Taken by Edward Bloor Read Free Book Online Page A

remembered something. “Oh yeah. I have a message from Dr. Reyes. He said you can sit up now, if you want. He said the sedative has passed through your system.”
    “Oh, I see. Thank you. Does Dr. Reyes talk to you in English?”
    He didn’t reply, but I thought I saw him smirk.
    I pulled myself up into a sitting position. Then I reached around the stretcher and found a latch. I raised up the back piece of the stretcher and affixed it so that I was now seated at a ninety-degree angle. I felt so much better that I spoke to him again, conversationally, without even thinking about it. “Well, I want to be able to do what you do, to speak different languages. I want to learn French and Spanish. And Creole, too.”
    “Pourquoi?”
    “‘Why’? Does that mean ‘why’?”
    “Oui.”
    “Because Creole is spoken here in Florida. I want to know the languages that are spoken around me.”
    He didn’t reply.
    “Would you teach me a few words in Creole?”
    After a pause he said, “Sure. Why not? Here’s all the Creole you’ll ever need to know:
Vòlè
means ‘thief.’”
    I repeated it phonetically: “Vo-lay.”
    “
Mantlè
means ‘liar.’”
    “Mant-lay. Okay. Great. Now can you tell me some good-thing words?”
    He snorted. “Good-thing words? Is that even English? Listen: the Haitians around here don’t use little-white-girl, ‘good-thing’ words. For example, they have no word for ‘helipad,’ or ‘yacht basin,’ or ‘satschool.’ Those are words in common use in The Highlands, correct?”
    “You’re right,” I admitted.
    “Probably the only Creole you have ever heard came from the lawn guy, or the garbage man. Both of them were, I am sure, complaining about you, the masters, as they muttered along in their slave language.”
    “That’s not right. We don’t treat people like slaves.”
    “If they work in The Highlands, they work under the constant watch of guards with machine guns; they must step carefully around electric fences; their every move is recorded on vidcams as they do your dirty work.”
    “I do my own dirty work. I have my own set of chores, and then I help Victoria do hers when no one is around.”
    “Victoria. Is she your family’s slave?”
    “No!” This time, I was the one who didn’t speak for a while. I finally managed to say, “Victoria is my favorite person in the world. She is like my mother. She is nobody’s slave.”
    He rolled his eyes. I ignored that and continued. “She works for RDS, and she makes a lot of money. She is saving it so she can go to college someday and become an attorney.”
    When he replied, it was without sarcasm. “It sounds like you admire her.”
    “I do.”
    “And you trust her.”
    “Completely. With my life.”
    “Then why do you have a vidcam in her bedroom?”
    I stopped to think. How did he know that? Then I protested, “That’s got nothing to do with us. That’s RDS policy. And she doesn’t mind it.”
    “She doesn’t?”
    “No.”
    “Has she said that?”
    “No. But I know she doesn’t. I know her.”
    “You do?”
    “Yes.”
    “All right. What’s her real name?”
    I froze. Flustered, I finally stammered, “I—I don’t know.”
    “I see.”
    “She doesn’t use her real name at work.”
    “I see. And why should she, when she has a perfectly good slave name?” I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off. “The entire situation is ridiculous. You don’t know the first thing about her, which is her name. She pretends to be your little French maid, or English, or whatever. That’s all you know. You know a fictional character.” He turned back to the two-way with finality, signaling the end of our conversation.
    That was fine with me. I didn’t want to hear him bad-mouthing Victoria anymore.
    I sat back and looked at my vidscreen. The blue numerals read 13:13, and the red light was on. I stared into it, trying to imagine who was watching. I figured that the kidnappers were sending a vid image to my