The Spanish Kidnapping Disaster Read online

  "Tomorow we're driving to Segovia," I told her, "and after that Ávila."

  Grace smiled. "Ah, the castle in Segovia is the loveliest in Spain, and you will see windmills on the way to Ávila. Old ones on the hilltops, the very same that Don Quixote mistook for his enemies."

  "Right now all I want to see is the Alcázar," Amy said.

  Ignoring Amy's bad manners, Grace took her arm and said, "Look, there it is." She pointed at a sunlit square opening out of the shadows at the end of the street. At one end was the Alcázar, towering over the shops huddling at its feet.

  "I see Daddy!" Without even thanking Grace, Amy broke away and ran toward Don.

  "That is your mother? The blonde woman?" Grace stared with some interest at Mom as she hurried toward us.

  "Would you like to meet her? I'm sure she'll be very grateful to you for bringing me back." I grabbed Grace's hand, thinking how impressed Mom would be to meet a citizen of the world.

  But Grace shook her head. "No, not now, Felix," she said. "I have an appointment and I am already late."

  "Wait," I cried as she turned away. "Will I ever see you again?"

  Grace paused and looked over her shoulder at me. "Perhaps," she called. "One never knows what fate holds."

  "Come back!" I tried to run after her, but a gang of teenagers burst out of an alleyway and surged between us. Standing on tiptoe, I searched for Grace, but all I saw was a flash of red hair in the sunlight. Then she was gone, and I was alone in a crowd of tourists pointing their cameras at everything.

  4

  As I tried to push my way past a man wielding a huge video camera, I felt someone seize my shoulder.

  "Felix," Mom cried. She threw her arms around me and hugged me so hard I thought my ribs would crack. "Where have you been? I've been so worried!"

  "We got lost." For a moment I snuggled close, enjoying the attention and the feel of her arms around me. Then I remembered Grace. Pulling back from Mom, I searched for a glimpse of red hair in the crowd. "The nicest woman brought us here. I wanted you to meet her."

  "But the Alcázar is less than a five-minute walk from where we left you," Mom said, "and you've been gone almost fifteen minutes. What took you so long?"

  "Amy and I must have walked the wrong way before we met Grace," I said. "But she was wonderful, Mom, and really beautiful too. She said she was a citizen of the world. Can you imagine?"

  I looked at Mom, expecting to see her eyes light with pleasure, but she wasn't really listening to me. All she said was, "Thank goodness, you're safe. We were just about to go to the police. Don't ever disappear like that again!"

  The anger in her voice upset me, and I shrugged her arm away from my shoulder. "I'm surprised you noticed I was gone."

  Mom stared at me. "What are you talking about?"

  "We've been in Spain a week," I said, "and you've hardly looked at me once. The only person you see is Don, Don, Don."

  "Felicia," Mom said, "how can you say such a thing?"

  "It's true," I said. "Now that you have him, you don't care about me anymore."

  "Don't be silly." Mom tried to hug me but I wouldn't let her.

  Then Don joined us, and Mom forgot all about me. Letting him take her hand, she strolled toward the shops in the square. With Phillip and Amy, I was left to trail along behind.

  "It's about time you all showed up." Phillip scowled at Amy and me. "Dad wouldn't even let me look at swords, he was so worried about you. You'd think somebody had kidnapped you or something the way he was carrying on. I told him nobody would want either one of you, but that just made him get mad at me."

  "Oh, poor little Phillip," Amy said, "I'm so sorry I inconvenienced you."

  Her voice dripped with sarcasm but Phillip didn't notice. He'd spotted some swords in a shop window and was rapidly scanning his Spanish phrase book, searching, no doubt, for a new way to embarrass us.

  Ever since we'd arrived at the Madrid Airport, Phillip had been trying to speak Spanish. So far, no one had understood a word he said. His efforts only confused people and made everything take two or three times longer than it should have. Any normal person would have been discouraged, but not Phillip. He kept right on trying, speaking louder and louder as if he thought the poor Spaniards were deaf.

  "Can we go in here?" Phillip grabbed Don's arm and tugged him toward the swords. "You said you'd buy me a sword as soon as we found Amy and Felix. Come on, Dad, please?"

  As Phillip's voice rose like the sound of a mosquito on a hot day, I winced. "Stop whining," I told him. "It hurts my ears."

  "I'm not whining," Phillip shrilled.

  "You are so," Amy said, surprising me. Usually she'd rather die than agree with me. For instance, if I said it was a nice day, she would say it was about to rain, even if the sun was shining. But she was obviously as tired of hearing Phillip's voice as I was.

  "You shut up, you pulpo," Phillip said.

  "Dad, he's swearing at me in Spanish." Amy pushed herself in between Mom and Don. "Make him stop."

  Phillip grinned at Don. "I only called her a pulpo," he said. "It means 'octopus.'"

  As Don turned from Amy to Phillip and back again, Mom seized his hand. "Look, Don, what beautiful jewelry." Skillfully she diverted everyone's attention to a display of earrings next to the swords Phillip had been admiring. "Shall we go inside and see them?"

  All five of us crowded into the store. While Phillip led Don to a rack of swords, Mom and Amy stopped to admire a display of china figurines. Leaving them, I went in search of earrings. To my delight, I found some gold hoops as big as Grace's. Although Mom tried to persuade me to buy a pair of silver butterflies like the ones Amy chose, I held out for the hoops.

  As soon as my new earrings were paid for, I removed the little stars I usually wore and put them on. The hoops hung almost to my shoulders, and I thought they made me look worldly and slightly mysterious. All I needed was a flower in my hair.

  When we had all bought what we wanted, we walked slowly down the hill toward our hotel. At the Plaza de Zocodover, a big square full of sidewalk cafes, Mom and Don decided to rest for a while. Amy and Phillip ordered sodas, but I followed Mom's example and asked for café con leche. It turned out to be coffee foaming with steamed milk, quite bitter, and I sipped it slowly, feeling sophisticated.

  Amy's giggle interrupted my daydream. "What's the big joke?" I glared at her over the rim of my cup.

  "Those earrings," she said. "They look so funny."

  I tried to ignore her, but my vision of myself slipped sidewise and I saw what Amy saw. A tall, gawky girl with freckles, crooked teeth, and shaggy brown hair wearing a red tee-shirt with a cow on it, a gift from Aunt Martha in Vermont. Amy was right. I shouldn't have bought the earrings. No matter how beautiful they were, they couldn't make me into a citizen of the world. Unlike Grace, I wasn't the right type to wear big gold hoops in my ears.

  As I slid down in my seat, too embarrassed to look at anyone, I felt Mom pat my knee. "I love your earrings," she whispered. "In fact, I might even go back and get a pair for myself."

  I leaned toward her. "You don't think they look dumb?" I asked, keeping my voice low so Amy wouldn't hear.

  "Not at all," Mom said. Then she pulled out her camera and took a picture of me which Phillip almost ruined by waving his sword in front of her just as she pressed the shutter.

  "How about me?" he asked. "Don't I make a good matador?"

  While Phillip posed for a picture, Amy turned to me. "See that guy?" She directed my attention to a man wearing a black leather jacket sitting at a table several yards away. "He's been staring at me ever since we got here. I bet he thinks I'm older."

  "Don't kid yourself," I said. "He's probably looking at her." I pointed at a girl perched on a wall behind us. She was wearing a short leather skirt and a lot of make-up. Her boyfriend sat next to her, whispering in her ear and making her laugh.

  Annoyed, Amy tossed her head and managed to swat me with her hair. The cobwebby feel of it tickled m
y nose, and I moved closer to Mom. I was hoping for a little more of her attention, but she was too engrossed in something Don was saying to notice me. Feeling neglected, I sipped my café con leche and stole another look at the man in the black leather jacket. He was staring at our table all right, but not at Amy. At the moment his eyes were fixed on Don.

  When his gaze suddenly shifted to me, I lowered my head, hoping he hadn't noticed I'd been watching him watching us. Maybe it was the black jacket, maybe it was the mustache hiding the corners of his mouth, maybe it was the dark hair slanting down over his eyes, maybe it was just the way he sat there all by himself staring at us, but something about him made me very uncomfortable.

  I turned to Mom, but just as I was about to tell her about the man, Don hugged her and she kissed him. No matter what I said now, she wouldn't be interested. Not with Don whispering in her ear.

  "Can't that stuff wait till we get to the hotel, Dad?" Phillip asked as Don kissed Mom.

  "Kids," Don said to Mom, laughing. "Sometimes they act like stuffy old adults, don't they?"

  Mom nodded. "We should go anyway," she said. "We have a dinner reservation at eight-thirty."

  Reluctant to leave, I lagged behind the others. The moon was just coming out, and the tables were filling with people. Thinking Grace might be here somewhere, sipping café con leche too, I scanned the crowd for her red hair. That was when I noticed that the man in the black leather jacket was still watching us. Worse, he'd been joined by another man, older and kind of heavyset. They were sitting side by side talking, but it was Mom and Don they were looking at.

  Then the older man saw me. For a second, we stared at each other across the crowded square. It was like locking eyes with a cobra. Paralyzed with fear, I couldn't move or look away. When the man turned his head, I hurried after Mom and seized her hand.

  "What's wrong, Felix?" she asked. "Did something scare you?" She was smiling, but she sounded concerned. It wasn't often I held her hand.

  "There was a man. He was staring at me." I looked back at the square, but the table where the two men had been sitting was empty. "He's gone," I said. "But there were two of them. One watched us the whole time we were having our coffee. Then the other came."

  "Oh, Felix, you and your imagination." Mom smiled at me as if I were five years old and squeezed my hand. "Maybe he was admiring your earrings. Or your tee-shirt. Maybe he wanted one just like it, cow and all."

  "Don't treat me like a dumb little kid," I said, but she was already walking away, eager to catch up with Don. Why did she blame all my worst fears on my imagination? It wasn't fair. Some things were real. I hadn't dreamed up the look in that man's eyes.

  Suddenly afraid to be alone, I rushed after Mom. Slipping my hand into hers again, I glanced back at the square, but it had lost all its charm. In the dusk, it looked sinister and full of danger. Somewhere in the crowd was a man with cobra eyes, a man I didn't want to see again.

  5

  After dinner, we went straight to our rooms. "We're getting an early start tomorrow," Don reminded the three of us before he disappeared with Mom. "Get a good night's sleep, all right?"

  As soon as he left, Amy drew a line with her finger down the middle of the double bed. "This is my side," she told me, gesturing to make it perfectly clear.

  "Don't worry," I said. "I have no intention of encroaching on your space."

  "My, what big words you know," Amy said sarcastically. "You must have eaten your talented and gifted vocabulary lists."

  When Phillip laughed, Amy was encouraged to add, "You were probably starving. Anything would taste better than the food your mother fixes."

  Without hesitating, I decided to escalate the war of insults. Amy had been criticizing Mom's meals since she'd eaten her first dinner with us, way back when neither one of us suspected that we'd be sisters someday. I was tired of listening to her.

  "My mother may not be a gourmet cook," I said, "but she's home every night. She didn't run away with her music appreciation teacher."

  This was a low blow, aimed at Amy's mother, the former Mrs. Capshaw, who had indeed eloped with a professor from the community college. But Amy had asked for it. My mother had spent four years in college learning to be a chemist in a laboratory, not a slave in a kitchen.

  For a moment Amy and Phillip stared at me as if my words had turned them to stone. Then Amy's face flushed scarlet. "Well," she said, "at least my mother sees Phillip and me every Sunday. She doesn't just mail a check two or three times a year like your father!"

  For emphasis, Amy hurled one of her fashion magazines at me. I ducked, and it whacked the wall behind me.

  "You shut up!" I yelled. "My dad sees me whenever he can! He can't help it if he has to travel all over the world!" Furious, I threw the magazine back at Amy, but I was too mad to aim well. It sailed wide of its target and knocked a lamp off the dresser instead of hitting her.

  "I'm telling," Phillip squealed and ran for the door.

  "Tattletale," I shouted as the door opened and Don appeared with Mom behind him.

  "Hold it," Don said. "Can't we leave you kids alone for five minutes without a fight starting?"

  "Amy said you were a bad cook," I told Mom.

  "Felix insulted my mother," Amy told Don.

  "They were both yelling," Phillip chimed in, "and Felix threw a magazine and knocked over the lamp, but I didn't do anything. I was just trying to go to sleep."

  "She started it," Amy and I said together as if we'd practiced.

  "Well, you can both stop," Mom said as Don picked up the lamp and set it on the bureau. "Right now." She frowned equally at both Amy and me to show how fair she was being. "Tell Amy you're sorry, Felix."

  "And you apologize to Felix," Don told Amy.

  "I'm not sorry," I said to Mom. "She's a stuck-up, conceited brat."

  "I'm not sorry either." Amy glared at me. "She's a loudmouthed showoff, and I hate her!"

  Mom and Don looked at each other. In the silence, Phillip said, "Can we go to bed now? I'm sleepy."

  "Not until I hear some apologies." Don folded his arms across his chest and stared hard, first at Amy, then at me.

  "Come on, you all," Phillip begged. "Just say it. Who cares if you mean it?"

  As Don turned to Phillip, Amy and I exchanged nasty looks. At the same time, Mom gave me a little nudge toward Amy. "Be a good sport, Felix," she said.

  "Okay, okay," I mumbled, shrinking away from Mom's hand. "I'm sorry, Amy." Silently I added, "Sorry the magazine hit the lamp instead of you, sorry I have to say this, sorry I'm in Spain with you, and, most of all, sorry my mother married your father."

  Then Amy muttered her apologies, probably adding a few silent qualifications herself, and Don and Mom smiled at us in a benign, parental way.

  "Now can we go to sleep?" Phillip asked.

  "That's a wonderful idea," Don said. He yawned and winked at Mom.

  "No more fighting, kids—okay?" Mom lingered a moment, her hand on the doorknob. "We're a family now. Let's act like one."

  As soon as the light went out, Phillip flopped down on his rollaway bed. From where I lay next to Amy, I could hear the tinny sound of his Walkman, and I knew he was listening to his "Spanish for Travelers" tape. Ever since we'd boarded the plane in Baltimore, he had played it over and over again—even when he was asleep. He claimed the words went straight from his ears into his brain and lodged there. Next year when he was in sixth grade, he planned to prove it for his science fair project.

  I tried to fall asleep, but I was intensely aware of Amy on the other side of her imaginary line. I didn't want any part of me to touch any part of her. Every time I moved, 1 worried about poking her, but I couldn't lie still. My legs were twitchy and so were my feet. To make it worse, I kept seeing the man with the cobra eyes. Why couldn't I forget him?

  After I'd rolled from my side to my back to my stomach several times, Amy sat up. "What's the matter with you?" she asked. "Are you hyper or something?"

  "I can't
sleep," I said.

  "You and I followed that weird woman all over Toledo and you're not tired?" Amy stared at me. "I'm exhausted, so if you don't mind, if it's not too much trouble, lie still and let me sleep!"

  "Grace isn't weird," I said. "Honestly, Amy, how can you be so ungrateful? She rescued us from being lost, didn't she?"

  "You never even noticed we passed the same square two or three times, did you?" Amy asked. "You were too busy lying about horses and swimming pools and Jacuzzis!"

  "I was just—"

  "Showing off." Amy completed my sentence for me. "Like you always do. You wanted her to think we were millionaires or something."

  "I did not—"

  "You're a liar, Felix, admit it." Amy was really mad now. "I was embarrassed half to death!"

  As I bit my lip, trying to think of a good comeback, Phillip suddenly yelled, "If you estúpidos pulpos don't shut up, I'm telling!"

  "You hush," Amy shouted at him, "and you too, Felix!" Then she flopped down with her back to me. She huffed a couple of times, but she didn't say another word.

  I lay beside her, staring at the shadows on the ceiling and thinking about what she'd just said. Grace had taken us past the same square more than once? How could I have failed to notice that? Amy must be mistaken. After all, one square looked pretty much the same as another. She was probably confused. And what reason would Grace have to lead us in circles? It didn't make sense.

  Shutting my eyes tightly, I told myself I was going to forget about everything and go to sleep. But then I remembered the man at the Plaza de Zocodover, the one who had scared me. With his face in front of me again, I couldn't relax.

  "Amy," I whispered, "are you asleep?"

  "What do you want now?" Amy asked, keeping her back to me. Her voice sounded as if she were forcing it out between clenched teeth.

  "Do you remember that man in the black leather jacket?"

  "He was really handsome, wasn't he?" Amy turned over then and looked at me. "He reminded me of a movie star."