Encanto: The Miracle Giver

Jose's Birthday Surprise

Three months have passed since the events of Encanto: The Miracle Giver. It is now the middle of November and today is Jose's birthday. Jose wakes up, excited for the day, he jumps out of bed, " My birthday is finally here!" he rushes towards his drawer and puts on his white long sleeve, button up shirt, his now clean brown pants, his white shoes, and his orange ponc-, " wait where's my poncho?" Jose shuffles through all his drawers, his dirty hamper, and even under his bed, but he couldn't find it anywhere. He scratches his head, " Dang I can't find it and to lose it on my birthday, what bad luck." he stands up and looks at himself in the mirror, " aw man I just don't look right without it" he sighs, " well I guess it can't be helped" he leaves the barn (which is where his bed and clothes are kept) and walks past his garden, which is filled with beautiful flowers that Jose planted and is taking care of, as he listens to the tranquil waterfall. He leaves his room, which is right next to Mirabel's, and heads downstairs towards the dining room. The sadness of losing his poncho was completely swept away as he thought about how fun his birthday is going to be with the Madrigals, this being his first birthday with them, he had no idea what was in store for him. When he entered the dining room, he saw Abuela setting down plates on the table, noticing him enter, Abuela said good morning with a small smile and entered the kitchen. Jose shakes it off and thinks to himself, " eh, she's busy right now, oh maybe she knows where my poncho is" Jose walks into the kitchen after her, " Hey Abuela, do you know where my poncho is, I can't find it" as he enters the kitchen he sees Mrs. Julieta making some arepas de huevo on the stove. Abuela grabs a basket of arepas rellenas de queso, shakes her head, " No Milagro, I haven't seen it, I can't believe you lost it again" she walks past him with the basket and places it on the table. Mrs. Julieta still cooking says, " did you put it in the pila sucia" Jose shakes his head no, " I checked there" Abuela coming up behind him, places her hand on his shoulder and gives him a reassuring smile, " I'm sure it will turn up soon Milagro, it always does" Jose sighs, " yeah I bet Casita is hiding it from me " a tile pops up from the ground almost making Jose go face first on the floor, " Eh, I was only joking Casita" Jose says laughing as he begins to help Abuela set up the rest of the table. As the sun rose higher in the sky, the rest of the family woke up and headed downstairs for breakfast. Jose, sitting in his normal spot, which is at the end of the left side of the table, waits for everyone to settle in, " oh boy, I'm so excited" Mirabel ruffles Jose's hair as she says good morning and sits on his left. He gives her a playful smile as he fixes his hair and says good morning back. With everyone having food on their plate, Abuela says, " everyone, as we all know, today is a very special day ( Jose gets excited ) today marks the day when our miracle was born and it guided us here in Encanto" everyone claps, Jose gets a little disappointed but claps as well. Abuela continues, " so normally we are throwing a party in celebration, we still have a few more decorations to get. Mirabel and Jose do you both mind going into town and getting those? Artou should have them ready ( Mirabel and Jose nod their heads) good, the rest of us need to start with what we have and nietos please make sure yalls rooms are clean." with everyone knowing the plan, they enjoy breakfast. Jose thinks to himself, " I could've sworn they knew when my birthday was, they asked me about it a month ago" Mirabel nudges him lightly and whispers to him, " what's wrong" Jose snapping back, surprised she noticed, " nothing why would you think something is wrong" she raises an eyebrow with sarcasm while chewing a arepas de huevo, " mhm" Jose quickly looks down at his food, trying not to make eye contact, and finished quietly. As everyone finishes their breakfast and gets started on decorating Casita, Mirabel and Jose get ready to leave for town. Mirabel grabs her bag and Jose goes back in his room and puts his hair up in a back bun. He looks around one last time for his poncho, until he hears Mirabel knock and walk in, he sighs, " I didn't even answer you, what if I was changing." she walks up to him, "are you?" Jose smiles in slight frustration and more so out of love and whispers, "no". Mirabel stares at Jose as he scurries around searching for his poncho, then makes a realization face, " oh that's why you look different! Why aren't you wearing your poncho? (she crosses her arms) did you lose it again?" Jose flails his arms, " I didn't lose it, I just, you know, misplaced it." Jose looks in his drawer again while Mirabel gives him the look of unbelief. She scrunches Jose's bun and begins to leave the room, " don't worry I think you still look cute without it, anyways we need to go get the rest of the decorations and bring them back here." Jose sighs in defeat and catches up with Mirabel, as he opens the door for her he says, " I know I look cute to you, I believe I can never not look cute to you, even if I was covered in mud I'll still look cute to you. I want my poncho because it's cold." " oh ok, then why don't you borrow one of Camilo's" " what no way, yellow is not my color" Mirabel gives him a playful look, " ah see, admit that you care about style a little" Jose raises his hands, " ok ok, is it bad that a guy wants to look good, especially in front of his girlfriend" Mirabel grabs his hand, begins swinging it and smiles, " no its cute and thoughtful, but you shouldn't stress over me, because like you said I'll think you'll look cute even if you were a mud monster." Jose smiles back and the two continue to make their way to the front door. Before the two exited Casita, Abuela stopped them and handed Jose a dark blue poncho, " Here so you don't catch a cold" Jose took it and gave it a look over, it had a beautiful pattern knit across the bottom and top. Jose looked up at Abuela, who was watching him carefully, " who does this belong to?" " It belonged to Mirabel's Abuelo Pedro, take good care of it, I'm trusting you" Jose nods, " of course Abuela, I'll take better care of it than my own poncho" Abuela sighs and as she walks off she says under her breath, "that doesn't make me feel better". Mirabel and Jose leave Casita and head into town, as they do, a barista yells out to them, " how are Encanto's favorite love birds doing this morning." Jose and Mirabel blush and wave at the barista. They make their way through town, saying hello to the townsfolk, helping a few along the way. A majority of them talked about the party tonight, asking all sorts of questions. As Jose listened he nearly forgot about his birthday and thought to himself, " man even I forgot, ( he shakes his head ) I should just focus on the party. Anyways spending the day with Mirabel is the only gift I want." Mirabel yanks Jose out of the way of a townsfolk carrying a stack of boxes, Jose and the man exchange apologies and continue walking. Mirabel wraps her arm around Jose's and asks, " what's got you so distracted" Jose looks down at her and smiles, " nothing I promise" Mirabel rolls her eyes. The two find Artou's shop and enter, as they did Artou greeted them, " Hola, welcome, I'm assuming y'all are here for this' ' he pulls out a basket full of paint, brushes, and crafting supplies. Jose looks at it curiously and looks at Mirabel, " these are decorations?" she shrugged her shoulders, " maybe Abuela wants you to do some painting" Jose shrugs and picks up the basket, " Gracias Artou ( he faces Mirabel ) alright let's get this stuff back to Casita" the two walk outside saying goodbye to Artou and Jose heads for Casita, when Mirabel grabs his arm and points down another way, " why don't we go through the market" Jose looks at her, " no I don't think that's a good idea. The market is busy in the morning, it'll take us longer that way" Mirabel starts dragging him towards the market, " come on it'll be fine, it's practically noon and anyways maybe we'll see some stuff we can use to decorate Casita". When Mirabel and Jose reach the market place, which is in the middle of town, they are faced with a bustling crowd. Jose looks at Mirabel with a proud smile, " told you so" Mirabel bumps hibs with Jose with a sarcastic eye roll. Jose begins to turn around, when Mirabel grabs Jose's arm and drags him into the crowd yelling, " I saw something that will look great as a decoration." Mirabel drags Jose through the crowd, Jose having to dodge people and apologies to the ones he couldn't, they reach a stand that was selling instruments. Jose looks at the stand then at Mirabel confused, " you thought an instrument would be a good decoration?" Mirabel gives a awkward smile, " yeeesss" before Jose could say anything else, Mirabel leans into the stand, " hey Marco, do you have guacharaca?" The stand guy, who was getting something from a box, notices Mirabel and gives a confident nod and smile. He pulls a guitar out and strums really hard and really fast, making the crowd come to a stop. Jose, still confused, thinks to himself, " Wait, that's not a guacharaca." Marco begins playing a fast beat song and begins to sing. As he does the crowd slowly starts to dance, as well as Mirabel, who was trying to get Jose to dance. He shakes his head and tries to say something but he couldn't hear himself as now a bunch of other musicians joined in making the music more rhythmic and louder. Jose sighs and tries to make his way through the now dancing crowd, but as he tries to go towards Casita, the crowd gets in his way. He tried different ways that lead to Casita but the crowd kept getting in his way, he finally found a direction that the crowd didn't try to stop him from going. As he went down the path, the crowd followed him, still dancing, they guided him down certain paths and in a matter of seconds Jose and Mirabel found themselves at the edge of town farther from Casita. Jose, staring at the dancing crowd that was heading back into Encanto, confusingly says, " how did we end out here?" Mirabel, who was still doing a little jig to the now distant music, shrugged her shoulders, " don't know, but wasn't that fun" Jose looks at Mirabel still having a confused look, " fun? Mirabel we gotta get this stuff back Casita's and help decorate, by the time we get home it'll be too late" Mirabel stops and puts her hand on his shoulder and gives a reassuring smile, " It's going to be okay Jose, we can just take this short cut" she points at a path away from town that went through the shrubbery. Jose gives a very untrustworthy look towards it, " I don't know Mirabel, are you sure?" Mirabel laughs and waves Jose to follow, " I'm positive, this shortcut will get us there in no time" after walking through the "shortcut" for a while. Jose noticed Mirabel looking around from time to time and muttering to herself. Jose gets a worried, " um, is everything ok Mirabel, we're not lost, right?" Mirabel looking around and muttering to herself, waves him off. After a little more walking, they hear rustling in the bushes, a jaguar jumps out growling in front of them. Jose gets in between Mirabel and the Jaguar, " oh come on" Mirabel gets close to Jose, " maybe it's Antonio's Jaguar" Jose shakes his head, " unlikely, Parce never leaves Antonio's side" Jose slowly puts down the basket and carefully walks towards the jaguar, it growls as he gets closer, Mirabel reaches out a bit, " Jose be careful" Jose continues to get closer, then he reaches out his hand and lifts it up, saying, " hey big guy, We don't want to hurt you and you don't want to hurt us, right?" The jaguar relaxes a bit as it follows Jose's hand up and then follows it down to the ground, collapsing. It begins to pur as Jose begins to give it belly rubs, " aww see you're just a kitty who wants belly rubs' ' Mirabel relaxes and breathes out, she walks up to the jaguar and begins rubbing its belly. They both smile and Mirabel nudges Jose, " I see you still have that weird connection with animals" Jose rolls his eyes and chuckles, " it's not weird, it's helpful". As the jaguar fully calmed down, Jose asked, " Do you think you can lead us back home?" The Jaguar made a little meow, Jose smiled and pulled up Abuelo Pedro's poncho, " here smell this" the jaguar sniffs it and then stands up, meows at Jose and Mirabel and begins walking forward. Jose and Mirabel look at each other, smile and begin following the jaguar. After a long walk the three break past the shrubbery and they can now see Encanto and Casita again. Jose pets the jaguar's head and thanks it for its help. Jose and Mirabel start walking towards Casita, Jose thinks to himself, " finally" but as they get closer a herd of donkeys cut their path, a farmer tips his straw hat to the two and apologizes. Mirabel waves at him, "it's ok!" Jose brings his head down and sighs in defeat, " you gotta be kidding me, it's one thing after another. First my poncho, then the crazy dance number in town, then the long shortcut, then the jaguar, who in his defence actually was some help, then this, and to top it all off no one remembers that today is my birthday, not even Mirabel. This has gotta be the wro...no, this isn't the worst birthday because ( he looks down at Mirabel, who was leaning on his shoulder watching the donkeys pass by ) I've never was able to spend it with her, even if I am the only that remembers, today was an amazing, crazy, frustrating at times, day and I wouldn't change it for anything." Jose leans down and gives Mirabel a kiss on top of the head, Mirabel looks up confused but smiling, " what was that for?" Jose smiles back at her, " oh you know, for you being you. Even though I got a bit frustrated today, you kept me calm. Sorry I didn't dance when you were trying to get me to, I was caught up in getting this silly basket home that I forgot to have fun." Mirabel looks back at the donkeys, who were finishing passing, and wraps her arm around Jose's, " It's ok, I know you just want to help". With all the donkeys passed, Jose and Mirabel finally made it back to Casita, the sun was now past its peak height. Jose looks at Mirabel, " I hope we're not too late to help finish decorating" Mirabel gives him a teasing smile while holding the door open, " mmm, I think we'll be just fine" Jose confused enters a dark lit Casita, " hey what ha-" "SURPRISE!" The Madrigal family jumps behind their hiding places and yells, making Jose yell in fright. Casita lights up and a banner is spread from one side of the hand rails to the other, that reads HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Mirabel gives Jose a big hug from behind, whispers, " happy birthday, amor" and joins the rest of the family in front of him. She breathes out, " whew, I don't know how long I was going to be able to watch you think we forgot your birthday, it honestly broke my heart a couple of times." Jose, still shocked, says, " so this entire time, y'all hadn't forgotten my birthday" Abuela stepped up, " of course not Milagro, we cherish you deeply everyday, why would we forget the most special one." Jose shrugs his shoulder, " maybe because today is the day the miracle found this family, wait was that a lie to get me to believe y'all forgot my birthday ( Jose lifts up the basket ) and was this just a distraction" everyone chuckles and giggles and Abuela says, " no, no today is the anneverayer of our miracle, it just so happened to be the same day as your birthday" Jose looks at Casita and smiles, " so we share the same birthday, Casita? Happy birthday" Casita does a beat that sounds like happy birthday. Mrs. Julieta and Mr. Augstin step up and Mrs. Julieta says, " Also that basket is your birthday gift from us, it wasn't ready till this morning. So it was perfect timing." Abuela claps her hand and says, " let us celebrate the day that this beautiful land was blessed with an even more beautiful person" with that the party began. Townsfolk came in and joined the party, everyone danced, laughed, played, and enjoyed each other's company. After the sun began to set, the townsfolk left and the Madrigal family and Jose sat at the dining room table. As they sat down, each Madrigal had a present in their hands. Mr. Felix and Mrs. Pepa gave theirs first, Jose opened it and inside were brand new dancing shoes, he looked at them both and thanked them. Mrs. Pepa says, " we noticed you didn't have any dancing shoes and seeing how you love to dance, we wanted to give you something that will make it more fun." he thanked them again, then  Bruno handed him his, Jose looked inside and saw a sandstone sculpture of Mirabel. Bruno blushed a little, " yeah I'm trying to find new hobbies and I thought you might like something that looked like Mirabel" Jose blushed and thanked him. Dolores handed hers over next, Jose opened it and inside were ear muffs, Dolores says, " you can wear them when it gets cold" he smiled and thanked her. Camilo gave his next, it was a large box, Jose opened it, curious what was inside. When he did he saw a small piece of paper at the bottom, he picked it up and it read, " free shapeshift" Jose looking at it confused thanked Camilo. Camilo gives a proud smile, " one use only, I'm more honest than a mirror" Jose chuckles and moves on to Antonio's gift. Antonio walks up to Jose and reaches out his arm, when he does a green garden snake slithers up and onto the table. Antonio smiles, " he can help you in your garden" Jose smiled and welcomed the snake onto his arm, he turned and thanked Antonio. Isabella gave hers next, Jose opened it and inside was a handmade book that read, " Isabella's guide to growing flowers" Isabella smiled, " A little guide to help you when you get stuck with your garden" Jose thanked her and scanned through it as Lusia left the room and brought back a folded hammock. She smiled awkwardly and said, " I couldn't find a big enough box, but here is the other part of the gift" she handed him a small book that read, " the forbidden romance of San Andreas" Lusia, embarrassed, said, " Mirabel told me your into romance stories, you can read it as you swing in your hammock. I found two perfectly placed trees in your room for it, I can help you set it up later." Jose smiled and thanked her dearly. Next was Mirabel's gift, Jose was most excited for hers though he tried not to show it. She handed it to him and he opened it with excitement, to his surprise it was his orange poncho. But now it had beautiful stitches all across it, Jose looked towards Mirabel with joy in his face, she straightened her glasses and blushed, " you kept on telling me how much you loved my stitches on my clothes, so I thought you might like a little something on your poncho" Jose stood up and hugged Mirabel tightly and thanked her with a kiss on the cheek. She blushed as she held her cheek, " now we can match." Jose took off Abuelo Pedro's poncho and handed it back to Abuela, thanking her again, and put on his. He twirled a bit and looked at the designs, they looked similar to Mirabel's but they were a little different. He sat back down as Abuela handed hers over, Jose opened it to find a neat stack of letters, kept together by ribbon. He looked at who they were addressed for and from, " to Elma, from MARIANA!" Everyone was confused, looked around and noticed Abuela starting to tear up. Jose looked up at Abuela shocked, " Mariana as in my mother? Why did my mama write letters to you?" Abuela wiped away a tear, " in the first few years of living here in Encanto, I met a little girl named Mariana, she was full of life and love, always thinking of others. We became good friends quickly, such good friends we spent almost everyday together. I remember she used to help me with my babies, well when they were babies. I loved your mama dearly, she was like a little sister to me. But as the years went on she grew up and fell in love with a man, your father, and together they left Encanto in search of their own lives. I didn't want to keep them where they didn't want to stay, so I let them go. But we didn't lose that friendship, because whenever we had the chance we would write to each other, sharing the stories of what was happening in our lives at the moment. I kept all those letters and I'll read them when I begin to miss her. But now I want you to have them, I want you to know your mother and fathers stories when they were young, a gift from your parents and I." Jose and Abuela began to cry as Jose wrapped his arms around Abuela, giving her a compassionate hug. Soon everyone joined in, as they all hugged Jose thought to himself, " this is the best birthday ever"
THE END