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Guess who noticed the missing nose? He came running along the aisle toward the altar, not pausing to genuflect--his untucked Hawaiian shirt resembling a jailbreak of monkeys and tropical birds released from a rain forest by a lightning bolt.
"Bad Mary did it!" Lupe cried to Senor Eduardo. "Your big Virgin killed our mother! Bad Mary frightened our mother to death!" Juan Diego didn't hesitate to translate this.
"Next thing you know, she'll be calling this accident a miracle," Sister Gloria said to Father Octavio.
"Do not say the miracle word to me, Sister," Father Octavio said.
Father Alfonso was just finishing with the prayers he was saying over Esperanza; it was something about her being freed from her sins.
"Did you say un milagro?" Edward Bonshaw asked Father Octavio.
"Milagroso!" Lupe shouted. Senor Eduardo had no trouble understanding the miraculous word.
"Esperanza fell off the ladder, Edward," Father Octavio told the Iowan.
"She was struck dead before she fell!" Lupe was babbling, but Juan Diego left the struck-dead drama untranslated; darting eyes don't kill you, unless you're scared to death.
"Where's Mary's nose?" Edward Bonshaw asked, pointing at the noseless giant Virgin.
"Gone! Vanished in a puff of smoke!" Lupe was raving. "Keep your eye on Bad Mary--her other parts may start to disappear."
"Lupe, tell the truth," Juan Diego said.
But Edward Bonshaw, who hadn't understood a word Lupe said, couldn't take his eyes from the maimed Mary.
"It's just her nose, Eduardo," Brother Pepe tried to tell the zealot. "It means nothing--it's probably lying around somewhere."
"How can it mean nothing, Pepe?" the Iowan asked. "How can the Virgin Mary's nose not be there?"
Father Alfonso and Father Octavio were down on all fours; they weren't praying--they were looking for the Mary Monster's missing nose under the first few rows of pews.
"You wouldn't know anything about la nariz, I suppose?" Brother Pepe asked Juan Diego.
"Nada," Juan Diego said.
"Bad Mary's eyes moved--she looked alive," Lupe was saying.
"They'll never believe you, Lupe," Juan Diego told his sister.
"The parrot man will," Lupe said, pointing to Senor Eduardo. "He needs to believe more than he does--he'll believe anything."
"What won't we believe?" Brother Pepe asked Juan Diego.
"I thought that's what he said! What do you mean, Juan Diego?" Edward Bonshaw asked.
"Tell him! Bad Mary moved her eyes--the giant Virgin was looking all around!" Lupe cried.
Juan Diego
crammed his hand in his crowded pocket; he was actually holding the Virgin Mary's nose when he told them about the giant Virgin's angry-looking eyes, how they kept darting everywhere but always came back to Esperanza's cleavage.
"It's a miracle," the Iowan said matter-of-factly.
"Let's get the man of science involved," Father Alfonso said sarcastically.
"Yes, Vargas can arrange an autopsy," Father Octavio said.
"You want to autopsy a miracle?" Brother Pepe asked, both innocently and mischievously.
