Free A Steal of a Deal by Ginny Aiken Page A

outrage. “Why, Andie! I’ve never in my life known you to be such a stubborn, contrary creature—”
    “I have,” Max says.
    I glare.
    He laughs, licks the tip of his index finger, and chalks one up.
    I shake my head. “What’s wrong with you? Do you want to play hide-and-seek with AK-47-toting Talibans and friends?”
    “Oh, Andie,” Miss Mona says. “That’s not what we’re here to do, dear. We’re just short-term missionaries and part-time tourists. The Father’s Lambs orphanage was built after the quake near the village of Soomjam in the Kudi Valley, not too far from the mines. Tourists take pictures. And videos. That’s been the plan from the start. Nothing much, really.”
    See my point? There you have the Queen of Schemes, the researcher extraordinaire, the purveyor of rotten-fish-in-Denmark. No one ever said a word about the orphanage’s proximity to the mines. Never. Ever.
    True, I didn’t take the time to do any research of my own, but you’d think logic—hmph! There I go again, hoping for logic when spontaneity and a sense of adventure are my aunt’s and her best friend’s overriding instincts.
    So I make a winding gesture with my hand. “I suspected something like that when you insisted on dragging the crew with us instead of folks from church. But what’s the appeal? Those mines stopped producing back in the eighteen hundreds— except for occasional minor strikes, and the last one of those was in the 1930s.”
    Aunt Weeby tsk-tsks. “That’s the problem with you, sugarplum. You just try too hard to strip all the fun right outta life, what with all that there serious, practical stuff. What’s wrong with a l’il ol’ adventure every once in a while? Who knows what we’ll find when we go poking in the mines?”
    “Rocks and dirt is what we’ll find,” I answer. “If we’re lucky and don’t rattle the local tribesmen. They don’t like outsiders.” When the Daunting Duo’s expressions don’t change, resignation takes up residence. “All-righty, then. So what’s the plan?”
    “You know, it’s a blessing we’ve come in August.” Had the woman even heard me? Apparently not. She goes on. “The weather’s about forty-five degrees below zero most of the year. But it’s summer now. Lots, lots warmer. And we don’t have to worry about snow and ice to get to the mines. Who knows? Maybe a miracle will happen, and someone will find a sapphire while we’re there. Can you imagine the footage we’d get then?”
    I can imagine Miss Piggy flapping plump, pink wings overhead too.
    Aunt Weeby nods. “Miracles happen every day.”
    I believe in miracles: it’ll be a miracle if we leave Kashmir alive. “But what about the mission? The Musgroves? We did tell them we had come to help.”
    Aunt Weeby clasps her hands together and brings them to her chest. “Isn’t God great? He’s put it all together for us. We’re going to a ruined village on the way to the valley where your sapphires are. We can mine for souls and sapphires in one of the most un-Christianized places on earth.”
    We’ve got cops who aren’t sure we’re as innocent as the embassy says. We’re about to trek through some of the world’s most dangerous mountains. We’ll have to dodge Taliban-friendly, gun-toting Muslim rebels to do it. And we’re going to stay in a town that isn’t so much a town as a trash heap these days.
    Yeah, the thought of all that while working with abandoned babies and digging for sapphires is more than my stomach can take—especially now that I’ve eaten enough for a family of nine.
    I push back my chair. “Excuse me!”
    I pray every step of the way to the nearest john. What a time for my stomach issues to reappear.

    When I walk out of the bathroom stall, I find Aunt Weeby sitting in an elegant cobalt silk-covered chair in the ladies’ room, praying under her breath. Her relief tells me what a scare I’ve given her.
    “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to worry