Do Not Become Alarmed(40)

But after he saw that smile on his brother’s face, he changed his mind. His new, bigger idea was to take the kids to the capital himself, and turn his brother in. He could rid himself of two problems at once. He would be the hero, and surround himself with the family’s lawyers, and they would let Raúl take the fall. He’d caused them enough trouble already.

“Can we go outside?” Penny asked, snapping George from his reverie. He’d been standing over the children, watching them play, and now they were all staring up at him.

“No,” George said.

“Why not?”

“Satellites,” Marcus said. That kid was not stupid at all.





22.



ISABEL SCRATCHED HER head. It was starting to itch. She still had the salty river water dried on her hair. She’d given up thinking about getting a key to the door, because she was barefoot and wouldn’t get far. Instead, she’d been focusing on a computer or a phone. Raúl and George had the outlines of phones in their pockets, but they never took them out, or left them on a table. And they hadn’t turned on a TV since the old man turned it off on the first day.

She should have waited for Hector to come back with their parents. It was so obvious. She thought about the crocodile moving on the bank, but then she reminded herself that Hector was such a good swimmer. She wished she could talk to someone about it, but she hated Penny for leading them into the trees, away from the river. And Marcus was kind of weird, always watching her. And the little ones hadn’t seen the crocodile, so she couldn’t say anything in front of them.

Hector was probably safe with her parents, and they probably all thought she was dead by now. She wondered if Hector missed her. Or if, in his secret heart, he didn’t mind being an only child. She wondered if he was playing sad songs on the guitar. Having a dead sister was going to make him so romantic and interesting. Girls were probably falling all over him, wherever he was, at a nice hotel somewhere.

Her family had been getting along so well on the ship, where there was nothing to do but play tennis and swim. There were no dishes after dinner, or beds to make. Her friends weren’t around for her mother to have opinions about. When Isabel had puked off the back of the catamaran in Acapulco, her mother had kept her hair out of her face and rubbed her back. She’d found a ginger ale and held up a pareo as a sun shade, to keep people from staring at them. Isabel felt bad about some things she’d said to her mother before the trip.

The wind had started up again. Raúl was down at the stables below the house, where the white horse whinnied in protest. Isabel watched through the window as Raúl rubbed its nose and its neck. He must have been saying reassuring things, promising the wind would stop. But it didn’t. It tried to reach in through the cracks in the house, and shook the ceiling. Maria called it the Christmas wind. Isabel asked her—again—if she could please use a phone.

Maria shook her head. “No, mija.” She brought them a plate of cheese quesadillas, cut into triangles.

Penny and Sebastian finished their huddled business with the finger-sticking and the calculator, and the others waited to eat. Sebastian wanted to give himself the shot with the pen. “It hurts less if I do it,” he said.

June shuddered. “I couldn’t do that.”

“I thought you were going to be a pirate,” Penny said.

“I could be a pirate,” June said. “I just couldn’t give myself a shot.”

Then they all fell on the quesadillas like animals at the zoo. They were disgusting. None of them had showered since they arrived. There were no grown-ups to tell them to. The little ones smelled stale, in that musty, little-kid way. Isabel was getting grown-up body odor. She’d never gone this long without bathing. Her armpits smelled like vegetable soup. It had been interesting at first, but now it was kind of gross.

She crept downstairs, into the bathroom, and locked the door. She stripped off the ugly cotton clothes and made the shower as hot as she could stand. The shampoo smelled of orange blossoms, and she stayed under the water a long time. In the shower, she could be anywhere. She could be home.

She stepped out and stood in front of the mirror, with her hair wet and clean. She had boobs already, even if they were small ones. That was why Raúl looked at her the way he did. And she had a little triangle of hair. Some of her friends were already waxing, but her mother said it was ridiculous and she wouldn’t allow it, even though she had lasered off the hair on her own legs.

The television news, before the old man turned it off, had shown a photograph of Isabel on the ship, leaping into the pool. She’d just been playing, striking a pose in the air, but she looked so good, with one leg kicked up behind her, toes pointed, arms raised like wings, hair streaming out. It must have been on her mother’s phone. Her mother only showed her goofy pictures. Isabel had to steal the phone to see anything that looked halfway decent. But that photo was perfect, and it had been on TV. She tried to strike the pose now, but it wasn’t the same when you weren’t airborne. Her hair didn’t fly.

She sniffed the white shirt and put it back on, and pulled on the ugly red shorts. It was New Year’s Eve. Her friends at home would be out in shimmery dresses and heels, dancing and laughing at the boys who stared at them hungrily. She wondered what Hector was doing. Sitting with her parents? What would they talk about? She wrapped a towel around her hair and went upstairs, where the brothers were playing poker at the kitchen table. She took her corner of the couch.