Free Taken by Edward Bloor Page A

about the
tornada
dolls. What is the story behind those?”
    A tall girl—preselected, I’m sure—volunteered to answer. “You give it to someone you hope you will see again someday.”
    Mickie said, “That’s nice.” She pointed to another girl. “Wait a minute. You still have yours! Can I take a look at it?”
    The girl looked away, frightened. She clearly did not want to give her doll up, but after some wrangling in Spanish with the other kids, she handed it over.
    “Now, what’s this carved on here? Is it the letter
L
?”
    The tall girl answered for her: “It’s usually the letter of a person’s name. But they told us to do ours with the letter
H.
”
    “To stand for The Highlands?”
    “That’s right.”
    Mickie handed the doll back to the frightened girl. “Thank you, honey.”
    I could see on the big screen that the girl had a thin carved line across her top lip. I whispered to Patience, “Look at her mouth.”
    Patience knew what I meant right away. She explained, “That line is a surgical scar. She must have had a cleft palate. That’s when your teeth show all the time.”
    “Your top lip is deformed, right?”
    “Something like that. It’s a birth defect. But it looks like she had hers operated on.”
    The segment wrapped quickly, after which the girl with the scar walked right over to us and stopped in front of Albert. Albert looked at her, then swiftly turned on his heels and slipped away. The girl seemed confused. But then she turned to Patience and me and smiled. The surgical line disappeared entirely, leaving only white teeth and brown derma. She pointed to where Albert had been standing. “Please.
La tornada,
for him.”
    I took it from her. “Okay. Why for him?
Por qué?
”
    The girl smiled even wider.
“Por gracias.”
    “
Gracias?
That’s it?”
    She threw up her hands. “That’s it.”
    “Okay. I’ll give it to him.”
    Right after that, Maureen Dugan saw a Mangrove girl holding up a pair of jeans. She shouted out angrily, “Those are mine! I still wear those!” She stalked toward the bewildered girl and snatched them back. Then she spotted another pair in another girl’s hand. “Those, too! Give them back!”
    Pauline heard this and scanned the crowd, coming to a halt at a young girl’s feet. “Who gave my flip-flops away? Those are my favorite flip-flops. I wear them every day.” She rounded on her maid, a dark-haired, sharp-featured woman from Romania. “Colette! Who gave those away? Was it you?”
    “No, Miss Pauline. It was your mother.”
    “My mother? What is she, stupid?”
    Colette didn’t answer, so Pauline prodded her. “Well?”
    “I…I don’t know, Miss.”
    Other Mangrove kids gathered quickly behind the young girl. Two groups were now facing off.
    Another Mangrove girl stepped forward and flung a white shirt at Maureen Dugan’s face. “Here. Keep this. It’s got pit stains anyway.”
    Maureen pulled the shirt away from her face and shook her head back and forth, totally flustered. But Pauline was not flustered. She stepped up and flung her wooden doll at the girl, catching her right on the cheek. “Here! You can keep this! It was going in the garbage anyway.”
    I looked over at the group of adults posing in front of Kurt the cameraman. Mickie was speaking to the mayor while Mr. Patterson, Mrs. Veck, and a group of people from the town looked on. They were completely unaware that the whole “kid-to-kid” scene, just ten meters away from them, was unraveling in a very ugly way.
    A boy started yelling at Sterling Johnston, “Get away from my sister, you sick freak!” Sterling backed away slowly, which only drew more attention to him.
    Another group of boys started in on Hopewell, haranguing him in Spanish and making little slapping motions at his face. Hopewell tried to backpedal, but he lost his balance and fell on the asphalt, skinning his elbow.
    Patience and I hurried over to help him up, but Albert and James got there first. The