CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Professor Fauna was speaking urgently in Spanish to the woman who had resumed her spot behind the counter.

“¿Pero cómo me puede decir que no están? Si antes me dijo que sí estaban—y ahora, ¿no están? ¿Cómo puede ser?”

“No sé.”

Elliot tugged on Professor Fauna’s jacket. “What did you say?”

Professor Fauna, as exasperated as they’d ever seen him, turned to the children and said, “I asked, ‘What do you mean the papers are not there? You are saying they were there, they have been there, but now they are not there? How can that happen?!’”

“And what did she say?”

“She said, ‘I don’t know’!” Professor Fauna turned back to the woman. “¿Cuándo desaparecieron los papeles?”

“No sé.”

Elliot tugged on the professor’s jacket again. “What did you ask her this time?”

“I asked her when the papers went missing.”

“And what did she say?”

“Again, she does not know!” The professor turned to the woman again. “Pero, ¿dónde podrían estar ahora?”

“No sé.”

Without waiting for Elliot to tug on his jacket, the professor turned to the kids and said, “I asked her where the papers could have gone. And she said—”

“Yeah, we got it,” Uchenna interrupted. “No sé. She doesn’t know.” Then Uchenna said, “Maybe you should ask her who does know.”

Professor Fauna cocked an eyebrow at Uchenna. “Huh,” he said. “Good idea.” He turned to the woman yet again. “Y, ¿quién sí sabe?”

The woman stared at Professor Fauna for a moment. Then she pointed behind her. “Juanito.”

She was pointing at the old man with the milky eyes. He was still staring into the distance, smiling gently.

“¿Puedo hablar con Juanito?” Professor Fauna asked. And then, to the kids, he whispered, “I asked to talk to Juanito.”

The woman frowned, sighed, and finally shrugged. She walked over to the old man—Juanito—and spoke a few words in his ear. He seemed delighted to be spoken to, and he nodded eagerly. The woman glared at Professor Fauna, as if he’d started some kind of trouble. Then she slid an arm under Juanito’s arm, put another arm around his back, and hoisted him to his feet.

With her help, Juanito shuffled over to the counter. He lay his hands on it, as if to steady himself. His hands were brown and the skin was so thin his veins looked like tree roots. Juanito smiled at them.

“¿Cómo puedo ayudar?”

Professor Fauna started to speak in Spanish. Slowly at first. Juanito nodded as he listened. As Juanito kept nodding, Professor Fauna began to go faster and faster, and to become more and more excited. Finally, the professor stopped. He leaned over the counter, bringing his nose almost in contact with Juanito’s. And he said, “Y, ¿entonces?”

Juanito exhaled deeply. He shrugged. And he said, “Yo conozco esos papeles.”

“You do?!” Professor Fauna exclaimed in English. He turned to Elliot and Uchenna. “He knows them!”

“Pero no están aquí.”

“They are gone?!” Professor Fauna exclaimed, still in English. He turned to the kids. “They are—”

“Yeah,” said Uchenna. “We heard you.”

Juanito shrugged again. “Me acuerdo de lo que decían . . .”

Professor Fauna’s mouth fell open.

“What?” Elliot asked, tugging on the professor’s jacket again. “What’d he say?”

Professor Fauna translated: “He remembers what they said.”

And so, in slow, careful Spanish, Juanito told Professor Fauna what the papers said.