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looking for you,” Rosa yelled. “All the time you were hiding out with this filthy clone. Boy, are you in trouble! You’re going to be sent home at once.”
    María sat up, blinking at the sudden light from the doorway. Rosa whisked her off the bed and wrinkled her nose at Matt cowering against the wall. “So you aren’t housebroken, you little brute,” she snarled, kicking aside the sodden newspapers. “I honestly don’t know how Celia stood it all those years.”

5

P RISON
    T hat night, when Rosa brought him dinner, Matt asked her when María was coming back. “Never!” snarled the maid. “She and her sister have been sent home, and I say good riddance! Just because their father’s a senator, the Mendoza girls think they can turn their noses up at us. Pah! Senator Mendoza isn’t too proud to have his paw out when El Patrón hands around money.”
    Every day the doctor visited. Matt shrank from him, but the man didn’t seem to notice. He grasped Matt’s foot in a businesslike way, doused it with disinfectant, and checked the stitches. Once he gave Matt a shot of antibiotics because the wound looked puffy and the boy was running a fever. The doctor made no effort to start a conversation, and Matt was happy to leave things that way.
    The man talked to Rosa, however. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company. The doctor was tall and bony. His headwas fringed with hair like the fluff on a duck’s bottom, and he sprayed saliva when he talked. Rosa was also tall and very strong, as Matt had found out when he tried to get around her. Her face was set in a permanent scowl, although she occasionally smiled when the doctor told one of his bad jokes. Matt found Rosa’s smile even more horrid than her scowl.
    â€œEl Patrón hasn’t asked about the beast in years,” remarked the doctor.
    Matt understood that the beast was himself.
    â€œProbably forgotten it exists,” muttered Rosa. She was busy scrubbing out the corners of the room. She was on her hands and knees with a bucket of soapy water by her side.
    â€œI wish I could count on it,” the doctor said. “Sometimes El Patrón seems definitely senile. He won’t talk for days and stares out the window. Other times he’s as sharp as the old bandido he once was.”
    â€œHe’s still a bandit,” said Rosa.
    â€œDon’t say that, not even to me. El Patrón’s rage is something you don’t want to see.”
    It seemed to Matt that both the maid and the doctor shivered slightly. He wondered why El Patrón was so frightening, since the man was said to be old and weak. Matt knew he was El Patrón’s clone, but he was unclear about the meaning of the word. Perhaps El Patrón had loaned him to Celia and would someday want him back.
    At the thought of Celia, Matt’s eyes filled with tears. He swallowed them back. He would not show weakness in front of his tormentors. He knew instinctively they would seize on it to hurt him even more.
    â€œYou’re wearing perfume, Rosa,” the doctor said slyly.
    â€œHa! You think I’d put on anything to please you, Willum?”The maid stood up and wiped her soapy hands on her apron.
    â€œI think you’re wearing it behind your ears.”
    â€œIt’s the disinfectant I used to clean out the bath,” said Rosa. “To a doctor, it probably smells good.”
    â€œSo it does, my thorny little Rosa.” Willum tried to grab her, but she wriggled out of his arms.
    â€œStop it!” she cried, pushing him away roughly. In spite of her unfriendliness, the doctor seemed to like her. It made Matt uncomfortable. He felt the two were united against him.
    When they left the room, Rosa always locked the door. Matt tried the knob each time to see whether she had forgotten, but she never did. He pulled on the window bars. They were as firmly attached as ever. He sat