The shrill, annoying “beep, beep, beep” of the alarm clock that I have shared with my brother for seven years shocks me awake. I have wanted a new clock for years, but my parents always say, “Sorry. Until it breaks, you’ll have to use this clock.” Unluckily, it continues to work. I decide to get a few more minutes of sleep before I really have to get up to go to school. Just then, my mom yells, “Bom dia! Get up! You need to go to school!”

My brother, João, and I groan, “Just a few more minutes.”

My mom shouts back, “Now!”

So, we get up from our centimeter-thick, pre-owned mats on the dirt floor and get dressed in our fancy school uniforms that are much nicer than our badly worn, heavily patched regular clothes. Another typical school day has started.

However, today is not really a typical school day because we find out whether we will move into a new, much nicer house. Our favela is filled with ramshackle houses crammed on top of each other. If one fell down, the rest would follow. A lot of the houses don’t have running water or sewage pipes. I have to hold my nose when I walk through the neighborhood, but sometimes I can still feel my stomach churning. Still, it’s sort of safe, as long as you stay away from the corners where the drug dealers lean against the graffiti-covered walls, guns and knives peeking over their belts. Today can change everything. Today, my parents decide if we will take the government offer to move to the rainforest. They get shiny new high-rise apartments, designer clothing stores, and chic cafés. We get our ticket to a better life.  Everyone wins, if my parents make the right decision.

While we eat breakfast, I think about my family. I don’t understand why they don’t just take the offer. We would get out of this slum and I would get my own room in a house. My dad starts talking about “cutting down trees” and “taking land from animals,” like the animals and trees even matter. After a few minutes of listening to my family worry about nothing, I can’t hold it in anymore. I start shouting, “Should a boa constrictor stop me from having a room where I can lock my door and finally have some privacy?  Should a kapok tree keep us stuck in a where we have to watch the rich kids with their fancy phones stuck to their hands, while we don’t even have a phone in the house? There is plenty of room for boas, jaguars, kapok trees, mangroves, and whatever, and our new house, too. Why can’t you see that?”

My parents stare at me, eyes wide. My brother João just shakes his head and looks sad.

Finally, João says, “It’s not just us. It’s not so simple.”

I don’t know what to say. Sometimes he really makes me angry.

João is two years older than I am. When we were young, he missed a year of school due to a sickness that plagued our whole block and killed two other kids. He only got better when my parents found some native cure. You would think that João would understand why we need to move, but he doesn’t. Even though he’s very smart, he can be very stupid and selfish sometimes.
    After João got sick, our parents lost their jobs and used most of their money on the cure. We now have almost nothing in our house. We have three thin mattresses, an oil lamp from 1887, two ancient alarm clocks and, a single faded, old painting. Moving now wouldn’t take us very long, because we have almost nothing to move.

We quickly finish eating and start running the kilometer to our bus stop. My brother and I go to the same Catholic school, which is over eight kilometers away. Our stupid school is the only one that would give us scholarships. My parents want a better life for us, so they insist that we go somewhere better than the dead-end school near our neighborhood. I know that this school is supposed to be good but I still hate it.

Even though the school building and teachers are mostly decent, the other kids treat us like trash. João and I are the smartest kids in our school, but the other kids still look down on us. No one else there knows what it feels like to barely be able to afford to take the bus to school. I am so tired of going to a school where the other kids mock my hand-me-down shoes, skimpy lunches and lack of a cell phone, knowing that after I finish hours of homework and get a little sleep, I will just have to repeat the day over and over again.

We get to the stop just as the bus starts to pull away but my brother bangs against the door and the driver stops. We pay the fare and see the old, patched, sewed-up seats. Even though the bus is packed, we are the only kids aboard. Because the bus breaks down, we get to school 45 minutes later than normal, and while I usually don’t like to miss a class, I am not too sad that we will miss a class at a school that we will be leaving anyway. At least, I hope we will be leaving.

My first, and least favorite, class is Math, which also makes me less sad about being late. I don’t dislike the subject; it’s the kids that I hate, and the teacher, Mr. Santos, isn’t much better. As I walk in, someone sticks out his foot, and I fall on the ground right in front of Mr. Santos. The kid and the rest of the class laugh, calling out, “Watch where you’re going, clumsy.”

“Just keep your giant clown feet under your desk, you jerk.” No one laughs.

“Shut up, beggar boy. Maybe if your shoes didn’t have holes, you could walk better.”

Then, Mr. Santos interrupts, shaking his head, saying, “That’s enough. Sit down and get to work.”

He is clueless. At the end of class, he pulls me aside, telling me, “You need to try to get to school earlier so that you will not miss class.” He really is clueless.

I look him in the eye, using my best formal voice to say, “I apologize, sir, but the bus was late to my stop this morning and then it broke down. In the future, I will attempt to be less tardy. However, I cannot fix an ancient, decrepit city bus or force the city to invest more money in public infrastructure.” I know. That’s not much of an apology, but, as I said, he is clueless.

Mr. Santos looks at me and then looks away, replying, “All right, you may go to your next class.”

My next class is Social Studies, my favorite, because my teacher, Father José, always stops the kids from picking on me in his class. Apparently, Father José was poor once, too. He understands.

As soon as the bell rings, starting the class, Father José starts speaking excitedly. “Today we are starting a new unit on the Amazon Rainforest, the pride of our country!”

We all grab textbooks while he starts the lesson. I make sure to grab the newest one, pushing a shorter kid out of the way. I deserve some good things.

I decide not to say that I might move to the forest. I don’t need anybody ruining my plans. Instead, I think about how I will run around our new house. I think about having my own room. I imagine how I will go to a school with kids who don’t make fun of me, where I’m one of the rich ones. Meanwhile, I can’t help but hear the boring facts my teacher keeps spewing, such as, “There have been over 5.5 thousand species of animals and at least 40 thousand plant species discovered in the rainforest.”

He continues talking even though I’m trying very hard to focus on my new life. Can’t he stop worrying about tree frogs for even a minute? But he keeps going. Now he is talking about some medicinal plants in the Amazon. Wait! Isn’t that the plant that cured João?

Next Father José shows us images of native kids. All of them are even skinnier than I am, and I’m the skinniest kid in my school. They are so poor that they don’t have shirts, let alone patched ones like I wear at home. One kid doesn’t even have any shoes. He has a disease that turned his toenails black. I can’t believe that they are so much poorer than even my family! Father José concludes by saying, “The natives are getting poorer and being displaced because of deforestation caused by loggers, cattle ranchers, gold miners, and settlers.”

The last word hits me like a ton of bricks. Settlers! My head is spinning. I feel ill. Father José asks if I am alright. I answer, “Yes.” I am not alright. In my mind, I see my new house falling to pieces. I hear the bell for the end of class, but it seems a million miles away.

I see João in the hallway. He says, “You look terrible, little brother. Are you alright?”

I snap back, “Yes! No! Why is everyone asking me that?”

“Well, because you do look terrible. You look like you lost your best friend.”

My shoulders sag as I reply, “I did! Well, not my friend, but it’s just as bad.”

“What’s wrong? What happened? Did someone trip you in math again?”

I can’t help myself. I’m starting to cry. “Yes! No! I mean, they did, but that’s not the problem.” Everything comes out of me in a rush. “I didn’t lose my best friend. I lost my new life. It really isn’t just us, is it? We can’t kill the plants that saved you. We can’t become the rich bullies! It really is simple. We can’t go. We just can’t go.”

I’m really crying now. My brother looks at me for a second, not really understanding what I am saying, but then puts his arm around my shoulders. We both slump against the wall and sit together for a long time. The bell rings for the next class, but we don’t move. We won’t move.