and pushed him into his cage and between the wires (he wanted to kill him, Choto said, you should have seen him, it was scary) he whipped him savagely, beet red, his forelock bobbing in his face.
    That week, Sunday mass, the Friday rosary and the prayers at the beginning and end of the classes were for Cuéllar’s recovery, but the brothers got furious if the students talked among themselves about the accident, they grabbed us and a whack on the head, silence, take that, detention until six. Still, that was the only topic of conversation during recess and in classes, and the following Monday when school let out they went to visit him in the American Clinic, we saw that he didn’t have a scratch on his face or hands. He was in a nice little room, hi Cuéllar, white walls and cream curtains, better already, pal?