Victor Martinez

Parrot In The Oven Victor Martinez

Dad believed people were like money. You could be a thousand-dollar person or a hundred-dollar person -- even a ten-, five-, or one-dollar person. Below that, everybody was just nickels and dimes. To my dad, we were pennies.

Fourteen-year-old Manny Hernandez wants to be more than just a penny. He wants to be a vato firme, the kind of guy people respect. But that?s not easy when your father is abusive, your brother can?t hold a job, and your mother scrubs the house as if she can wash her troubles away.

In Manny?s neighborhood, the way to get respect is to be in a gang. But Manny?s not sure that joining a gang is the solution. Because, after all, it?s his life -- and he wants to be the one to decide what happens to it.