The Spanish Kidnapping Disaster by Mary Downing Hahn Read Free Book Online

old woman. She picked up a ladle and began spooning food from the pot into bowls. Despite everything, I could feel my stomach rumbling. Like Phillip, I'd been hungry for hours.
    "Yuck," Phillip said as he poked the stew in his bowl. "What's in this?"
    "Goat meat," Grace said, licking her fingers. "Very good."
    Phillip tasted a small mouthful and spat it out. "It's awful," he said. "I'm not eating it!"
    Amy leaned toward him and grabbed his shoulder. "Do what they say," she whispered. "Don't make them mad."
Putting a forkful of stew in her mouth, she chewed slowly. Then, with tears running down her cheeks, she forced herself to swallow it.
    "We don't have to do anything they tell us," I told Phillip. "If you don't like it, don't eat it."
    Pushing my bowl away, I glared at Grace. "I'd rather starve than eat this," I said.
    "Fine." Charles took my stew, and I sat there listening to my insides growl while Amy and Phillip choked down their dinners.
    I wanted to cry, but I wasn't going to give Grace or Amy the satisfaction of seeing my tears. To keep myself from falling apart, I stared at the floor and concentrated on hating Grace.
    The next time I looked up, Charles had taken off his stocking mask and was eating my share of the stew. Just as I'd thought, he was the man in the black leather jacket I'd seen last night in the Plaza de Zocodover, the one Amy thought was admiring her.
    I glanced at her to see if she'd recognized him yet, but she was still crying into her stew.
    When I looked back at our kidnappers, I realized I had other things to worry about. The man who'd caught me had taken off his mask, and I recognized him too. He was the one I'd locked eyes with in Toledo. His cobra stare was as cold as ever, and I shivered, knowing that this time I couldn't just walk away from him. This time I was trapped.

10

    After everyone except me had eaten, the old woman collected the plates. In the silence, I could hear the tin utensils clink as she washed them in a bucket of water.
    After a while, Charles turned to Grace. "Get their passports," he said.
    "Don't give them to her," I told Phillip and Amy, but Amy was already pulling her little canvas purse out of her shirt. Like Phillip's and mine, it hung on a cord around her neck and held her passport and money. Don had bought one for each of us at Wilderness Supplies before we left for Spain, and I could still hear him saying to me, "Whatever you do, keep this hidden under your clothes so a pickpocket can't get it." Until now, I'd thought losing your passport was the worst thing that could happen to you in Spain.
    Nervously, Phillip looked from Amy to me and back at Amy. When she saw him hesitating, Amy said, "Give her your passport."
    "No!" I grabbed Phillip's hand to stop him, but he ducked away from me and gave Grace what she wanted.
    Then it was my turn. "Cooperate, Felix," Grace said. In the flickering light from the fire, her high cheekbones gave her face a cruel quality I'd totally missed in the sunny streets of Toledo.
    "I'm not giving you anything," I said to Grace.
    "The passport, please," she said.
    "No!" I was shouting now.
    "I'll take care of this." Charles pushed Grace aside and scowled down at me. "Hand it over," he said.
    I ducked but not quickly enough. Charles grabbed the cord around my neck and jerked upward, pulling the purse out of my tee-shirt and over my nose so hard tears stung my eyes.
    "I told you, Felix," Grace said. "Do what you are told and you will not be harmed."
    "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" I screamed and threw myself at her, kicking, scratching, slapping at whatever part of her I could reach.
    Then someone grabbed me and pulled me away from Grace. I could smell garlic on his breath as his fingers dug into my skin. It was the man with the cobra eyes. While I struggled to escape, Grace said, "Don't hurt her, Orlando. Please don't. She is a child, remember."
    Orlando pushed me away and I reeled across the cave and fell hard on a pile of old