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The rain

“It seems unfair that we don’t participate. It should be a celebration, for Chaac and for everyone.”
“My child, the Council of Elders, and the shamans are the right people to invoke him. It’s been done this way for many, many moon, so many that they can’t be counted,” her grandmother told her, stroking her comfortingly.
“It’s been a long time since it rained. Water is necessary for the earth and the crops.”
“That’s how it is, my child, that’s how it is.”
“That’s why we have to have a celebration, so that we can enjoy it and it will cheer our hearts, like the rain cheers us when the crops bloom.”
Alitzel is happy; her laughter is contagious and can be heard everywhere. She’s curious and doesn’t let herself be defeated easily. When she has a goal, she strives to give her best and achieve it.
“I’m going to talk to Itze and present my idea,” she said to herself.
“Good morning, Alitzel. How are you?” “What brings you here so early?” Nikté, the chief’s wife, asked.
“Good morning. I want to talk to Itze.”
“She’s not here.”
“And when will she be back?”
“I don’t know.”
“Whew!”
“Can I help you?”
“I wanted to ask you to take my brilliant idea to the Council of Elders.”
“You’ll have to wait.”
“Thank you, Nikté.”
“Ma’alob K’iin,” she thanked him resignedly.
“Ma’alob K’iin, Alitzel.”
“Ma’alob K’iin.”

After saying goodbye and greeting each other warmly, Alitzel felt a commotion blowing in the breeze from not far away. Her curiosity and eagerness to know what was going on led her to discover that it was her friends playing happily. She immediately joined in the fun.
At one point, while spinning in circles, holding Sasil’s hands, she looked up at the sky; It was clear, and the sunlight was very bright.
“Let’s stop!” she shouted excitedly.
Sasil looked at her attentively, intrigued to know what was happening.
After telling her friends about her great idea, they began to dance and sing, imitating nature.
The frogs croaked as they called for rain, and they moved their bodies like the wind caressing the thin, slender ears of corn.
They made music by banging logs, vibrating the vines they held taut; it was a great party.
They had fun, laughed, and enjoyed themselves happily. From time to time, they invoked Chaac. They were so absorbed that they didn’t see Itze and his warriors watching them.
It didn’t take long for it to cloud over and start raining, but they didn’t stop celebrating. The water transformed the earth into mud, into clay, which they used to continue playing happily.
They were surprised. Some time later, Itze recounted what had happened to the Council of Elders. Not everyone agreed with changing the way Chaac was invoked.
“It’s not childish!” said one of the members.
“Why would Chaac respond to his call?” asked another.
“I saw it,” Itze replied, trying to convince them.
They talked and exchanged ideas, even argued, but in the end, they decided to give the new way of invoking Chaac one chance, although they weren’t entirely convinced.
Seeing this, Chaac blessed them with his refreshing and flourishing rain, and from that moment on, everything changed.

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Venti’s Curiosity

Venti is very curious. He loves to wander in the morning sun, searching for strange and unusual things, things that amaze him.
One morning, he was flying in search of some refreshing shade when, for the first time, he felt the ground move, that it might vibrate. A cloud of dust rose. His curiosity began to awaken.
“What was that strange thing going on?” he asked himself.
A loud sound startled him, took him by surprise, and almost made him fall out of the tree. If he didn’t fly with balance, he’d end up on the ground.
Because his curiosity was so strong, he decided to go in search of that strange thing.
He glided, enjoying the sun even though it was very hot. The glare bothered his eyes; that’s when he encountered that unexpected sight.
He stood in a tree by the river and rubbed his eyes, unable to believe it.
Venti knew many animals. The oxpeckers free them, clean them of all kinds of insects, ticks, and bugs. He was friends with buffalo, rhinos, impalas, zebras, and giraffes, but what was in front of him wasn’t any of them.
What could that huge rock be that moves and makes noise?
Venti remembered what his mother had told him before leaving:
“You can play and walk wherever you want, just watch out for what doesn’t You know.
Venti’s curiosity was very strong, so at that moment he couldn’t contain himself and flew up to see what it was.
As those gigantic masses approached, they became even more impressive.
“Good afternoon,” he greeted as they stood on the back.
“No one answered; everyone was focused on drinking water and throwing refreshing mud over each other.”
Venti waved again, but no one answered. He only felt angry, grumpy looks.
A jet of water tried to knock him over, but Venti reacted just in time.
“A tender and curious little voice asked:”
“What’s going on up there?” “Dad.”
“Nothing, nothing, it’s just an annoying bird.”
Seeing that someone below was interested in him, Venti flew up and perched on his back.
“Hi, I’m Toto, and you?”
“I’m Venti.” “Are you a rock?” he asked, intrigued.
“No, I’m an elephant.”
“A What?
“An elephant. Don’t you see I have huge ears, wrinkled skin, and a long trunk?” he replied, happily flapping his ears, making a catchy sound with his trunk.
Venti loves to make music with his whistle, but the others thought it was out of tune. Hesitantly, he slowly joined in with Toto’s twang, who was waving his tail rhythmically, as if it were a conductor’s baton.
Together they enjoyed making music.
That’s how Venti met the elephants and made a new friend with whom he would share new adventures.

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Cat Tongues

“Catalina, it’s time to go to sleep,” her mother told her as she came out of the kitchen to find her.
“I don’t want to, give me some more.”
“Brush your teeth and go to bed, we have to get up early tomorrow.”
“Ugh, I don’t want to.”
“Go on. Go on. Let’s go.”
Catalina took all the time in the world; she wasn’t in any hurry to go to bed. She looked in the closet for her favorite pajamas, the ones with the cosmos, the ones that glowed in the dark and brought the most vivid universe into her room. She tidied the pile of pajamas, put on her unicorn slippers, not wanting to feel the cold bathroom tile. She yawned a couple of times and started brushing her teeth, brushing them from bottom to top without any rush. Suddenly, the door opened softly and quietly.
“Let’s see how clean they are,” her mother said, stroking her cheek. Let’s see… very well… Let’s go to sleep then…
Before Catalina got into bed, they hugged each other heartily, like every night. Her mom never missed the opportunity to tell her how proud she was of her and that she loves her madly.
“Mom, tell me Grandma Lola’s story.”
“Again… This is the fifth night in a row that I’ve told you.”
“Please, Mom! Please! I love it!”
“Okay, okay…”
A long time ago, Grandma Gregorio and Grandma Lola decided they would start celebrating Halloween with a costume party to which they would invite family, friends, and neighbors.
They would decorate the house and garden with all kinds of spooky pumpkins, spiders, the occasional creepy scarecrow, the living dead, and an endless number of terrifying decorations. For that, they would assign tasks.
Preparations began three weeks before, for your Uncle Alberto’s birthday.
The most anticipated moment for many wasn’t the cake, but rather when Grandma Lola called us into the dining room to draw slips of paper because your Uncle Victor and your Uncle Hugo couldn’t agree; they both always wanted to wear the same costume.
I was very attentive to your Uncle Luca; if he didn’t like the costume he’d been given, he’d try to cheat and change it, and that didn’t seem fair to me.
The costumes were incredibly varied: vampires, possessed angels, zombies, and endless other possibilities.
We all prayed and begged to draw the blank slip of paper because it was the only one that gave you the chance to use your imagination and create an original, unique costume, one to show off. We all wanted to have the cutest, most creative, and unique costume.
The year your Uncle Alberto turned twelve, Grandma set a goal for herself: in addition to the classic sweets, she wanted to make some kind of different candy or cookie, one with which she could tell terrifying stories.
The first thing she thought of was making some finger-shaped cookies. She would pour sauce on them and say they were bloody and that she took them from children who wanted to steal her candy. After a while, she dismissed it as a bit macabre to her taste.
Another idea was to make beet juice, dress up as a vampire, and offer it as blood—the most delicious and exquisite blood, but that wasn’t as terrifying.
She could decorate quail eggs as if they were real eyes and eat them in front of everyone, but she found it hard to believe.
While she was baking the dough for a delicious cake, Night, our cat, appeared purring into the kitchen. We had named him that because he was completely black.
“Did you come to keep me company or just in search of food?” she told him.
To which Night, shaking his back and jumping onto a high stool, said:
“Meow.”
“Okay, okay.”
I’ll feed you now, I’ll finish and give it to you.”
Grandma Lola continued concentrating on preparing dinner, until one moment she saw him lick himself, and then a light bulb went on…

“I know!” she said to herself. “I’m going to make some long cookies. I’m going to call them cat tongues. I’m going to make them so they look similar. I’m going to dress up as a creepy witch and tell scary stories about how I got them.”
That’s how Grandma Lola invented cat tongues.
By then, Catalina was sleeping peacefully. Her mother tucked her in, turned off the light, and went into the kitchen to enjoy some cookies.

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