The House of the Scorpion (5 page)

“I don't understand,” said Emilia.

“I've been stupid. I should have known what he—
it
—was the minute I saw it. No servant would be allowed to keep a child or live away from the others. Benito told me about the situation, only I thought
it
was living somewhere else. In a zoo, maybe. Wherever those things are kept.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Matt's a clone,” said Steven.

Emilia gasped. “He can't be! He doesn't—I've seen clones. They're horrible! They drool and mess their pants. They make animal noises.”

“This one's different. Benito told me. Technicians are supposed to destroy the minds at birth—it's the law. But El Patrón wanted his to grow up like a real boy. He's so rich, he can break any law he wants.”

“That's
disgusting.
Clones aren't people,” cried Emilia.

“Of course they aren't.”

Emilia hugged her knees. “It makes me feel goose bumpy. I actually touched it. I got its blood on me—María, stop rolling oranges at us!”

“Make me,” jeered María.

“In about one second I'm going to roll
you
down the stairs.”

The little girl stuck out her tongue. She threw a fruit so
hard, it shot off the bottom step and landed with a soft plop on the grass. “Want me to peel you one, Matt?” she called.

“Don't,” said Emilia. The seriousness in her voice made the little girl pause. “Matt's a clone. You mustn't go near it.”

“What's a clone?”

“A bad animal.”

“How bad?” María said with interest.

Before Emilia could answer, the fierce man and the doctor appeared at the top of the stairs.

“You should have called me at once,” the doctor said. “It's my job to make sure it stays healthy.”

“I didn't find out until I walked past the living room. There was blood all over the place. I'm afraid I lost my head and ordered Rosa to throw it outside.” The fierce man seemed less dangerous now, but Matt still tried to wriggle away. The movement sent a wave of agony through his foot.

“We'll have to take it somewhere else. I can't operate on the lawn.”

“There's an empty room in the servants' quarters,” said the fierce man. He shouted for Rosa, who pattered down the steps with a furious look on her face. She carted Matt to a different part of the house, a warren of dim hallways that smelled of mold. Steven, Emilia, and María were ordered away, to take showers and change their clothes.

Matt was deposited onto a hard, bare mattress. The room was long and narrow. At one end was the door and at the other a window covered with iron grillwork.

“I need more light,” the doctor said, tersely. The fierce man brought a lamp. “Hold it down,” the doctor ordered Rosa.

“Please, Master. It's a filthy clone,” the woman objected.

“Get moving if you know what's good for you,” the fierce
man growled. Rosa threw herself across Matt's body and grasped his ankles. Her weight made it almost impossible to breathe.

“Stop . . . stop . . . ,” the boy wailed. The doctor probed in the deepest cut with a pair of tweezers as Matt struggled and begged and finally broke down entirely when the sliver of glass was extracted. Rosa held on to his ankles so tightly, her fingers burned like fire. When at last the wound was cleaned and stitched, Matt was set free. He rolled himself into a ball and looked fearfully at his tormentors to see if they planned anything else.

“I've given it a tetanus shot,” said the doctor, putting away his instruments. “There may be permanent damage to the right foot.”

“Can I send it back to the poppy fields?” inquired the fierce man.

“Too late. The children have seen it.”

The men and Rosa went out. Matt wondered what would happen next. If he prayed very hard, Celia would surely come for him now. She would hug him and carry him off to bed. Then she would light the holy candle in front of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Except that the Virgin was far away in the little house, and Celia might not even know where he was.

Rosa slammed open the door and laid newspapers all over the floor. “The doctor says you're housebroken, but I'm not taking chances,” she said. “Do it in the bucket if you've got the brains.” She placed a bucket next to the bed and picked up the lamp.

“Wait,” Matt said.

Rosa paused. She looked distinctly unfriendly.

“Can you tell Celia where I am?”

The maid smiled maliciously. “Celia isn't allowed to see you. Doctor's orders.” She went out and closed the door.

The room was dark except for a faint, yellow light filtering through the bars of the window. Matt craned his head up to see where it was coming from. He saw a bulb hanging on a wire from the ceiling. It was as small as the lights Celia used to decorate the Christmas tree, but it shone valiantly and softened what would otherwise have been complete darkness.

He could see nothing else except the bed and the bucket. The walls were bare, the ceiling high and shadowy. The narrowness of the room made Matt feel as though he were locked in a box.

He had never, never gone to bed alone. Always, even though it might be very late, he could count on Celia's return. When he woke in the night, her snores in the next room made him feel safe. Here there was nothing, not even the wind over the poppy fields or the murmur of doves in their nests on the roof.

The silence was terrifying.

Matt cried steadily. His grief went on and on. When it lessened, he remembered Celia and started crying again. He looked up with tear-blurred eyes at the little yellow light, and it seemed to waver like a flame. It came to him that it was like the holy candle in front of the Virgin. After all, the Virgin could go wherever She liked. She couldn't be locked up like a person. She could fly through the air or even knock down walls, like the superheroes Matt saw on TV—only She wouldn't do that, of course, because She was Jesus' mother. She could be standing outside right now, watching his window. Something let go inside of Matt. He sighed deeply and soon he was fast asleep.

He woke to the sound of someone opening the door. Matt
tried to sit up, but the pain made him lie down again. A flashlight shone in his eyes.

“Good. I was afraid this was the wrong room.” A small shape ran over to the bed, unslung a backpack, and began taking out food.

“María?” said Matt.

“Rosa said they didn't give you dinner. She's so mean! I have a dog at home, and if he doesn't get fed, he howls. Do you like mango juice? It's my favorite.”

Matt suddenly realized he was very thirsty. He drank the whole bottle without stopping. María had brought hunks of cheese and pepperoni. “I'm going to put them into your mouth one at a time—but you have to promise not to bite me.”

Matt indignantly said he never bit people.

“Well, you never know. Emilia says clones are as vicious as werewolves. Did you see that story on TV about the boy who got hair all over him when the moon was full?”

“Yes!” Matt was delighted he and María had something in common. He had locked himself in the bathroom after that movie until Celia came home.

“
You
don't grow hair or anything, do you?” asked María.

“Never,” Matt swore.

“Good,” María said. She popped bits of food into Matt's mouth until he couldn't eat any more.

They talked about movies and then about stories Celia had told Matt of the dangers that lurked after dark. Matt found that if he lay perfectly still, his wounds didn't hurt too much. María bounced around and occasionally hurt him, but he was afraid to scold her. She might get angry and leave.

“Celia hangs charms over the doors to keep out monsters,” Matt told María.

“Does that work?”

“Of course. They also keep out dead people who aren't ready to stay in their graves.”

“There aren't any charms here,” María said nervously.

That thought had occurred to Matt too, but he didn't want her to go away. “We don't need charms in the Big House,” he explained. “There are too many people, and monsters hate crowds.”

María's interest drove Matt to greater and greater heights. He talked feverishly, unable to stop, and he ground his teeth from sheer nervousness. He'd never had so much attention in his life. Celia tried to listen to him, but she was usually too tired. María hung on his words as though her life depended on them.

“Do you know about the
chupacabras?
” Matt said.

“What's . . . a
chupacabras?
” asked María. Her voice sounded a little high and breathless.

“You know. The goat sucker.”

“It sounds nasty.” María moved closer to him.

“It is! It's got spikes down its back and claws and orange teeth,
and it sucks blood.
”

“You're kidding!”

“Celia says it has a face of a man, only the eyes are black inside. Like empty holes,” said Matt.

“Ugh!”

“It likes goats best, but it'll eat horses or cows—or a child if it's really hungry.”

María was pressed right up against him now. She put her arms around him and he gritted his teeth to keep from wincing with pain. He noticed that her hands were icy.

“Last month Celia said it got a whole pen of chickens,” Matt said.

“I heard about that. Steven said Illegals stole them.”

“That's what they told everyone to keep them from running away out of sheer terror,” said Matt, echoing the words Celia had used. “But they really found the chickens in the desert without a drop of blood inside. They were blowing around like dry cantaloupe skins.”

Matt was afraid of Steven and Emilia, but María was different. She was his size and she didn't make him feel bad. What was it Rosa had called him? A “filthy clone.” Matt had no idea what that was, but he recognized an insult when he heard it. Rosa hated him, and so did the fierce man and the doctor. Even the two older children had changed once they knew what he was. Matt wanted to ask María about clones, but he was afraid she might hate him too if he reminded her.

Meanwhile, he had discovered a wonderful power in repeating the stories Celia had told him. They had held him spellbound, and now they were impressing María so much that she was practically glued to him.

“The
chupacabras
isn't the only thing out there,” Matt said grandly. “La Llorona walks in the night too.”

María murmured something. Her face was pressed against his shirt, so it was hard to tell what she was saying.

“La Llorona drowned her children because she was angry at her boyfriend. And then she was sorry and drowned herself,” Matt said. “She went to heaven, and Saint Peter shouted, ‘You bad woman! You can't come in here without your kids.' She ran down to hell, but the Devil slammed the door in her face. Now she has to walk around all night, never sitting down, never sleeping. She cries, ‘Ooooo . . . Ooooo. Where are my babies?' You can hear her when the wind blows. She comes to the
window. ‘Ooooo . . . Ooooo. Where are my babies?' She scratches the glass with her long fingernails—”

“Stop it!” shrieked María. “I told you to stop it! Don't you ever listen?”

Matt halted. What could possibly be wrong with this story? He was telling it exactly the way Celia had.

“There's no such thing as La Llorona! You made her up!”

“No, I didn't.”

“Well, if she's real, I don't want to know!”

Matt reached out and touched María's face. “You're crying!”

“I am not, you eejit! I just hate nasty stories!”

Matt was horrified. He'd never meant to scare María that much. “I'm sorry.”

“You should be,” María muttered, sniffling.

“Nothing can get through the window bars,” Matt said. “And there's tons of people in the house.”

“There's
nobody
in the halls,” María said. “If I go outside, the monsters'll get me.”

“Maybe not.”

“Oh, great!
Maybe
not! When Emilia finds out I'm not in bed, I'll be in really big trouble. She'll tell Dada, and he'll make me do the times tables for
hours
, and it's all your fault!”

Matt didn't know what to say.

“I'll have to stay here till morning,” María concluded. “But I'll still get into really big trouble. At least the
chupacabras
won't eat me. Move over.”

Matt tried to make room. The bed was very narrow, and it hurt to move even a few inches. His hands and feet throbbed as he clung to the far edge.

“You really are a hog,” complained María. “Got any covers?”

“No,” said Matt.

“Wait a minute.” María jumped off the bed and gathered up the newspapers Rosa had spread out on the floor.

“We don't need covers,” Matt objected as she began arranging them on the bed.

“They make me feel safer.” María crawled under the papers. “This isn't too bad. I sleep with my dog all the time—are you sure you don't bite?”

“Of course not,” said Matt.

“Well, that's all right,” she said, snuggling closer to him. Matt's mind churned over the punishment María would endure because she had brought him food. He didn't know what the times tables were, but they were probably something awful.

So much had happened in such a short time, and Matt couldn't understand half of it. Why had he been thrown out on the lawn when everyone had been so eager to help him at first? Why had the fierce man called him a “little beast”? And why had Emilia told María he was a “bad animal”?

It had something to do with being a clone and also, perhaps, with the writing on his foot. Matt had once asked Celia about the words on his foot, and she said it was something they put on babies to keep them from getting lost. He'd assumed everyone was tattooed. From Steven's reaction, it seemed everyone wasn't.