Jungle Crossing (5 page)

***

When the bus rattled up to our hotel, Mom and another woman waved to us from a cluster of plush chairs in the open-air lobby. I kind of felt bad for her, hanging out in the vomitorium all day, but I'm sure she took a few minutes for a swim, maybe ordered a drink by the pool, browsed the various gift shops, and for sure ate lunch at the buffet place—not in a sandy hut. And from the looks of it, she made more friends than I did. Mom walked past the big lobby aquarium—filled with colorful fish, not scary eels—still chatting with the other woman.

"We can't leave now," Barb said.

"Maybe I'll tell you more tomorrow," Nando said. "Or not."

"Oh, please. Please." Barb clasped her hands to her chest, smiled all coy, and batted her eyelashes.

Oh,
por favor!

"Barb, you little cutie," Talia said as she got off the bus. "Will you sit by me tomorrow?"

"But Nando—" she said.

"I get it. You're too popular." Talia laughed, tossing her blue-blond hair, and looked at me like my personality hovered around a 1.6. Great. My mom
and
my nine-year-old sister make friends better than I do. I cringed when I thought about what Fiona's Five would be doing at mini-camp. What if they made special T-shirts like last year? I wouldn't have one—all year long. I thought about how Fiona wouldn't let Grace Williams sit with us at lunch when we were all wearing our mini-camp T-shirts. Every single Tuesday. I glanced at the lobby clock—it was just after four p.m. back home. Did they remember to think of me?

I trudged back to our room feeling small and weak and so tired. Mom walked next to me, not saying anything. Sometimes she knew when to let me be.

Barb bounded ahead of us, her reflection shining in the marble tiles that reminded me of Nando's description of Muluc's house. "I can't wait to tell Dad about all the fish I saw," she said to me. "And about Nando's story. Do you think she escapes?"

"I really don't care." My mouth felt dry and my stomach felt sour. I'd probably contracted some terrible disease from that snorkel mask. Symptoms: fatigue, sore muscles, dehydration, nausea, loneliness, fear, and jealousy.

Mom better reconsider flying home.

"Wake up!" Barb rattled around in the dark, stuffing things into her backpack.

"I feel sick." My muscles ached, and my skin burned. Oh, no! I sat up and tried to see if my shoulders glowed in the dark with a cancer-causing sunburn.

Mom opened our adjoining door. "Your dad's still asleep. He's finally keeping everything down, so now he just needs rest." She looked at me. "Where do you get to go today?"

Barb swept her hands wide, as if introducing a circus act. "The ancient city of Tulum."

"I'm not going anywhere with these third-degree burns on my shoulders," I said. "You realize that was reason number twenty-three, don't you?"

"Lighten up, Kat." Mom shook her head. "At least you're having a vacation. Just put more sunscreen on today."

"I wish I'd packed long sleeves." I searched through my suitcase, cursing myself for bringing so many tank tops. "I can't expose myself to any more sunlight."

"Lighten up, Kat." Barb imitated Mom by crossing her arms.

"Reason number twenty-nine," I said.

"What's that?" Barb asked.

"Reason number twenty-nine states that Barb will drive me crazy."

Barb's eyes welled with tears, and she pouted.

"Kat." Mom shot me a stern look before smiling at Barb as if she was the cutest kitten in the litter. "I've heard those ruins are beautiful, sweetheart." She glanced back at her own room, where Dad moaned for a drink of water. "I hope tomorrow we'll get out of here."

"And fly home?" I asked.

"You'd really rather be home, cooped up at Fiona's house, watching videos you've already seen?" Mom asked.

"It's a lot more than that, though I don't expect you to ever understand."

"Sometimes I don't know why we bother," Mom said. "You're only interested in two-star movies and nail polish. I give up."

"Don't be sad, sweet little Mommy." Barb hugged her. "I'm learning so much that I want to stay here forever."

Oh, yeah. Reason number 29.

The lobby was full of tourists with backpacks and whining kids waiting for buses. Talia waited too, wearing the shorts from Abercrombie that Fiona said would make me look "oh-so height-challenged." The Bronze Sun Goddess leaned against the exchange desk getting pesos; the guy helping her smiled so big it looked like his face would break.

"Hey, Barb!" Talia flipped her blue hair. "You were totally right about the fruit at breakfast. I think it
is
better on the right side of the buffet."

"We could do a taste test tomorrow!" Barb said.

"I love it. You're such a little scientist!"

Barb and Talia planned out three days' worth of fruit testing while I stood by myself like a dorky loser. Talia hardly even looked at me, and I felt so stupid wearing my dumb old hiking shorts. I moped around the lobby, miserable about missing Mini-camp Makeover Morning followed by glamour-shot photos for the scrapbook, not to mention shopping and lunch downtown. I got nervous just thinking about the scrapbook. I'd be completely absent—like a missing person. Like I didn't even exist. I glanced over at the gift shop. If I sent more postcards, Fiona would have to include them in the scrapbook, right? So what if that strategy didn't work for Grace Williams? She sent tons of e-mails for the scrapbook, but Fiona deleted them because "electronic communication is oh-so impersonal." So why does she take it oh-so personally if we don't answer one of the online quizzes she forwards? I'd thought about checking my e-mail in the hotel business center, but it seemed kind of sad and pathetic to waste pool and beach time hanging out with a bunch of workaholic dads. Besides, postcards were better, right?

Just then the bus chug-chug-rattled up. Barb sat up front, near where Nando would sit, even though Talia begged her to sit in the back with the group. No one asked me to sit in the back with the group. New reason, number 41: mean teen tourists. I watched as Talia sat in front of the cheerleaders, who were too busy talking to notice her. Ha! I saw that the Bronze Sun Goddess had chosen: Dante the Hunky Blond sat next to her. Luc stared out the window in the seat behind them. Poor guy (and a 10 too). If only I had more to offer. I sat in the seat behind Barb, two rows behind the driver, trying not to look quite so immature.

A bigger tourist bus loaded passengers in front of us, so Alfredo stood up and started talking. "
Buenos días.
"

"
Buenos días,
" everyone shouted.

"Hey, you expert Spanish speakers, eh?" People laughed. Alfredo was pretty cute with his shaggy hair and big smile. Yup, a solid 9.

"Today we go to the ancient ruins of Tulum. Spanish explorers saw this city from the sea and sailed past. The city looked so—how you say?"

"Formidable?" I answered, caring only a little that I looked like a total teacher's pet. I'd been flipping through Barb's Mayan book last night for a picture of Cobá, and I came across a drawing of what Tulum would have looked like—all busy and full of boats and people. The caption called it too formidable for the Spanish, or something. I'm not
really
that "oh-so fact remembering" as Fiona says.

"Formidable." Alfredo flashed a smile my way and pushed his hair away from his face. "The city was trading place. Big canoes from all over Mexico landed on the beach. A wall surrounded the city. You can still see the wall today."

The bus groaned and lurched when Alfredo turned the key. I imagined getting stranded on some lonely road, being attacked by bandits and sold into slavery, although that might be a better fate than missing mini-camp.

We picked Nando up at the same spot along the road. He hadn't even sat down before Barb started nagging him with questions. "Tell us about the girl. Does she survive? Do they hurt her baby brother? Where are they taking her?"

Nando ignored her.

"Tell us the stoooory." Barb drew out the word "story" so it had about a million syllables. "Pleeese."

I leaned forward, tapping Barb on the arm. "Don't make him mad." I glanced at Nando, hunched down low in his seat like a jaguar waiting to pounce. "Quit bugging him."

"I never promised to finish the story." Nando looked out the window. "Maybe I don't feel like wasting it on tourists."

"I know! I'll tell you a story first." Barb ignored my warning punch in the shoulder and slid across the aisle to Nando's seat. I imagined Mom crying her eyes out when I told her about Barb being strangled by a dangerous stranger on the stupid teen tour, but she couldn't say that I hadn't warned her.

Barb went on and on about the big mountains in Utah and our cats Marvin and Harvey, her room with pink butterflies on the wallpaper, how she wished we had a dog like her friend Sophie, how math was her favorite subject in school but she was also a good reader like her friend Emma. Blah blah blah. I couldn't tell if Nando was listening or not, but he'd score major points at mini-camp for sweetness. Personally, I wanted to strangle her.

"So, where we pick you up, where does that road go? Fancy pyramids?" asked Barb.

"No. Just a small village," Nando said.

"Why can't the bus go to your house? My school bus goes right to my house. Well, really it's the next house over, but—"

"Barb." Why did she keep ignoring me? I shifted forward on the seat to avoid a patch of scratchy duct tape.

"You can only get to my village by foot or horseback." Nando stared straight ahead. Why couldn't Barb buy a clue?

"Horses! You have horses? That's so cool. I'd love to ride a horse everywhere."

Nando scoffed. "No, you'd rather have your smooth roads and fancy cars. Believe me."

"How far is it?" Barb wouldn't shut up.

"Three kilometers or so."

Barb gasped. "Three miles!"

"It's more like two miles." I couldn't help myself. After all, I'd gotten an A in honors math. Nando glanced back at me, but I couldn't read his expression.

"Do you have grocery stores and stuff in your village? We have a Dan's—that's a grocery store—really close, but sometimes my mom goes to Wild Oats."

"Rich American
turistas.
" Nando shook his head. "No. We grow all our own food. Fruits, vegetables, chickens, pigs."

"That's so cool. My mom wouldn't let me grow a garden this summer; she said we were traveling too much," Barb said. "What about electricity?"

"My cousin has a generator, but most of us don't have any."

"Do you have a TV?" Barb asked. Was she even thinking? Or was her mouth on shuffle? Random thought. Random thought. Random thought.

"If there's no electricity, you wouldn't have a TV." I moved to the seat behind Nando and Barb to avoid all that duct tape, plus I'd be close enough to cover Barb's mouth with my hand.

"Oh, yeah."

"My cousin uses his generator to watch TV," Nando said. "We're not just ignorant peasants." He looked at me.

"Hey, won't we get to see your house," Barb asked, "when we go to your sister's party?"

Nando glanced back at me again. "I guess." He sounded as thrilled about it as I did.

Hopefully, we could just skip that whole thing.

The bus pulled up to a row of shops selling sombreros, pottery, silver—a mall without walls or doors.

Alfredo stood up. "Welcome to Tulum," he said. "We take tram to ruins, have tour, eat picnic lunch—lots of iguanas, very tasty." No one laughed. "Joke, joke," he said. "We have Mexican picnic—tortillas, fruit, good stuff."

We climbed off the bus and headed down a sandy road toward the tram. Monique and Dante held hands. The cheerleaders actually turned cartwheels. Please! Barb kept stopping to look at big piles of stones.

"Let's go," I said.

"Maybe some secret treasure is buried under one of these mounds."

"That is just an old rock wall," Nando said, coming up behind us.

Soon we came to a clearing, where we waited for the tram with a crowd of people.

Barb pouted. "This is too much like Disneyland," she said. "How can I find treasure if everything has already been explored?"

"There are still many treasures to find," Nando said. "Pirates hid gold on this coast, and some ships sank. There's a beach near here where jewels from an old pirate ship still wash up on the shore after storms."

"Really?" Barb tilted her curly little head. "There was a storm two days ago." She got that look. "Oh, I bet there's some new treasure just waiting for me!"

"Barb, give it up," I said as we slid into our seats on the tram. While Barb rambled about gold coins, I stared out at the bushes and trees crowding the side of the road like pushy tourists. A salty-scented breeze rattled the palm fronds, and I felt too far from home. I sucked in a breath of humid air, wishing I were back in dry—and, yeah, brown—Utah with my friends.

The tram stopped, and we walked through a gap in the wall into the ancient city that had been built on a bluff above the Caribbean. Beyond the sun-bleached stone buildings, the aqua-colored water sparkled all the way to the horizon. Pausing by a small stone building at the entrance, the guide explained that the rulers, priests, and craftsmen had lived within the city walls while the lower classes lived without the protection of walls. Sounded a lot like junior high: being one of Fiona's Five was like having a protective wall. The guide pointed out the castles for the elite as we walked over to a platform with a thatched roof, where a craftsman had lived.

While we stood in the shade, he told us the story of ten shipwrecked Spaniards who were captured when they landed on the coast near the city. Most of the men were killed immediately in a sacrificial ceremony, and the meat of their bodies was served to the people in a cannibalistic feast. C.C. and Jessie squealed in disgust. I knew these people were dangerous. Why didn't Mom believe me? Mental note—add reason number 42: cannibalism.

"Five of the men were too skinny—like supermodels, eh?" The guide smiled as we laughed. "They were kept in a cage to fatten up."

I glanced around to see which of us would be served in a feast. My hormone deficiency might have saved me, but Monique would have made a tasty meal. I watched her wiggle her perfectly painted toes. No—she would've been crowned queen.