Treasure of the World by Tara Sullivan (free ebook reader txt) 📕

the pharmacy as soon as they open, so I’m going to sleep now. Good night.” I stretch myself out on the floor, my head resting on my folded manta. But I don’t fall asleep right away. Instead I lie there pretending to sleep while I watch him between my lashes.

He sits, not doing anything, for a long time. I see his hands clench and unclench, but he doesn’t go to sleep.

A boy comes over and stands behind him. It’s the boy from before, who made Osvaldo, the creep, leave me alone. He looks at me and then at Victor.

“Can’t figure out what to do about the problem of Sleeping Beauty?” He chuckles.

“Go away, Joaquín,” Victor grumbles.

“I could kiss her,” Joaquín suggests. “That usually fixes things in fairy tales.”

“This is no fairy tale. And she wouldn’t thank you for getting engine grease all over her clothes if you touched her,” he says, but there’s no venom in it. I don’t really think I’m in any danger from Joaquín.

“Hey! Not my fault I spend all day working with cars. You’d be oily too if you were training as a mechanic.” Joaquín laughs. “Seriously, though, Victor”—his voice loses its laugh—“she can’t keep coming here. It’s not safe. I got Osvaldo to leave her alone earlier, but next time he might not listen to me.”

Victor rubs a hand over his face roughly, deepening the lines of exhaustion there.

“I know,” he agrees tiredly. “I’ll talk to her in the morning.”

Then, as though they both agree to it without discussing it, Victor and Joaquín move their blankets so that they’ve boxed me into the corner with their bodies. Anyone wanting to get to me would have to walk over them to do so. And though this should make me feel even more strongly that I’m in danger here, instead it makes me feel taken care of. I fall asleep before the batteries in the flashlight die.

The next morning, Victor walks with me to the pharmacy and we sit together on the stoop, waiting for them to open. I’m glad they don’t open late on Saturdays. I don’t think I could stand to wait much longer to get this medicine to César.

“So,” says Victor casually, “as much as I love your visits, you really need to stop staying over. Some of the other guys . . . they’re not so nice. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Okay,” I agree, because I’d realized that myself. “If I come to visit you again, I’ll make sure to leave enough time to get home before dark.”

“Good.”

“So”—I mimic his tone—“are you still drinking?”

Victor is quiet for a moment, but beside me his shoulders have gone as rigid as the mountain, so I know he heard me.

“Who told you?” he asks finally.

“No one,” I say honestly.

Victor doesn’t press.

“I’m not judging you,” I say softly, “but my papi was a drunk and it didn’t help him—or us—ever. Does drinking make anything better for you?”

Victor sits up and scrubs his hand over his face.

“Not for very long,” he admits with a wry smile.

I’m about to press him for more, but just then, I hear the metallic clank of a key and the rattle of the shop opening. I slip under the wrought-iron grille as it lifts and I’m showing the bottle to the pharmacist before he even has a chance to polish his glasses.

He pulls out a bottle identical to my empty one from a shelf behind the counter. But he won’t hand it to me until I’ve paid. It makes me angry, but I suppose I look pretty rough and dirty right now, so I try not to judge him too harshly. I put the fifty-boliviano bill on the counter.

“You’re short fifty-two bolivianos, eighty centavos,” he says in a bored voice.

I gape at him. Panic twists my insides. Not once did it occur to me that I wouldn’t have enough to pay for the medicine. I reach into my manta, as though willing more money to appear out of thin air. My fingers brush against Yenni’s coin purse.

I pause. I can’t. I can’t spend Yenni’s money. And yet . . . César needs this medicine.

She’ll never miss it, says a voice in my head. But the voice hisses like the air tubes choking the entrance to the mine, and I know it’s the voice of the devil.

“Well?” says the man, yawning.

I’m not stealing, I tell myself. I’m borrowing. I’ll pay her back right away. The devil inside me only laughs.

Slowly, not believing I’m doing it, I pull the coin purse out and empty it onto the counter. The man’s fingers flick over my friend’s money, tallying my sin. I feel like Judas from the Bible, betraying a friend for a handful of coins.

Victor joins me at the counter. “What’s wrong?” he asks, seeing my face.

“You’re still short,” the man says. He’s getting annoyed now.

“How much?” asks Victor.

“Four sixty-five.”

“I’ve got you,” says Victor, and he puts a five-boliviano coin on the counter. I couldn’t feel worse. Not only have I borrowed money from Yenni without asking, but now I’m taking money from Victor too. Knowing that he literally bled for that money makes my stomach churn. But César needs the medicine, and my whole family needs César. I nod at the man.

As the man hands Victor thirty-five centavos and puts the bottle on the counter, I wonder what I would have done if Victor hadn’t been here. Would I have stolen the medicine? The bitter irony of how poor we are when the mayor says we live on a mountain that was practically made of money burns inside me.

Clutching the bottle like it’s made of silver itself, I walk out of the store.

“Thank you,” I say to Victor once we’re outside.

“Anytime,” he says breezily.

I snort.

“Yes. Anytime I’m in desperate need of super-expensive medication to keep my stepfather breathing, I should shake you down for your blood money to make up the difference of what I can’t pay.”

Victor breaks into a lopsided grin.

“Exactly,” he says. “Catch you