Summary

In Chapter 1, when Camila was young, she learned the proverb, "Lies have short legs" (1). Sometimes she wondered if it had "sprouted from this land" (2). She lived in Argentina.

On the day of her secret soccer championship game, Camila lied to her mother, Isabel, about where she was going. She told her she was going to her friend Roxana's. Isabel urged her to be home on time for dinner, and not to go to the stadium where her brother, Pablo, was playing. Girls had been disappearing recently.

Camila wished she could "share [her] secret" with Isabel (5). Coach Alicia had discovered her and Roxana earlier that year, and had "recruited [them] to her team" (5). She knew how Isabel would respond.

On the bus, a young boy was selling saint cards of "La Difunta Correa, the patron saint of impossible things" (7). Camila took a card, hoping...