Turbo Pudding

Twelve NeighborsMeet the cast

The Méndez family of Main Street

· The Turbo Pudding team · 4 min read

A close view behind the counter of Méndez Hardware: on the left, Ximena, a fourteen-year-old girl with a long dark ponytail and a purple clip in her hair, in a pink hoodie, rests her chin on her hand and smiles over an open textbook with a yellow pencil beside it; on the right, her dad Rogelio, a broad man with short gray hair and a salt-and-pepper mustache, in a red plaid flannel shirt and a green store apron, grins with his eyes squeezed shut, and a board of hanging keys shows at the right edge above the long wooden counter

In Twelve Neighbors, your best friend is Paloma Méndez, and in Harrow you can’t know one Méndez for long without running into the rest. There’s a store on Main, a dad behind its counter, the youngest Méndez with a party to plan, a quarterback brother and a grandmother who cooks at Hoff’s. This Monday, meet the family.

The store on Main

Méndez Hardware has stood on Main Street since 1958, and it has stayed in the family ever since. Inside, there’s a pressed-tin ceiling, two green enamel lamps, a front door with a bell on a spring arm, and tall shelves of paint, rope, nails and buckets. On cold nights the heaters come out onto the floor. A brass register sits on the long counter with a jar of wrapped candy, and keys hang on a board behind it. The game sums the place up in four words: “Three aisles, one cat.”

The store reaches a long way. Paloma records her true-crime podcast, Harrowing, in a closet in the family basement, among forty pounds of Méndez Hardware inventory.

Rogelio, who does the talking

Rogelio is Paloma’s dad: 56, a flannel shirt, the store apron and a salt-and-pepper mustache. The game introduces him as a man who “has never once let a customer leave without a story.”

You meet him properly in chapter 3. It’s Thursday night, your family’s furnace has opinions in October, and Grandma Dot sends you to Méndez Hardware for a space heater. Rogelio knows you’re on a jury, so he sets out his house rule at once: “Juror Seven! Don’t tell me anything. I tell you. That’s how this works.”

Juror Seven, drawn large in the middle, with long light brown hair, freckles and green eyes, in a mustard knit cap, a tan jacket and a red plaid shirt, smiles inside Méndez Hardware at night; behind them on the left is the store’s wooden front door with a small brass bell on a curly spring arm above it and a dark street with lit windows and a lamppost in its glass, and on the right a tall wooden shelf holds paint cans with green, purple and orange bands, coils of rope and rows of small red, yellow, green and blue boxes of parts, under a green enamel lamp and stacked cardboard boxes
Searched “small town visual novel shopkeeper.” He talks first.

Then he does the selling, and it’s hard to argue with: “The good heater is forty-nine ninety-nine. The cheap one is twenty. The cheap one is how you meet the fire department.” You take the good one.

He even offers it on credit: “Take the heater, mija. Pay me after the trial.” Mija is a fond Spanish word, short for “my daughter.” You pay him anyway, in exact change. “He takes it like it hurts him.”

Ximena, with an X

The youngest Méndez is Ximena, 14. In the store she sits behind the counter in a pink hoodie, her ponytail held with a purple clip, her chin on her hand over an open textbook.

You first meet her at the homecoming parade. She rides the freshman float, a papier-mâché owl, and “throws candy off it like it owes her money.” From the float she invites you: “Come to my quinceañera! Spring! If the trial’s over!” A quinceañera is a big party for a girl’s fifteenth birthday. She also has a complaint about the parade announcer, who called her “Zy-MEE-na” again: “It’s ‘hee-MEH-nah’! With an X! Don’t ask!”

Ximena doesn’t forget a guest list. In the store, she turns up at your elbow “with a stack of envelopes and the stare of a tax collector.” “I asked you at the parade. To my quinceañera. You didn’t say no, so I wrote you down in pen.” She adds a family update: “If the trial’s over by spring. Paloma says you might be in jail for contempt.”

You promise to be there with bells on. Ximena has already thought of that: “No bells. It’s a theme. You’ll get a card.”

Mateo, number 12

Mateo is 16 and 178 centimeters tall, and he’s drawn in a letterman jacket. On Friday night he’s the Owls’ number 12, with his helmet under his arm. His sister has a prediction about him: “Mateo’s going to throw up before halftime. It’s tradition.”

Then Mateo “throws it forty yards into the end zone, and three thousand people forget, for nine whole seconds, what night it is.” At the pie contest, he and Landon Gentry fight over the last donut by the cider urn.

Miss Espe

Esperanza Méndez, 72, is Paloma’s grandmother. To you, she’s Miss Espe. She stands 150 centimeters tall, with big round glasses, and she has been the cook at Hoff’s for thirty-eight years.

She has one note for her granddaughter’s podcast. In chapter 1, Paloma is recording at Hoff’s, and Miss Espe tells her: “Paloma. Apágalo. Eat first.” Apágalo means “turn it off.” Paloma answers: “Ay, Abuela. It’s a podcast. Not a crime.” Abuela is Spanish for grandma.

At the Harvest Festival, Miss Espe runs the tamales tent in a marigold sweater, an apron and a red knit hat. She hasn’t given up on that microphone: “She never turns it off. Like her grandfather with the radio.” She is also getting ready for the Day of the Dead, Día de Muertos in Spanish: “I need flowers by the bucket. My Ignacio liked them loud.”

Two women at the tamales tent on the festival square, drawn large: on the left, Judge Whitlock, an older woman with short curly gray hair, gold reading glasses on a chain, a gray cardigan and a white collar, holds a steaming mug that reads OKAYEST JUDGE; on the right, Esperanza, a small elderly woman in a red knit cap, big round gold glasses and an orange sweater with a white apron and a name badge reading ESPERANZA, smiles at her; behind them are the brick county courthouse with its clock tower, strings of red, green and gold pennants, the orange and yellow tamales tent with its sign, a cider and donuts stand with orange jugs, an American flag and round autumn trees
People also ask: “do judges eat tamales?” Two pork, one sweet.

Even the judge has a usual at her tent. When Judge Whitlock steps up behind you in line, Miss Espe greets her like a regular: “Your Honor. The usual?”

Visit the Méndezes

Chapters 1–3 of Twelve Neighbors, the hardware store and the Harvest Festival included, are free to play in your browser at twelveneighbors.com. The full game, all seven chapters, is $9.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Twelve Neighbors page.

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