Free Taken by Edward Bloor

saying,
“Como está?”
    When they would reply, I would answer
“Bien,”
like Victoria had taught me.
    Patience giggled at my efforts.
    Pauline watched us and commented, “Look at the hors. They’re pretending they can speak Spanish.”
    Patience replied, “So? You pretend you can speak English.”
    Pauline sneered. “I can.”
    Patience muttered to me, “It’s sad when they can’t even fight back.”
    Pauline turned to Sierra. “You must know Spanish. Right?”
    “Not right. I don’t know any.”
    “Then does your dad?”
    “No. Why would he?”
    “Well, isn’t your last name Vasquez or something?”
    “Yeah. So what? Why would I want to know Spanish? You get the servants to translate for you. That’s their job.”
    I squeezed Patience’s arm secretly as I confided to them, “Personally, I would want to know what the servants were saying about me.”
    Sierra looked quickly at her maid. “What? What are they saying about me?”
    Patience took over from there. “We heard all the maids talking about you just now, over by the van.”
    “What? They’re not allowed to do that.”
    “They didn’t know we were listening.”
    Sierra believed her. She demanded to know what they said.
    Patience leaned forward. “I’m not sure. I don’t know a lot of vocabulary. They either said you were
miedosa
or
mierda.
”
    “What do those mean?”
    “One means ‘scared’ the other means ‘excrement.’”
    As Sierra stood and contemplated that, Patience and I turned and hurried into the crowd, laughing uncontrollably.
             
    I was still chuckling about Sierra when I got pulled back to my ambulance prison by a loud sound, the sound of the dark boy’s seat snapping shut.
    I said, “Hey! Are you going to the bathroom?”
    He ignored me, so I added, “Because I need to go to the bathroom. That’s your job, right? Helping me go to the bathroom?”
    He answered angrily, “No. That is not my job. I’ll get Dr. Reyes.”
    “No! No, please. Do me a favor, one small favor. All you have to do is take me there and bring me back.”
    His face twisted in disbelief. “What? Do you think I’m stupid?”
    “No. Not at all. You’ll be right with me, right outside the door. Come on, where am I going to go? You have me surrounded.”
    “No. I have to get the doctor.”
    “Please. Please.”
    He opened the ambulance door, but I called after him, “Come on! This is a better way. I know it is.”
    He jumped down. But then he turned around and said, “I’ll talk to the doctor. Wait here for his answer.”
    When the door opened a minute later, I found out the answer, and it was no. Dr. Reyes himself climbed in, placed the bedpan on the stretcher, and left. All in silence.
    Then he returned two minutes later to fetch it.
    It was humiliating and disgusting, once again. But there was one small consolation—the dark boy had at least talked to Dr. Reyes for me.
    He had done me a small favor.
    Once the dark boy was back inside and seated, I asked, “How are things going?” I quickly answered myself: “They’re going smoothly, I hope. Ten hours left to go. Is the ransom plan moving forward?”
    I waited for a full minute for him to respond. It frightened me that he wouldn’t even make eye contact. I hoped it wasn’t because the plan had hit a snag. I finally looked over at my vidscreen. The red light was on. Who was watching? Was it my father? Were they in contact with my father? Were they showing him that I was still alive? For now?
    Good, I thought. Let him see that I was holding up my end of the deal and that I was waiting for him to hold up his. Let him see that I was using my training. With a last look at the red light, I composed myself, closed my eyes, and concentrated…
             
    The Mangrove kids and the Highlands kids returned to their respective sides of the stage as Mickie appeared again with a microphone. She leaned over and held the mike out to some brown-skinned kids. “Tell me