Esperanza feels she is ugly and that no man will ever want her, so she has decided not to wait. She admires the “Beautiful and Cruel” women in the movies, the ones who have their own power. She is practicing acting as if she had her own power, like a man.
Esperanza’s mother tells her she was “A Smart Cookie” when she was young, but she let her life get away from her and now is unable to do things she would like to do. She tells Esperanza she quit school because she didn’t have nice clothes, and she urges her daughter to go to school and study.
In “What Sally Said,” Esperanza tells about her friend Sally, whose father beats her. Her father’s sisters ran away and shamed their family; he fears that Sally will do the same. Sally gets permission to stay with Esperanza, but her father comes after her, begging her to come home. She does, and he beats her again.
There is a walled, abandoned garden in Esperanza’s neighborhood where Esperanza and her friends go to play. The mysterious magic of the place draws them. One day Esperanza wants to run and roughhouse with other kids, but Sally would rather talk to some boys. The boys engage in some fairly innocent sex play with Sally; Esperanza is angry and tells the mother of one of them, who is unconcerned. Back in the garden, Sally tells Esperanza to go away.
Esperanza goes to a carnival with Sally, who leaves with a boy and tells Esperanza to wait by the “Red Clowns” near the tilt-a-whirl. Esperanza does so and is sexually assaulted.
