ELEVEN

By Sandra Cisneros
 SHORT STORY – A SHORT STORY IS A
FORM OF FICTION THAT CAN GENERALLY
BE READ IN ONE SITTING

• Character Traits – qualities that help a reader understand a character’s

personality. You can determine a character’s traits by paying attention to:
• their speech ,thoughts, feelings, and actions
• the speech, thoughts, and actions of other characters
• the author’s direct statements
• descriptions of their physical characteristics
 PLOT: THE PLOT IS THE SERIES OF
EVENTS THAT HAPPEN IN A STORY.
• Introduction/exposition: conflict or
problem that the main character
faces.
• Rising action: a series of relevant
incidents that creates suspense,
interest and tension.
• Climax: is the turning point, or the
most important event of the story.
• Falling action: events that happens
after the climax and leads to the
resolution.
• Resolution: Where the story ends.
1. What they don’t understand about birthdays and what
they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re
also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and
five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when
you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to
feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and
everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you
don’t feel eleven at all. You feel like you’re still ten. And
you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven.
3. Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the
part of you that’s still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to
sit on your mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the
part of you that’s five. And maybe one day when you’re all grown
up maybe you will need to cry like if you’re three, and that’s okay.
That’s what I tell Mama when she’s sad and needs to cry. Maybe
she’s feeling three.
4. Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the
rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one
inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being
eleven years old is.
5. Only today I wish I didn’t have only eleven years rattling inside me
like pennies in a tin Band-Aid box. Today I wish I was one hundred
and two instead of eleven because if I was one hundred and two,
I’d have known what to say when Mrs. Price put the red sweater
on my desk. I would’ve known how to tell her it wasn’t mine
instead of just sitting there with that look on my face and nothing
coming out of my mouth.
6. “Whose is this?” Mrs. Price says, and she holds the red sweater up
in the air for all the class to see. “Whose? It’s been sitting in the
coatroom for a month.”
7. “Not mine,” says everybody. “Not me.”
8. “It has to belong to somebody,”Mrs. Price keeps saying, but
nobody can remember. It’s an ugly sweater with red plastic
buttons and a collar and sleeves all stretched out like you could
use it for a jump rope. It’s maybe a thousand years old and even if
it belonged to me, I wouldn’t say so.
9. Maybe because I’m skinny, maybe because she doesn’t like me,
that stupid Sylvia Saldivar says, “I think it belongs to Rachel.” An
ugly sweater like that all raggedy and old, but Mrs. Price believes
her. Mrs. Price takes the sweater and puts it right on my desk, but
when I open my mouth nothing comes out.
10. “That’s not, I don’t, you’re not…Not mine.” I finally say in a little
voice that was maybe me when I was four
11. “Of course it’s yours,” Mrs. Price says. “I remember you wearing it
once.” Because she’s older and the teacher, she’s right and I’m
not.
12. Not mine, not mine, not mine, but Mrs. Price is already turning to
page thirty -two, and math problem number four. I don’t know
why but all of a sudden, I’m feeling sick inside, like the part of me
that’s three wants to come out of my eyes, only I squeeze them
shut tight and bite down on my teeth real hard and try to
remember today I am eleven, eleven. Mama is making a cake for
me for tonight, and when Papa comes home everybody will sing
Happy birthday, happy birthday to you
13. But when the sick feeling goes away and I open my eyes, the red
sweater’s still sitting there like a big red mountain. I move the red
sweater to the corner of my desk with my ruler. I move my pencil
and books and eraser as far from it as possible. I even move my
chair a little to the right. Not mine, not mine, not mine. In my head
I’m thinking how long till lunchtime, how long till I can take the red
sweater and throw it over the schoolyard fence, or leave it
hanging on a parking meter, or bunch it up into a little ball and
toss it in the alley. Except when math period ends Mrs. Price says
loud and in front of everybody, “Now, Rachel, that’s enough,”
because she sees I’ve shoved the red sweater to the tippy -tip
corner of my desk and it’s hanging all over the edge like a
waterfall, but I don’t care.
14. “Rachel,” Mrs. Price says. She says it like she’s getting mad. “You
put that sweater on right now and no more nonsense.”
15. “But it’s not – “
16. “Now!” Mrs. Price says
17. This is when I wish I wasn’t eleven because all the years inside of
me —ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, and one —
are pushing at the back of my eyes when I put one arm through
one sleeve of the sweater that smells like cottage cheese, and
then the other arm through the other and stand there with my
arms apart like if the sweater hurts me and it does, all itchy and full
of germs that aren’t even mine.
18. That’s when everything I’ve been holding in since this morning,
since when Mrs. Price put the sweater on my desk, finally let’s go,
and all of a sudden, I’m crying in front of everybody. I wish I was
invisible but I’m not. I’m eleven and it’s my birthday today and I’m
crying like I’m three in front of everybody. I put my head down on
the desk and bury my face in my stupid clown -sweater arms. My
face all hot and spit coming out of my mouth because I can’t
stop the little animal noises from coming out of me until there
aren’t any more tears left in my eyes, and it’s just my body shaking
like when you have the hiccups, and my whole head hurts like
when you drink milk too fast.
19. But the worst part is right before the bell rings for lunch. That stupid
Phyllis Lopez, who is even dumber than Sylvia Saldivar, says she
remembers the red sweater is hers. I take it off right away and give
it to her, only Mrs. Price pretends like everything’s okay
20. Today I’m eleven. There’s a cake Mama’s making for tonight and
when Papa comes home from work, we’ll eat it. There’ll be
candles and presents and everybody will sing Happy birthday,
happy birthday to you, Rachel, only it’s too late.
21. I’m eleven today. I’m eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four,
three, two, and one, but I wish I was one hundred and two. I wish I
was anything but eleven. Because I want today to be far away
already, far away like a runaway balloon, like a tiny o in the sky, so
tiny —tiny you have to close your eyes to see it.
 READING COMPREHENSION
QUESTIONS

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