Matt could hear the Bug screaming in one of the other rooms. If he hadn’t known better, he would have thought the boy was being tortured. “What should I do with him?” he asked.
“Put him to sleep like a rabid dog,” said Cienfuegos.
Matt frowned. “I was half-mad from neglect when I was six years old, but Celia, Tam Lin, and María brought me back to life. Perhaps El Bicho can be saved.”
The jefe snorted. The doctor gazed into the distance. Only Listen, who was tucking a sandwich into Mbongeni’s mouth, offered an opinion. “He’s a bug,” she said. “What you need is a big old shoe to squash him.”
It’s like owning a cage full of pit bulls, thought Matt. He had no idea what to do.
21
THE SCORPION STAR
Matt realized he would have to postpone his return to Ajo. Mbongeni was all right. He was a cheerful infant and his needs were simple, but Listen had to be taken away from El Bicho. Matt moved her next to his room and got one of the nurses to keep an eye on her. Listen didn’t like that one bit.
Matt found her surprisingly informed about some things and completely ignorant about others. When he tried to read her Peter Rabbit, she sneered at him.
“Rabbits don’t wear clothes,” she said scornfully. “They don’t eat currant buns. That’s a stupid book. I hate it.”
“It isn’t supposed to be real,” Matt explained. “You have to pretend you’re a rabbit and imagine what it’s like being hunted by a farmer who wants to put you into a pie.”
“Why would I do that?” asked Listen.
“To grow your imagination. To give your brain a workout.”
The little girl considered the possibility that brains needed workouts. “It’s still a lie,” she decided. “Dr. Rivas says that scientists always tell the truth.”
Except when it involves you, thought Matt, but he didn’t say it aloud.
Listen then told him about Dr. Rivas’s rabbits, which he kept for experiments. She didn’t seem upset that he killed them afterward, or that he let her watch dissections. She knew the names of organs and how the bones were put together. When you cut open the stomach, she said, all that was inside was lettuce, not currant buns. Matt realized that she had patterned herself after the doctor. It wasn’t surprising, since he was the only normal adult she saw, but she didn’t realize that she was just another rabbit to him.
No one had ever sung her lullabies or tucked her into bed. No one had ever held her when she had nightmares, and she did have them. Matt heard her screaming in the middle of the night, but she wouldn’t tell him about the dream. She’d never played hide-and-seek, although she’d done plenty of hiding from the Bug. She was, in her way, as isolated as Matt had been at that age, except that she didn’t have Celia to tell her stories or Tam Lin to take her exploring. And she didn’t have María.
Matt vowed to make it up to her.
The Bug was a much more difficult problem. Once he was cleaned up and his fingernails cut, Matt visited him. Eejits stood on either side, restraining him with a pair of leashes, just as large, vicious dogs were sometimes controlled. The boy’s legs were hobbled so that he could walk, but not run. The eejits forced him into a chair facing Matt.
Mirasol brought in a cart with cookies, cheese slices, strawberries, and glasses of milk. For a moment Matt was struck by the similarity between this meeting and when he had first met El Patrón.
Matt had been so traumatized then that he couldn’t speak, but he had instinctively liked the old man. Everything was right about him, the color of his eyes, the shape of his hands, his voice. Matt went up to the drug lord without the slightest hesitation, and El Patrón had asked him gravely if he liked cookies.
“Do you like cookies?” Matt said now to the scowling, simmering boy.
“Crot you!” said the Bug.
“Dr. Rivas says you’re intelligent. You don’t act like it.” Matt edged the plate of snacks closer.
“I’m smarter than you are, roach face. I’m the boss of this place.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” said Matt, pointing at the eejits holding leashes. “Let’s start over. If you’re as bright as Dr. Rivas says, you’ll want to get along with me.”
“When you die, I’m going to take your place,” boasted the Bug.
“That’s a really stupid thing to say. Only an idiot threatens a man holding a gun.”
El Bicho sat very still. After a moment an amazing transformation came over him. His body relaxed, and he grinned like a normal kid who only wanted to make friends. “I guess I acted like a real turkey,” he apologized. “You’re right. Let’s start over.”