Excerpt 4 "Battlerama--Super Tweens To The Rescue"

Quickly assessing the need to make the most of their time, the search was on for the next person.  They looked everywhere until they spotted Maria in a little town in Mexico, close to the border of the United States.  Maria lived with her papa and six siblings in a small house near the bridge crossing.  Her mother had died when her youngest brother was born and she and her siblings had to take care of each other.  Each day they would wander near the bridge to see if they could earn money from the tourists.  Sometimes they did really well—they would have enough to buy food for two days and sometimes they barely made enough for one meal.  Maria’s papa was not an educated man and this caused problems in getting work, but he was willing to work.  Sometimes he spent days away from the family working for other people doing whatever odd jobs he could.  He made him miserable to know that his children had to help support them, but he was grateful they did.  He kept hoping that one day, his children would be able to move to the other side of the bridge and have a good life.

Maria was not the oldest sibling.  She had an older brother—Juan, who was involved in other things and was never home.  When he did come home, he didn’t want to be there, but he would always leave a bit of money for them; especially when Papa was away from home.  Maria was not sure, but she always thought Juan was doing something illegal.  She was always fearful when he came to the house because he never came alone and she did not like the way his companions looked at her.

She prayed often.  Her mother had taken her to church before she died and told her it was very important to pray. 

"Dios padre en el cielo, por favor ayuda papá encontrar buen trabajo para no tener que dejarnos en paz durante mucho tiempo". (“Father God in Heaven, please help Papa find good work so he does not have to leave us alone for a long time.”)

The Wisteria were touched by her prayers and they saw her heart and understood how much she wished she could communicate with her dead mother.  There was nothing they could do about that, but they could train her to be used in another capacity. They moved on, knowing that Maria needed to be trained soon since Juan was not aware of the thoughts in the minds of his amigos.