“I hope the Band-Aids work better than your bus schedule,” I grumble, but I let her blow on the scrape. I should say thank you. Instead, I say, “You’re a really slow runner.”

We stare at each other. Is our fight over? Her eyes are wet, but she’s not crying anymore.

“Mercedes.” She stretches a Band-Aid across my palm. “We need a plan.”

“We do,” I agree, “what’s your plan?”

“I think we sh—”

Whatever her plan is is interrupted by a very loud grumble coming from my stomach. And then, suddenly, like a magic spell, we’re both laughing. Coughing and laughing and sputtering.

“If it doesn’t involve food, I’m not participating,” I say. “Come on, I know where to go.”

“Fine,” she says, and helps me up.

I think we’re going to stick together.

I lead Mattie to the campus cafeteria, where the cross-country team ate after our meet last summer. Today the place is deserted, no one ordering at the counters serving different types of food: pizza, salad bar, soup, sandwich bar, ethnic.

“What’s ‘ethnic’?” Mattie asks.

“ ‘Stir-fry, enchiladas, gyros,’ ” I read. Ugh. “Ethnic is just anything that’s not burgers and pizza.”

“Like us,” Mattie says.

“What?”

“You know: we’re not just pizza and burgers. We’re half Colombian.”

I never thought about it like that. “If we’re both half Colombian,” I say to Mattie, “does that mean that together we make one whole Colombian?”

She grins. “And one whole American?”

“We’re already American. We were born here. We live here. We’re whole American.”

“But then, how can we also be half Colombian? That would make us…” Mattie calculates. “One and a half of a person.”

“Can I help you?” calls a woman with white hair tucked in a hairnet.

“Um, okay,” I say, going over to the grill counter where she smiles at us.

“Hello, you two cutie-pies.” The nametag on her white uniform says, Miss Wiz.

“Can I get a burger?” Mattie says to Miss Wiz. “Guess I’ll be my American half today,” she says to me.

“Coming right up, cupcake.” Miss Wiz smiles and I see a gold tooth flash in the back of her mouth. “How about you, honey? What I can get you?”

“Do you have vegetarian burgers?”

“We sure do. This is a liberal arts college in California.” The woman laughs as loud as a semi. “I’ll make you one fresh, sugar.” Miss Wiz turns to her grill and makes each of us a burger—gross meat for Mattie and yummy fake stuff for me. She adds a huge pile of fries and a cup of cut-up fruit to each plate. “Now you two sweeties can go up to Linda at the cash register to pay. Tell her the fries are on the house.” Miss Wiz winks. “Linda!” she calls, “the fries for these dumplings are on the house!”