Free Amelia Earhart: Lady Lindy by Ann Hood Page A

old man with a face almost as wrinkled as Penelope Merriweather’s. He had on a baggy black suit and a black fedora, but he was posing with a bunch of arrows pressed across his chest. Photographers snapped his picture, but his expression stayed completely stoic, with no hint of emotion. Felix suspected that if this old man was Geronimo, he must feel humiliated to have to sit there like that and have everyone gawk at him and take his picture.
    â€œHe doesn’t look fierce at all,” one of the teenage girls said, disappointed.
    â€œWell, he’s old now,” Felix said.
    The girl sighed and got in the line waiting to buy Geronimo’s autograph. “I guess I’ll get his autograph, anyway,” she said.
    â€œDo you think he’s an imposter?” her friend asked.
    The girl shrugged. “General Christiaan de Wet was much more impressive,” she said.
    â€œWas he one of the soldiers who made Geronimo surrender?” Felix asked.
    The girls laughed.
    â€œTwice a day over in the Anglo-Boer War Concession they reenact major battles from the Second Boer War,” one of them explained. She had fat brown banana curls that bounced when she talked.
    Felix made a mental note to look up Anglo-Boer War when he got home. He had no idea what that war was.
    â€œIt takes about three hours,” her friend continued, “but it’s worth it.”
    â€œThey have more than six hundred veterans from both sides doing the reenactments,” the other girl said, growing excited as she talked and sending her banana curls into a frenzy. “But at the very end, Boer General Christiaan de Wet escapes on his horse and leaps into a pool of water from fifty feet high!”
    â€œMaybe not fifty feet,” her friend said. “But very, very high.” She sighed. “It’s very dramatic.”
    Felix stood on tiptoe, trying to catch a glimpse of Maisie. There she was, right at the front of the line, talking to Geronimo.
    When she turned to leave, she scanned the crowd until her eyes settled on Felix. Maisie waved a piece of paper and pushed her way to her brother.
    â€œI got his autograph,” she said proudly.
    The two girls Felix had been talking with asked to look at it, but Felix thought the whole spectacle was terrible.
    â€œHonestly, Maisie,” he said. “How could you? The poor man is being treated like an animal in the zoo. Just like those people in that Philippine Village.”
    â€œNo,” Maisie said. “He’s making lots of money selling autographs and photographs.”
    She pointed at a teenage boy walking by, smug beneath a black hat just like Geronimo’s.
    â€œHe even sells his hats,” she said. “He’s getting rich!”
    â€œI bet they don’t even let him keep the money,” Felix said.
    â€œWho’s they?” Maisie asked, tucking the autograph into her pocket.
    â€œThe US government!” Felix said. “He’s a prisoner of war!”
    Maisie glanced over at Geronimo carefully signing his name for someone.
    â€œHe doesn’t look like a prisoner of war,” she said.
    â€œWell, he is!” Felix insisted.
    â€œFine!” Maisie said, exasperated. “Let’s go see something else.”
    â€œMaybe Charles Lindbergh is in that fancy building over there,” Felix said, trying to be hopeful.
    â€œIs Missouri anywhere near Minnesota?” Maisie asked, wishing yet again that she’d paid more attention in social studies class. All those
M
states mixed her up.
    â€œI don’t think so,” Felix said. He tried to picture the map of the United States, but the middle was just a big blank to him.
    By the time they reached what turned out to be Festival Hall, the crowd had entered and the massive doors had been shut. But the sounds of a band made their way outside.
    A man in a bowler hat grinned.
    â€œWhy, that’s the March King himself playing ‘Stars and Stripes