The House of the Scorpion (9 page)

The bodyguard watched impassively for a moment, then reached down and pulled the boys apart. “You were told to leave Matt alone, Master Tom,” he said.

“He hit me first!” shouted Tom.

“He did,” María said, “but Tom teased him.”

“You’re a liar!” yelled Tom.

“I am not!”

Matt said nothing. He wanted to throw Tom to the ground. He even wanted to kick Tam Lin. He tried to shout insults, but the words wouldn’t come out. They stayed inside, getting bigger and bigger until he was sick to his stomach.

“You’re right,” Tom said suddenly. “I did tease Matt. I’m really sorry about it.” Matt was amazed. Tom seemed to change right before his eyes. The angry red faded from Tom’s cheeks. His eyes became clear and guileless. It was hard to believe it was the same boy who had been kicking and screaming only a minute ago.

Matt wished desperately that he could get over things that fast. Whenever he was hurt or angry or sad, the feelings stuck their claws into him until they were ready to let go. Sometimes it took hours.

Tam Lin studied Tom’s earnest face for a moment and then loosened his grip on the boy’s shirt. “Fair enough,” he said. He turned Matt free, too. Matt immediately took both Tom’s and Marías hands and dragged them to the door. He felt swollen with all the words he wanted to shout at them.

“You want us to go?” cried María. “After we made up and all?”

Matt nodded.

“Well, I think you’re a pig! And I’m not going to be mean to Tom just because you don’t like him. Besides, everyone thinks you’re awful.” María slammed the door behind her.

Matt sat on the floor with tears pouring down his face. He made snuffling noises like a pig and hated himself for doing it, but he couldn’t stop. Celia would have comforted him if she’d been there. Tam Lin only shrugged and went back to his sports newspaper. Later, when Matt had recovered, he searched for the bear’s ear, but it was gone.

Tom was a master of the near miss. He punched the air near Matt’s head, practicing—he said—karate exercises. He whispered insults too low for anyone else to hear. “You’re a clone,” he murmured. “Know what that is? A kind of
puke
. You were puked up by a cow.”

Around important people, Tom was courteous. He asked how they were and listened politely to the answers. He brought drinks to his mother and opened doors for his grandfather. He was thoughtful and yet—

There was something a little off about everything Tom did. He brought his mother drinks, but the glass didn’t always seem clean. He opened the door for his grandfather, but he let it swing shut on the old man’s heel. It wasn’t quite enough to make him fall and it
could
have been an accident. Everyone trusted Tom because he had such an open, innocent face, and yet—“He’s an unnatural little weevil,” growled Tam Lin. Matt was relieved to find that the bodyguard didn’t like Tom either.

Tam Lin.

Matt spent the first weeks tiptoeing around him. The man was so large and dangerous looking. It was like having a tame grizzly bear in your house. Tam Lin planted himself in Celia’s easy chair and watched silently as María and Celia tried to tempt Matt to read or do a puzzle or eat. Matt enjoyed these activities, but it pleased him to be coaxed. He could make María almost scream with frustration. Celia would only stroke his hair and sigh. The bodyguard seemed to be reading, but his eyes flicked up and back again as he took in the scene before him.

Matt thought he looked irritated, although it was hard to tell. Tam Lin’s normal expression wasn’t very pleasant.

The doctor visited often because of a cough Matt had developed. At first it didn’t seem important, but one night he woke with his throat full of liquid. He couldn’t get any air. He stumbled to Celia’s room and doubled up on the floor. Celia screamed for Tam Lin.

Bursting through the door, the bodyguard upended Matt and gave him a whack on the back. Matt spat out a mass of thick slime. Tam Lin matter-of-factly ran his finger around the inside of Matt’s mouth to clear it out. “Done that with lambs on me da’s farm,” he said, handing the boy back to Celia.

When Willum came later, Tam Lin watched everything the doctor did. The bodyguard said nothing, but his presence made Willum’s hands slick with sweat. Matt didn’t know why the doctor was so afraid of Tam Lin, but it pleased him deeply that it was so.

After that, all Matt had to do was cough and Celia or María would fall into a satisfying panic. Sometimes Matt really did have trouble breathing, but sometimes he only wanted to reassure himself that someone cared for him.

“I have to go to school, you eejit,” said María. “The holidays are over.” Matt stared out the window, punishing her for abandoning him. “I don’t live here, you know. Sometime, maybe, they’ll let you visit my house—you’d love it. I have a dog and a tortoise and a parakeet. The parakeet talks, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

Matt shifted his position to make his rejection more obvious. If María didn’t notice she was being snubbed, the whole thing was pointless.

“I think you can talk if you want to,” she went on. “Everyone says you’re too stupid, but I don’t believe it. Please, Matt,” she wheedled. “Say you’ll miss me. Or hug me. I’ll understand that. Furball howls when I leave home.”

Matt turned his back on her.

“You’re so mean! I’d take you to school, but they don’t allow clones. Anyhow, the other kids …” María’s voice trailed off. Matt could guess. The other kids would run away like Steven and Emilia. “I’ll be back on weekends. And you’ll have a teacher here.” She put out her hand tentatively. Matt shoved her away. “Oh, dear,” she said with a catch in her voice.
She cried too easily
, Matt thought.

He felt a breeze as the door opened. How could she betray him by going away? She was probably visiting Tom now, asking
him
to go to school with her because she liked him better, the unnatural little weevil.

“You could’ve been nicer,” remarked Tam Lin. Matt continued staring out the window. What business was it of Tam Lin to worry about María? He was Matt’s bodyguard, not hers.

“Oh, you can understand me,” the man said. “I’ve been watching you, with your sharp little eyes. You take in everything everyone says. You’re like the old man. I don’t know much about this clone business—I was twelve the last time I darkened a schoolroom door—but I know you’re a copy of him. It’s like the old vulture was being given a second chance.”

Matt’s eyes opened wide at Tam Lin’s choice of words. No one
ever
criticized El Patrón.

“I’ll tell you this: El Patrón has his good side and his bad side. Very dark indeed is his majesty when he wants to be. When he was young, he made a choice, like a tree does when it decides to grow one way or the other. He grew large and green until he shadowed over the whole forest, but most of his branches are twisted.”

Tam Lin settled into Celia’s chair; Matt could hear the springs groan with his weight.

“I’m probably talking over your head, laddie. What I mean to say is this: When you’re small, you can choose which way to grow. If you’re kind and decent, you grow into a kind and decent man. If you’re like El Patrón … Just think about it.” The bodyguard left the room. Matt heard him outside in the walled garden.

Tam Lin had energy to spare, and he didn’t nearly use it up guarding Celia’s apartment. He kept a rack of weights by the wall. Matt heard him grunt as he lifted them.

Matt didn’t understand much of what Tam Lin had said. He’d never thought about growing up. Matt knew—theoretically—it was going to happen, but he couldn’t imagine being bigger than he was now. The idea that if you were mean, you might stay mean forever had never occurred to him.

Celia said if you scowled all the time, your face would freeze that way. You’d never be able to smile, and if you looked into a mirror, it would fly into a thousand pieces. She also said if you swallowed watermelon seeds, they’d grow out your ears.

María was gone, along with Emilia. Soon Steven and Tom left for boarding school, and Matt found himself the only child in the Big House. If he was a child, that is. Tom said clones weren’t the same as children. They weren’t even close.

Matt looked at the mirror in Celia’s bathroom. He couldn’t see much difference between himself and Tom, but perhaps he was different inside. The doctor once told Rosa that clones went to pieces when they got older. What did that mean? Did they actually fall apart?

Matt hugged himself. His arms and legs might drop off his body. His head would roll around by itself, like in that monster movie he’d been watching before Celia ran in and turned off the TV. The idea filled him with terror.

“Time for school, laddie,” called Tam Lin.

Still hugging himself, Matt emerged from the bathroom. A strange woman stood in the living room. She was smiling at him, but the smile didn’t look right to Matt. It stopped at the edge of her mouth, as though there were a wall keeping it from getting any farther. “Hi! I’m your new teacher,” said the woman. “You can call me Teacher, ha-ha. That makes it easy to remember.” The laugh was weird too.

Matt edged into the room. Tam Lin blocked the door leading to the rest of the house.

“Learning is fun!” said Teacher. “I’ll bet you’re a smart boy. I’ll bet you learn all your lessons fast and make your mommy proud of you.”

Matt exchanged a startled look with Tam Lin.

“The lad’s an orphan,” Tam Lin said.

Teacher paused as though she didn’t quite understand.

“He doesn’t talk,” the bodyguard explained. “That’s why I have to answer for him. He can read a bit, though.”

“Reading is fun!” Teacher said in a hearty voice.

She took out paper, pencils, crayons, and a coloring book from a canvas bag. Matt spent the morning copying letters and coloring in pictures. Every time he finished a lesson, Teacher cried, “Very good!” and printed a smiley face on his paper. After a while Matt wanted to leave the table, and Teacher firmly sat him back down again.

“No, no, no,” she cooed. “You won’t get a gold star if you do that.”

“He needs a break,” growled Tam Lin. “So do I,” he said under his breath as he ferried Matt to the kitchen for a glass of milk and cookies. He brought Teacher coffee and watched intently while she drank it. He seemed as puzzled by the woman as Matt was.

The rest of the day was spent counting things—beads, apples, and flowers. Matt was bored because he seemed to be doing the same thing over and over. He already knew how to count, even though he had to do it silently and write down the correct number instead of saying it.

Finally, in the late afternoon, Teacher said that Matt had been very good and he was going to make his mommy very proud.

Tam Lin presented a report of Matt’s studies over dinner, when Celia returned. “You’re my clever boy,” she said fondly, giving Matt an extra slice of apple pie. She gave Tam Lin an entire pie for himself.

“Aye, the lad’s that,” the bodyguard agreed, his jaws full of food. “But there’s something uncommonly strange about the teacher. She says the same thing over and over.”

“That’s how you teach little kids,” said Celia.

“Perhaps,” said Tam Lin. “I’m not what you’d call an expert on education.”

The next day went exactly like the first. If Matt thought he’d been bored before, it was nothing compared to writing the same letters, coloring the same pictures, and counting the same wretched beads and flowers all over again. But he worked hard to make Celia proud of him. Days three, four, and five passed in exactly the same way.

Tam Lin went outside and juggled weights. He dug a vegetable bed for Celia in the walled garden. Matt wished he could escape that easily.

“Who can tell me how many apples I have here?” warbled Teacher on day six. “I’ll bet it’s my
good boy!”

Matt suddenly snapped. “I’m not a good boy!” he screamed. “I’m a
bad clone!
And I hate counting and I hate you!” He grabbed Teacher’s carefully arranged apples and hurled them every which way. He threw the crayons on the floor, and when she tried to pick them up, he shoved her as hard as he could. Then he sat on the floor and burst into tears.

“Someone isn’t going to get a smiley face on his paper,” Teacher said with a gasp, leaning against a wall. She started to whimper like a frightened animal.

Tam Lin thundered through the door and gathered Teacher up in a bear hug. “Don’t cry,” he said into her hair. “You’ve done very well. You’ve fixed something the rest of us hadn’t a clue how to mend.” Gradually, Teacher’s breathing slowed and the whimpering stopped.

Matt was so startled, he stopped crying. He realized something momentous had just happened.

“I can talk,” he murmured.

“You get two gold stars by your name today, lassie,” Tam Lin said into Teacher’s hair. “You poor, sad creature. I didn’t know what I was looking at until now.” He gently urged the woman out of the apartment, and Matt heard him talking to her all the way down the hall.

“My name is Matteo Alacrán,” Matt said, testing his newly regained voice. “I’m a
good
boy.” He felt dizzy with happiness. Celia was going to be so proud of him now! He would read and color and count until he became the best student in the whole world, and then the children would like him and they wouldn’t run away.

Tam Lin interrupted Matt’s ecstatic thoughts. “I hope that wasn’t a one-shot deal,” he said. “I mean, you really can talk?”

“I can, I can, I can!” Matt sang.

“Wonderful. I was going bonkers with counting beads. The poor thing—it was all she knew how to do.”

“She was an eejit,” announced Matt, using María’s worst insult.

“You don’t even know what the word means,” Tam Lin said. “Tell you what, laddie. We’ve got something to celebrate. Let’s go on a picnic.”

“A picnic?” echoed Matt, trying to remember the meaning of the word.

“I’ll explain it to you on the way,” said Tam Lin.

8
THE EEJIT IN THE DRY FIELD