couldn’t keep back rolled down my cheeks. “I’m going to miss you,” I said.
Ricky put his arms around me and said, “Rose, how can I thank you for all—”
Neil interrupted in a gruff voice. “Stop crying, Rose,” he said. “We haven’t got much time.”
He was right. It seemed like only a few minutes before the guard opened the door. “You kids gotta go,” he said.
We filed out. “Goodbye, Ricky,” Julieta said.
Ricky sat bent over in dejection, his arms resting on his knees, his hat covering his face. He didn’t say goodbye, and I didn’t trust myself to speak either.
Someone over the loudspeaker advised passengers with blue slips to disembark, collect their luggage, and go through customs.
“Blue slip,” Julieta said, holding it up. She gave me a quick goodbye hug and said, “I’ll never forget this trip. E-mail me, Rosie. Tell me everything.”
“Goodbye, Neil,” she said. She ducked under his hat’s wide brim to kiss his cheek, and she hugged him longer than she needed to.
“Julieta, hurry up!” her mother called from the doorway. In a moment Julieta had gone.
“Green slip holders may now disembark,” the loudspeaker voice said, so we hurried to where Neil’s grandmother was parked in her wheelchair with two of the other bridge club members.
I gave a wave to Glory, who was sitting near the service desk in the lounge waiting for the INS, just as she had promised. I followed Neil and Mrs. Fleming in her wheelchair down the ramp to the terminal where we’d collect our luggage. For a fleeting moment I wondered how attached Neil’s grandmother was to his gaudy Hawaiian shirt and straw hat.
I moved in under the wide hat brim. “I’ll take over now,” I said to Ricky, who was wearing Neil’s clothes. The plan had actually worked. “Hurry. I can see a line of taxis right outside the door. Take one to the central Miami police station.”
“We may never see each other again, Rose, but I will always remember you and all that you and your friends did to help me,” Ricky said. He gave me a quick kiss and was gone.
“Where’s Neil going?” Mrs. Fleming asked me.
“Neil will be back soon,” I shouted at her. “He’s doing a favor for me.” In spite of the ache in my throat, I gave a long sigh of relief as I saw Ricky’s cab take off, heading into Miami. He had set foot on United States soil. He could ask for political asylum. He could show authorities one of Major Cepeda’s flyers to easily prove that his life would be in danger if the INS returned him to Cuba.
“We’ll wait over here for Glory and Neil,” I told Mrs. Fleming, and I wheeled her chair to a bench against the wall. I sat beside her.
“I knew you and Neil would have a good time together,” she said. “He’s a fine boy, isn’t he?”
She was right. Neil was a fine person. He was bravely sitting alone in the Urbinos’ stateroom, waiting for Glory and the INS. “He’s a very special guy,” I told her. “He’ll always be a good friend.”
I’d need a good friend. And so would Neil. We’d stand by each other. I didn’t know whether Glory would be angry when she discovered Neil waiting for her instead of Ricky. I didn’t know how Mr. Wilson or Captain Olson would react. Probably a lot of people would be mad, and Neil and I would be in big trouble.
Neil had said he was willing to take the risk because no one could truly live without freedom. I felt the same way, and I had the feeling that my mother would understand and even be proud.
Ricky was safely in the United States, and that was what mattered most to me. As for what would happen to Neil and me, I wasn’t worried. We had a very good attorney.
“It’s very tiring sitting here,” Mrs. Fleming said. “It was a nice cruise, though. When I get back home, I’m going to take a hot bath and a nice, long nap.” She peered into my face. “What are you going to do, Rosie?”
“When we finally get home? Well, first, I’m going to hug my mom, and then I’ll call my friend Becca,” I said. “I’ve got so much to tell her.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
JOAN LOWERY NIXON has been called the grande dame of young adult mysteries and is the author of more than a hundred books for young readers, including Nobody’s There; Who Are You?; The Haunting; Murdered, My Sweet; Don’t Scream; Spirit Seeker; Shadowmaker; Secret, Silent Screams; A Candidate for Murder; Whispers from the Dead; and the middle-grade novel Search for the Shadow-man. Joan Lowery Nixon was the 1997 president of the Mystery Writers of America and is the only four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Best Juvenile Mystery Award. She received the award for The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore, The Séance, The Name of the Game Was Murder, and The Other Side of Dark, which was also a winner of the California Young Reader Medal. Her historical fiction includes the award-winning series The Orphan Train Adventures and the Colonial Williamsburg: Young Americans series.
Joan Lowery Nixon lives in Houston with her husband.
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Copyright © 2001 by Joan Lowery Nixon
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January 2003
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eISBN: 978-0-307-43363-3
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