In “Darius and the Clouds,” Esperanza says that the sky is important; there is not enough of it where she lives, but she and her friends make do with what they have. A boy named Darius points to a cloud and says it is God.
In “And Some More,” Esperanza, her friends Lucy and Rachel, and her sister Nenny are talking idly, watching the clouds, and Esperanza makes some comments about things she’s read. The girls start trading insults, and one thing leads to another until Esperanza tells the neighbor girls to get out of her yard, and they say they’ll never come back again. Nobody leaves, however, and the insults continue while Nenny, pointing to clouds, calls them by names—human names, that is.
“The Family of Little Feet” starts out as a story Esperanza is telling about a family whose members are small people with little feet. One day the mother comes out with a paper bag full of high-heeled shoes that she gives to Esperanza, Rachel, and Lucy. The girls put the shoes on and walk around the neighborhood. The shoes have a strange effect on people: Benny, the store man, tells the girls they are too young to be wearing shoes like that and threatens to call the police on them. A boy riding by on a bicycle flirts with them. A drunk near a tavern tries to make conversation, and Rachel tells him her name, but Esperanza and Lucy make her leave when the drunk offers her a dollar for a kiss. They take the shoes home and take them off, and when Lucy and Rachel’s mother throws them away a few days later, the girls don’t care.
In “A Rice Sandwich,” Esperanza comes home for lunch every day, and she decides she wants to take her lunch and eat at school. Her mother says she doesn’t need to; Esperanza begs and pleads and eventually wears her mother down. But when the time comes, she has to take her mother’s letter of permission to the principal (Sister Superior), who knows she doesn’t live far enough away to justify bringing her lunch to school. She makes Esperanza point out her house from the window, and Esperanza begins to cry. Then the nun says she may stay that day, but not again. Esperanza goes to the canteen and eats her sandwich, crying as the other children watch.
In “Chanclas,” Esperanza and her mother are going to her baby cousin’s baptism party in the church basement. Her mother gets new clothes for Esperanza, but forgets shoes, so she has to wear her school shoes. This embarrasses her, and while everyone else dances, she sits in a folding chair and won’t get up. Finally her uncle drags her out on the floor and dances with her, and they are so good that everyone watches and applauds. Her mother is proud of her, and a boy Esperanza knows watches her dance.
