The Spanish Kidnapping Disaster (3 page)

"Don't treat me like a dumb little kid," I said, but she was already walking away, eager to catch up with Don. Why did she blame all my worst fears on my imagination? It wasn't fair. Some things were real. I hadn't dreamed up the look in that man's eyes.

Suddenly afraid to be alone, I rushed after Mom. Slipping my hand into hers again, I glanced back at the square, but it had lost all its charm. In the dusk, it looked sinister and full of danger. Somewhere in the crowd was a man with cobra eyes, a man I didn't want to see again.

After dinner, we went straight to our rooms. "We're getting an early start tomorrow," Don reminded the three of us before he disappeared with Mom. "Get a good night's sleep, all right?"

As soon as he left, Amy drew a line with her finger down the middle of the double bed. "This is my side," she told me, gesturing to make it perfectly clear.

"Don't worry," I said. "I have no intention of encroaching on your space."

"My, what big words you know," Amy said sarcastically. "You must have eaten your talented and gifted vocabulary lists."

When Phillip laughed, Amy was encouraged to add, "You were probably starving. Anything would taste better than the food your mother fixes."

Without hesitating, I decided to escalate the war of insults. Amy had been criticizing Mom's meals since she'd eaten her first dinner with us, way back when neither one of us suspected that we'd be sisters someday. I was tired of listening to her.

"My mother may not be a gourmet cook," I said, "but
she's home every night.
She
didn't run away with her music appreciation teacher."

This was a low blow, aimed at Amy's mother, the former Mrs. Capshaw, who had indeed eloped with a professor from the community college. But Amy had asked for it. My mother had spent four years in college learning to be a chemist in a laboratory, not a slave in a kitchen.

For a moment Amy and Phillip stared at me as if my words had turned them to stone. Then Amy's face flushed scarlet. "Well," she said, "at least my mother sees Phillip and me every Sunday. She doesn't just mail a check two or three times a year like your father!"

For emphasis, Amy hurled one of her fashion magazines at me. I ducked, and it whacked the wall behind me.

"You shut up!" I yelled. "My dad sees me whenever he can! He can't help it if he has to travel all over the world!" Furious, I threw the magazine back at Amy, but I was too mad to aim well. It sailed wide of its target and knocked a lamp off the dresser instead of hitting her.

"I'm telling," Phillip squealed and ran for the door.

"Tattletale," I shouted as the door opened and Don appeared with Mom behind him.

"Hold it," Don said. "Can't we leave you kids alone for five minutes without a fight starting?"

"Amy said you were a bad cook," I told Mom.

"Felix insulted my mother," Amy told Don.

"They were both yelling," Phillip chimed in, "and Felix threw a magazine and knocked over the lamp, but I didn't do anything. I was just trying to go to sleep."

"She started it," Amy and I said together as if we'd practiced.

"Well, you can both stop," Mom said as Don picked up the lamp and set it on the bureau. "Right now." She frowned equally at both Amy and me to show how fair she was being. "Tell Amy you're sorry, Felix."

"And you apologize to Felix," Don told Amy.

"I'm not sorry," I said to Mom. "She's a stuck-up, conceited brat."

"I'm not sorry either." Amy glared at me. "She's a loudmouthed showoff, and I hate her!"

Mom and Don looked at each other. In the silence, Phillip said, "Can we go to bed now? I'm sleepy."

"Not until I hear some apologies." Don folded his arms across his chest and stared hard, first at Amy, then at me.

"Come on, you all," Phillip begged. "Just say it. Who cares if you mean it?"

As Don turned to Phillip, Amy and I exchanged nasty looks. At the same time, Mom gave me a little nudge toward Amy. "Be a good sport, Felix," she said.

"Okay, okay," I mumbled, shrinking away from Mom's hand. "I'm sorry, Amy." Silently I added, "Sorry the magazine hit the lamp instead of you, sorry I have to say this, sorry I'm in Spain with you, and, most of all, sorry my mother married your father."

Then Amy muttered her apologies, probably adding a few silent qualifications herself, and Don and Mom smiled at us in a benign, parental way.

"Now can we go to sleep?" Phillip asked.

"That's a wonderful idea," Don said. He yawned and winked at Mom.

"No more fighting, kids—okay?" Mom lingered a moment, her hand on the doorknob. "We're a family now. Let's act like one."

As soon as the light went out, Phillip flopped down on his rollaway bed. From where I lay next to Amy, I could hear the tinny sound of his Walkman, and I knew he was listening to his "Spanish for Travelers" tape. Ever since we'd boarded the plane in Baltimore, he had played it over and over again—even when he was asleep. He claimed the words went straight from his ears into his brain and lodged there. Next year when he was in sixth grade, he planned to prove it for his science fair project.

I tried to fall asleep, but I was intensely aware of Amy on the other side of her imaginary line. I didn't want any part of me to touch any part of her. Every time I moved, 1 worried about poking her, but I couldn't lie still. My legs were twitchy and so were my feet. To make it worse, I kept seeing the man with the cobra eyes. Why couldn't I forget him?

After I'd rolled from my side to my back to my stomach several times, Amy sat up. "What's the matter with you?" she asked. "Are you hyper or something?"

"I can't sleep," I said.

"You and I followed that weird woman all over Toledo and you're not tired?" Amy stared at me. "I'm exhausted, so if you don't mind, if it's not too much trouble, lie still and let me sleep!"

"Grace isn't weird," I said. "Honestly, Amy, how can
you be so ungrateful? She rescued us from being lost, didn't she?"

"You never even noticed we passed the same square two or three times, did you?" Amy asked. "You were too busy lying about horses and swimming pools and Jacuzzis!"

"I was just—"

"Showing off." Amy completed my sentence for me. "Like you always do. You wanted her to think we were millionaires or something."

"I did not—"

"You're a liar, Felix, admit it." Amy was really mad now. "I was embarrassed half to death!"

As I bit my lip, trying to think of a good comeback, Phillip suddenly yelled, "If you
estúpidos pulpos
don't shut up, I'm telling!"

"You hush," Amy shouted at him, "and you too, Felix!" Then she flopped down with her back to me. She huffed a couple of times, but she didn't say another word.

I lay beside her, staring at the shadows on the ceiling and thinking about what she'd just said. Grace had taken us past the same square more than once? How could I have failed to notice that? Amy must be mistaken. After all, one square looked pretty much the same as another. She was probably confused. And what reason would Grace have to lead us in circles? It didn't make sense.

Shutting my eyes tightly, I told myself I was going to forget about everything and go to sleep. But then I remembered the man at the Plaza de Zocodover, the one who had scared me. With his face in front of me again, I couldn't relax.

"Amy," I whispered, "are you asleep?"

"What do you want now?" Amy asked, keeping her back to me. Her voice sounded as if she were forcing it out between clenched teeth.

"Do you remember that man in the black leather jacket?"

"He was really handsome, wasn't he?" Amy turned over then and looked at me. "He reminded me of a movie star."

"Did you see the other man?"

She frowned. "What other man? He was all by himself."

"No," I said, "Another man came and sat down with him. He was older, heavier. Meaner."

"Meaner?" Amy stared at me.

I nodded. "His eyes were scary," I said. "And they were both staring at us,
all
of us. Not just you."

Amy sighed. "Do you know what's wrong with you, Felix? You have too much imagination. At least that's what my father thinks."

I shook my head. "Mom says the same thing, but I didn't imagine that man and I didn't imagine the way he was looking at us. He scared me."

"Listen, Felix," Amy said. "I want to go to sleep, okay? I don't want to hear about mean men with scary eyes or anything else. Can't you just lie still like a normal person and be quiet?"

Her voice was rising again, and Phillip made a funny snuffling sound right in the middle of a snore. Not wanting him to wake up, I lay down on my back and told myself I would not move or speak till morning. I would not think
of the man again, I would not worry about him, I would lie still like a normal person and not bother anyone.

Pretty soon, Amy fell asleep. Lying so close, I could hear her breathing. Although she didn't snuffle and snort like Phillip, I coudn't forget she was there, right beside me.

As quietly as possible I rolled over a couple of times, trying to find a comfortable position, but I couldn't stop thinking. My brain just wouldn't turn off. When I banished the man from my thoughts, Grace popped up and took his place. I saw her face again, her gold earrings, her long red hair. If only I could grow up to be like her, free and beautiful, a citizen of the world.

Now that it was too late, I was sorry I had lied to her. It didn't help to remind myself I'd probably never see her again. I just couldn't stop feeling bad about all the crazy ideas I'd given her. No wonder Amy didn't like me. I really was a dope sometimes.

The next morning, after a lot of misunderstandings and confusion about breakfast, checking out, and loading the car, we finally got under way around nine o'clock. Since none of us seemed improved by our night's sleep or our morning activities, Don put "La Bamba" in the tape deck, turned it up as loud as he could, and drove out of Toledo.

While he and Mom sang along with the music, I pressed my face against the window and watched the tile roofs, the cathedral, and the Alcázar gradually shrink and disappear into the distance like a dream of a city.

"Someday I'll come back," I thought. "I'll drink
café con leche
in the Plaza de Zocodover and watch the lights come on in the city. I'll have my own little house with a balcony and a cat to keep me company. And I'll wear a flower in my hair. A citizen of the world, that's what I'll be."

Leaning back in my seat, I touched my earrings and tried to picture my grown-up self, but it was Grace's face I saw, not mine. As the scenery flashed by, brown fields,
bulls, olive groves, little towns with balconied apartment houses, I wondered where she was and if I would ever see her again.

***

The castle in Segovia more than lived up to Grace's description. It was so beautiful it hardly seemed to belong in the real world. Like a palace in fairyland, its walls glowed against a cloudless blue sky. On the towers high overhead, the yellow and red Spanish flag fluttered in the breeze.

After going through the usual confusion of buying tickets, aggravated by Phillip's misguided attempts to translate, we went inside. While Mom read us passages from her guidebook describing the Moorish influence on the castle's architecture, we wandered from room to room until we found a spiral staircase leading to the highest tower. The steps were steep and narrow. People were pushing their way down as we climbed up, and I had to fight to reach the top without being shoved down the stairs. When I finally stepped out into the sunlight, though, the view was worth every inch of the climb.

Wandering away from the others, I leaned over the parapet and gazed at the distant mountains. Far below me, a hawk floated on the breeze, its wings spread like fingertips.

As I watched the hawk dip and glide, I heard Phillip say, "That's her?"

Turning around, I saw him and Amy staring at someone standing beside Mom on the opposite side of the tower.

Although the woman's back was to me, her red hair was unmistakable.

"What's Grace doing talking to your mother?" Amy asked me.

"How should I know?" Anxiously I shoved through the crowd of tourists separating me from Mom and Grace. A woman frowned at me when I stepped on her toe, but I was too worried to apologize. I had to reach Mom before anything was said about horses, swimming pools, or Jacuzzis.

Pushing my hair behind my ears to show off my hoops, I slid in between Mom and Grace.

"You're right," Mom was saying to Grace. "I've never seen such a beautiful view."

Don smiled and nodded, but he was too busy taking pictures to talk.

Mom was the first to notice me. "This nice woman has been telling me about the castle, Felix, and the things you can see from here," she said. "For instance, those little specks on the horizon way over there are windmills."

As Mom pointed toward the windmills, Grace threw her arms around me. "Why, it is my friend Felix from Toledo," she exclaimed. "How nice a surprise to see you again! And wearing such beautiful earrings. You look like a
gitana,
a gypsy."

"Do you know Felix?" Mom asked Grace, obviously surprised.

"Of course," I said, my mind racing with images of myself as a gypsy, dancing barefoot around a campfire, my
long skirt swirling gracefully, or wearing a bright scarf and reading people's fortunes in crystal balls.

"She's the person who brought Amy and me back to the Alcázar yesterday when we were lost," I said aloud, "the one I was trying to tell you about. Don't you remember?"

"Oh, yes," Mom said and began thanking Grace.

"
De nada, de nada,
" Grace said. "It was nothing. No trouble."

While Mom and Grace talked, I leaned against the parapet and stared at the distant windmills. As happy as I was to see Grace, I was puzzled. I'd told her we were going to Segovia. Why hadn't she said she was coming here, too? I wanted to ask her, but Mom was monopolizing the conversation.

"Well, Felix," Mom said, finally remembering me. "I think we've seen enough of the castle. I'd like to go into Segovia and see the old Roman aqueduct."