The House of the Scorpion (38 page)

“I look like a planktonburger,” mourned Matt.

“Hunh! You, uh, look like a planktonburger that's been, uh, barfed up by a seagull and, uh, left out in the sun,” said Ton-Ton in an unusual flight of poetry.

“I get the picture!” Matt painfully crawled into bed. He lay on his side to spare the welts on his back.

“We all have zits,” said Luna. “It's the mark of people who work with plankton.”

Great
, thought Matt. Now that he thought about it, he realized the Keepers were only mildly scarred but not covered
in the same active little pus volcanoes that dotted the boys' faces. Maybe it had something to do with their food. A diet of pork chops, pie à la mode, and chocolate was obviously better for your skin than healthy, nutritious plankton.

•   •   •

Jorge forced Matt and Ton-Ton back to work the next day. Ton-Ton really needed another day in the infirmary, but he obeyed without a murmur. Matt was eager to get back. He couldn't wait to get going on an escape plan. Before, it had seemed pointless. Now he knew San Luis lay a few miles to the north, beyond a low range of hills.

As Tam Lin once said, a jailer has a hundred things on his mind, but a prisoner has only one: escape. All that concentrated attention was like a laser cannon melting through a steel wall. Given his background, Matt figured Tam Lin knew a lot about escaping from jails.

All Matt had to do was shut down the electricity to the fence and climb over. It sounded simple, but it wasn't. The powerhouse was locked after dark. The Keepers counted the boys every night at ten o'clock and every morning at five. That left seven hours in which to walk the five miles to the fence (while hoping the power hadn't been turned on again) and then twenty more miles to San Luis in the dark. If the ground was covered with cacti, the trip might take a lot longer.

What would the Keepers do when they discovered three boys missing, because Matt intended to take Chacho and Fideito with him? Could Jorge use a hovercraft to hunt them down? Fidelito should probably be left behind. He couldn't walk twenty-five miles. And yet how could Matt abandon him?

Friendship was a pain
, Matt thought. All these years he'd wanted friends, and now he discovered they came with strings
attached. Very well, he'd
take
Fidelito, but he'd need more time. If he overloaded the boiler next to the Keepers' compound, it would explode and—

Was it wrong to blow twenty men to smithereens? El Patrón wouldn't have worried one second over it. Tam Lin had tried to blow up the English prime minister, but he'd killed twenty children instead.

Murder is wrong, Brother Wolf
, said a voice in Matt's mind. He sighed. This was probably what María called having a conscience. It was even more of a pain than friendship.

•   •   •

“
Why
do we have to wait for him?” asked Chacho as they watched the shrimp harvester chug and wheeze its slow way toward their tank.

“Because he knows things we need to find out,” Matt explained patiently. They were sitting by the farthest tank. The fence loomed up behind them, its top wire humming and crackling in the dry air.

“He's a suck-up. He dumps on us every night.”

“Not since the beating,” Matt pointed out.

“Well, that's because he's taking a vacation.” Chacho was unwilling to believe Ton-Ton had any good qualities.

“Be nice to him, okay?”

“
Mi abuelita
says people's souls are like gardens,” Fidelito said brightly. “She says you can't turn your back on someone because his garden's full of weeds. You have to give him water and lots of sunlight.”

“Oh brother,” said Chacho, but he didn't argue with the little boy.

A plume of dust rose from the back of Ton-Ton's harvester. It settled slowly across the barren ground. The air was so still,
the plume barely drifted away from the road. “You, uh, you should be working,” Ton-Ton called as his machine jerked to a halt.

“And you should be head down in a shrimp tank,” muttered Chacho. Matt kicked him.

“If you're, uh, waiting to beat me up, don't bother,” said Ton-Ton. “I can, uh, beat the stuffing out of you.”

“Why would you assume that three people innocently sitting by the road are planning to attack you?” said Chacho. “Although it could be true.”

“We only want to be friendly,” Matt said, frowning at Chacho.

“Why?” Ton-Ton's eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Because
mi abuelita
says people have to be tended like gardens,” Fidelito chirped. “They need sunlight and water, and their souls need to—need to—”

“Be weeded,” finished Chacho.

Ton-Ton's eyes rounded as he processed this curious statement.

“We just want to make friends, okay?” Matt said.

Ton-Ton took another minute to consider that, and then he stepped off the harvester.

“When was the last time you went to San Luis?” asked Matt.

If Ton-Ton was surprised by the question, he didn't show it. “About, uh, about a year ago. I went with Jorge.”

“Do you have family there?”

“My m-mother went across the, uh, border years ago. My f-father tried, uh, tried, uh, to find her. He didn't come back.”

Matt noticed that Ton-Ton's speech problem got worse when he talked about his parents.

“No
abuelita?
” Fidelito asked.

“I, uh, I did. M-Maybe she's still there.” Ton-Ton's mouth turned down at the sides.

“Well, why don't you go look for her!” said Chacho. “
¡Hombre!
If I had a grandma only twenty miles to the north, I'd rip up this fence to find her! What's wrong with you, man?”

“Chacho, no,” said Matt, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder.

“You, uh, don't understand,” Ton-Ton said. “Jorge saw me on the wrong side of the border. There were Farm Patrols and, uh, dogs, big mud-colored dogs with big teeth. They did everything the Farm Patrol said, and, uh, the Farm Patrol told them to
eat
me.” Ton-Ton shuddered at the memory. “Jorge came over the border and shot them. He got into a lot of trouble for it, too. He, uh, he saved my life, and I owe him everything.”

“Did Jorge tell you not to look for your grandmother?” Matt said.

“He said I was born to be a Keeper. He said that Keepers don't have families, only one another, but that it's, uh, better because families only run off and abandon you.”

“But your
abuelita
must have cried when you didn't come home,” Fidelito said.

“I wouldn't have come home, you dork!” shouted Ton-Ton. “I would've been inside a dog's belly!”

“It's okay, Fidelito,” Matt told the little boy. “That's enough weed pulling for one day.” He asked Ton-Ton about San Luis, and Ton-Ton was eager to talk about that. The longer he spoke, the less he stumbled over his words. The scowl on his face smoothed out. He looked a lot younger and happier.

Ton-Ton described the city so thoroughly, he seemed to have a map spread out in his mind. He recalled every detail—an oleander bush with peach-colored flowers, an adobe wall with
paloverde trees draped over it, a fountain tinkling into a copper basin. It was like following a camera down a street. And gradually, he lowered his guard enough to talk about his
mamá
and
papá.
He had lived in a crowded house with aunts and uncles and brothers and cousins and a tiny
abuelita
who ruled the whole establishment. But it hadn't been an unhappy place, even though they'd been poor.

At last Ton-Ton stretched and smiled as though he'd had a fine meal. “I, uh, I won't tell anyone why we're late,” he said. “I'll say the harvester broke down.” He let Fidelito ride most of the way back with him, putting the little boy down only when they came within sight of the Keepers' compound.

“I don't get it,” whispered Chacho as the harvester shuddered its way back. He and Matt walked to one side, away from the plume of dust. “It's like you turned a light on inside his head. I didn't know Ton-Ton was that bright.”

Matt smiled, pleased to be proven right about the big boy. “Celia used to say slow people are just paying close attention.”

“Who's Celia?”

Matt almost dropped in his tracks. He'd carefully hidden any reference to his life before he'd arrived in Aztlán. Listening to Ton-Ton's memories had made him careless. “Why, Celia . . . she's my . . . my m-mother.” And he knew that it was true. All those years she'd told him not to think of her as his mother fell away. No one else cared for him the way she did. No one protected him or loved him so much, except, perhaps, Tam Lin. And Tam Lin was like his father.

Suddenly all the memories, so carefully suppressed in his new life, came flooding back. Matt had trained himself to stop thinking about Celia and Tam Lin. It was too painful. Now he found himself helpless. He crouched on the ground, tears
pouring down his face. He held himself tight to keep from crying out loud and totally ruining his image in front of Chacho.

But Chacho understood. “I should've kept my fat mouth closed,” he said, kneeling in the dust next to Matt. “It's the one thing none of us are supposed to bring up until someone's ready. Heck, I bawled my eyes out the first few weeks.”

“Are you sick?” called Fidelito's voice from a distance as he rode on the harvester.

“He sure is,” said Chacho. “You would be too if you ate a handful of raw shrimp.” And he shielded Matt from view until he was able to gain control of himself and go on.

T
hat night Jorge, with his instinct for weakness, pounced on Matt again. He insisted that more and more crimes be confessed, and Matt soon found himself repeating the same sins. He hardly cared what he said.

Matt felt bruised inside. In a strange way he wasn't even in the same room with Jorge, because his mind was back in El Patrón's mansion. He was in Celia's apartment. At any moment she'd call him to dinner and they'd sit down with Tam Lin. The illusion was painful, but it was so much better than anything in Matt's current life.

“If the aristocrat won't listen,” came Jorge's smooth voice, “I'll have to talk to his lackey.”

Matt woke from his reverie to see Fidelito being pulled to the center of the room. The little boy's face was pale with fear.

“You've been bad, haven't you?” purred Jorge.

“Not
very
bad,” said Fidelito, glancing at the cane closet.

“That's for me to say, isn't it?” the Keeper said.

“Okay,” said Fidelito.

Matt knew the scene before him was important. He tried to keep his mind on it, but he kept slipping back to Celia's apartment.

“I think the aristocrat needs to understand why his behavior must be controlled,” Jorge said. “Worker bees know that everything they do affects the whole hive. If a lazy worker sleeps all day and isn't punished, he teaches others to follow his example. If enough workers follow his example, the hive will die.”

Fidelito's face showed the argument had gone over his head.

“So we have to correct the weak little lackeys who think it's fun to follow a bad example. Isn't that so?”

“I—I don't know.”

Matt forced himself to concentrate on the present. “If you want to punish me, why don't you just do it?” he said.

“Because that doesn't work,” Jorge replied. His face glowed with joy, as though he'd discovered a wonderful truth he couldn't wait to share with everyone. Once more Matt was reminded of Tom.

“I confess. I obey. I take my punishment,” Matt said.

“Yes, but you don't mean it,” said the Keeper. “You go through the motions, but in your heart you're still an aristocrat. I puzzled over it a long time. Then I realized the thing that
makes
an aristocrat is the presence of a lackey. If I remove the lackey, poof!” He snapped his fingers. “No more aristocrat. Assume the position, Fidelito.”

Matt was frozen with shock. This time it was clear his confessions weren't going to save the little boy. He glanced at the others. They looked stunned. The last time Jorge had threatened Fidelito, Matt had come to his rescue. But this time was different. It seemed the Keeper had crossed an invisible line and the
boys were appalled by what they were about to witness. It had been okay to beat Ton-Ton for no reason. He was big and able to take it. Fidelito was skinny and frail in spite of his tough spirit. And he was only eight years old.

Fidelito did what he'd seen the others do: Lean his hands against the wall and spread his legs. The other boys murmured. Matt couldn't hear what they were saying.

Jorge went to the closet. Matt felt as though he were floating over the scene. Like other times in his life when things had gone wrong, he wanted to retreat into his own private kingdom. If he imagined being in Celia's apartment hard enough, it might actually happen.