Lizzie! by Maxine Kumin Page A

suddenly a hand came down hard across my face. It was a man’s hand I knew. He tied a bandanna so tight over my mouth that I couldn’t scream and then he tied my hands together with another one. Then he scooped me out of my chair while I kicked feebly and squirmed against his body, but it was no use.
    He kicked the back screen door open with one foot, then he slipped around the side of the house and threw me into the back of a large car and we shot away from the curb. I was on the floor of the backseat, wriggling and moaning and he said, “It’s no use pequeñita . Give it up.” That’s when I knew for sure it was Jeb Blanco. Pequeñita . That’s what he always called me.
    He didn’t say where we were going, but I knew. Don’t ask me how, but I felt it in my bones, so it was no surprise when we turned off smooth highway and bumped onto dirt and then turned again. He shut off his headlights as we crept forward and I knew we were on the little road that led to Julio’s shack.
    When he finally stopped the car he got out and pulled out a penlight—you know, one of those tiny flashlights you can shine around in a small circle to find something you’ve dropped in the dark. By craning my neck up I could just make out the shape of a big padlock and I figured the police had padlocked Julio’s shack to preserve the evidence. They always put yellow tape around buildings or holes in the street to preserve evidence while they think about the next thing to do. Blanco cursed under his breath, but in Spanish so I didn’t know what he was saying. He came back to the car and popped the trunk. Then he went back to the lock and I saw he had a hacksaw in his hand. Once he’d sawed the lock open he came around to the back door of the car to get me. I desperately wanted to fight him off but he was right, it was no use. He hauled me out like a bagful of monkeys. Kicked the door open, walked in, and dumped me onto a bed. Even in the dark I knew it was Julio’s bed.

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    But what he did next was really scary. He shoved the bed with me on it farther into the corner against the wall. Then he set the penlight down under the bed so it cast only a small circle of light on the floor. There was a ratty dusty rug that had been beside the bed and I watched while he rolled it up. To my horror I saw there was a narrow trapdoor hidden underneath where the rug had been. He knelt down muttering and rooting around until his hands closed on the ring that let him pull it open. And then I was terrified because I knew he was going to put me down there. I moaned and shook my head back and forth but he just said in this calm voice, as though he had done this a hundred times before, “It’s no use pequeñita . No use at all. You will wait here for Julio.”
    Then he went out of the shack and I figured he’d gone to look for a ladder and I was right, because about five minutes later he came back in dragging this big wooden ladder, like from before the Civil War. It was so old it was full of splinters, which he kept cursing at and stopping to suck a finger. It took him a long time to wrestle it into place. Then he went down it testing each step. I could hear him bouncing on them one at a time and then he came back up and came over to pick me up.
    I struggled and fought as hard as I could until he said, “Listen, niña . Either we go down the ladder together or I just drop you down and forget about you, do you hear me?”
    I nodded my head yes. Though which was better—to die instantly from being dropped on my head or to die of starvation and dehydration in durance vile ? Because Julio was never coming back here. He was in protective custodysomeplace safe. Ihoped he was happy there.
    Once Jeb Blanco got me down the ladder I huddled on the damp dirt floor and started sobbing. I couldn’t help it. This was worse than my worst nightmare. He watched me for a couple of minutes