The Land of 10,000 Madonnas by Kate Hattemer

Author:Kate Hattemer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2016-04-19T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Cal had a monstrous headache, a Monday-morning headache that had crept into the pension’s breakfast room, eyed her, and pounced. The others filled their plates at the buffet, but she could barely move.

“Möchten Sie ein Ei?” said the woman who ran the pension.

Cal nodded, although she could have been agreeing to anything: a bowl of sardines, her own execution. She was served a single soft-boiled egg upon a pedestal. She closed her eyes and smelled coffee: black, bitter, how she liked it. “Drink up,” said Matt. “It’ll make you feel better.”

She sighed in thanks. Now she needed time, a few minutes for the caffeine and the cunning egg dish to tackle the headache and remove it from the premises. But Ben officiously shuffled his papers. He licked the nib of his fountain pen and wrote the date at the top of his yellow legal pad. “Today,” he said, “we’ll continue to canvass Mittenwald.” They’d had no luck on Saturday, and yesterday they’d given up when they’d realized all the natives were attending Mass, eating Sunday dinners, taking Sunday naps.

Trevor took a large bite of cereal. “Snap, crackle, pop,” he said. “Can’t wait.”

Cal rested her head on her hand. Ben said, “I know it’s drudgery, but she has family here. Someone will recognize her.” He opened Abend’s notes, which he had festooned with parti-color Post-its, and cleared his throat. “She knows these mountains well. She grew up in the States, in Santa Fe, but spent summers here in Bavaria with her mother’s big German Catholic family. ‘I would like to see my family,’ she said, ‘but I’d rather see you—’ ”

Cal couldn’t take it. “Don’t you feel like a voyeur? Using his personal papers as evidence?” Ben fancied himself a modern-day Hardy Boy, she thought, or perhaps a Sherlock, surrounded by a team of trusty though dull-witted Watsons. “We should have given them back.”

“Come on, Cal,” said Trevor, giving her ponytail a conciliatory tug. She winced. “It’s much better that he thinks they were lost at the restaurant.”

“I can’t believe I’m a party to theft,” she said.

“Girl,” said Lillian, “you’re about as far from a party as it gets.”

Trevor laughed. Cal smarted. “Her family nickname is the Grinch,” Trevor said. Now Lillian and Matt were both laughing.

“It’s not!” said Cal. “It’s not. It’s just this game we used to play.” Jesse was her dog, Max. Together they would throw all the toys in the house into their laundry-basket sleigh and traipse around glowering until Trevor, as Cindy Lou Who, convinced them to reform.

“Remember when Mom officially banned the Grinch game?” he said.

“It made a giant mess.”

“And she was sick of hearing Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze! in July.”

“God,” said Lillian. “Your poor mother.”

Cal downed the dregs of her coffee to avoid seeing Lillian’s face. Everything she said had an edge, a subtle blade that went over the boys’ heads and hit Cal squarely in the chest. At least they no longer shared a bed; the pension room had six bunks, dormitory-style.

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