The Man with the Red Bag by Eve Bunting

Author:Eve Bunting
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

The next morning, in the bus on the way to Yellowstone National Park, I told Geneva, “He seemed okay, close up and talking like that. He sounded cool. I’m beginning to wonder if we’ve made a mistake. If he isn’t a terrorist at all.”

“Are you kidding?” Geneva opened her navy blue eyes so wide, I was afraid they might pop out. “Give me a break! You’re forgetting September eleventh. You’re forgetting the way he looks. The way he guards whatever is in that bag with his life, almost.”

“It’s private and precious,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like a bomb. And look, my paper scrap was still in his door this morning. He didn’t go out all night. And we’ve watched his every move. Of course, we’re not in Big C territory yet.”

Geneva exhaled a long exhale. “I have a question for you. Why would anyone bring something super-private and precious on a bus tour? Wouldn’t you keep it in a safe or somewhere? At home? And who locks a carry-on? I tell you, I don’t trust him one bit. Remember, America trusted everyone, just about. Now we don’t trust.”

She was actually speaking so forcefully that little spatters of spit landed on my face. I wiped them away unobtrusively.

I could almost hear Grandma’s voice. She’s right. We don’t trust anymore, and that’s the saddest thing of all.

“You want him to be a terrorist, don’t you,” I said.

“I want to catch a terrorist,” Geneva said. “So do you. If he is, and we uncover him, and stop him, we’ll be heroes. Probably Oprah will want us on her show. Probably we’ll get to go to the White House—and each get a medal.”

I shrugged and stared out the bus window. Even a detective sometimes has to admit he’s made a mistake. Maybe I had. Stavros had seemed so normal when I talked to him. So sane.

We were passing Jenny Lake, the sky and water the same color, the mountains shining behind it. Little boats rippled across it, leaving foaming wakes.

“It’s like a picture postcard.” Declan spoke through his minimike. “I never tire of looking at it.” He told us about the famous geologic wonders we’d be seeing in the park. “Restless geology,” he called it, because of the thundering waterfalls and the geysers and the bubbling mud pots.

I looked up the aisle at Charles Stavros’s head and shoulders. He was looking out of his window, too. What was he thinking? That he should talk to Grandma about me? Or about his mission. If he for sure had one.

Behind him were Millie and her sister. “Not long now,” she’d whispered to me as we boarded the bus. Would we recognize Charles Stavros in her picture of suspected terrorists? She was positive now. She’d thought about it, she told us. She’d brought the newspaper picture into focus in her mind and she was positive.

My grandma was sitting next to Midge. They liked each other, I could tell. They’d exchanged e-mail addresses for when they returned home.

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