Big House

Ines lived in a house that was never, ever quiet.

Not at breakfast, when Grandpa sang to the eggs while he fried them. Not at lunch, when Aunt Rosa and Aunt Carmen argued about whether the rice needed more salt. And definitely not at dinner, when everyone talked at the same time and nobody listened and somehow everyone still understood each other.

The house was big, but the family was bigger.

There was Grandma, who hummed while she swept and swept while she hummed, and sometimes clapped her hands so loud the cat jumped off the windowsill. There was Grandpa, who told the same five stories but in a different order every night, so he said they were always new. There were three aunts — Rosa, Carmen, and tiny Aunt Lucia, who was the youngest aunt but had the loudest laugh in the whole house, maybe the whole street, maybe the whole world.

And then there were Ines's two cousins, Marco and Sofia, who chased each other up the stairs and down the stairs and through the kitchen and around the table and back up the stairs again, every single day, like they had never seen stairs before and couldn't believe their luck.

And right in the middle of all of it — there was Ines.

Ines liked quiet things. She liked drawing. She liked watching bugs in the garden and wondering where they were going. She liked making up stories in her head, long complicated ones with dragons and castles and a girl who could talk to clouds.

But it was hard to think about clouds when Aunt Rosa was yelling, "WHO MOVED MY GOOD SCISSORS?" and Marco was drumming on a pot with a wooden spoon and Grandma was clapping at the cat again.

One Saturday morning, Ines decided she had had enough.

She took her sketchbook, her colored pencils, and a granola bar, and she went looking for a quiet place.

She tried the bedroom she shared with Sofia. But Sofia was in there, bouncing on the bed and singing a song she'd made up that had no tune and no ending.

She tried the back porch. But Aunt Carmen was out there on the phone, laughing so loud that the neighbor's dog started barking, which made Aunt Carmen laugh even louder.

She tried the hallway closet. She squeezed past the winter coats and the umbrellas and sat on a box of old shoes. She opened her sketchbook.

Ah, she thought. Finally.

She drew one line. A nice, peaceful line. The beginning of a dragon's tail.

Then the closet door flew open.

"FOUND YOU!" Marco screamed. "Sofia, she's in the closet! She's playing hide and seek!"

"I'm NOT playing hide and seek!" Ines said. But it was too late. Sofia dove into the closet, and now all three of them were wedged between the coats and the umbrellas, and an old boot fell on Ines's head.

Ines grabbed her sketchbook and marched outside.

She walked all the way to the very back of the garden, past the tomato plants, past the old lemon tree, past the rusty chair that nobody sat in. She found a spot behind the garden wall where the grass was tall and soft, and she sat down.

She could still hear the house from here — just barely. A faint hum of noise, like a radio playing in another room.

Ines opened her sketchbook.

She drew the dragon. She gave it curly horns and kind eyes and big clumsy feet. She drew the castle next, with seventeen towers because she felt like it. She drew the girl who could talk to clouds, standing on the tallest tower, her arms wide open.

The sky above Ines was blue and huge and perfectly silent.

She drew for a long time.

She drew until the granola bar was gone and her fingers were smudged with green and purple. She drew until the shadows got longer and the grass got cooler.

And then something happened that Ines did not expect.

She got lonely.

It crept up slowly, like a cloud sliding over the sun. One minute she was fine, and the next minute the quiet felt… too quiet. Like a sweater that was too big. Like a room with no furniture.

She looked at her dragon. It was good. She'd drawn the best dragon she'd ever drawn. But there was nobody to show it to.

She thought about Grandpa. He would look at the dragon and say, "Ah, this reminds me of a story—" and then tell one of his five stories, and it would be the wrong story, but he'd be so excited telling it that Ines would start laughing anyway.

She thought about Aunt Lucia. Aunt Lucia would look at the seventeen towers and say, "Only seventeen? Make it FIFTY!" and then do her big loud laugh, the one that made everyone else laugh too, even if nothing was funny.

She thought about Marco and Sofia. They would want to add things to the drawing — a motorcycle, a pizza, a dinosaur wearing sunglasses. It would ruin the drawing, but also… it might make it better? In a weird, unexpected way?

Ines closed her sketchbook.

She walked back through the tall grass, past the rusty chair, past the lemon tree, past the tomato plants. The noise got louder with every step. She could hear Aunt Rosa and Aunt Carmen arguing about something new now — whether the kitchen walls should be yellow or green. She could hear Grandpa's radio. She could hear Marco and Sofia thundering up the stairs.

She opened the back door, and the sound hit her like a warm wave.

"INES!" Grandma called from the kitchen. "Where have you been? Come, come, I made something."

Ines walked into the kitchen. Grandma had made empanadas, and the whole room smelled like crispy dough and warmth. Everyone was already there, reaching and grabbing and talking.

"Look," Ines said, and she held up her sketchbook, open to the dragon.

For one tiny moment — one single, incredible, miraculous moment — the kitchen went quiet.

Everyone looked.

"Ohhh," said Grandma, putting her hand on her heart.

"That," said Grandpa, leaning in close, "reminds me of a story—"

"Only seventeen towers?" said Aunt Lucia. "Make it FIFTY!" And then she did her laugh — the big, loud, tremendous laugh — and the whole kitchen cracked open with noise again.

"I want to add a dinosaur!" said Marco.

"With sunglasses!" said Sofia.

"The walls in that castle should be yellow," said Aunt Rosa.

"GREEN," said Aunt Carmen.

Ines sat down at the big crowded table. Sofia squeezed in on one side, Marco on the other. Grandma put an empanada on her plate. Grandpa started his story. Aunt Lucia was still laughing. The cat jumped off the windowsill.

Ines took a bite of her empanada and opened to a fresh page in her sketchbook.

She started drawing a new dragon. This one had an even curlier tail.

Marco leaned over. "Can the dragon ride a motorcycle?"

Ines thought about it.

"Yeah," she said. "Okay."

And she drew the motorcycle, and it was loud and ridiculous and absolutely perfect, just like everything else in that big, noisy, wonderful house.