The Total Eclipse of Nestor Lopez

Nestor heads to New Haven Middle School for his first day of class, his backpack packed with only sparse school supplies, his sketchbook, and his father’s Army compass. Nestor’s raven companion joins him on his walk to school. Nestor tells the raven about the compass. Nestor’s father gave Nestor the compass when he was younger, before his father’s first deployment. Nestor used to think “the red needle pointed to Dad instead of north” and would watch it (18), hoping the needle would swing to point at Nestor. Nestor asks the raven’s name, but the only names it has ever been called are “Don’t-Poop-on-That or Get-Away-from-My-Cat” (19), so Nestor decides to call the raven “Cuervito,” Spanish for “little raven.”

Nestor takes a route through the woods behind Abuela’s house. The raven warns Nestor to be careful walking through the woods and then flies away. On his journey, Nestor stops to converse with a doe named Chela, shocking the doe with his ability to understand and communicate with animals. Nestor asks to sketch the deer and is soon joined by a rabbit. As Nestor opens his sketchbook, he finds a piece of paper from his mom titled “First-Day Challenge.” Every time Nestor starts at a new school, his mother makes him a list of challenges to complete to try to make the transition easier.

Nestor talks to the animals about starting at a new school and trying to figure out how he’ll reinvent himself. Although he’s only in sixth grade, this is his 10th first day of school since he has moved mid-year multiple times. He’s already tried being the class clown and an athlete at previous schools and considers just being himself this time. Nestor packs up his sketchbook and notices two pink plastic tags with numbers on them. He pockets them without knowing what they are. Cuervito returns, and all three animals give Nestor advice for his first day. However, their advice to punch the biggest kid in school or to “let ‘er rip” when the classroom is completely silent isn’t quite the advice Nestor is looking for (28).

Nestor is confident New Haven Middle School will be just like the other schools he’s attended. However, he becomes lost trying to find his first-period classroom. No one seems interested when Nestor finally finds his classroom and is forced to introduce himself in front of the class.

After lunch, Nestor has science class. He sits in the back, as he always does, so as not to disrupt the classroom layout when he inevitably moves away. During class, the teacher, Miss Humala, catches Nestor sketching Cuervito instead of paying attention: “Her long red nails twitch as if she wants to snatch my drawing and crumble it into a tiny ball” (32). However, Nestor already learned this lesson at his previous school at Fort Hood. Nestor converses with the class pet, a small chinchilla named Milla.

Nestor takes in the kids around him. There’s a sleepy boy with curly black hair sitting next to Nestor. A boy with a shaved head and wearing military apparel flicks peas at the sleepy boy, which get stuck in the boy’s hair. The pea flicker has mixed apparel from the Army, Air Force, and Marines—a faux pas that shows the bully isn’t really a military kid: “[T]he only thing more annoying than actually being a military kid is people who pretend […] Dad says being a soldier is a lot more than having a gun and wearing camo. He always shakes his head at men who ‘play soldier’” (35). Nestor has come across many bullies at his various schools. Nestor lets the sleepy boy know he has peas in his hair.

Miss Humala instructs the class to find a partner—a nightmare for a new kid. The girl sitting in front of Nestor—Maria Carmen—is crying, so Nestor leaves her alone. The sleepy boy, Talib, pairs up with Nestor, and they both whiz through the problems. They instantly strike up a friendly conversation. Talib has Band-Aids on his fingers from trying to find his lost dog in the woods. Nestor overhears Maria Carmen talking about a similar issue: Her family’s goats have gone missing. Tracks leading into the woods were the only trace of them left. Maria Carmen shows a friend some pink tags like the ones Nestor found.

The class bully—Brandon—flings pudding at Talib and Nestor. Miss Humala instructs the boys to go clean up, seemingly more annoyed at the mess than concerned about the bully.

Nestor emails his father about his first day. Nestor focuses on the positives and leaves out negative details. When Nestor’s father is deployed, he needs to focus on his job as a soldier. To help, Nestor and his mother follow the mantras “Always Be Positive. Always Be Happy” whenever they communicate with him so that Nestor’s father doesn’t have to worry (43).

Nestor follows the smell of pastelitos de guayaba—a Cuban guava pastry—to the kitchen, where he finds Abuela talking to an empty room. (Nestor learns in Chapter 17 that Abuela shares Nestor’s gift of talking to animals and was conversing with a cat named Celia.) Abuela asks Nestor to find her a bowl for beans. As he looks through the cabinets, he finds more of the same pink tags. He finds out later in the chapter that they are ear tags used to track Maria Carmen’s goats.

Nestor’s mother joins Nestor and Abuela. She complains to Nestor about Nestor’s father as a way of lessening the pain of missing him. Nestor shares that it was his 10th first day of school, surprising his mother. There is some tension as Nestor complains about having to start over again: “And this time it wasn’t even the military’s fault. You and Dad decided to move when we didn’t even have to” (47). Nestor instantly regrets his comment, seeing how it affects his mother and Abuela. He’s grateful to be living with his Abuela, but that doesn’t mean it’s fun to start all over again.

Nestor asks Abuela if there are scary animals in the woods since so many animals are going missing. Abuela has a strange reaction and then quickly dismisses the idea. The conversation is interrupted by Maria Carmen knocking on the door. She invites Nestor to join the trivia club with her and Talib since Nestor answered every question correctly in science class that day. The trivia club meets over lunch in Miss Humala’s classroom. Nestor is reluctant, even though he loves answering trivia with his dad. Nestor doesn’t like to join activities since he usually has to move before he’s able to truly compete or participate, but his mother and Abuela encourage him to join. Nestor’s mother leaves for her first day of her new job as an intensive care nurse at a nearby hospital. Maria Carmen suddenly leaves not long after and asks Nestor and Abuela not to tell her mother that she visited Abuela’s house.

After Maria Carmen leaves, Nestor sets the table for dinner. He hears a noise and sees Abuela heading into the woods with a kitchen knife.

Nestor reflects on the first time he realized he could speak to animals, when a guinea pig at his day care promised Nestor to “poop on the toy-hogging snot over there who [kept] biting [him]” in exchange for snacks (55). Nestor never told his parents, who already had too much to worry about.

In science class, Brandon brags about hunting deer, though it’s not yet deer hunting season. Miss Humala delivers an announcement from the principal asking students to avoid walking in the woods due to the recent animal disappearances. She then gives Nestor, Talib, and Maria Carmen free time since they’re the only students in the class who passed the pop quiz. Nestor teaches Talib and Maria Carmen dominoes, which he learned from his abuelo. While playing, Nestor shares his experience moving around the country. Nestor envies how Talib and Maria Carmen have always lived in New Haven: “They’ve always known where their home is. Always had a home” (61). Meanwhile, Talib and Maria Carmen envy how much Nestor has traveled.

Despite the animal disappearances, Nestor and Talib ignore Miss Humala’s warning and walk home through the woods. Nestor wants to make sure the doe he met wasn’t a victim of Brandon’s hunting activities, and Talib wants to look for his dog. The pair come across a tree with strange claw marks and then some snakeskin pierced by a kitchen knife. Talib confesses to Nestor that he recently saw an unexplained, shape-shifting creature in the woods. The conversation is interrupted when Talib hears an animal howling and Nestor hears a voice crying for help. The cry is coming from a wounded coyote caught in one of Brandon’s illegal hunting traps. Nestor works to free the coyote. He offers words of comfort to the coyote while trying to disguise his ability to communicate with animals from Talib.

Brandon suddenly appears, angry at Nestor and Talib for rescuing the coyote. Talib picks up a rock for defense. However, the coyote bites Brandon and scares Brandon off before things escalate further. Nestor carries the coyote home to take care of its wounds, surprising Talib with how comfortable the coyote is with Nestor.

The chapter ends with a cliffhanger, where the coyote pleads to Nestor: “Don’t let her get me […] Don’t let the witch get me” (73).