Francisco Timeline and Summary

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• Francisco's family decides to move from California to Mexico. Yay.
• Road trip time: they take a train and then a car to reach the central coast of California.
• It's time for Francisco's family's first job in Cali: picking strawberries. 
• Pretty soon they're onto their second job: picking cotton. Poor Francisco has to babysit his little bro while his mom, dad, and big bro Roberto work in the fields all day. 
• During his first months at school, Francisco doesn't learn much English, but he does win an art prize. 
• Francisco gets seriously scared when his newest baby bro, Torito, gets sick and almost dies—he joins his family in praying a lot, and Torito lives.
• His family moves back to Corcoran for cotton-picking and now Francisco has two new obsessions: the neighbor's goldfish and a new buddy named Miguelito. Sadly this friend moves away after a day.
• Francisco is super bummed when he doesn't get a ball for Christmas. It stinks.
• But soon after his family gets a pet parrot, which is rad. Unfortunately, though, the parrot is killed by Papá, so now Francisco is bummed again. 
• Francisco tries to help his family pick cotton to prove that he can man his own cotton bag, but he fails. 
• When Francisco meets Mr. Lema, he starts learning English, and enjoys doing so… at least before he moves again.
• A new worker in the fields, Gabriel, shows Francisco what it means to stand up for yourself, so one day Francisco stands up to a bully named Curtis. 
• Rorra steals Francisco's favorite pennies to buy gumballs, which makes her big bro seriously ticked off. 
• Not long after, Francisco's beloved notepad with all his schoolwork burns up when their house catches on fire. 
• Francisco starts eighth grade. He's stoked, and he's doing really well in school. 
• But then Border Patrol shows up and carts Francisco off. It's the biggest bummer ever.