The Spanish Kidnapping Disaster (12 page)

Grace smiled. "I have so much trouble with the little funny things you say."

She turned off the road, and we saw Segovia on the hill above us, glowing golden in the afternoon sunlight just as it had three long days ago. As Amy bounced up and down with anticipation, I turned to her.

"There won't be any loopholes or peepholes if we all agree about what happened," I told her. "Are you going along with Phillip and me or not?"

Amy looked at Grace, at the blood drying on her arm, at her black eye and swollen lip. She frowned and thought hard.

"Come on, Amy." Phillip poked her in the side. "Say 'yes.' You have to. She saved our lives."

I leaned toward Amy. "You don't want Grace to go to jail, do you? Not after all she's done to make things right?"

Amy twirled a long strand of hair tightly around her finger. Narrowing her eyes, she stared at me. "If I say 'yes,'" she said to me, "will you promise never to say another word about my mother's music appreciation professor?"

Now it was my turn to think hard. As much as I hated to promise, I knew Grace was more important than silencing Amy with a telling blow like the music appreciation professor.

Reluctantly I said, "If I promise not to mention the professor, will you promise not to say mean things about my mother's cooking?"

Amy sighed. "I thought we were making a bargain about Grace. I don't see what your mother's cooking has to do with going to jail."

"It's a compromise," I said. "It won't kill you."

"Then maybe you should swear to stop acting like a know-it-all." Amy glared at me.

"And you could quit being such a goody-goody!" I was getting mad now.

"Girls, girls, what way is this to talk?" Grace stared at us. "Surely from this great disaster you have learned to be sisters."

Phillip squinted at us. "Grace is right," he said. "You're acting like barbarians. And, besides, the police station is straight ahead. We have to agree on our story before they start asking questions."

Amy and I looked where Phillip was pointing. Sure enough, at the end of the narrow street was a building with a sign over the door that said
Policía.

"Oh, all right!" Amy slid down in her seat. "I'll go along with you, but if Grace gets away with it, she better not ever kidnap anybody else!"

Grace glanced at Amy. "Believe me, I will never do such an outrage again," she said. "I have learned my lesson."

Then the citizen of the world turned even paler and slumped over the steering wheel. Before I could figure out where the brake pedal was, the Volkswagen jumped the curb, climbed the steps like a windup toy, and came to a sudden stop halfway through the door of the police station.

Our sudden appearance at the police station caused quite an uproar. We were immediately surrounded by armed policemen, and for a moment I thought we were going to be shot on the spot as terrorists. Fortunately, someone realized we were too young to be dangerous and an even greater disaster was averted.

Despite his broken ankle, Phillip grabbed his phrase book out of my back pocket and added to the confusion by trying to explain who we were in Spanish. To my relief, one of the detectives spoke English and soon figured out we were the kidnapped children everyone was looking for.

"And this one?" he asked, meaning Grace who was still slumped over the steering wheel. If she hadn't moaned, I would have thought she was dead, she was so still and pale.

"She rescued us," Phillip and I said as an ambulance arrived.

Anxiously I watched the two men lift Grace out of the van and lower her gently to a stretcher. Except for her black eye, Grace's face was ashen against the red hair fanned out around it. Still caught in a tangle was the pink flower, its petals curled and rimmed with brown.

"Is she going to be all right?" I asked the doctor bending over her.

He nodded, and the detective said, "Take her to the hospital. The questions will be later."

Before the men rolled Grace away, she opened her eyes and smiled. "You see, Felix?" she whispered. "Did I not tell you this was a great disaster for me, the worst ever?"

The detective turned to us as the stretcher disappeared into the ambulance. "This woman is Grace, the stranger who took you to the windmills?"

"She was kidnapped too," I said.

"By Orlando and Charles," Phillip added quickly. "You better get them. They wrecked a bus in the mountains, and they have guns. They might hurt the passengers."

In response to this information, several police cars soon roared away. Then someone noticed Phillip's injured ankle, and, by the time Mom and Don arrived, we were drinking Cokes and feeling better than we had since we'd set out to see the windmills.

At the sight of me, her only child, safe and almost sound, Mom threw her arms around me and burst into tears. "Oh, Felix, Felix," she sobbed. "Are you sure you're all right? I was so scared. I was afraid I'd never see you again."

"You almost didn't," I said. My arms tightened around her and I cried too. Never had her hair smelled so nice
to me. Never had her body felt so warm and comforting. "I thought I was going to get killed for sure."

"I can't believe I let you go off with that woman," Mom said. "How could I have been so irresponsible?"

"It wasn't Grace's fault." I stopped crying and drew back so I could see Mom's face. "Charles and Orlando followed her. They kidnapped all of us, Grace too."

"But she rescued us!" Phillip shouted. "She got shot, and they took her away in an ambulance."

Don turned to Amy. "Is Phillip right?" he asked as if he couldn't believe his own son.

There was a tiny silence. Phillip and I both held our breath and waited to see what Miss Perfect would say.

"If it hadn't been for Grace," Amy said, "we'd all be dead right now."

"
Muerto!
" Phillip yelled. "Bang! Bang! Muerto!"

After another flurry of hugging and kissing and crying, Don asked the detective if we could leave. "My son should have his ankle x-rayed, and Felix has a bad cut on her leg."

The detective leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers on his chest. He scrutinized Phillip, Amy, and me, then leaned forward and smiled at us. "We will have to question these three again," he said to Don, "but I think they have suffered enough for now."

***

That night, Phillip, Amy, and I were in a lovely clean hotel room, bathed, fed, and rested. Phillip was sporting a big, white cast on his left leg and hopping around on one crutch. I was balancing myself on the other because
my bandaged leg was still stiff and sore. Not wanting to be left out, Amy claimed she had a headache, and no one could prove she didn't.

From the Spanish evening news, we learned that Orlando and Charles were both in custody. By the time the police found the bus, the passengers had overcome our enemies and tied them to a tree. As the television camera moved in on Orlando and Charles, we could see the passengers in the background, laughing and talking. The baby had stopped crying, and even the old ladies were smiling. Charles and Orlando were the only bad sports in the group. They were obviously not enjoying themselves.

"What an awful man." Mom stared at a closeup of Orlando's face as Phillip attempted to translate the reporter's account of his criminal background.

I shivered and slid closer to her, glad for the security of her arm around me. Even though I knew he was now in jail, it scared me to see Orlando glaring into the camera lens, his cobra eyes still full of menace.

Charles's face appeared next, downcast, unhappy, ashamed.

"He graduated from Cambridge," Phillip translated, "and he's never done anything bad before this."

"I hope they throw the book at him," Don said.

Then it was Grace's turn. She was sitting in a hospital bed, and her bandaged arm, black eye, and split lip made her look the part of a victim.

According to Phillip, Orlando and Charles had told the police Grace was their accomplice. Although she admitted
telling them, her old friends, about us, she denied any role in our kidnapping. The reporter pointed out that we backed up Grace's account. He seemed to think Orlando and Charles were lying.

After the news program, Mom hugged me. "I'm just so glad you're safe," she said. Then she burst into tears, something she'd been doing ever since she saw me in the police station.

"Oh, Felix," she said, "you don't know what Don and I have been through, sitting here in this hotel room, waiting for news, scared to death we'd never see you again."

"Yes," Don agreed, "we went to the embassy, the police, the press, and they all told us the same thing. There was nothing we could do but wait. They were doing all they could."

To my surprise, he put one arm around Amy and the other around me. Hugging us both, he said, "Well, it's all over now. Thanks to Grace, we have the three of you back, safe and happy."

From behind, Phillip slung his arms around Don's neck. Phillip's head was so close to mine, I could smell the shampoo he'd used, but for once I didn't feel like pushing him away. I didn't even want to pull away from Don. In fact, it was kind of nice sitting close to him. Maybe he'd turn out to be an all-right dad after all.

Then I thought of Grace, lying alone in the hospital. "What will happen when Grace gets well?" I asked. "Will she have to testify against Orlando and Charles?"

"I suppose so," Don said.

"How about us?" Phillip asked. "Will we have to be there too?"

Don slid an arm around Phillip. "I don't know yet," he said. "We'll talk to the police tomorrow. I imagine we have a lot to learn about Spanish law, something we sure didn't plan on when we left home."

I leaned against Mom, listening to Phillip and Don discuss legal matters. Once again, I was safe. I'd bathed and changed my clothes, Amy had done something to improve my hair, and I'd had a delicious dinner. For the first time, I felt like I was part of a real family.

But what about Grace's children? The starving ones she'd told me about? They weren't safe. They weren't comfortable. They hadn't had a delicious dinner. And they weren't going to get the money she had wanted them to have.

Straightening up, I looked at Mom. "Don't you think we should give Grace a reward for rescuing us?"

Mom stared at me. "Why, Felix," she said, "I never thought of that. Of course we should."

"And my father," I said, "could you ask him to contribute? He can afford it."

Mom turned to Dad. "What do you think?" she asked.

"Felix is right," he said. "We can certainly give Grace two or three thousand dollars, and Felix's dad can easily match that. Grace deserves something for endangering her life to save our children."

***

The next afternoon, Phillip, Amy, and I were allowed to visit Grace. When we entered her room, she was sitting
up in bed reading a book, but she dropped it when she saw us.

"Children," she cried, "oh, what a happy surprise to see you again! And you are all right? No bad effects from our ordeal?"

While Phillip showed her his cast, I asked Grace about her injury. "It was nothing," she insisted. "No broken bones, just blood loss. I will be out of here in a couple of days, they say."

From the size of her bandage, I was pretty sure Grace was minimizing the bullet wound, but her color was better, and she looked almost as beautiful as she had the first day I'd seen her.

"This is for you." I set a huge floral arrangement down on the nightstand. "From our parents."

As Grace thanked me, I plucked one yellow flower from it and handed it to her. "For your hair," I said.

Grace took the flower but, with the use of only one arm, she couldn't put it in her hair. "Here, you do it, Felix, please."

I poked the stem gently into her hair, just above her ear. "There," I said.

Then I handed her an envelope. "This is for you too, from Mom and Don, from my father, and from Amy and Phillip's mother."

Without opening the envelope, Grace stared at me. "I do not understand," she said.

"It's a reward," Phillip butted in.

"For saving our lives," Amy added.

While we watched, Grace tore open the envelope and
took out the money. For a few seconds, she stared at it. "Oh," she said. "It is too much. I do not deserve it. Not after what I did. This is all my fault, Phillip's broken bone, your cuts and bruises, the fear and pain—I caused it all and your parents do this for me. If they knew, they would not give me anything."

With tears running down her cheeks, she thrust the envelope toward me. "Take this back, Felix. I will tell the truth, admit what I have done, go to jail as I should."

Gently I laid the envelope on her lap. "Please take it," I said. "It's partly my fault too. I told you so many lies in Toledo about how rich we were. If I hadn't made that stuff up, you might never have thought of kidnapping us."

Grace looked at the envelope again, at the money poking out of it. "For the children then," she said, and pressed the envelope to her chest. "I will take it for them, the starving ones."

"All of it?" Phillip asked. "Don't you want to keep some for yourself?"

"The children are the ones who need it, not me," Grace insisted. "It must go to them, every cent, to make up for what I did."

"But what will you do?" I asked her. "Where will you go?"

"There is still much of the world for me to see," Grace said. "I will journey onward, but I will be careful. No more disasters for me, Felix. I will watch out for the ones like Orlando and Charles, believe me."

As I perched on the bed beside her, Grace said, "Open the drawer, please, Felix, in the nightstand."

Obediently I slid it open. It was empty except for two gold hoops, my earrings, the very ones I'd thrown at Grace the day we'd been kidnapped.

"I saved them for you," Grace said, "just in case you might want them again."

I took them out and slowly fastened them in my ears. Grace and I smiled at each other. "They look nice," Grace said, "my little
gitana.
May they bring you luck always."

The room was quiet for a moment. Then Phillip sat down beside me and leaned toward Grace. "Come to America," he said suddenly, "and visit us. We have a big house."