The House of the Scorpion (7 page)

“It's a sullen, evil-tempered animal,” she said.

The doctor sighed. “Clones go that way in the end. I did think this one was brighter than most.”

Matt said nothing, hunched as he was in a corner as far from the pair as he could get. Long days of solitude in Celia's house had taught him how to be quiet, and any attention from Willum or Rosa could result in pain.

The days passed with agonizing slowness, followed by nights of misery. Matt could see little from the barred window. The pink flowers withered. The strip of sky was blue by day and black at night. He dreamed of the little house, of Celia, of a meadow so intensely green, it made him cry when he woke up.

And gradually it came to him that Celia had forgotten him, that she was never going to rescue him from this prison. The idea was so painful, Matt thrust it from his mind. He refused to think about her, or when he did, he quickly thought of something else to drive her image from his mind. After a while he forgot what she looked like, except in dreams.

But Matt still fought against the dullness that threatened to overwhelm him. He hid caches of food under the sawdust, not to eat later, but to attract bugs. The window wasn't glassed, and so all sorts of small creatures could come in through the bars.

First he attracted wasps to a chunk of apple. Then he lured a glorious, buzzing fly to a piece of spoiled meat. It sat on the meat, just as though it had been invited to dinner, and rubbed its hairy paws as it gloated over the meal. Afterward Matt discovered a writhing mass of worms living in the meat, and he watched them grow and eventually turn into buzzing flies themselves. He found this extremely interesting.

Then, of course, there were the cockroaches. Small, brown ones struggled through the sawdust; and big, leathery bombers zoomed through the air and made Rosa scream.

“You're a monster!” she cried. “It wouldn't surprise me if you
ate
them!”

Oh, yes, there were all kinds of entertainment in bugs.

One magical day a dove pushed its way through the bars and rummaged through the sawdust. Matt sat perfectly still, entranced by the bird's beauty. When it flew away, it left a single pearl gray feather behind, which Matt hid from Rosa. He assumed that anything beautiful would be destroyed by her.

He sang to himself—inside where Rosa couldn't hear—one of Celia's lullabies:
Buenos días paloma blanca. Hoy te vengo a saludar. Good morning white dove. Today I come to greet thee.
Celia said it was a song to the Virgin. It occurred to Matt that this dove had come from the Virgin and that the feather meant She would watch over him here as She had done in the little house.

One day he heard footsteps outside. He looked up to see a strange, new face on the other side of the bars. It was a boy somewhat older than himself, with bristly red hair and freckles.

“You're ugly,” said the boy. “You look like a pig in a sty.”

Matt wanted to reply, but the habit of silence had grown too strong. He could only glare at the intruder. In the hazy background of his mind, he recalled a boy named Tom, who was bad.

“Do something,” said Tom. “Root around. Scratch your piggy behind on the wall. I have to have something to tell María.”

Matt flinched. He remembered a cheerful little girl with black hair, who worried about him and was punished for bringing him food. So she had returned. And she hadn't come to see him.

“That got you, didn't it? Wait'll I tell your girlfriend how cute you are now. You smell like a pile of dung.”

Matt felt idly beneath the sawdust for something he'd been feeding to bugs. It was an entire orange. At first it had been green, but time had turned it blue and very soft. Worms filled the inside, diverting Matt with their wiggly bodies. He curled his fingers around the orange. It held its shape—barely.

“I forgot. You're too dumb to talk. You're a stupid clone who wets his pants and barfs all over his feet. Maybe if I spoke your language, you'd understand.” Tom put his face against the bars and grunted. At the same instant Matt flung the orange. His accuracy was excellent because he had spent days aiming fruit at targets.

The rotten orange burst apart all over Tom's face. He jumped back, screaming, “It's moving, it's moving!” Pulp dripped off his chin. Wiggly worms dropped into his collar. “I'll get you for this!” he shrieked as he ran away.

Matt felt deeply peaceful. The room might look like a featureless desert to Rosa, but to him, it was a kingdom of hidden delights. Underneath the sawdust—and he knew exactly
where—were caches of nutshells, seeds, bones, fruit, and gristle. The gristle was particularly valuable. You could stretch it, bend it, hold it up to the light, and even suck on it if it wasn't too old. The bones were his dolls. He could make them have adventures and talk to them.

Matt closed his eyes. He would like to lock up Rosa and the doctor. He would feed them wormy oranges and sour milk. They would beg him to let them go, but he wouldn't, not ever.

He fished up the dove feather and contemplated its silky colors. The feather usually made him feel safe, but now it made him uneasy. Celia said the Virgin loved all kind and gentle things. She wouldn't approve of throwing a rotten orange in Tom's face, even if he deserved it. If She looked inside Matt, She would see the bad thoughts about Rosa and the doctor and be sad.

Matt found he was sad too.
I wouldn't really hurt them
, he thought so the Virgin could see that and smile. Still, he couldn't help feeling the warm sensation of pleasure at having zinged Tom.

•   •   •

But as Celia had once told him, a smart person doesn't spit into the wind. If you throw a rotten orange into someone's face, you can bet the orange will sooner or later come flying back. In less than an hour Tom returned with a peashooter. Matt was clad only in a pair of shorts, so the peas landed on his bare skin. At first he tried to dodge them, but there was nowhere to run in the narrow little room. Matt settled in a corner with his head cradled in his arms to protect his face.

He instinctively understood that if he refused to react, Tom would lose interest. It still took a long time. The boy outside seemed to have an endless supply of peas, but eventually he called Matt a few bad names and went away.

Matt waited a long time to be sure. He could be very
patient. He thought of
Pedro el Conejo
, who explored Señor MacGregor's garden and lost all his clothes. Matt too had lost all his clothes, except for the shorts. Rosa said he would only ruin them.

Finally he looked up and saw his kingdom was in disarray. Running around had destroyed the marks that told Matt what lay below. Sighing, he worked his way through the sawdust. He felt underneath to find his treasures. He combed the surface smooth with his fingers and renewed the lines and hollows that told him where everything was. It was very much like Celia moving the furniture out to vacuum the rugs and then moving it back again.

When he was finished, Matt sat in his corner and waited for Rosa to bring his dinner. But something shocking and unbelievable happened first.

“¡Mijo! ¡Mi hijo!”
cried Celia from the window. “My child! My child! I didn't know you were here. Oh, God! They told me you were with El Patrón. I didn't know.” She was holding María up to the window in the crook of her arm.

“He looks different,” observed María.

“They starved him, the animals! And took his clothes! Come here, darling. I want to touch you.” Celia jammed her big hand through the bars. “Let me see you,
mi vida.
I can't believe what's happened.”

But Matt could only stare. He wanted to go. He had dreamed of nothing else, but now that the moment had actually come, he couldn't move. It was too good to be true. If he gave in and ran to Celia, something bad would happen. Celia would turn into Rosa, and María would turn into Tom. The disappointment would break him into pieces.

“Hey, eejit, I went to a lot of trouble to come here,” María said.

“Are you too weak to stand?” Celia cried suddenly. “Oh, my God! Have they broken your legs? At least say something. They haven't torn out your tongue?” She began to wail like La Llorona. She stretched her hand through the bars. Her misery tore at Matt, and still he couldn't move or speak.

“You're squeezing me,” complained María, so Celia put her down. The little girl managed to stand tall enough to peer through the window. “My dog, Furball, was like that when the dogcatcher got him. I cried and cried until Dada brought him back. Furball wouldn't eat or look at me for a whole day, but he got over it. I'm sure Matt will too.”

“Out of the mouths of babies comes wisdom,” said Celia.

“I'm not a baby!”

“Of course not, darling. You only reminded me that the most important thing is to get Matt free,” Celia said, smoothing María's hair. “We can worry about the other stuff later. If I give you a letter, can you keep it a secret from everyone? Especially Tom?”

“Sure,” said María.

“I hate to do it,” Celia said, half to herself, “I hate like
crazy
to do it, but there's only one person who can save Matt. María, you must take the letter to your dada. He'll know where to send it.”

“Okay,” said María cheerfully. “Hey, Matt. Celia's going to put chiles in Tom's hot chocolate tonight, only you mustn't tell anyone.”

“And
you
mustn't either,” said Celia.

“Okay.”

“Don't you worry,” the woman called to Matt. “I've got more tricks up my sleeve than old man coyote has fleas. I'll get you out of there, my love!”

Matt was frankly relieved to see them go. They were an unwelcome intrusion in the orderly world he had created. He could forget them now and get back to the contemplation of his kingdom. The surface of the sawdust was combed smooth, the treasures hidden beneath marks that only he, the king, understood. A bee wandered in, found nothing, and left. A spider mended its web high up near the ceiling. Matt took out the dove feather and lost himself in its silky perfection.

G
et up! Get up!” shouted Rosa. Matt had been sleeping in a hollow formed by his body. As he slept, he sank down until the sawdust almost covered him. The sudden awakening made him gasp. The sawdust went up his nose, and he doubled over, coughing and retching.

“Get up! Oh, you're impossible! I've got to wash you, dress you, and who knows what else. You're nothing but trouble!” Rosa yanked him up by the hair and dragged him out of the room.

Matt was hurried down dingy hallways and past doorways that opened into rooms both cramped and gloomy. A maid scrubbed the floor with a big brush. She looked up with hopeless eyes as Rosa rushed him past.

Rosa pushed him into a steamy bathroom. A tub stained with rust was already full of water. The woman shucked Matt out of his shorts before he knew what was happening and dumped him inside.

It was the first bath he'd had since being locked up. Matt felt like a thirsty sponge soaking up water until he was so full that he could hardly move. The warmth soothed his skin, which had become itchy and sore. “Sit up! I haven't got all day,” growled Rosa, setting to work with a brush almost as big as the one in the hallway.

She scoured him until he was pink, dried him with a big, fluffy towel, and tried to get a comb through his tangled hair. In a fury because it wouldn't come right, she grabbed a pair of scissors and cut it all off. “They want tidy, they'll
get
tidy,” she muttered. She stuffed Matt into a long-sleeved shirt and trousers and gave him a pair of rubber sandals to wear.

Very soon he was being hurried across a courtyard to another part of the house. His legs ached with the effort of walking. Halfway across the courtyard his feet tangled in the unfamiliar sandals and he stumbled against Rosa.