The House of the Scorpion (51 page)

He was almost a hundred years old and maintained his
health, as did all drug lords, by raising clones. The truly frightening feature of the man was his ability to stare at someone without blinking. His eyes didn't seem to need moisture, or perhaps his tear ducts had dried up long before. The whites had turned as yellow as an old crocodile's.

The rest of the man was a dusty gray, except for his teeth. They were as strong and white as those of a man of twenty. And they really
had
come from a man of twenty, because you didn't need a clone to transplant teeth. Glass Eye Dabengwa found himself a new donor every few years.

Matt looked at the map with dismay. The combined territories of the defeated drug empires were as large as Opium. “What about the Land of Cocaine? Can we ally ourselves with that?”

“Not anymore,” Cienfuegos said grimly. “When it became clear that Glass Eye planned to invade Cocaine, the United Nations launched a preemptive strike. They called it Operation Cold Turkey. They firebombed the coca plantations and in the process killed the eejits. Thousands of them. The land of Cocaine is now occupied by UN forces under the direction of Esperanza Mendoza.”

“Esperanza?”
Matt was shocked to his very core. She was María's mother. She was the one who had saved him in Aztlán and who'd promised to help him.
This
was her idea of help? But he also knew she was a fanatic. She'd abandoned her own children to follow political beliefs and might well consider killing eejits a small price to pay for stopping the drug trade.
That's no different from El Patrón shooting down a jet plane to avoid a war
, he thought.

He heard doves calling in the palo verde trees and smelled dust raised by horses' hooves in a corral. He heard men laughing as they played cards under the ramadas. It seemed so peaceful
and normal, though of course it wasn't normal. Opium thrived on the blood of Illegals. But if Esperanza had her way, might she not order everyone killed here, too?

“It isn't easy being good, is it?” said Cienfuegos, cleaning his fingernails with the stiletto.

N
ANCY
F
ARMER
is the author of nine novels, including
The Ear, the Eye and the Arm
and
A Girl Named Disaster
, each a Newbery Honor Book, and The House of the Scorpion, winner of the National Book Award, as well as being a Newbery Honor Book and a Michael L. Printz Honor Book. For somewhat younger readers, she has written a trilogy inspired by Norse mythology:
The Sea of Trolls, The Land of the Silver Apples
, and
The Islands of the Blessed
.

Nancy Farmer lives with her husband in the small town of Portal, Arizona, which is one of the settings for
The Lord of Opium
. Visit her online at
nancyfarmerwebsite.com
.

ALSO BY NANCY FARMER

The House of the Scorpion

The Sea of Trolls

The Land of Silver Apples

The Islands of the Blessed

A Girl Named Disaster

The Warm Place

The Ear, the Eye and the Arm

Do You Know Me

Atheneum Books for Young Readers

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2002 by Nancy Farmer

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Book design by O'Lanso Gabbidon

The text for this book is set in Bembo.

First Edition

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Farmer, Nancy.

The house of the scorpion / Nancy Farmer.—1st ed.

p.     cm.

Summary: In a future where humans despise clones, Matt enjoys special status as the young clone of El Patrón, the 140-year-old leader of a corrupt drug empire nestled between Mexico and the United States.

ISBN 0-689-85222-3

ISBN-13: 978-0-6898-5222-0 (print)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-0655-6 (eBook)

[1. Cloning—Fiction. 2. Science fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.F23814 Mat 2002

[Fic]—dc21      2001056594