House Of The Scorpion

by Nancy Farmer

  “It was a shock,” María said, growing solemn. “I knew—I didn’t want to tell you—”

  “Knew what?”

  “Hey, is that people in the hall?”

  Matt heard the noise outside as well. He pulled María to the closet, pressed the hidden switch and heard her gasp as the secret passageway opened.

  “It’s like a spy novel,” she whispered as he drew her inside. Matt closed the door and found the flashlight he kept by the entrance. They tiptoed along the passage with Matt in the lead. Finally, he allowed her to stop and catch her breath.

  16

  BROTHER WOLF

  It’s even hotter in here than outside,” María said, wiping her face.

  “I’ll find an empty room we can hide in,” said Matt. He showed her the hidden peepholes, and María was both repelled and fascinated.

  “Don’t tell me you sit in here and watch people,” she said.

  “No!” Matt was offended. He wasn’t above eavesdropping at a dinner where he wasn’t invited. That was simply getting back at people who’d snubbed him. But what she’d suggested was nasty, like peeking through a keyhole. “You must think I’m a creep!”

  “Hey, I’m not the one with the secret passage. Who do you think made it?” María’s whisper sounded explosive next to Matt's ear. It tickled and sent shivers down his neck.

  “El Patrón, I guess,” said Matt.

  “That figures. He’s so paranoid, he’s always spying on people.”

  “Maybe he needs to.”

  “He can’t be using the peepholes anymore,” said María. “Can you imagine trying to squeeze a wheelchair in here?”

  “Don’t make fun of him.”

  “I’m not. Really. Listen, can we find a room before I melt into a puddle?”

  Matt rejected several rooms because he’d seen people in them, but at a bend in the passage he remembered a warehouse with computers and other equipment. Everything had been covered with plastic sheets. It seemed to be a place for things El Patron needed but didn’t want in full view to spoil the effect of his old-fashioned house.

  Matt helped María over a tangle of wires into the darkened room. “Wow! It’s cool in here,” she said.

  It was more than cool, Matt realized. It was icy. It smelled faintly of chemicals. A slight breeze stirred the hair on his arms, and a hum vibrated almost out of the range of his hearing. “I guess computers need air-conditioning,” he said.

  “Isn’t that just typical,” María said. “We can shrivel up in the heat, but the machines get a first-class hotel room.”

  They tiptoed around the equipment and spoke in whispers. Matt saw things glowing under the plastic covers, so the machines were on. What were they doing and what were they for?

  “Let’s sit somewhere and talk,” whispered María. Matt found a nook between two shrouded hulks where he thought they might be warmer. The coolness, at first so welcome, was beginning to get uncomfortable.

  They sat close together, as they had often done before María was sent away. “I decided to forgive you after reading The Little Flowers of Saint Francis,” María began. “You remember the wolf I talked about? Well, he was a monster who terrorized everybody until Saint Francis gave him a talking-to. He was sweet as a lamb and never ate anything but vegetables after that.”

  “I didn’t know wolves could digest vegetables,” said Matt, who had studied biology.

  “That’s not the point. Saint Francis didn’t say, I’m going to punish you for all the wickedness you’ve done.’ He said, ‘Brother Wolf, today is a new day and you’re going to turn over a new leaf.’”

  Matt held his tongue. He wanted to say that he hadn’t poisoned Furball and didn’t need forgiveness, but he didn’t want to spoil María’s mood.

  “So I realized I was being unfair and should forgive you. After all, wolves don’t know they aren’t supposed to eat peasants.” María leaned against him in the blue shadows of the equipment room. Matt’s heart turned over. She was so beautiful, and he had missed her so much.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “So you have to promise to be good.”

  “Okay,” said Matt, who would have promised her anything at that point.

  “You have to mean it, Brother Wolf. No running off to the henhouse for snacks.”

  “I promise. What do I call you? Saint María?”

  “Oh, no!” María said. “I’m not a saint. I have all kinds of faults.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Matt.

  María told him about how she struggled not to lose her temper at Emilia, how she copied someone’s paper when she forgot to do her homework, and how she ate ice cream when she was supposed to be fasting. Matt, who didn’t bother about being good, thought it a waste of time to worry about faults. “Have you been baptized?” he asked.

  “Yes. They did it when I was a baby.”

  “Is it a good thing?”

  “Well, of course. Without it, you can’t go to heaven.”

  Matt didn’t know much about heaven. Hell was mentioned a lot more often in the shows he watched on TV. “What did the priest mean—that I’m an unbaptized limb of Satan?”

  María leaned against him and sighed. “Oh, Matt. I’m sure Saint Francis wouldn’t have agreed with him. You aren’t evil, only …”

  “Only what?”

  “You don’t have a soul, so you can’t be baptized. All animals are like that. I think it’s unfair and sometimes I don’t believe it. After all, what would heaven be without birds or dogs or horses? And what about trees and flowers? They don’t have souls either. Does that mean heaven looks like a cement parking lot? I suppose this is what the nuns call a theological problem.”

  “Do animals go to hell when they die?” said Matt.

  “No! Of course not! You can’t get there without a soul either. I guess—I thought about it a lot when Furball died—you simply go out. Like a candle. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt. You’re there one minute and then you’re not. Oh, let’s not talk about this!”

  Matt was astonished to find her crying. She did cry a lot, he remembered. He hugged her and kissed her tear-streaked face. “I don’t mind,” he whispered. “If I had a soul, I’d probably wind up in hell anyway.”

  They sat together for a long time saying nothing. The room was so cold, they both were shivering. “I do like being with you,” María said at last. “There’s nobody at my school so easy to talk to.”

  “Can’t you visit me again?” said Matt.

  “Dada says I have to stay away. He thinks—Oh no! I hear voices again.”

  Matt and María jumped up and ran for the door at the same time. She tripped on the wires, and he caught her and boosted her into the passageway. He slid the door shut just as a door on the opposite side of the room opened. They stood for a moment to catch their breaths.

  “Warm at last.” María contentedly sighed, rubbing her arms. Matt listened attentively to the voices outside.

  “That’s Tom,” he said quietly.

  “Really? Where’s the peephole? Let me see.”

  “I thought you didn’t like spying on people.”

  “I only want a peek.” María put her eye to the hole. “It is Tom. And Felicia.” Matt put his ear to the wall so he could hear better.

  “… find them here … if they’re anywhere in the … house,” said Felicia’s slow, hesitant voice. For an instant Matt thought she meant the passage, but then he heard the sound of chairs being moved and the whir of a machine.

  “Hey, that’s the salon,” said Tom. “It’s completely empty. El Viejo is all alone.”

  “No one cares,” Felicia murmured. “He was … unusable.”

  “What do you mean?” said Tom.

  Felicia laughed, a shrill, alarming sound. “His liver was … gone. His heart … dried up. You can’t get transplants from a cancer patient.”

  “I guess he’s just compost now.” Tom laughed. Felicia laughed too.

  Matt was deeply shocked. He co
uldn’t produce tears for El Viejo, but he did feel sorry for him, lying there like a starved bird in his silk-lined coffin. Matt gently moved María aside. She didn’t protest as he’d expected. She seemed as stunned by what she’d just heard as he was.

  Matt saw that one of the large computer screens was brilliantly lit. Then he realized it wasn’t a computer at all, but some kind of camera. He saw an image of El Viejo with his beaklike nose poking out of the casket. The picture blurred and shifted. Tom was working the controls.

  “That’s the music room,” said Felicia.

  Matt saw the grand piano, stacks of music, and María’s black hat sitting on a table.

  “They were there!” cried Tom. He moved the camera lens to show all angles of the room.

  Felicia took over now, and she seemed to have a lot of experience using the viewing screen. She moved rapidly through the house, even showing the servants’ quarters and storage closets. She paused over Celia’s apartment. Celia had collapsed in a big easy chair with Tam Lin not far away.

  “Where could they have gone?” said Tam Lin, pacing up and down with the restless energy Matt remembered so well. The bodyguard’s voice was tinny and faint until Felicia increased the volume.

  “Maybe they aren’t even in the house,” said Celia.

  “He wouldn’t take her there,” Tam Lin said.

  “How do you know? If he was desperate enough—”

  “Careful,” said Tam Lin, looking straight into the view screen. Celia changed the subject and began discussing the funeral.

  “Blast! They know about the cameras,” said Tom.

  “Tam Lin knows … everything,” said Felicia. “El Patrón dotes on him.”

  “Take her where?” shouted Tom, smashing his fist onto a table covered with shrouded machines. Something fell over and broke. Felicia grabbed his hand.

  Matt knew what Celia was talking about. Tam Lin must have told her about the hidden oasis. Matt hadn’t considered taking María there, and he certainly couldn’t do it now with everyone hunting for him.

  “They could be … outside,” murmured Felicia. She manipulated the image to show the stables, the swimming pool, the gardens. Matt was startled to see the lotus pond and a pair of ibises lazily stretching their wings.

  “Let me see,” whispered María. Matt moved to one side and pressed his ear to the wall again so he wouldn’t miss anything.

  “Remember this?” said Felicia’s slow, insinuating voice.

  “That’s where Furball got snuffed, isn’t it?” said Tom.

  María gasped. Matt realized they must be looking at the pump house.

  “You know, I saw … the little beast that day,” said Felicia.

  “Furball?” Tom said.

  Felicia giggled. “I meant the clone. I saw … wonderful, talented Matt … sneaking out of the Mendoza apartment … with a dog in a bag. What’s going on? I thought, so I followed him.”

  There was a pause. Then Tom said, “Amazing! You can see inside!”

  “The cameras are everywhere. El Patrón used to watch … everything. But now he’s too old. He turned the job over to his security team. They don’t bother … unless there’s visitors. I spend a lot of time here.”

  “It’s so cold!”

  “The machines are more … efficient near freezing. I wear a coat and hardly notice,” said Felicia. Matt could believe that. She was so drugged, she probably wasn’t much warmer than poor El Viejo in his casket.

  “Did you see Matt kill the dog?” Tom asked eagerly. Matt was startled. Why was Tom asking that question when he himself had done the crime? María’s body wriggled with indignation. Matt hoped she wouldn’t forget herself and yell at them.

  “Matt didn’t … do it.”

  María flinched as though she’d been stung.

  “Oh, he had the laudanum,” Felicia went on, “but he … didn’t use it.”

  “Don’t tell me the dog found the bottle and offed himself!”

  “Oh … no …” Felicia fell silent. Sometimes it took her several minutes to marshal her thoughts and continue a conversation. Matt wished he could see what was happening, but he had no chance of prying María away from the peephole now. “I went to the lotus pond,” Felicia said finally. “I was … so angry … at how they treated you at the birthday party. I wanted to kill that abomination El Patron keeps at his heels.”

  Matt felt cold. He’d had no idea how much Felicia hated him.

  “But I had to be satisfied with … that filthy, slavering rat María called a dog. I keep a small amount of laudanum for my nerves.”

  She keeps about enough to wipe out a city, Matt thought.

  “So I poured one of … my bottles on the hamburger that idiot clone left behind. ‘Come here, Furball,’ I called. He didn’t want to leave his bag, but I … dumped him out … on the meat. He ate the whole thing.”

  “How long did it take him to die?” Tom asked, but Matt didn’t hear the answer. María slid to the floor, and he immediately went to her side. She didn’t make a sound, but her body trembled and she turned her head from side to side in an agony of grief.

  “He didn’t suffer,” Matt whispered as he held her. “He didn’t even know what was happening.” María clung to him, her face streaked by a bar of light from the flashlight Matt had propped against the wall. Finally, she calmed down enough for Matt to check up on what Tom and Felicia were doing. But they had gone, and the viewing screen was shrouded in plastic.

  He led her back along the passage. María said nothing, and Matt didn’t know what to do. They hadn’t gone far before he saw a large shape holding a flashlight coming toward them. There was hardly room for the shape to fit between the walls.

  “You utter fools,” said Tam Lin in a low voice. “The whole house is buzzing like a ruddy beehive.”

  “How did you find us?” asked Matt.

  “El Patron told me about this passage. He guessed you’d somehow found it. Damn it, Matt, María’s had enough grief out of you.”

  “Felicia poisoned Furball,” María said.

  “What are you talking about?” Tam Lin was clearly startled.

  “I heard her talking to Tom. She was so—so happy about it. I didn’t know people could be that evil.” María looked like a wraith in her black dress. Her face was ashen.

  “You need to lie down,” said Tam Lin. “I’ll take you out through El Patron’s study. He’ll say you were there all the time. He thinks this is pretty amusing, but Senator Mendoza doesn’t think it’s funny at all.”

  “Oh. Dada,” María said, as though she’d just remembered she had a father.

  “Matt, you wait here a few minutes. When the coast is clear, come out wherever you went in,” said the bodyguard.

  “The music room,” said Matt.

  “I should have guessed it. María’s hat was there.”

  “Matt,” said María, pulling away from Tam Lin for a moment, “you let me forgive you for something you hadn’t done.”

  “A little extra forgiveness never hurts,” said Matt, quoting one of Celia’s favorite sayings.

  “You probably liked letting me make a perfect idiot of myself,” she said with a flash of her old spirit.

  “I’d never think you were an idiot,” said Matt.

  “Anyhow, I’m sorry I was unfair to you.”

  “We can’t stay here,” said Tam Lin.

  “I expect you to keep your promise to be good,” she went on, looking at Matt.

  “Okay,” he replied.

  “And, Brother Wolf, I’ll miss you.” This time María let Tam Lin hurry her down the passage. Matt listened to her footsteps die away in the distance.

  17

  THE EEJIT PENS

  The Mendozas left immediately after María, pale and miserable, emerged from El Patron’s apartment. El Patron decamped not long afterward with his bodyguards.

  Matt was alone again. He couldn’t talk to María or Tam Lin, but knowing they still liked him made all the difference. He studi
ed things he thought they would approve of. He read survival manuals for Tam Lin and a long, confusing book about Saint Francis to please María.

  Saint Francis loved everyone from murderous bandits to beggars covered with running sores (there was a picture of one of these in the book). He called a cicada to his finger and said, “Welcome, Sister Cicada. Praise God with your joyful music.” Saint Francis spoke to everything—Brother Sun and Sister Moon, Brother Falcon and Sister Lark. It gave Matt the warm feeling that the world was one loving family—very unlike the Alacráns.

  But would Saint Francis have said, Brother Clone?

  Matt’s warm feelings evaporated. He wasn’t part of the natural order. He was an abomination.

  No matter where he was, Matt couldn’t rid himself of the sensation he was being watched. It was bad enough to know the security guards spied on him, but far worse to think of Felicia. She was as awful as Tom, only no one suspected it because she seemed so meek. She reminded Matt of one of those jellyfish he’d seen on TV. They floated around the ocean like fluffy pillows, trailing enough venom to paralyze a swimmer. Why hadn’t he realized Felicia hated him?

  Well, to be honest, because most people hated him. It was no big thing. But her malevolence was in a class by itself.

  Once a week Matt went to the stables and asked for a Safe Horse. Before going out, though, he tried to have a conversation with Rosa. He didn’t like her. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to wake her up, only that it seemed horrible to see her so changed. If there was anything left of Rosa, it was locked in an iron box. He imagined her banging on the walls with her fists, but no one came to open the door. He’d read that coma victims hear everything people say and need voices to keep their brains alive. And so Matt talked to her about everything he’d seen and done that week. But all Rosa ever replied was, “Do you wish another horse, Master?”

  After an hour or so of this, Matt rode off to the oasis. “Hello, Brother Sun,” he called. “Would you mind cooling down a bit?” Brother Sun ignored him. “Good morning, Sister Poppies,” Matt called to the sea of blinding white flowers. “Hello, Brother and Sister Eejits,” he greeted a row of brown-clad workers bending over the fields.