The Spanish Kidnapping Disaster

by Mary Downing Hahn

  The old ladies stared at me, but two young women, one holding the wailing baby, were wedging themselves into the seat. Trembling and weeping, they distracted the old ladies' attention from Amy and me.

  Then a little boy spotted us. I'm sure he called us dirty gypsies, but Orlando wasn't looking our way. To my horror, he was aiming his gun at the Volkswagen. As he squeezed the trigger, our bus's windshield shattered in a shower of safety glass. Everyone screamed at the noise of the gun, and Charles swerved as if the explosion had scared him, too. In fact, he almost lost control of the bus as we skidded around a sharp curve.

  Through the broken glass and dust, I saw the Volkswagen disappear over a hill.

  "Bloody hell," Charles yelled at Orlando. "Don't do that again! Do you want to wreck the bus, you fool?"

  Orlando shouted at Charles in Spanish and Charles shouted back, this time in Spanish. Again the bus careened, the brakes squealed, and the two men cursed.

  When a teenage boy lunged forward, Orlando whirled around and pointed the gun at him. He yelled a sentence that had "muerto" in it, and the boy slid down in his seat, trying to shield his head with his arms.

  As Charles began gaining on the Volkswagen, the bus swayed and bounced violently. Everybody, Amy and me included, rose up in the air and slammed back down as we hurtled madly over ruts and bumps and slid around curves. A grocery bag burst open, and soon we were ducking flying squash, tomatoes, loaves of bread, cans of food, bottles of milk, and a flounder or two.

  "¡Socorro!" one old woman cried, and the baby's mother screamed louder than the baby itself.

  But the bus continued to pursue the Volkswagen, and Orlando fired at it a few more times, paying no attention to Charles's pleas.

  Then two things happened at once. As we slid around a curve, I shot out from behind the back seat, and Orlando saw me. At the same moment, Charles lost control of the bus.

  18

  Orlando shouted and started moving toward me, but he slipped on a smashed tomato and crashed to the floor just as the bus veered off the road and skidded down the hillside.

  "We're all going to die!" Amy screamed as we bounced over rocks and barely missed a tree.

  Somehow Charles managed to stop the bus without turning it over. Inside all was chaos. People were struggling to their feet, screaming and crying. Orlando had dropped his gun and was trying to retrieve it, but the other passengers were crowding the aisles, sheltering us from him.

  Dragging Amy after me, I scrambled through an open rear window. Ignoring a voice shouting "Deténganse," we dropped to the ground.

  "Run!" I screamed at Amy as we scrambled to our feet outside the bus. "Run!"

  Keeping our heads down, we sprinted uphill toward the road, toward the Volkswagen, toward Grace and Phillip who were yelling, "Felix, Amy, hurry!"

  "¡Deténganse!" Orlando roared from behind us as a bullet hit the earth ahead of me, kicking up a puff of dust.

  "Stop!" Charles shouted. "Stop, you little beasts!"

  Another bullet whined past my shoulder, but I didn't look back. I kept my head down and raced toward the Volkswagen's open door.

  "Come on!" Phillip cried. "Come on!"

  Then Phillip was grabbing at us, pulling us into the Volkswagen, and it was moving even before Amy had her feet inside. A bullet cracked a side window as Grace accelerated.

  "Get down!" she yelled. "Stay on the floor!"

  More bullets hit the Volkswagen, shattering the rear window, but Grace didn't even swerve. She drove like a stuntwoman in a movie, and in a few seconds we were out of range.

  "Felix, Amy," she said, glancing over her shoulder. "You are all right?"

  I took a quick look at myself. No bullet wounds, just the old gash on my leg, a few more scrapes and bruises on the rest of me, and lots of dirt. "I guess I'm okay," I said, hardly daring to believe it. "But how did you know we were on the bus?"

  "We saw you sneak on before it left town," Phillip said, "but we couldn't do anything because Orlando and Charles came walking into the square right after you got into the bus. They just missed seeing us."

  Grace nodded. "Now we must get back to Segovia." Turning the van sharply, she roared onto a highway as if Orlando and Charles were still chasing us.

  Hanging on to a little loop over the window, Phillip shook his head. "Back home, she'd get a speeding ticket," he said, but you couldn't miss the admiration in his voice.

  "Is your ankle okay?" Amy asked him.

  Phillip winced a little and shrugged. "Grace says it's broken, but she splinted it the best she could." He extended his ankle, tightly wrapped in strips of torn cloth. "It still hurts," he said. "But I haven't cried once."

  "How did Grace find you?" I asked.

  "When Orlando came back and discovered we were gone, he was mad at first, then he and Charles got drunk," Phillip said. "Grace waited till they passed out, and then she took the Volkswagen and came looking for us. Señora Perez told her she thought we might be hiding in the hills near her farm.

  "Thank goodness she didn't tell Orlando that," Amy said.

  "Señora Perez was pretty much on our side by then," Phillip said. "In fact, if she'd seen us, she would've hidden us in her house."

  Amy and I looked at each other. Like me, she was probably wishing she'd known that earlier. It would have saved us a lot of agony.

  Phillip frowned at Amy and me. "You sure were hard to rescue," he said. "Once we thought we saw you, but you ran away. Then, after you got on the bus, we decided to go to Segovia and get the police, but Charles and Orlando started chasing us. Wow, it was like being in a movie."

  While Phillip acted out what had happened, complete with sound effects, 1 looked out the window at the people in the cars we were passing. I wondered what they'd say if they knew what had just happened to us.

  "I hope Orlando doesn't hurt the other people on the bus," Amy said. "None of this was their fault."

  "Except for that one old lady," I corrected her. "If she'd listened to us instead of thinking we were gypsies, we'd have gotten to the police station a long time ago."

  Just then I noticed a bag on the seat beside Phillip. "Is that food?" He nodded.

  Rummaging around, I grabbed a hunk of cheese and climbed up into the front seat beside Grace. "I was right about you all along," I told her through a mouthful of cheese. "You're a true citizen of the world, plus you're the best driver I ever saw."

  Grace smiled at me, but her face was pale. One of her eyes was purple and swollen shut, and her upper lip was puffy.

  "What happened?" I asked her.

  "Nada de nada," she said. "It is nothing. When Orlando came back, he blamed me for your escape. It is the way of a coward to beat up a woman."

  She spat out the window to show her contempt for Orlando. "Now the bus is wrecked. Who will he blame for that?"

  Looking at Grace closely, I realized her tee-shirt was wet. "You're bleeding," I gasped. "You've been shot."

  "Do not worry," Grace said, "it is a mere flesh wound."

  "But the blood."

  "Just a trickle." She glanced at her arm and bit her lip. "This kidnapping," she said, "what a great disaster it has been for me."

  "The great Spanish kidnapping disaster," I said. "That's what it's been all right. The worst thing that ever happened to me."

  "But almost over for you, Felix. Look." Grace pointed at a highway sign. "Five kilometers to Segovia. Very soon you will be safe again. But what of me? I will go to jail, I will be deported. Your disaster is done, but I think my disaster has just begun."

  "What do you mean? You rescued us," I said.

  "Yes, but before? When I told Charles and started all this. Will you tell that part?"

  Amy and Phillip were leaning over my seat, watching Grace and listening. I looked at them and put my finger to my lips. Phillip nodded at once, but Amy hesitated.

  "I don't want to seem ungrateful," Miss Perfect told Grace, "but you knew what was going to happen when you took us to the windmills."
>
  "Ah, then I did not know of Orlando and how he would change things," Grace said. "That day in Segovia it seemed fair to get the money for the poor children from the rich American parents."

  Grace frowned so fiercely I was worried she might decide to keep us for the ransom after all.

  "But you could be dead at this very moment, and it would be my fault," she added. "I feel very bad to have trusted Charles, muy estúpida. Never did I intend any harm to befall you, you must believe me."

  Grace struck her chest for emphasis and winced as if she had hurt herself.

  "I think we should say they kidnapped all of us," Phillip said. "Including Grace."

  I nodded and leaned toward Grace. "This is how we'll tell it," I told her. "You took us to see the windmills, and Charles and Orlando grabbed all four of us. You knew them, you told them we were visiting the windmills, but you had no idea they would kidnap us."

  "The police will not believe this," Grace said sadly. "They will see the peepholes."

  "Peepholes?" Phillip stared at Grace.

  "Loopholes," I said, "she means loopholes."

  Grace smiled. "I have so much trouble with the little funny things you say."

  She turned off the road, and we saw Segovia on the hill above us, glowing golden in the afternoon sunlight just as it had three long days ago. As Amy bounced up and down with anticipation, I turned to her.

  "There won't be any loopholes or peepholes if we all agree about what happened," I told her. "Are you going along with Phillip and me or not?"

  Amy looked at Grace, at the blood drying on her arm, at her black eye and swollen lip. She frowned and thought hard.

  "Come on, Amy." Phillip poked her in the side. "Say 'yes.' You have to. She saved our lives."

  I leaned toward Amy. "You don't want Grace to go to jail, do you? Not after all she's done to make things right?"

  Amy twirled a long strand of hair tightly around her finger. Narrowing her eyes, she stared at me. "If I say 'yes,'" she said to me, "will you promise never to say another word about my mother's music appreciation professor?"

  Now it was my turn to think hard. As much as I hated to promise, I knew Grace was more important than silencing Amy with a telling blow like the music appreciation professor.

  Reluctantly I said, "If I promise not to mention the professor, will you promise not to say mean things about my mother's cooking?"

  Amy sighed. "I thought we were making a bargain about Grace. I don't see what your mother's cooking has to do with going to jail."

  "It's a compromise," I said. "It won't kill you."

  "Then maybe you should swear to stop acting like a know-it-all." Amy glared at me.

  "And you could quit being such a goody-goody!" I was getting mad now.

  "Girls, girls, what way is this to talk?" Grace stared at us. "Surely from this great disaster you have learned to be sisters."

  Phillip squinted at us. "Grace is right," he said. "You're acting like barbarians. And, besides, the police station is straight ahead. We have to agree on our story before they start asking questions."

  Amy and I looked where Phillip was pointing. Sure enough, at the end of the narrow street was a building with a sign over the door that said Policía.

  "Oh, all right!" Amy slid down in her seat. "I'll go along with you, but if Grace gets away with it, she better not ever kidnap anybody else!"

  Grace glanced at Amy. "Believe me, I will never do such an outrage again," she said. "I have learned my lesson."

  Then the citizen of the world turned even paler and slumped over the steering wheel. Before I could figure out where the brake pedal was, the Volkswagen jumped the curb, climbed the steps like a windup toy, and came to a sudden stop halfway through the door of the police station.

  19

  Our sudden appearance at the police station caused quite an uproar. We were immediately surrounded by armed policemen, and for a moment I thought we were going to be shot on the spot as terrorists. Fortunately, someone realized we were too young to be dangerous and an even greater disaster was averted.

  Despite his broken ankle, Phillip grabbed his phrase book out of my back pocket and added to the confusion by trying to explain who we were in Spanish. To my relief, one of the detectives spoke English and soon figured out we were the kidnapped children everyone was looking for.

  "And this one?" he asked, meaning Grace who was still slumped over the steering wheel. If she hadn't moaned, I would have thought she was dead, she was so still and pale.

  "She rescued us," Phillip and I said as an ambulance arrived.

  Anxiously I watched the two men lift Grace out of the van and lower her gently to a stretcher. Except for her black eye, Grace's face was ashen against the red hair fanned out around it. Still caught in a tangle was the pink flower, its petals curled and rimmed with brown.

  "Is she going to be all right?" I asked the doctor bending over her.

  He nodded, and the detective said, "Take her to the hospital. The questions will be later."

  Before the men rolled Grace away, she opened her eyes and smiled. "You see, Felix?" she whispered. "Did I not tell you this was a great disaster for me, the worst ever?"

  The detective turned to us as the stretcher disappeared into the ambulance. "This woman is Grace, the stranger who took you to the windmills?"

  "She was kidnapped too," I said.

  "By Orlando and Charles," Phillip added quickly. "You better get them. They wrecked a bus in the mountains, and they have guns. They might hurt the passengers."

  In response to this information, several police cars soon roared away. Then someone noticed Phillip's injured ankle, and, by the time Mom and Don arrived, we were drinking Cokes and feeling better than we had since we'd set out to see the windmills.

  At the sight of me, her only child, safe and almost sound, Mom threw her arms around me and burst into tears. "Oh, Felix, Felix," she sobbed. "Are you sure you're all right? I was so scared. I was afraid I'd never see you again."

  "You almost didn't," I said. My arms tightened around her and I cried too. Never had her hair smelled so nice to me. Never had her body felt so warm and comforting. "I thought I was going to get killed for sure."

  "I can't believe I let you go off with that woman," Mom said. "How could I have been so irresponsible?"

  "It wasn't Grace's fault." I stopped crying and drew back so I could see Mom's face. "Charles and Orlando followed her. They kidnapped all of us, Grace too."

  "But she rescued us!" Phillip shouted. "She got shot, and they took her away in an ambulance."

  Don turned to Amy. "Is Phillip right?" he asked as if he couldn't believe his own son.

  There was a tiny silence. Phillip and I both held our breath and waited to see what Miss Perfect would say.

  "If it hadn't been for Grace," Amy said, "we'd all be dead right now."

  "Muerto!" Phillip yelled. "Bang! Bang! Muerto!"

  After another flurry of hugging and kissing and crying, Don asked the detective if we could leave. "My son should have his ankle x-rayed, and Felix has a bad cut on her leg."

  The detective leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers on his chest. He scrutinized Phillip, Amy, and me, then leaned forward and smiled at us. "We will have to question these three again," he said to Don, "but I think they have suffered enough for now."

  ***

  That night, Phillip, Amy, and I were in a lovely clean hotel room, bathed, fed, and rested. Phillip was sporting a big, white cast on his left leg and hopping around on one crutch. I was balancing myself on the other because my bandaged leg was still stiff and sore. Not wanting to be left out, Amy claimed she had a headache, and no one could prove she didn't.

  From the Spanish evening news, we learned that Orlando and Charles were both in custody. By the time the police found the bus, the passengers had overcome our enemies and tied them to a tree. As the television camera moved in on Orlando and Charles, we could see the passengers in the background, laughing and talking.
The baby had stopped crying, and even the old ladies were smiling. Charles and Orlando were the only bad sports in the group. They were obviously not enjoying themselves.

  "What an awful man." Mom stared at a closeup of Orlando's face as Phillip attempted to translate the reporter's account of his criminal background.

  I shivered and slid closer to her, glad for the security of her arm around me. Even though I knew he was now in jail, it scared me to see Orlando glaring into the camera lens, his cobra eyes still full of menace.

  Charles's face appeared next, downcast, unhappy, ashamed.

  "He graduated from Cambridge," Phillip translated, "and he's never done anything bad before this."

  "I hope they throw the book at him," Don said.

  Then it was Grace's turn. She was sitting in a hospital bed, and her bandaged arm, black eye, and split lip made her look the part of a victim.

  According to Phillip, Orlando and Charles had told the police Grace was their accomplice. Although she admitted telling them, her old friends, about us, she denied any role in our kidnapping. The reporter pointed out that we backed up Grace's account. He seemed to think Orlando and Charles were lying.

  After the news program, Mom hugged me. "I'm just so glad you're safe," she said. Then she burst into tears, something she'd been doing ever since she saw me in the police station.

  "Oh, Felix," she said, "you don't know what Don and I have been through, sitting here in this hotel room, waiting for news, scared to death we'd never see you again."

  "Yes," Don agreed, "we went to the embassy, the police, the press, and they all told us the same thing. There was nothing we could do but wait. They were doing all they could."

  To my surprise, he put one arm around Amy and the other around me. Hugging us both, he said, "Well, it's all over now. Thanks to Grace, we have the three of you back, safe and happy."

  From behind, Phillip slung his arms around Don's neck. Phillip's head was so close to mine, I could smell the shampoo he'd used, but for once I didn't feel like pushing him away. I didn't even want to pull away from Don. In fact, it was kind of nice sitting close to him. Maybe he'd turn out to be an all-right dad after all.