Free Lunch

Content Warning: The Chapter 5 Summary describes a tapeworm infection. The Chapter 10 Summary includes a racial slur.

Rex tries to call his abuela and finds the line dead. His mother refuses to pay the phone bill and tells him to call her collect instead. Rex reluctantly does so, and is happy to talk to his abuela, whom he finds kind and warm—the opposite of his mother. When she asks about his first day of school, Rex complains that everyone around him seems rich and has things that he doesn’t—“like being at the mall with no money” (28). Abuela tells him that he is strong and smart, and that he needs to work hard to achieve greater things in life. Rex understands but continues to complain. Abuela tells him a childhood story from when she lived in a house with a dirt floor. One of her sisters became infected with a tapeworm, and she and her mother pulled it out together.

Rex goes to Walmart to buy school supplies with his mother after Abuela sent him 40 dollars (of which Luciana took 20). Luciana complains about every item on Rex’s list, calling everything too expensive or unnecessary, and buying Rex the bare minimum.