Two young children named Geraldo and
Gabrielle were living on their parent's small potato farm outside
Tijuana, Mexico. But the crops weren't doing too well since the
drought had started, and the family was quickly running out of money.
Sadly, the children's mother also had an unquenchable thirst for
Tequila that was quite expensive. And rather than stop drinking, she
suggested they send their children into the city tomorrow morning for
good, to shine shoes, since they could no longer afford to feed them.
When Geraldo and Gabrielle overheard
their parent's plan to abandon them in the mean streets of Tijuana
they were at first very distraught as to how they would survive. But
Geraldo remembered his father's old collection of maps in the garage
and snuck out to grab one before the next morning so they could still
find their way back home.
The parents woke them up early the
next day and told Gabrielle and Geraldo they were taking a surprise
trip into Tijuana so the family could shine shoes and help pay the
month's bills, and they loaded everyone into their old Toyota pickup.
When they arrived deep in the city's center, the parents gave them
their rags and shoe polish, but stopped by an ice cream shop before
starting the day's work. Geraldo and Gabrielle had never had ice
cream before, and were endlessly thrilled and distracted by it's
wonderful taste. While devouring the ice cream cones their mother and
father slipped away quietly and headed home, leaving the children to
survive on the mean streets of Tijuana.
Luckily the farm was just outside the
city, and Geraldo wasn't concerned since he still had his map.
However, just as he was pulling it out to look at it, a strong breeze
caught it up and swept it away from him. They both chased, but to no
avail. The map had been swept away for good.
They tried to find their way back, but
having never been in such a large, mean city they ended up walking
until nightfall and still had no idea where they were. Exhausted,
they slept in an alleyway for the night.
The next morning they woke up starving
with nothing to eat, and decided to use their rags and shoe polish to
try and make some money to buy food. After a few hours of looking for
work, a very old woman with a large coin purse, and the nicest pair
of bright red shoes walked past them, and seeing their shoe polish,
offered a very decent wage for shining them up. Geraldo and Gabrielle
were quite good at this, and they impressed the old woman so much
that she offered them a job at her shoe factory. They gladly
accepted, but unknown to them, the old woman actually ran a child
labor camp, and only fed them mere crumbs to work long hours everyday
making shoes. The children were horrified when they realized how much
trouble they had gotten themselves into, and feared they would never
get out.
A week later, Gabrielle was ordered by
the old woman to sew up some new shoes. But having never done this
before, and Gabrielle being the cunning girl that she was, saw her
opportunity and asked the old woman if she could come show her how.
Furious, the old woman came over to show her how to run the large,
industrial sewing machine, and just as she was starting it up,
Gabrielle shoved her hands underneath the machine and they became
tangled and sewn together so that she couldn't move at all. She
grabbed the coin purse off her belt and made a dash with Geraldo out
the door. They ran and ran and came upon a donkey rental station,
where they met up with a helpful old bandelero who offered them a
ride back to the farm in exchange for a few gold pieces.
When they returned, their father was
overjoyed they had come back safely. And even more pleased to see
they had brought back enough pesos to save the family farm, and put
their drunken mother into rehab.
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