The House of the Scorpion Read online

  Dear Book Lover,

  I am writing to say hello, eight years after my retirement as a children’s book publisher. Unofficially, I still work on a few books a year. Here is one I love particularly, and here is why:

  Most fiction answers an overarching question: What does it mean to be human? In Lord of Opium, Nancy Farmer’s sequel to her National Book Award–winning of the Scorpion, the hero becomes human, right before our eyes. Literally, figuratively. At age fourteen. The two books together, separated by just a minute from the end of the first to the start of the second, can be seen as a metaphor for adolescence. But they needn’t be. Together—or even singly—they deliver one whale of a story.

  My pleasure has been to edit Nancy’s fiction since we met years ago—if “edit” is the word. Usually, as in The Lord of Opium, I see first a completed manuscript. I may want for an extra scene or two—as I did for this story. But each book comes to me essentially done, thoroughly imagined and understood. It’s when I can’t understand a connection or miss a bit of backstory that I ask for more. And always that more (maybe only a word or maybe a scene of several pages) helps to resolve my query. Two new sections of Lord of Opium came after the original—only two, really—and Nancy inserted them in unexpected places; not where I’d jotted a margin note or anticipated something new. Reading her work is therefore an ongoing amazement. She amazes me always with her wit; sense of pace and place; her serious concern for the fate of the world; and the zest that she finds in a wide cast of characters, not just the wonderfully wicked, but the good as well.

  I think you will be amazed, too, at The Lord of Opium.

  For readers wanting to track Matteo Alacrán from his harvesting as a clone raised for body parts, I recommend beginning with The House of the Scorpion. The title of that first book was suggested by an early reader of the manuscript, Nancy Farmer’s friend (and mine), Ursula K. LeGuin. In a prepublication blurb she wrote: “It is a pleasure to read science fiction that’s full of warm, strong characters—people who are really fond of one another, children who are ignorant and vulnerable, powerful evildoers whom one can pity, good people who make awful mistakes. It’s a pleasure to read science fiction that doesn’t rely of violence as the solution to complex problems of right and wrong. It’s a pleasure to read science fiction that gets the science right. It’s a pleasure to read The House of the Scorpion.”

  Besides the National Book Award, the novel was named a Newbery Honor Book and a Michael L. Printz Honor Book for excellence in young adult literature. Not bad for a being grown in and cut out of a cow.

  Richard Jackson

  Editor, Richard Jackson Books

  CONTENTS

  YOUTH: 0 TO 6

  Chapter 1: In the Beginning

  Chapter 2: The Little House in the Poppy Fields

  Chapter 3: Property of the Alacrán Estate

  Chapter 4: María

  Chapter 5: Prison

  MIDDLE AGE: 7 TO 11

  Chapter 6: El Patrón

  Chapter 7: Teacher

  Chapter 8: The Eejit in the Dry Field

  Chapter 9: The Secret Passage

  Chapter 10: A Cat with Nine Lives

  Chapter 11: The Giving and Taking of Gifts

  Chapter 12: The Thing on the Bed

  Chapter 13: The Lotus Pond

  Chapter 14: Celia’s Story

  OLD AGE: 12 TO 14

  Chapter 15: A Starved Bird

  Chapter 16: Brother Wolf

  Chapter 17: The Eejit Pens

  Chapter 18: The Dragon Hoard

  Chapter 19: Coming-of-Age

  Chapter 20: Esperanza

  Chapter 21: Blood Wedding

  Chapter 22: Betrayal

  AGE 14

  Chapter 23: Death

  Chapter 24: A Final Good-bye

  Chapter 25: The Farm Patrol

  LA VIDA NUEVA

  Chapter 26: The Lost Boys

  Chapter 27: A Five-legged Horse

  Chapter 28: The Plankton Factory

  Chapter 29: Washing a Dusty Mind

  Chapter 30: When the Whales Lost Their Legs

  Chapter 31: Ton-Ton

  Chapter 32: Found Out

  Chapter 33: The Boneyard

  Chapter 34: The Shrimp Harvester

  Chapter 35: El Día de los Muertos

  Chapter 36: The Castle on the Hill

  Chapter 37: Homecoming

  Chapter 38: The House of Eternity

  Reading Group Guide

  ‘The Lord of Opium’ Excerpt

  About Nancy Farmer

  To Harold for his unfailing love and support, and to Daniel, our son. To my brother, Dr. Elmon Lee Coe, and my sister, Mary Marimon Stout.

  Lastly, and no less importantly, to Richard Jackson, il capo di tutti capi of children’s book editors.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  THE ALACRÁN FAMILY

  Matt: Matteo Alacrán, the clone

  El Patrón: The original Matteo Alacrán; a powerful drug lord

  Felipe: El Patrón’s son; died long ago

  El Viejo: El Patrón’s grandson and Mr. Alacrán’s father; a very old man

  Mr. Alacrán: El Patrón’s great-grandson; husband of Felicia, father of Benito and Steven

  Felicia: Mr. Alacrán’s wife; mother of Benito, Steven, and Tom

  Benito: Oldest son of Mr. Alacrán and Felicia

  Steven: Second son of Mr. Alacrán and Felicia

  Tom: Son of Felicia and Mr. MacGregor

  Fani: Benito’s wife

  VISITORS AND ASSOCIATES OF THE ALACRÁNS

  Senator Mendoza: A powerful politician in the United States; father of Emilia and María; also called Dada

  Emilia: Oldest daughter of Senator Mendoza

  María: Younger daughter of Senator Mendoza

  Esperanza: Emilia’s and María’s mother; disappeared when María was five

  Mr. MacGregor: A drug lord

  SLAVES AND SERVANTS

  Celia: Chief cook and Matt’s caregiver

  Tam Lin: Bodyguard for both El Patrón and Matt

  Daft Donald: Bodyguard for El Patrón

  Rosa: Housekeeper; Matt’s jailer

  Willum: Chief doctor for the Alacrán household; Rosa’s lover

  Mr. Ortega: Matt’s music teacher

  Teacher: An eejit

  Hugh, Ralf, and Wee Wullie: Members of the Farm Patrol

  PEOPLE IN AZTLÁN

  Raúl: A Keeper

  Carlos: A Keeper

  Jorge: A Keeper

  Chacho: A Lost Boy

  Fidelito: A Lost Boy; eight years old

  Ton-Ton: A Lost Boy; driver of the shrimp harvester

  Flaco: Oldest of the Lost Boys

  Luna: Lost Boy in charge of the infirmary

  Guapo: Old man celebrating El Día de los Muertos

  Consuela: Old woman celebrating El Día de los Muertos

  Sister Inéz: A nurse at the Convent of Santa Clara

  MISCELLANEOUS CHARACTERS

  Furball: María’s dog

  El Látigo Negro: The Black Whip, an old TV character

  Don Segundo Sombra: Sir Second Shadow, an old TV character

  El Sacerdote Volante: The Flying Priest, an old TV character

  Eejits: People with computer chips in their brains; also known as zombies

  La Llorona: The Weeping Woman; mythical woman who searches in the night for her lost children

  Chupacabras: The goat sucker; mythical creature that sucks the blood out of goats, chickens, and, occasionally, people

  YOUTH:

  0 TO 6

  1

  IN THE BEGINNING

  In the beginning there were thirty-six of them, thirty-six droplets of life so tiny that Edu
ardo could see them only under a microscope. He studied them anxiously in the darkened room.

  Water bubbled through tubes that snaked around the warm, humid walls. Air was sucked into growth chambers. A dull, red light shone on the faces of the workers as they watched their own arrays of little glass dishes. Each one contained a drop of life.

  Eduardo moved his dishes, one after the other, under the lens of the microscope. The cells were perfect—or so it seemed. Each was furnished with all it needed to grow. So much knowledge was hidden in that tiny world! Even Eduardo, who understood the process very well, was awed. The cell already understood what color hair it was to have, how tall it would become, and even whether it preferred spinach to broccoli. It might even have a hazy desire for music or crossword puzzles. All that was hidden in the droplet.

  Finally the round outlines quivered and lines appeared, dividing the cells in two. Eduardo sighed. It was going to be all right. He watched the samples grow, and then he carefully moved them to the incubator.

  But it wasn’t all right. Something about the food, the heat, the light was wrong, and the man didn’t know what it was. Very quickly over half of them died. There were only fifteen now, and Eduardo felt a cold lump in his stomach. If he failed, he would be sent to the Farms, and then what would become of Anna and the children, and his father, who was so old?

  “It’s okay,” said Lisa, so close by that Eduardo jumped. She was one of the senior technicians. She had worked for so many years in the dark, her face was chalk white and her blue veins were visible through her skin.

  “How can it be okay?” Eduardo said.

  “The cells were frozen over a hundred years ago. They can’t be as healthy as samples taken yesterday.”

  “That long,” the man marveled.

  “But some of them should grow,” Lisa said sternly.

  So Eduardo began to worry again. And for a month everything went well. The day came when he implanted the tiny embryos in the brood cows. The cows were lined up, patiently waiting. They were fed by tubes, and their bodies were exercised by giant metal arms that grasped their legs and flexed them as though the cows were walking through an endless field. Now and then an animal moved its jaws in an attempt to chew cud.

  Did they dream of dandelions? Eduardo wondered. Did they feel a phantom wind blowing tall grass against their legs? Their brains were filled with quiet joy from implants in their skulls. Were they aware of the children growing in their wombs?

  Perhaps the cows hated what had been done to them, because they certainly rejected the embryos. One after another the infants, at this point no larger than minnows, died.

  Until there was only one.

  Eduardo slept badly at night. He cried out in his sleep, and Anna asked what was the matter. He couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t say that if this last embryo died, he would be stripped of his job. He would be sent to the Farms. And she, Anna, and their children and his father would be cast out to walk the hot, dusty roads.

  But that one embryo grew until it was clearly a being with arms and legs and a sweet, dreaming face. Eduardo watched it through scanners. “You hold my life in your hands,” he told the infant. As though it could hear, the infant flexed its tiny body in the womb until it was turned toward the man. And Eduardo felt an unreasoning stir of affection.

  When the day came, Eduardo received the newborn into his hands as though it were his own child. His eyes blurred as he laid it in a crib and reached for the needle that would blunt its intelligence.

  “Don’t fix that one,” said Lisa, hastily catching his arm. “It’s a Matteo Alacrán. They’re always left intact.”

  Have I done you a favor? thought Eduardo as he watched the baby turn its head toward the bustling nurses in their starched, white uniforms. Will you thank me for it later?

  2

  THE LITTLE HOUSE IN THE POPPY FIELDS

  Matt stood in front of the door and spread his arms to keep Celia from leaving. The small, crowded living room was still blue with early morning light. The sun had not yet lifted above the hills marking the distant horizon.

  “What’s this?” the woman said. “You’re a big boy now, almost six. You know I have to work.” She picked him up to move him out of the way.

  “Take me with you,” begged Matt, grabbing her shirt and wadding it up in his hands.

  “Stop that.” Celia gently pried his fingers from the cloth. “You can’t come, mi vida. You must stay hidden in the nest like a good little mouse. There’re hawks out there that eat little mice.”

  “I’m not a mouse!” Matt yelled. He shrieked at the top of his voice in a way he knew was irritating. Even keeping Celia home long enough to deliver a tongue-lashing was worth it. He couldn’t bear being left alone for another day.

  Celia thrust him away. “¡Callate! Shut up! Do you want to make me deaf? You’re just a little kid with cornmeal for brains!” Matt flopped sullenly into the big easy chair.

  Celia immediately knelt down and put her arms around him. “Don’t cry, mi vida. I love you more than anything in the world. I’ll explain things to you when you’re older.” But she wouldn’t. She had made the same promise before. Suddenly the fight went out of Matt. He was too small and weak to fight whatever drove Celia to abandon him each day.

  “Will you bring me a present?” he said, wriggling away from her kiss.

  “Of course! Always!” the woman cried.

  So Matt allowed her to go, but he was angry at the same time. It was a funny kind of anger, for he felt like crying, too. The house was so lonely without Celia singing, banging pots, or talking about people he had never seen and never would see. Even when Celia was asleep—and she fell asleep easily after long hours cooking at the Big House—the rooms felt full of her warm presence.

  When Matt was younger, it hadn’t seemed to matter. He’d played with his toys and watched the television. He’d looked out the window where fields of white poppies stretched all the way to the shadowy hills. The whiteness hurt his eyes, and so he turned from them with relief to the cool darkness inside.

  But lately Matt had begun to look at things more carefully. The poppy fields weren’t completely deserted. Now and then he saw horses—he knew them from picture books—walking between the rows of white flowers. It was hard to tell who rode them in all that brightness, but it seemed the riders weren’t adults, but children like him.

  And with that discovery grew a desire to see them more closely.

  Matt had watched children on television. He saw that they were seldom alone. They did things together, like building forts or kicking balls or fighting. Even fighting was interesting when it meant you had other people around. Matt never saw anyone except Celia and, once a month, the doctor. The doctor was a sour man and didn’t like Matt at all.

  Matt sighed. To do anything, he would have to go outdoors, which Celia said again and again was very dangerous. Besides, the doors and windows were locked.

  Matt settled himself at a small wooden table to look at one of his books. Pedro el Conejo, said the cover. Matt could read—slightly—both English and Spanish. In fact, he and Celia mixed the two languages together, but it didn’t matter. They understood each other.

  Pedro el Conejo was a bad little rabbit who crawled into Señor MacGregor’s garden to eat up his lettuces. Señor MacGregor wanted to put Pedro into a pie, but Pedro, after many adventures, got away. It was a satisfying story.

  Matt got up and wandered into the kitchen. It contained a small refrigerator and a microwave. The microwave had a sign reading PELIGRO!!! DANGER!!! and squares of yellow notepaper saying NO! NO! NO! NO! To be extra sure, Celia had wrapped a belt around the microwave door and secured it with a padlock. She lived in terror that Matt would find a way to open it while she was at work and “cook his little gizzards,” as she put it.

  Matt didn’t know what gizzards were and he didn’t want to find out. He edged around the dangerous machine to get to the fridge. That was definitely his territory. Celia filled it with treat
s every night. She cooked for the Big House, so there was always plenty of food. Matt helped himself to sushi, tamales, pakoras, blintzes—whatever the people in the Big House were eating. And there was always a large carton of milk and bottles of fruit juice.

  He filled a bowl with food and went to Celia’s room.

  On one side was her large, saggy bed covered with crocheted pillows and stuffed animals. At the head was a huge crucifix and a picture of Our Lord Jesus with His heart pierced by five swords. Matt found the picture frightening. The crucifix was even worse, because it glowed in the dark. Matt kept his back to it, but he still liked Celia’s room.

  He sprawled over the pillows and pretended to feed the stuffed dog, the teddy bear, the rabbit (conejo, Matt corrected). For a while this was fun, but then a hollow feeling began to grow inside Matt. These weren’t real animals. He could talk to them all he liked. They couldn’t understand. In some way he couldn’t put into words, they weren’t even there.

  Matt turned them all to the wall, to punish them for not being real, and went to his own room. It was much smaller, being half filled by his bed. The walls were covered with pictures Celia had torn out of magazines: movie stars, animals, babies—Matt wasn’t thrilled by the babies, but Celia found them irresistible—flowers, news stories. There was one of acrobats standing on one another in a huge pyramid. SIXTY-FOUR! the caption said. A NEW RECORD AT THE LUNAR COLONY.

  Matt had seen these particular words so often, he knew them by heart. Another picture showed a man holding a bullfrog between two slices of bread. RIBBIT ON RYE! the caption said. Matt didn’t know what a ribbit was, but Celia laughed every time she looked at it.

  He turned on the television and watched soap operas. People were always yelling at one another on soap operas. It didn’t make much sense, and when it did, it wasn’t interesting. It’s not real, Matt thought with sudden terror. It’s like the animals. He could talk and talk and talk, but the people couldn’t hear him.

  Matt was swept with such an intense feeling of desolation, he thought he would die. He hugged himself to keep from screaming. He gasped with sobs. Tears rolled down his cheeks.