Yahaira leaves a chess piece at her father’s memorial in front of his billiards in New York City. Yahaira thinks about how Papi had another wife in the DR, which is what she found in the envelope.Ĭarline gives birth in the middle of the night to a premature baby boy that Tia brings to life. Yahaira wants to attend and visit in person, but Mami refuses. Mami protests, but Tio Jorge, Papi’s brother, insists. They discuss where he will be buried, and his will stipulates the Dominican Republic. It is now 14 days after the crash, and divers have recovered physical remains of Papi.

In New York, Yahaira starts skipping school, and her mother starts skipping work.

She can try for a scholarship, but she is worried about her delayed future. They are both worried about life as they knew it. In the Dominican Republic, Camino and Tia pray as they learn that there are no survivors. Four days later they learn divers are trying to find remains and personal items. Three days after the crash they learn that there have been no survivors, and Yahaira’s girlfriend Dre comforts her. She searched for his work number, and found an envelope that changed her life. Last summer she tried to talk to her father about “The Thing That Happened” while he was away in the Dominican Republic but he did not answer her calls (56). Yahaira, remembering her father, describes how she played chess. El Cero starts to stalk Camino, and she gets nervous about life without her father’s financial protection. He also paid El Cero, a sex trafficker, to stay away from Camino. Camino starts to worry about money, as her father paid for her school and living expenses. Yahaira, in New York City, is called to the principal’s office where her mother tells her the news, her father was on a plane to the DR that crashed in the ocean. Camino goes to the airport to meet her father, who is supposed to be arriving from New York. She and Tia help an old woman dying from cancer. The novel opens from Camino’s perspective describing her home and the island. It is told from the two first person perspectives of two teenage girls who are half sisters, Camino in the Dominican Republic, and Yahaira in New York City, until they are both in the Dominican Republic in the last 100 pages of the novel. The novel is written in verse, with Spanish words added throughout, and with a variety of poetic structures. This young adult novel is 417 pages long, with a variety of chapter formats, but for the purposes of this guide, has been split into nine sections. The following version was used to make this guide: Acevado, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth acevedo clap when you land