“I’ve come to talk to Mr. Delgado,” said Darwen, wondering what business it was of hers. “What are you doing?”
“Talk to him about what?” she asked, ignoring his question, and it was there again, that watchful curiosity beneath a catlike smile.
“I . . . I just need to find them,” he said. It was going to be hard enough talking to the Delgado family. He saw no reason to explain himself to this woman first.
She looked at him, and for a moment Darwen thought she might try to stop him, but then she shrugged, and the smile buckled at one side so that it looked more like a smirk. “Better hurry then,” she said. “I’m not sure how much longer they’ll be here.”
“They’re moving out?” asked Darwen, aghast.
“I paid them the first installment this morning,” she answered. “I think Mr. Delgado will be hunting the jaguar that took his daughter first, which is understandable. But once that is dead, they’ll be on the next boat out of here.”
“To where?” Darwen demanded. “To do what? This is their home. Their life.”
“Not anymore,” said Scarlett, still smiling that wide, bland smile. “They’ve suffered a deep and touching loss here. Hardly surprising that they want to put it behind them. As for what they will do, well, Mr. . . . whatever your name is, it’s not good to look after people too much. Better that they make their own way in the world. If they don’t have the knowledge or the skills to do that,” she concluded, still smiling, “well, that’s what you environmentalist types call natural selection, isn’t it? The survival of the fittest. Well, run along. You might be able to catch them before they go shoot themselves a kitty.”
She didn’t actually clap in girlish delight, but it was a near thing. She beamed, like she was saying they were going to roast marshmallows or something, and Darwen felt the kind of revulsion he had experienced when he first saw the toad in the shower stall. He stepped deliberately around her and started to run toward the buildings at the edge of the soccer field.
Whatever else she was, Scarlett was telling the truth about the Delgado family. As Darwen got close to the house beneath the great tree, he could see a woman—the woman he had seen crying the night before—loading cardboard boxes onto the porch outside. The door was wide open, and the place looked deserted already. Darwen watched her work for a moment, feeling stupid and ashamed, then said, “Hola.” She looked up but did not seem to recognize him, and for a long moment Darwen just stood there, clasping and unclasping his hands.
“Pesarosa,” he said. Sorry.
And since he didn’t know whether that was the right word exactly, he added the only other word he could think of and the girl’s name: “Excusa. Por Calida.”
He knew he wasn’t making any real sense.
Mrs. Delgado was a strong-looking woman, but her face looked weary beyond measure. She considered him, smiling sadly, then took a few steps toward him and sat on the edge of the porch. Beside her, as if forgotten, was a bag spilling gold coins: Scarlett’s payoff.
“Señor Delgado?” Darwen asked.
Mrs. Delgado gave a long, slow shrug that somehow said that she didn’t know where her husband was or what he was doing. Darwen tentatively raised his hands, miming someone shooting a rifle. She nodded and shrugged again, a gesture that was both knowing and hopeless, and then motioned for Darwen to approach her. Uneasily, he did so. She reached up and touched his face, looking into his eyes. The woman’s hand was rough, but the touch held an almost painful tenderness, and her shining eyes suddenly brimmed over so that tears flowed silently down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” said Darwen in English. “If there is anything I can do to bring your daughter back, I will. I promise.”
Mrs. Delgado nodded once, though Darwen doubted she had understood what he had said, then she reached absently into the bag of coins and pressed one into his hand.
“No!” he exclaimed. “This is yours. Please.”
But she waved his protests away, patted his hand, and then hauled herself laboriously to her feet. Without another glance, she returned to work. Darwen looked at the coin in his hand, felt its curiously rough surface, and took a last look at the porch where the child’s hammock had been hanging until a few hours ago. He scanned the wooden deck for anything that might resemble the tracks of a pouncel. The creature’s long claws would surely have left nicks and gouges in the soft wood.
There was nothing.
He looked up at the tree, but that seemed unmarked as well, though the act of looking up reminded him that Jorge had done the same. He gazed out toward the rest of what they called a village, though it was really only five little houses. The most distant looked the newest, a tidy log structure with a porch where one of the local girls was sweeping, a bucket of cleaning supplies at the foot of its steps. The girl’s incongruous pink jacket was hanging on a hook by the door, and even at this distance its brass buttons sparkled in the sun.
As he took one last look at the Delgado house, Darwen saw that it was not completely deserted after all. Felippe was standing at the window, watching him, his face blank. Darwen raised a hand in greeting, feeling foolish and awkward, and the boy inclined his head in acknowledgment.
He walked back to the camp, his mind full of questions. There was no sign of Scarlett, so he had been able to study the muddy depression in the earth and make sure that the stone spheres were indeed gone. Could that be why Scarlett was so keen to get her hands on this piece of land—because she planned to sell its archaeological treasures? The stone spheres must be worth a lot of money to collectors, but if she was able to take them so easily while the villagers were distracted by the hunt for a missing child, why bother buying the land? And who was Scarlett anyway? She had gone out of her way to talk to him. She had even called him “Mr. . . . whatever your name is,” as if she knew him and had remembered at the last minute to pretend otherwise.
It made no sense. Neither did the coins. Why was an American developer paying for land with gold? He looked at the coin. It didn’t have the smooth surfaces of worn metal, and when he ran his fingertips lightly around the edge, he could feel tiny points and angles, some of them quite sharp. He held it up to the light and saw that it had no visible design. It wasn’t so much a coin as a gold disc, and the metal was oddly marbled and uneven.
Darwen trudged through the humming jungle, watching the trail for snakes, feeling hot and damp and exhausted. Two days ago it had all seemed so exciting, but he was tired of the smelly tent and of not knowing what was going on. He felt no closer to rescuing Luis or his brother, Eduardo, and with another child gone, who knew how long they would be allowed to stay?
Miss Martinez spotted him the moment he returned to the camp.
“Where do you think you’re going, Mr. Arkwright?”
“To my tent, Miss,” said Darwen.
“Go and help Mr. Haggerty in the kitchen.”
“Yes, Miss.”
Rich’s mood hadn’t improved, and it wasn’t hard to see why. Lugging plastic boxes and crates of canned food and other supplies up from the beach was no picnic, and the camp’s pantry was so small that everything had to be carefully stacked.
“What’s this?” asked Darwen, hoisting two plastic bins full of white powder.
“Nondairy creamer,” said Rich. “There’s no fridge, so everything has to survive at room temperature. Which would be fine if that didn’t mean, like, a hundred degrees.”
“One only,” said the athletic-looking kitchen helper they called simply Torres. As usual, he was wearing jean shorts and no shirt. “One box for here, the other to go out to the ranger station on Caño Island.”
“So I’ve got to take it back to the beach?” grumbled Rich.
“Not until the boat is ready,” said Torres. “Tomorrow. Put it there.”
As soon as the local went out, Darwen relayed the story of
his trip and his encounter with Scarlett. He handed Rich the coin Mrs. Delgado had given him.
“Is this money?” said Rich. “It has no numbers on it. Can I show it to Mr. Iverson?”
“What for?”
“To see if we can do some tests on it or something,” said Rich, holding it up to the light and squinting at it. “Does that look like pure gold to you? If it’s not, maybe the villagers aren’t getting what they think they’re getting. Not sure we could do much in the way of real tests out here, but it’s worth a look.”
“There’s something about that Oppertune woman,” said Darwen. “I don’t know what it is, but I think she’s connected to the missing kids.”
“How?” asked Rich.
“No idea,” Darwen answered. “It’s just a hunch.” He looked out of the window and saw Alex walking down from the trees behind the dining shelter. She was moving quickly and looking nervously about. Darwen called her name.
She jumped, thought for a moment, and then walked over to the kitchen. “What?” she said, poking her head around the door.
“Aren’t you done cleaning the tents out yet?” asked Darwen.
“No, I’m not. That’s it? You wanted to see how far behind I was while making me more behind?”
“Keep your hair on,” said Darwen.
“I don’t know what that even means,” she rejoined, walking off and letting the door snap shut behind her.
“What’s eating her?” asked Rich.
“Got me,” said Darwen. “What was she doing up in the jungle back there if she’s not done cleaning?”
“Rainforest,” supplied Rich automatically. “Probably just taking a break. Getting a little air. If the other tents smell as bad as ours, I couldn’t blame her.”
“It’s not my fault,” said Darwen. “If Sumners had let me take a shower last night . . .”
“Yeah, yeah,” muttered Rich, “it’s Sumners’s fault that our tent smells like a possum’s armpit.”
“All right,” said Darwen, “It’s my fault. Happy?”
“If I still have to sleep in there, then no, not particularly, but it’s cool. What did you tell Gabriel?”
“Not much,” said Darwen. “He didn’t seem to mind.”
Rich stared. “Did he still have a nose?”
“He spends so much time in there I expect he’s forgotten what clean air smells like,” he said. “He did care about Calida, though. Have you seen him with the local kids at all?”
“No,” said Rich. “I know he’s shy and all, but he really won’t talk to them. Sarita came into the camp yesterday, and he bolted for the tent the moment he saw her. Kind of rude, I thought.”
“Are we done?” asked Darwen.
“Just about. I guess we’re supposed to help Alex now. If we’re quick, maybe we can do some work on our bows and arrows.”
Alex, it turned out, had made very little progress at all.
“How can you have only done one?” asked Rich. “You’ve had hours.”
“One hour,” said Alex. “And it’s hard work. Let’s see how fast you clean the next one, and I’ll go hang out in the kitchen with Torres.”
“That’s what you think I’ve been doing?” said Rich. “Hanging out?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Alex. “No doubt you’ve been scrubbing the beach or rescuing stranded whales or—”
“Will you two give it a rest?” said Darwen.
The three of them fell into a sulky silence that lasted until lunchtime, when the hikers returned full of tales of the birds and other animals they had seen. Rich’s mood darkened still further, and when Darwen asked why the Hillside kids weren’t all talking about Calida’s disappearance, he gave a nasty laugh.
“She’s not one of them, is she?” said Rich, eying Nathan across the dining shelter.
Darwen was shocked. “You think they don’t care?” he said. “Even the worst of them aren’t that bad, Rich.”
“Yeah?” said Rich. “Nathan Cloten’s a big fan of poor people, is he? Thinks we’re all the same whether we wear Hillside’s glorious green and gold or not? I hope you’re right. I’m going to get some more fruit.”
Darwen thought of Scarlett with her little coins and her big plans, and he thought of Luis and Calida and Eduardo and the monster that had taken them, and he knew, just knew, there was a connection that he had to make if he was to do any good at all.
The afternoon was to be spent in group study. Darwen, who couldn’t face the prospect of working with Rich and Alex without something to distract them from their current moods, seized the opportunity to talk privately with Mr. Iverson as soon as the science teacher arrived. “Show him the coin, Rich,” he said.
Rich’s face brightened immediately.
“Wait,” said Alex. “If this is Peregrine Pact stuff, you shouldn’t be telling a teacher.”
But Rich already had his arm in the air. “Sir?” he said. “Could you help us try to figure out what this is made of?”
As Alex glared at him, Mr. Iverson considered the coin.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, his face hawkish.
“Found it,” said Darwen, ignoring Alex’s told-you-so stare. “That woman—Scarlett Oppertune—was giving them out to the kids on the soccer field. She says they’re gold.”
Mr. Iverson looked at him. “You found it?”
Darwen blushed. “Kind of,” he said. “One of them gave it to me.”
He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to discuss Mrs. Delgado or her missing daughter. Mr. Iverson returned his attention to the coin and nodded.
“I’m not sure we’ll be able to do much,” he said, “but there are some fairly simple tests used in archaeology to see if something is gold. Let me get everyone else started, and I’ll come find you.”
“I’ll go get my field guide,” said Rich.
“The birds and animals thing?” said Alex vaguely. She was fidgeting and glancing around as if looking for an opportunity to sneak off.
“No,” said Rich, as if she was being unusually dull-witted, “the archaeology one.”
“That got destroyed last year,” said Alex.
“I got a new one,” said Rich. “You didn’t think I’d come to a place like this without it, did you?”
“How silly of me,” muttered Alex as Rich headed down to the tent. “I know if I had a book about archaeology, I’d take it just about everywhere—to church, into the shower. Maybe he needs to feed it or it dies.”
“What is it with you at the moment?” Darwen demanded.
“He shouldn’t have told Iverson,” she said. “We should be keeping this stuff to ourselves, not sharing it with the whole school.”
“But there was something on your mind before that happened,” Darwen pressed. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said, looking away.
“Yes, there was,” said Darwen. “You’ve been biting everyone’s head off as soon as they speak to you, and you’re twitchy all the time.”
“Twitchy?”
“Yeah, like you want to be somewhere else.”
“Somewhere I can take a bath, maybe, somewhere there isn’t something lethal hiding under every bush?”
“No,” said Darwen, “it’s more than that. Ever since last night, you’ve been jumpy, impatient, like you’re waiting to do something by yourself.”
“A girl went missing last night, Darwen, or don’t you remember? Taken right from her bed. And everything just goes on as normal, like nothing happened. Hikes and classes and stuff. I think Rich is right. It’s not a Hillside kid, so no one cares.”
“I don’t think that’s fair,” said Darwen.
“And what about you, Darwen? All you’re thinking about is your Silbrican mystery, like it’s just an adventure.”
“It’s not an adventure; it’s a mission.”
“And while you’re having fun with that, people are dying.”
“We don’t know that,” said Darwen. “She might be okay. Somewhere.”
“Well, animals then.”
“Animals are dying? What do you mean?”
Alex hesitated, and as she looked away, the color rose in her cheeks. “Oh, you know, shrinking environments and Scarlett’s plans for a hotel. And Chip Whittley killing that butterfly. And the entire village hunting a jaguar even though there were no paw prints anywhere near the house. It’s stupid. And typical. If in doubt, kill something.”
She sounded genuinely angry, but Darwen was sure there was something she was not saying, and when he continued to look skeptical, she turned back toward the tents.
“Here’s Rich,” she said. “Hi, Rich. Let’s hear about those tests Mr. Iverson was talking about.”
Rich was surprised, but only for a moment. He was too pleased by the idea of sharing the wonders of his field archaeology book with them. Darwen continued to watch Alex, and as she avoided his eyes, he became surer than ever that she was hiding something.
“Okay,” said Rich. “So there are three tests we can do without any special equipment and a fourth we can do if we can get hold of some acid.”
“Not sure I want to be handling acid even if we can find some,” said Alex, all business now. “What are the other three?”
“We need an unglazed porcelain tile, a magnet, and a piece of glass,” said Rich. “I have a magnet on the end of my flashlight, so I brought that too. It’s pretty powerful.”
“I’ll get a glass from the kitchen,” said Alex brightly. “They might have some unglazed ceramic as well. I’ll take a look.”
“Thanks!” said Rich. “She cheered up,” he observed as Alex walked away.
“Didn’t she just.”
“What?”
Darwen Arkwright and the Insidious Bleck Page 17