Page 4 of Her Hidden Smile

I hadn’t cried since the first week I’d been sent to the orphanage. The jailers beat you if you were a crybaby. But my face scrunched up, and I felt tears leaking out of my eyes. It wasn’t the pain of Izan’s beating. It was the fact that this man was being nice to me. Nobody was nice. Nice stopped being a part of my world the day my grandmother died.

I heard a man rumbling in English. I understood a lot of different languages. It helped me to survive. English, French, German, and some Japanese. I tried to listen to what the man was saying, but his voice was too low. I opened my eyes, but then closed them again. The light hurt.

“Christos, lower the blinds. The light is hurting Renzo’s eyes.”

It sounded like the lady near the cathedral.

“Mom, not another brother. There’s already four of us,” a boy whined in English.

“I raised you better than that, Jase.” It was the man talking again. “If you’re not careful I’m going to give him your Big Wheel when he comes home with us. Got it?”

I opened my eyes just a bit. I wanted to see where I was and who the kid was who was talking.

“Got it, Dad.”

“I’d like another brother,” another boy spoke up. He was looking over at me and smiling. He was even darker than I was.

Both of the boys were around my age. Maybe a little older. I really couldn’t tell. I really wanted to know what a big wheel was.

“You’re right, Malik, another brother would be good,” the pretty lady said in English. “His name is Renzo, and according to the police, he doesn’t have anyone, so your father and I are going to ask him if he would like to go home with us.”

“Where did he come from?” the girl asked.

I turned my head and saw a girl who looked just like the lady.

“The police think that he’s one of the homeless children here in Lima. Sometimes their parents have died, and sometimes they just kick their children out of their houses.”

The girl who looked like the lady gasped. “They wouldn’t really do that, would they?” She was looking at the big man. He went over and put his arm around her.

“I’m sorry, Elani, but it’s true. We’re going to have to wait for Renzo to wake up before we’ll know what happened to him.”

“He’s awake.”

It was the boy who had complained about me coming home with them. He was tall. Jase. That was his name.

The lady came to stand over me. Once again, she pushed the hair off my forehead. “Are you awake, Renzo?” she asked in Spanish, her voice soft.

“Yes,” I answered her in Spanish. I didn’t want anyone to know I spoke English. I needed all the help I could get. Them not knowing I could understand English would help me know if they were lying.

“Renzo, can you tell us your last name?”

I shook my head. That was a stupid thing to do. It made my head hurt even more than it already did. I thought about telling her my last name was Carera. But if I did, the police might send me back to the orphanage. The beatings were bad before I ran away; I knew they would be a hundred times worse if I went back after I was captured. I shuddered when I thought about the cattle prod.

“Are you cold?”

“No, señora.”

“But you shivered.” She pulled the blanket up higher so it reached my chin. It was the softest blanket I had ever felt.

“Really, I’m not cold.” That was when I remembered Izan hitting her with his head. “How are you?”

She put her hand to the back of her head. “I just have a bump.”

“But you were bleeding.”

“Just a scratch. I didn’t need an ambulance. No stitches. I’m fine,” she said with a smile. “Are you sure you don’t know your last name?”

“I don’t,” I said again. I shoved the arm that didn’t hurt under the blanket and crossed my fingers. The other arm was in some kind of sling.