Tumble - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Celia C. Pérez is the author of The First Rule of Punk, a 2018 Pura Belpré Author Honor Book; Strange Birds, a 2020 Rise: A Feminist Book Project List Selection; and Tumble, which received six starred reviews and is an NPR Best Book of 2022. She lives in Chicago with her family, where in addition to writing books about lovable weirdos and outsiders, she works as a librarian. When she was in middle school, she filled diaries with recaps of televised wrestling matches. Visit her at celiacperez.com.

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Chapter 1

I bit into a french fry, one of those tiny crunchy pieces that always make their way to the bottom of the pile, just as Apollo slammed a folding chair across The Eagle’s back. The small TV on the shelf behind the counter was muted, and while I couldn’t hear the whack of metal against muscle, it startled me anyway. I flinched and jabbed myself with a shard of potato so hard that my eyes watered.

“Uyyyy,” Alex said. He peered up at the TV from the flat-top grill and let out a slow whistle. “El Águila is getting his butt kicked again, eh, Adelita?”

“Yeah,” I said. I ran my tongue over the fresh cut on the roof of my mouth. “Again.”

“Maybe he’ll win this one, right?” Alex winked at me and cracked an egg into a bowl.

I watched as he attacked the egg with a fork. Alex said the key to making a good scrambled egg was to keep the heat low and to beat the egg before pouring it into the pan. In general, I found the idea of eating eggs gross, but even I had to admit that Alex made a fine scrambled egg. Still, when he caught my eye and motioned to the runny glob he was cooking, I shook my head.

Bacon grease popped and snapped on the grill as Apollo smacked the palm of his hand across The Eagle’s chest. A sizzle and the scrape of a spatula accompanied The Eagle bouncing off the ropes, zipping across the ring, and attempting a failed clothesline. My insides jumped as if the mat, which vibrated with each impact, were sitting in the middle of my stomach.

On-screen, The Eagle showed no signs of winning this one. He struggled to get up, only to be met with the toe of Apollo’s golden boot. He didn’t stand a chance.

“Why does The Eagle always have to lose?” I asked.

“Because he’s a jobber,” Alex said, not looking up from the grill.

“What’s a jobber?”

“A jobber puts over the other wrestler,” Alex explained as The Eagle tried to untangle himself from the ropes.

“Plain English, please.”

“It means his job is to lose and make the other guy look good,” Alex said. “He’s not a heel nor a face. Not a bad guy and not a good guy. Just—”

“—a jobber,” I finished.

Unlike Apollo, who was definitely the good guy. He’s the one you’re supposed to want to win. But Apollo had enough people cheering for him already, so I found myself going for the masked luchador. Mom says someone has to root for the underdog. That someone is me.

While The Eagle slowly got up and rolled back into the ring, Apollo climbed to the top turnbuckle and waited like he was the bird of prey. I knew what was coming next. Wrestling might look like chaos, just a couple of people brawling, but it’s a ballet. And anyone who was a fan would know that the final curtain was about to drop.

Sure enough, when The Eagle stood and turned, Apollo pushed off like his boots had springs, flying through the air in his signature closing move, the Sunset.

“And that’s liiiiights OUT!” Alex yelled, just like the ringside announcer did every time Apollo finished off an opponent. He slashed his spatula through the air for dramatic effect.

“Hey,” I said with a frown. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

“Yours, Adelita.” He pointed at me with the spatula. “Always.”

I rolled my eyes. Alex was my stepfather. He was supposed to say mushy stuff like that.

Alex lifted his Albuquerque Isotopes baseball cap, revealing the shiny bald spot that had expanded over the years, the area of hair on his head shrinking like a polar glacier. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand before pulling the cap on.

“Order up!” he yelled, smashing the bell on the counter.

On the TV screen, The Eagle lay motionless in the ring. Get up get up get up. I thought the words so hard, I was giving myself a headache.

The referee dropped down next to the wrestlers and started the count. 

“One!” He slapped his hand against the mat.

Get up.

“Two!” The crowd was counting along with him now.

Get. Up.

“Three!” 

The bell rang, signaling the end of the match. Apollo stood and pumped his fists in victory while the audience cheered and whistled in appreciation.

In the grainy image, I could see The Eagle’s belly rise and fall with each heavy breath, like a ball of unbaked dough. He rolled over on his side, and the camera zoomed in on him. His spotted gold-and-brown mask was slightly twisted. Something about the way the mouth and eye holes didn’t line up with his face made me feel sad for him. He looked like a helpless little kid who needed an adult to fix his costume. I wanted to reach through the TV and straighten him out.

I slumped on my stool, feeling like I’d lost too. I looked away from the screen and pushed my fries around on the plate, making a french fry face on what was left of my pancake syrup.

The door to the kitchen swung open, and Mom came out of the back, pulling her curly dark hair up into a messy ponytail. Her T-shirt rose a bit, exposing her stomach, the tight skin like a big brown balloon ready to pop.

“Mom,” I whispered.

“What?” she whispered back.

I widened my eyes in the direction of her midsection.

“Oh.” She laughed and pulled down on her shirt. “I thought I felt a draft.”

“Not funny,” I said.

“Ay ay ay.” Mom groaned and made a face at the TV, where The Pounding Fathers rode in on horseback while “The Star-Spangled Banner” played. “They could at least be historically accurate,” she said. “The Founding Fathers came before ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’”

“It’s not supposed to be historically accurate,” I said. “They’re zombies.”

“And the zombies come after the apocalypse,” Alex added. “Everyone knows that.”

Mom and I looked at each other and shook our heads.

“Does this have to be on all the time?” Mom asked, reaching across the counter and switching off the TV.

“It does,” Alex said. “This is wrasslin’ country, lady.”

And it was. Roswell had its aliens. Albuquerque had its hot-air balloons. We had wrestling. Lots of people came into Esperanza, one town over, for Cactus Wrestling League matches at the arena. The diner stayed open later on the weekends to feed hungry fans after the matches. The menu was even separated into two sections: The Undercard—breakfast and lunch—and The Main Event, which was dinner, of course.

Alex had grown up a wrestling fan. The wall across from the counter was decorated with lucha libre masks he picked up at events in Esperanza and on trips to Mexico. His old wrestling action figures sat on the shelves behind the counter, flexing their muscles between big jars of homemade salsa and pickled peppers and plastic tubs of spices. His most prized possession was a signed and framed black-and-white photo of André the Giant that was propped up on a shelf above the flat top. Next to it was a color photo of Alex as a little boy standing next to the seven-foot-four wrestler, who had visited the diner after an event in Esperanza. On the other side of the signed photo was an André the Giant action figure. The whole thing was a shrine to his favorite wrestler.

It was hard not to be a wrestling fan in the Dos Pueblos area—the neighboring towns of Thorne, where we...