should protest. I should do the responsible thing and ask for time to earn money and pay him. I consider offering him some of the cash I found in the bandoneón case, but heâd probably wonder where I got American money. I could get a newspaper route, or water someoneâs plants or babysit. If thereâs one thing Iâve learned from my parents, itâs not to be in debt to anyone, not even my Aunt Jeanette. But I donât care about any of that right now. âCan we meet twice a week?â I ask.
Louise laughs. âFrank, I think youâve met your match.â
N INE
âY ou busy? Want to come to the library with me?â Sarahâs standing on Jeanetteâs front steps with hay in her hair and goat poop on her knees. She picks what I hope is a wood chip off her T-shirt and flicks it to the side.
I laugh and pick the hay out of her hair. âYou might want to get rid of some of the straw first, or the herons will take you for a new nesting site as we walk past the park.â
âHa, ha.â She flings her hair around, and bits of barnyard fly out. Behind me, I hear Jeanette raise her voice. Sheâs on the phone, sounding unimpressed with the conversation. I assume sheâs talking to Mom again. Momâs called the past two nights, and weâve talked briefly before Jeanette remembers something urgent that she has to talk to my mother about. No oneâs ever explained that missed phone call. Yesterday I asked Jeanette what was going on, but she told me I worry too much. She had a nervous look on her face when she said it though, and I canât help feeling sheâs still hiding something from me.
Iâm glad Sarahâs invited me to the library. I need to get out and think about something other than my family.
âIâll grab my backpack,â I tell her. âBack in a second.â
âYour aunt let you out on your own today, eh?â
One of the men from the soup kitchenâNed, the one the volunteers keep talking aboutâis sitting on the sidewalk on the way to the library. His ballcap lies upside down in front of him, and a few coins glimmer at the bottom.
Sarah raises her eyebrows at me, and Iâm not sure what to say. âWeâre going to the library,â I mumble.
âKeep reading, kid,â he says. âItâll take you far.â
I smile and look him in the eye. He smiles back.
Later, Sarah wants to know who that was. âHe stinks.â
âYou would too if youâd been through what he has.â I tell her about the soup kitchen and what I know of his story.
She nods but says nothing more until we walk through the library doors. âIâm headed to the history section.â
âIâll be at the computers,â I say. I can tell sheâs dying to ask what Iâm up to, but for some reason she holds back, which is good. Iâm not ready to share my secret yet.
âSuit yourself,â she says and turns down the corridor.
I donât waste any time. As soon as Iâm logged in, I go online and google Andrés Moreno . At first I get a bunch of personal pages and Facebook listings, but theyâre all for people in Spain and Colombia. I add Argentina to my search and come up with a bunch of websites in Spanish. The first one says Listado de desaparecidos on top, and below is a list of names. Screen after screen of names. Thousands of people. I look at another website. The word desaparecidos appears again near the top, and itâs another list. I do the same search with the other name, Caterina Rizzi, and again I get lists. Then I look up the word desaparecidos in a Spanish-English dictionary and discover that it means âdisappeared.â
I think I understand. They must have been fugitives, in such a hurry to escape the police that they misplaced the bandoneón case with their money and the plane tickets. But how did the bandoneón end up in Victoria, half a world
London Casey, Ana W. Fawkes