Paola Santiago

## Appearances

### Appears in

Paola Santiago and the River of TearsPaola Santiago and the Forest of Nightmares

**Paola "Pao" Santiago** is the main character of the Paola Santiago series.

## History

### *Before Paola Santiago and the River of Tears*

#### Pao's Father

Before he left, Pao's father read books to heavy for her to lift, wrote obsessively in tiny notebooks she wasn't allowed to touch, and took long walks in the desert after bedtime. Sometimes Pao would watch him from her window as he paced, gesturing like he was talking to the moon.

For a while, Pao pretended he had gone to live on the moon, where he would watch her get tucked into bed every night through a long white telescope. She grew out of the daydream, but never her obsession with the moon.

#### Pao and the Flashlight

When she was in third grade, her mother somehow managed to have Christmas that year, an unusual occasion. There was a little tree set up with presents under it, and the house smelled like fresh-baked cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate. After breakfast, her mother had pulled out a package with a weird stamp and no return address on it, and after a moment of silence she told Pao it was from her father. Pao was so young that she didn't yet know she should be angry at him for not being there to give it to her in person. At that point she only knew what her mom said -- that it was hard for two grown-ups to live together and sometimes it didn't work, no matter how much you tried or wanted to.

The flashlight was the only present her dad ever sent her.

When Pao first opened the flashlight and realized it projected an image of the moon, she had made her mom turn off all the lights so she could use the toy right away. The impression of the full moon had been faint, since the blinds let in some light even when they were all the way closed, but Pao hadn't cared. The beam had been strong enough to show the craters.

She carried the flashlight all around when she was seven, but she stopped playing with the flashlight later in third grade. Somehow Senora Mata got ahold of it from there.

#### Pao and La Llorona

Pao was forbidden from going to the Gila at a young age. Her mother wanted her away from it due to her fear of La Llorona, and told Pao stories that terrified her. Her mother's restrictions kept her from going to the first boy-girl river-tubing party she was ever invited to.

She had her first riverbank dream when she was nine. Nothing much had happened in it, but for the younger Pao, the terrible, utterly dark sky was enough to make her wake up screaming, drenched in sweat, and send her running to her mother's room for comfort. Throughout the rest of elementary school, she'd had the dreams about the river at least once a week. Her mom had been at a loss. She'd invited curandera friends and other healers to try to purge whatever was haunting Pao, but nothing worked. After that, they went to a doctor's office, where nurses attached things to Pao's head and screened her for all kinds of conditions she didn't have.

Mid-fourth grade, Pao was referred to a child psychiatrist -- one her mother was unable to afford. Even so young, Pao noticed the dark circles under her mom's eyes from being awakened so often and the wrinkles that appeared on her forehead every time the doctor suggested a new treatment or a test their insurance didn't cover, so she stopped running to her mom. She pretended that the dreams had gone away on their own. Over time, they became just another strange part of her life, one she hardly thought about beyond the first few terrifying minutes after she woke up. She erased the nightmares with good old-fashioned research. The ghosts and wailing and disembodied hands had been replaced with sneaky currents, hypothermia, and sunken tree branches that could snag an ankle.

#### Pao and her Friends

Pao's mom always left for her waitressing job at eight thirty, and she didn't come home until closing time, around two a.m. If anyone asked, Pao was supposed to say that Dante's abuela watched her at night, and for a while that was true, but when she turned ten Pao petitioned to be allowed to sleep in her own bed, tired of the stiff, uncomfortable sofa at Dante's.

The only time Pao ever ate lunch with the Lockwoods at the country club, she accidentally ordered duck, which was called something fancy and French she'd been embarrassed to ask about. Then she used the wrong fork, which Emma gently informed her of in a whisper. Pao hadn't had the guts to go back there since, and up to the current day still apologizes under her breath every time she sees a live duck.

#### Other Events

The only dog that ever lived in the Riverside Palace apartments was a massive rottweiler named Spooky, and when he barked at all hours of the night, Senora Mata used to scream down at him, "Callate, Bruto!" Pao always giggled at how out of sorts it made Senora Mata, that barking dog. He wasn't so bad. But Pao always secretly thought Spooky was a terrible name for him -- he was fearsome, and Spooky was not a fearsome name.

Three summers before Paola Santiago and the River of Tears, apartment F's roof caved in and no one bothered to fix it. Although it was unoccupied, sometimes high schoolers smoked cigarettes in it at night. Whenever Senora Mata caught those kids there, she chased them off with her house slipper, yelling curses in Spanish while they sped away laughing on low-to-the-ground bikes, the sort Pao secretly coveted.

One year before Paola Santiago and the River of Tears, Marisa "drowned" in the Gila.

Six months before the events of Paola Santiago and the River of Tears, Sal and his parents were taken from where they lived at Unit B, when uniformed men came in a van and arrested them. Pao, Emma and Dante witnessed the whole thing while taking turns on Emma's bike in the parking lot.

## Appearance

Pao is a Mexican-American girl with dark brown skin, round cheeks, a long nose, and heavy eyebrows threatening to meet in the middle. She parts her hair unevenly, not due to lack of trying, and pulls it into two shoulder-length braids; at first her hair is all black, but after she uses the key one of her braids, half of her hair turns white, starting from the part, and one of her eyebrows is bleached white. She never cuts her fingernails, letting them grow too-long and ragged.

## Personality

### *Scientific*

As she's grown up, Pao grew resentful of her mother's superstitions, which gave her nightmares and often means they don't have money for any luxuries. She embraced science as a way to justify her resentment, and as a way for her to imagine a better, bigger world. She's particularly interested in space, the river, and nature in general. Throughout the story, she learns to use science not as a way to defend herself but as a way to understand the world, no matter how bizarre it gets.

### *Curious*

Pao is always wondering how things work, and has a tendency of interrupting others to ask questions -- Ondina deems her "relentless" for this.

### *Distrusting*

Pao is always critical of others, wondering what they want, and tends to not assume the best of them.

### *Quick Tempered*

Pao gets angry quickly and tends to lash out at others, like when she gets jealous of Dante and Naomi, or gets upset at Dante's hero complex.

### *Caring*

Pao cares deeply about her friends Dante and Emma, and won't let anything get between them. She also quickly grows attached to her chupacabra puppy Bruto, feeling extremely happy when he comes with her into the Rift.

### *Feminist*

It's stated multiple times that Pao is a feminist -- she's not sure how she feels about Dante wanting to protect her, and is annoyed when Naomi tells her she can't fight with them because Dante could get distracted, and she also dislikes people perpetuating beauty standards, especially since she's not conventionally attractive.

## Powers

### *Dreaming*

Pao's epithet, "the Dreamer", refers to her vivid dreams which seem to predict the future and allow her communicate with other beings, such as Ondina.

## Relationships

### *MRS. SANTIAGO (mother)*

Pao is resentful of her mother, but she still loves her.

### *DANTE (friend, love interest)*

Dante has a small crush on Pao, and she on him. Although their relationship can get rocky at parts, especially as they've grown up, care for each other deeply and have been friends for years.

## Trivia

* Paola means "humble" or "small".
* Santiago refers to Saint James.