Free The Spanish Kidnapping Disaster by Mary Downing Hahn Page A

think maybe he has fallen off the rocks."
    "That would be too bloody lovely for words," Charles muttered. "I can't think of a better ending for all three of them. Look at my arm—the little savage bit me. He actually broke the skin. See the blood?"
    "Come," Grace said. "We must go back and tell Senora Perez they are gone. Soon Orlando will return. Maybe he will have the ransom, and we can leave this place."
    "Do you realize how many germs flourish in the human mouth?" Charles asked. "I'd rather be bitten by a dog than a child. Suppose an infection develops? I could die of septicemia in these mountains."
    As the sound of their footsteps faded away, Phillip
turned to me. "I wish he'd get rabies," he whispered. "It would serve him right."
    "Now what do we do?" Amy asked Phillip.
    "We'd better stay here," I said. "We can't go anywhere in this fog."
    "Who put you in charge?" Amy glared at me.
    "Look, Amy," I said, trying to sound reasonable. "Somebody has to make the decisions, and it might as well be me. At least I don't sit around crying like a baby the way you do."
    Giving me a nasty look, Amy folded her arms around her knees and rested her head on them. In a muffled voice, she muttered something about Miss Know It All. Then she clammed up and refused to utter another word. Phillip and I looked at each other, but we didn't have much to say either.
    Silently the three of us sank down into our own thoughts and waited for the long, gray day to end. The only sounds were water dripping through the cracks in the rocks over our heads and occasional rumbles from our empty stomachs. Every now and then I glanced at Amy, but she never met my eyes. Finally, tired, cold, and hungry, I fell asleep.

14

    Luckily for us, the fog hugged the mountains till long after dark. Then, all of a sudden, it thinned out into rags and tatters, and a cold wind blew it away. Over our heads, the stars blazed in the clear sky and the moon cast sharp black shadows across the rocky landscape. We shivered, and, when we crawled out of our hiding place, our muscles were so cramped we could hardly stand.
    "Where's the cave?" Phillip whispered.
    "Over there, I think." I pointed to the left.
    "How about the road? Do you see it?" Without waiting for an answer, Phillip scrambled clumsily to the top of a tall boulder and scanned the rocky hillside for signs of a road, a trail, a path, anything that might lead us out of the mountains. But he saw nothing. The landscape was so desolate, we could have been on the moon.
    "Maybe we should go back to the cave," Amy said. "We'll freeze to death out here. And I'm starving."
    "No," I said. "Orlando will shoot us for sure. Grace told me to go down the road to the village. We can get help there."
    Amy opened her mouth to argue, but Phillip interrupted her. From his perch on the boulder, he looked down at us. "I see the Volkswagen," he said.
    I climbed up beside him, and he pointed to the old bus nearly hidden by an overhanging rock.
    "The road must be there," I said.
    "But it's so close to the cave," Amy whispered. "What if they hear us?" She glanced behind her as if she thought Orlando or Charles might appear at any moment.
    "We have to risk it," I told her. "It's the only way out of here."
    With Phillip and Amy behind me, I crept downhill toward the Volkswagen. The closer we got to the cave, the more scared we were. Fearfully, we slunk from shadow to shadow, trying to avoid the patches of moonlight marbling the ground. Every time one of us kicked a stone loose, we held our breath, waiting to see if the sound would give us away.
    We were at the cave's entrance before we realized where we were. Screened by bushes, it was so small a person could pass by without even noticing it. From inside, I heard Charles and Orlando arguing loudly. Grace yelled something at them, and there was a sound of breaking glass. Señora Perez shrieked and Grace swore.
    Terrified, we forgot to be cautious and ran the rest of the way to the