Do Not Become Alarmed(50)

“Raúl’s drunk. He’ll roll over in a ditch.”

“I thought you wanted to help the children,” she said.

“I did!” he shouted, right in her face, a fleck of spit in the corner of his mouth. “But you fucked that up for me, didn’t you? I was going to turn him in, with the children!”

“You still can!” she said. “Go after him!”

He seemed to think about it for a moment, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “He’s fucking crazy. I’m getting out of here, before he comes back.”

“Oh, God,” she moaned.

George stopped pacing and studied Consuelo’s bleeding body draped over the threshold. He asked, “Do we have a tarp?”





29.



MARCUS SAT BEHIND Oscar in the red car. It was not a very big car. They were four in the back, with Isabel squished next to Marcus, which made his heart skip and tumble over itself. June and Sebastian were buckled under the other seatbelt, next to them. Penny had grabbed the front seat, of course.

Oscar hung up the phone. “They have my mother,” he said.

They all sat silent. Then Isabel said something urgent in Spanish. Marcus guessed she was saying that Oscar couldn’t take them back to that house, not even for his mother. That’s what Marcus would have said if he could speak Spanish. They needed to go to the embassy.

Oscar nodded. He was trying to act calm. “Okay,” he said, and he started the engine. It caught and purred lightly. “Okay, okay.”

Marcus heard a shout, through the window. A girl and a boy had come out of the house with the party in it. The girl had long black hair and a red bag slung across her chest.

Oscar swore, and the car leaped forward and stalled. It was a stick shift. Marcus’s dad had taught him how they worked. You had to let the clutch out, as you pressed the gas.

The boy and the girl ran toward them, across the lawn. Marcus hoped they would step in dog poop.

“Go!” he said. “Slow on the clutch!”

Oscar restarted the car, and gunned it. It jerked once and then pulled miraculously away, swerving down the block, almost taking off the mirror on a parked car. Oscar shifted to second and third. Marcus looked out the back window and saw the couple running behind them. Then they jogged and slowed and receded. Marcus turned forward, his heart pounding.

“Did you just steal this car?” Penny asked.

“It’s my friend’s,” Oscar said.

“Was that your friend chasing us?”

“Yes.”

“Do you even have a driver’s license?”

He said nothing.

“Oh my God,” Penny said.

“It’s okay,” Oscar said, but his voice was shaky. “We go to the embassy now. Let’s not look like the lost kids.”

“We are the lost kids,” Penny said.

“Do you know how to get to the capital?” Marcus asked.

“There’s only one road,” Oscar said.

The sun was coming up, glowing behind the mountains in the east. They left the neighborhood and headed south. Oscar drove in silence for a long time. He might not have a license, but he was an okay driver, once he didn’t have to start and stop. The sky glowed brighter, and lightened to blue. The trees looked dewy and wet. They passed a sign that said INTERSECCION ADELANTE.

June, in a quiet voice, said, “A.”

Marcus was going to tell his sister that this was no time for a game. But it would keep her from being afraid or carsick. And he couldn’t help scanning the signs outside the window for his own A.

“B,” June said after a minute. “Banos.”

“Ba?os,” Penny corrected.

After a while, they passed a roadside restaurant with a chalk sign. “Arroz con pollo,” Marcus said. “A.”

“Con!” June said. “C!”

“Can I play?” Sebastian asked.

“You have to find your own word that begins with A,” June said.

Marcus scanned for a B, but now they were on a stretch of empty road with no signs. He leaned his head against the glass of the window and wondered if they were going to get breakfast. Arroz con pollo was rice with chicken. There was a car behind them, following too close.

Then the car had pulled alongside them. The road they were on had only two lanes, and it was dangerous to pass. But the car wasn’t passing. It was a Jeep with an open top, and Marcus looked straight into the eyes of the driver.

“It’s him!” he cried.

Oscar must have seen Raúl at the same moment, because they shot forward, leaving the Jeep behind. Isabel grabbed Marcus’s hand.

They sped down the road, but the Jeep caught up. A car came at them in the opposite direction, and Raúl dropped back to let it by. There was a long, annoyed, receding honk from the other car. When the road ahead was empty, the Jeep pulled alongside them again.

“Go faster!” Marcus shouted.

“I can’t!” Oscar said.

Marcus leaned forward and looked across Isabel to see if his sister was okay. June sat clutching the bunny, looking terrified, the alphabet forgotten.

Raúl was shouting something at them from the Jeep. Then Marcus saw him waving something.

“He has a gun!” Marcus shouted.