Journey to an 800 Number by E.L. Konigsburg Read Free Book Online Page B

of here strictly at two.”
    “Sure,” I said. “I understand.”
    At five minutes to two, Sabrina appeared in our booth without Lilly.
    “Where’s your mother?”
    “She had to check us out of the hotel and loadup the car. We had a late lunch again. Mother didn’t want me to come, but I insisted. I came only because I promised.”
    I saw that Father was consulting with the men from Mideast Airlines for our pay. I said to Sabrina, “Wait here. Let me see if I can catch Scotty.” I started running toward the Irish Tourist Bureau booth. The man from Mideast called me and asked me to please return my burnoose and turban. I could understand his wanting me to. I could understand his thinking I was going to make off with them just as he was closing up shop. I could understand him. I really could. But I didn’t have to like it. I saw Scotty just as he was waving goodbye to the Irish Tourist Bureau and walking out the service exit.
    I ran back to our Mideast booth. Sabrina was sitting on the rolled rug. “You missed him,” I said.
    “I guess so,” she said.
    “Here was your one chance to meet a real freak, and you blew it.”
    “I guess I did,” she said, “but I got to see Ahmed in all his finery. Aren’t you glad that it’s his now?”
    “What’s his?”
    “That saddle. Those beautiful saddle bags. Everything belongs to Ahmed now and forever.”
    I looked over at the two swarthy men from Mideast. They were speaking to one another in a foreign language. I didn’t understand what they were saying,but I knew that they were disagreeing about something. Disagreement is a universal language.
    Sabrina pointed over her shoulder. “One of them thinks the other should have charged your father more.”
    “How much did they charge?”
    “Five hundred,” Sabrina said.
    “But that’s two days’ pay for this gig,” I said.
    “It’s this last day they’re arguing about. The chief Arab over there says that your father should get only one hundred seventy-five for today since it was over at two o’clock, and your father says that he was promised two hundred fifty dollars for each of the days.”
    “How do you know which of those two swarthies is the chief Arab? I’ve been here two and a half days, and I don’t know which is the more boss.”
    “Where did you say you went to school?”
    “I didn’t. I said I was going to go to Fortnum. You’ve never told me where you go. I don’t even know where you’re from.”
    “I told you, Maximilian. I told you that Tours de Lilly is in Rahway, New Jersey. And, naturally, I go to school there.”
    “How did school in Rahway teach you which one of these two was the chief Arab?”
    She shrugged. “It’s after school where I learn those things.”
    “What’s going to happen? Will my father get two fifty or one seventy-five?”
    Sabrina tossed a look over her shoulder and said, “They’ll compromise at two hundred.”
    At that moment Father came toward us folding a check into his wallet. I would like to have been able to tell how much it said, but I could not, and I would not ask, for I was afraid that Sabrina would be right, and I did not mind her being right. I really didn’t. I just minded her being terribly right.
    Father said to Sabrina, “How did you get here?”
    “Taxi.”
    He told her that with so many people leaving at once, it would be difficult to find a taxi, and he would drive her back to the Fairmont. So Sabrina came with us to the sub-basement where our truck was parked. Father unbridled Ahmed and laid the new saddle down in the back of the truck, in the end where the worse thing Ahmed could do would be to spit on it.
    The three of us piled into the cab with Sabrina between Father and me. It was an awful ride. Because there was a question I wanted to ask Sabrina. I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to look as if I wanted to know the answer. So the ride to the Fairmont was short and silent. I realized that I would have to get down out of the truck