The House of the Scorpion

Matt wanders around the garden admiring the decorations and examines the place cards at the tables. He removes Tom’s card and places it at the baby table. Over 200 bodyguards form a perimeter around the garden, and Matt wonders who they are guarding against. María scolds Matt for moving Tom’s card—she expected him to be nice to Tom. She doesn’t believe Matt when he shares that Tom tried to drown Furball. He grabs María’s wrist to prevent her from returning Tom’s card when El Patrón interrupts them. When Matt admits he wants María to sit next to him, the old man laughs. He asks if María is Matt’s girlfriend, stating that Matt is no different than he was at that age. Mr. Alacrán calls it disgusting. Felicia suddenly asks where Tom is, and María calls Matt a pig. El Patrón approves, telling Matt to get rid of his enemies when he can, and commands María to obey. Though María protests and Tam Lin questions him, Matt demands that she stay by his side.

While El Patrón and MacGregor discuss fetal brain implants, Felicia and María sit dejectedly. Matt wonders why Felicia looks pleadingly at MacGregor, as everyone including her husband always ignores her. The elderly El Viejo, El Patrón’s grandson and Mr. Alacrán’s father, makes a mess of his dinner. Mr. Alacrán defends his father—El Viejo refuses implants because he is deeply religious. When Felicia asks if she can check on Tom, Mr. Alacrán and El Patrón angrily quiet her. After dinner, El Patrón opens his expensive gifts, which include jewelry, paintings, moon rocks, and weapons. El Patrón only likes a statue of a naked baby with wings. Matt’s presents include a sweater from Celia, a giant toy car from El Patrón, and a book about desert plants from Tam Lin. El Patrón tells Matt that you can tell how much a person loves you by how expensive their gift is.

María takes away her gift to Matt because of how he treated Tom. Matt demands she give it back, and her father, Senator Mendoza, pleads with her to listen. El Patrón encourages Matt’s demands, but Tam Lin quietly tells Matt to let her go. When María finally gives it back, Matt is angry that she embarrassed him. He wonders why María can’t be his girlfriend just because he is a clone and demands that María give him a birthday kiss. The crowd gasps, and Tam Lin again asks him to stop. When Senator Mendoza protests because he is a clone, El Patrón is suddenly angry and dangerous—Matt is his clone. Though Matt begins to regret the scene he created, it is too late because El Patrón is watching with glee. He understands that the scene is humiliating for María because the guests see Matt as an animal, even though she has kissed him before in private. María kisses him and runs to her father, who promises it will never happen again. Exhausted, El Patrón leaves the party. Matt goes to his room and marvels at María’s gift. Since María’s mother left when María was five, María has coped by hoarding things. Her gift is a box of homemade taffy wrapped with treasured pieces of wrapping paper. Matt stares at the statue of the Virgin, deeply ashamed.

When Matt wakes up the next morning, he knows he has to make it up to María. The day after the birthday party is a letdown. The power he enjoyed as El Patrón’s clone has vanished, and everyone has gone back to ignoring him. Matt spends his time practicing his guitar before reading Tam Lin’s present. Matt is taken aback when Felicia comes to visit—she has never before shown interest in him. She compliments his musical abilities. She was once a great concert pianist, and El Patrón used to listen to her play. Felicia then admits that she wants to help Matt because he upset María so much that she cried all night. She tells Matt that María is waiting for him at the hospital.

Matt doesn’t enjoy visiting the hospital but heads over to meet María in the waiting room. María shares that she thought it was Matt who invited her to the hospital. Matt apologizes for his behavior at the party and says he really likes her present. At first, María regards him scornfully. When he promises to keep the paper forever, María falls silent. Matt wonders if he could kiss her to make up for his actions when Tom shows up. Matt snarls at Tom, asking how he found them. He realizes that Tom and Felicia have set him up. Tom puts on an innocent act—he wants to show them something scarier than Halloween. Matt holds María’s hand as Tom leads them down the hall with glee. When they hear yowling in the distance, María thinks that cats are being experimented on. She pleads with Matt to help her rescue them. Filled with dread at the terrifying sound, Matt doesn’t want to open the door.

When Tom offers to take María, Matt decides he won’t let Tom take her to see the horrors he has in store. Tom throws open the door to reveal what seems to be a beastly-looking boy strapped to the bed. Tom reveals that the creature is a clone, not a boy. Matt is shocked—he has never before seen a clone. Terrified, María lets go of Matt’s hand and shrinks into Tom’s arms. Tom explains that his mom, Felicia, told him about MacGregor’s clone and asks Matt if he should leave him alone with it. Matt doesn’t think it possible that he is the same as that creature. Though it resembles MacGregor, Matt points out that the clone looks like Tom. María refuses to look up and asks Tom to take her away. Matt listens to the howling for a moment before following them.

Matt is unwilling to believe that he is the same as the clone he saw. He remembers how the doctor said clones fall apart when they get older and wonders if the same will happen to him. When he asks Celia about it, she angrily shares that Tom is actually MacGregor’s son. Tom is the result of an affair Felicia had with MacGregor before El Patrón brought her back. As Mr. Alacrán didn’t want her anymore, Felicia became a prisoner. Celia explains that the brain of MacGregor’s clone was destroyed, as the law states must be done when any clone is born. El Patrón is powerful enough to break the law, so he prevented it from happening to Matt. Matt believes El Patrón spared Matt’s mind out of love for him so he can become something greater than a clone or human. Though Celia reassures Matt that he will be safe as long as he lives, she breaks into tears. Feeling comforted, Matt decides to take a nap. He plans how he will prove to María that he is different from MacGregor’s clone and wonders why MacGregor would replace his real son with a damaged clone.

María continues avoiding Matt. MacGregor returns from his medical procedures looking much healthier. Matt realizes that the only way he can get María to see him before she leaves for school is by kidnapping Furball. He contemplates how to keep Furball quiet so no one hears him. Matt knows from his exploration of the secret passage that Felicia has a stash of laudanum in her closet, which she uses to sleep. After stealing the bottle, he makes a bed for Furball by a lotus pond. On the way, he runs into Tom, who is nailing frogs to the ground. Matt threatens to tell María about his violent and cruel actions, but Tom is unfazed. Tom explains that one can learn the difference between humans and animals by studying natural habitats.

Matt tries one last time to speak to María outside her home, but she avoids him still. Matt proceeds to sneak into María’s room, leaves a note for María, and lures Furball out with meat. As Furball falls asleep immediately after eating, Matt decides not to use the laudanum and heads inside. Later that night, Matt sneaks to the pond to check on Furball and accidentally triggers El Patrón’s security system. Daft Donald and Tam Lin grimly march him to the lawn, where Senator Mendoza is waiting. He calls Matt worse than an animal but says that he is not the kind of man to hurt him. Matt is never to see María again. Matt doesn’t understand why. He explains that he only wanted to talk to María and meant to give Furball back—he didn’t mean to upset her and wants to apologize. Senator Mendoza asks how he could apologize for killing her dog. Shocked, Matt begs the Senator to believe that he could never do such a thing because he loves María. This angers the Senator even more, and he leaves despite Matt’s insistence he didn’t use the laudanum. A disappointed Tam Lin tells Matt his fingerprints were on the bottle. He is leaving with El Patrón as Matt is able to look after himself.

Matt overhears María leaving in a hovercraft. El Patrón discourages modern inventions and designed his estate to match the magnificent home of a wealthy rancher from his childhood, recreating every detail of the estate from his memory. When El Patrón and Tam Lin leave, Matt lies in bed contemplating all that went wrong since the birthday party. He is certain that Tom killed Furball with the laudanum. Matt grieves the loss of Tam Lin’s trust. Though he could easily earn María’s forgiveness, Tam Lin expects more of him because he thought of him as a human. He promises himself to live up to Tam Lin’s expectations.

When El Patrón learns that Tom showed Matt MacGregor’s clone, Tom is banished from the estate. Matt questions why MacGregor doesn’t take responsibility for Tom. Celia explains that El Patrón never gives up anyone or anything that he owns. She tells Matt of the secret tomb underground where El Patrón has stashed all his valuable gifts and treasures, and that El Patrón wishes to be buried there. Similarly, El Patrón will not let Felicia or Tom out of his control because he believes he owns them.

Celia believes that Matt would get into less trouble if he understood the world better and finally shares her story. She grew up in the same poor village as El Patrón and worked in a factory as a young girl. She eventually learned to cook from an older woman and became the factory cook. Celia used to climb to the roof of the factory to look across the border into Opium, El Patrón’s country, and beyond to the United States. After meeting a coyote, a man who is supposed to help people illegally immigrate from Aztlán to the United States, she decides to make the journey. However, their dangerous journey through the mountains led them straight to the Farm Patrol—the law enforcement that monitors Opium’s borders and captures undocumented immigrants. When the Farm Patrol arrested Celia and dumped her possessions, her statue of the Virgin fell and chipped. As she begged them to stop, El Patrón recognized her accent as from his hometown and asked if she had any skills. When El Patrón learned she could cook, he took her in. From then on, she belonged to him. The rest of the people who crossed the border were turned into eejits.