Read The Queen of Water Online

Authors: Laura Resau

The Queen of Water (10 page)

chapter 15

I
NSTEAD OF ESCAPE
, my mind turns to revenge. In the meantime, I keep the paper under my mattress, in case I really need it one day, although I’m not sure how I’ll know when that day comes.

It’s Saturday morning and silvery rain is pouring outside, trickling down the windowpanes, making it cozy inside the house. My wounds from the Doctorita’s hanger rage have nearly disappeared, but my anger at her has lingered. She’s gone now, along with Niño Carlitos and the boys, to spend the weekend with her family, while I’ve stayed here to feed the guinea pigs and pasture the cow.

I consider starting the long list of chores she made me memorize. She still doesn’t know I can read, which is a good thing, because then she’d probably write me an extralong list of chores. I pick up the mop and bucket, and then, on second thought, let them clatter to the floor.

I have the house to myself and I will do what I want.
¡Viva la libertad!
I snatch the Doctorita’s favorite green polka-dot dress from her wardrobe. It barely fits her anymore, clinging to her bottom so tightly the seams have almost split. I put it on, loving how it skims my new curves and hangs gracefully at my ankles. I slip on her high heels and let my hair loose and admire myself in the mirror.

The swelling in my nose has gone down. Now there are only faint purple-blue marks beneath my eyes. My friend Marina said she’d read in a fashion magazine that if you have a pimple on your face, you should wear lots of eye makeup and lipstick to distract people. My puffy nose isn’t exactly a pimple, but maybe the same strategy will work. I put on the Doctorita’s bright red, special-occasion lipstick and gold eye shadow. Pleased at my reflection, I dance in front of the mirror and sing along with the
cumbia
music blasting on the stereo.

Still wearing the high heels, I sweep and mop until my feet hurt, then I change into my regular clothes and put on fresh lipstick and run out to feed the guinea pigs and pasture the cow. Later, back home, I read for a while. When my stomach growls, I make myself a mountain of greasy potatoes and fried steak for dinner and papaya and mangoes for dessert and lounge on the Doctorita’s pink llama blanket watching TV until I nod off.

Sunday morning, I wake up late in the Doctorita’s bed, to watery gray light and more rain pattering on the windows. My gaze rests on her wardrobe, on the drawer she forbade me to open my first morning here, a rule she continues to remind me of regularly. She keeps the key in a secret place, and I’ve never seen her open the drawer. It must hold something very, very secret if she’s managed to hide it from me all these years. I tug on the drawer, hard, but the lock is too strong.

I eat breakfast and read for a while, then feed the animals and do my other chores. In the afternoon, as I’m dusting the Doctorita’s room and making the bed, I catch a glimpse of myself in the wardrobe’s mirror, at the two blue-yellow crescents beneath my eyes. When I was younger and the Doctorita beat me, I thought that when I was big I’d get revenge. But I am big now, nearly as tall as her, nearly grown up. Thirteen years old and she’s still beating me.

Revenge. I stare at the drawer. I’ll find a way to open it. I take a knife from the kitchen and wiggle it around in the keyhole, the way I’ve seen MacGyver do. I imagine him at my side. The clock is ticking. Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight … only one minute to open the drawer and defuse the bomb. The evil, jiggly-chinned thief is plotting to blow up the world, and I am the only hope to unlock the drawer in time. Me, María Virginia Farinango, world-famous lock picker, the expert who flies around the globe, opening locks in the nick of time. Nine, eight, seven … almost there. MacGyver leans over me, whispers in my ear, his breath warm.
If anyone can do this, you can, Virginia, my love.
Three, two, one …

There is a click and the drawer opens. I pull the drawer out and set it on the floor, my hands shaking with excitement. I shuffle through the papers—birth certificates, a marriage license, diplomas. Boring, boring, boring. A few pieces of jewelry—clunky earrings and bracelets I’ve seen the Doctorita wearing to weddings and baptisms. And that’s it. All these years of wondering about the forbidden drawer, and it’s just a bunch of junk.

Deflated, I shove the drawer back into the wardrobe. But it won’t shut all the way. The metal lock is sticking up. I try to push it down, but it’s stuck. I jam the knife in the keyhole and wiggle and twist it, with no luck. Frantically, I grab a handful of knives from the kitchen and try each one in the keyhole. One of them has to work! I try scissors and hairpins and knitting needles, but nothing will budge the lock.

Just thinking about what the Doctorita will do when she sees the drawer makes me shudder. If she gave me a bloody nose for forgetting to sterilize her instruments, what will she do to me now? My thoughts bang around, frantic and crazy, until I think my head will explode.

I could call my sister. She could come and take me away from here. But it’s Sunday afternoon. Don Luciano closes his shop on Sunday afternoon to have lunch with his family. And what about the elementary school diploma? And meat and books and TV?

Then, in the midst of my panic, an idea shines through, clear and bright. An idea that makes me wipe my eyes and sit up straight. I am stronger and smarter than the Doctorita. I can think of a way out of this. MacGyver always identifies his enemy’s big weakness first. What is the Doctorita’s weakness? What is she most afraid of?

I mentally flip through her large, strange collection of fears, fears that make her break out in a sweat, make her moan about feeling suffocated. Germs, gas leaks, bad traffic, volcanic eruptions, kidnappings, thieves. When Niño Carlitos rolls his eyes at her ridiculous fears, she insists it’s not her fault. Supposedly, according to her doctor, it’s
nervios
from working two demanding jobs, and she should drink lots of lemon balm tea to calm her nerves.

I try to narrow down her fears to the very worst one.

Thieves.

Years ago, the theft of the bus traumatized her. Ever since, she’s ranted about thieves, double- and triple-checking to make sure our doors are locked, worrying that someone will steal the truck, clutching her purse against her chest in crowded markets. Yes, thieves it is.

So thieves she will get.

But it will have to be convincing; I can’t just go halfway. I glance at the clock. Three o’clock. That gives me about two hours until they come back. They usually return before dark because the Doctorita frets that a gang of bandits will jump out in the darkness and hijack the truck.

I turn the drawer upside down, dump the papers and jewelry on the floor, kick them around. In a mad whirlwind, I tear the curtains from the rods, gather the pink bedspread in a ball and hurl it at the wall, knock over the lamp, push the trinkets and doilies off the chest, throw magazines and pillows around the room. This feels delicious!

Gathering momentum, I run into the living room, swipe the photos off the table, rip the framed cross-stitched roses off the wall. I consider knocking over some flowerpots, but that wouldn’t be fair to the innocent plants, who are only trying to lead a peaceful existence of photosynthesis and respiration. Instead, I grab the cushions from the couch, toss them around the floor, pull out drawers and scatter clothes in heaps, jump on her favorite polka-dot dress. Room by room, I terrorize their belongings, just like a thief on a TV show.

But the best part is still coming. Breathless and full of wild energy, I take a ball of rope from the kitchen drawer and run upstairs. To make it really convincing, I’ll have to tie myself up. Thieves always tie up their victims. I stand with my back to the bedpost and wind the rope around myself, feet first. In almost every
MacGyver
episode, someone gets tied up, so I know how to do it. I wrap the rope around the post and my body, all the way up to my neck, and knot it tightly.

Then I stand there, waiting, feeling my heartbeat slow a little. The alarm clock is lying on the floor, facedown, so I’m not sure how much time has passed. With the rain, I can’t tell where the sun is.

I wait and wait. After a while I get thirsty. And then hungry. And then I have to go to the bathroom. And then my legs grow tired. I watch a fly buzz around the room, land on the overturned lamp and then on the naked curtain rod. I listen to the raindrops drumming on the windows. My nose itches, but I can’t scratch it with my hands bound.

I have plenty of time to think of everything that could go wrong with my plan. What if they figure out I’m lying? That I’ve done all this myself? Nervous sweat trickles down my sides. She’ll kill me, that’s what she’ll do. She’ll beat me to death. And my family will never find out, because according to Matilde’s note, they don’t even know if I exist anymore.

I can almost see myself looking down from heaven, watching the Doctorita bury my battered body in a cornfield in the dead of night. Later, when Marlenny and Marina and Doña Mercedes and Niño Carlitos and the boys ask,
Where’s our beloved Virginia?
she’ll only say,
Oh, that
longa
must have run away.
And everyone will cry and cry for me.
Why didn’t she say goodbye to us? Oh, how we’ll miss her.
Meanwhile, the Doctorita will grin her evil grin, knowing she got away with murder.

Now I really, really have to go to the bathroom. Finally, I untie myself, which takes a while, and dash to the bathroom and pee for a full minute. Ah, sweet relief.

And then, while I’m on the toilet, I hear the truck pull into the driveway. They’re home!

I run back to the bedroom and frantically wrap the rope around myself, wind it around and around, and tie it to the bedpost.

The door clanks open.

“Virginia?” the Doctorita’s shrill voice calls out. “I thought I told you to lock the door. Didn’t I—” And then a scream and a thump. She must have just seen the giant mess and dropped her bags in horror.

Niño Carlitos’s voice calls up: “Virginia!
M’hija!
Are you all right? Where are you?”

I muster up my most traumatized voice. “Help me! Up here! In your bedroom!”

They run up the stairs. The Doctorita’s face is white, the color drained away, her mouth open. She clutches the door frame, looking about ready to collapse. “Wh-wh-wh-wh-what happened?”

“Thieves!” I cry. And on command, the tears start gushing from my eyes. “Th-th-they came into the house! I-i-it was h-h-h-horrible, Doctorita.”

Her pudgy fingers tremble as she unties me. “Are you all right?”

I snivel and sniff and give a weak nod.

Niño Carlitos turns to the boys. “Go to your room and close the door and stay there.” He comes up to me, touches my cheek. “
M’hija,
did they hurt you?”

I shake my head. “They just—they just scared me really badly.”

“Because if they touched you, I’ll kill them.” A vein pops out on his forehead. “I mean it, I’ll kill them.”

I whimper some more as he strokes my hair.

“Virginia, what did they look like?”

“I-i-it was two thieves,” I say. “O-o-one was short and light-haired. A-a-and the other was tall and dark-haired. A-a-and they wore baseball caps.”

“I’m going to go look for them, Virginia,” he says, jogging out of the room. He turns back, his face pained. “Are you sure they didn’t touch you?”

I nod, miserably. “They just t-t-tied me up.”

The Doctorita finishes untying me, her hands still shaking, her chins trembling. “Virginia, go take a shower to calm down. I’ll fix you a cup of tea.” I leave her sitting with her hand over her heart as though it could jump right out of her body. After my shower I come back to her bed and lie there, watching TV like a princess. She brings me lemon balm tea to settle my nerves and starts cleaning up the mess, breathing hard with effort and fear, muttering about how she knew it, that thieves are lurking around every corner. How the world is a dangerous place, even in a little town like Kunu Yaku.

Suddenly, she pauses and looks up at me. “Why didn’t they steal anything?”

I shrug.

She tilts her head. “Are you sure thieves broke in?”

“Yes,” I say, indignant.

“Did you do all this?”

“How could you think that, Doctorita?” I say, letting tears leak from my eyes again. A whole lake of tears has been under the surface for years, waiting to come out. “How could I tie myself up? Why would I do that?”

“To scare me,” she says slowly. “You know my nerves are bad. You did this, didn’t you?”

“That’s not true.” I stare into her eyes, as though I believe it with every cell in my body. As though I’m a famous actress on a soap opera.

A cloud of doubt passes over her face. “It’s true,” she says weakly, then sinks down on her hands and knees to gather the spilled trinkets.

The boys come in and cuddle with me, one on either side. Soon Niño Carlitos pokes his head in the room. “More tea,
m’hija
?”

“Yes please,” I say, sweetly. “Thank you.” And I let a few more tears fall for good measure.

He pats my shoulder. “It’s all right,
m’hija.
We’re here.”

The Doctorita continues cleaning on her hands and knees, eyeing me suspiciously. She watches me as though I am not a child servant, but a real, grown-up woman with thoughts and schemes of my own. She watches me almost cautiously, as though I am unpredictable and not to be trusted. She doesn’t say anything more about it, only watches me with different eyes.

Meanwhile, the boys and Niño Carlitos are fussing over me, gushing love and warmth and concern. I soak it up eagerly. Maybe I should consider a career in acting. What else can I do with the rest of these stored-up tears?

Niño Carlitos keeps patting my shoulder. “Don’t worry,
m’hija.
You’re safe now.”

chapter 16

I
WOULD MAKE A GOOD SOAP-OPERA STAR
, but I’m starting to suspect it’s an impossible dream. Nearly everyone on TV is either
mestizo
or American. Only once in a while, on the soap operas, is there an
indígena,
and she’s usually a fat, middle-aged maid who never speaks except for
yes, señora.
She does nothing but sweep, open doors, and serve food. I hate watching those fat indigenous maids. As much as I want to be an actress, I don’t want to play a fat servant.

One of my favorite programs features singers performing music. The women are always slender and smooth and beautiful, no bulges on their stomachs, no jiggly fat on their thighs. Only the curve of their firm breasts and hips and bottoms.

From what I remember, none of the women in my village looked like that—they waddled like round hens and thought they were pretty. If a girl was thin in Yana Urku, people said she looked as sickly and ugly as a dying tree. But now I see they were wrong. That’s just another thing that makes them ignorant
indígenas.
They don’t understand what it means to have a beautiful body.

Everyone knows that
mestizo
men like their women slim with fair skin. As I’ve witnessed when Niño Carlitos gets angry, he tells the Doctorita she’s ugly and fat, which makes her cry and knit Baby Jesus dresses for days on end. I smile on the inside because if I can’t get vengeance on her, at least she’s getting it from someone else. I feel a little sorry for her, but mostly it feels good to see her hurt the way I hurt when she calls me names.

And here’s another thing that makes me secretly happy. Niño Carlitos is always telling me, “Oh,
m’hija,
you look pretty today.” Or, “I like your hair that way,
hija.
” Or, “That skirt looks nice on you,
hija.
” So when he insults the Doctorita, I smile to myself, knowing that he thinks I’m pretty.

But most of the time, I don’t feel pretty.

Most of the time, I worry that any day now I could turn into a fat, ugly
indígena.

The Doctorita has forgotten about the aerobics book that Niño Carlitos gave her, but I haven’t. Every day, I race through the cleaning, then look at the color pictures of beautiful
mestiza
women in skintight leotards with flat stomachs and narrow thighs. I imitate their exercises, jogging in place, moving my arms in tiny circles, lying on my back and moving my legs around like I’m riding an upside-down bicycle. My muscles ache and burn, but it feels good knowing my body is that much closer to looking like theirs.

Lately my breasts are swelling more, little by little, which is fine, but my belly and thighs and hips and bottom are also getting a padding of fat, which is not fine. If this keeps up, soon I’ll be waddling around like the
indígena
servants on TV. What’s worse, little ugly hairs are sprouting up in hidden places—under my arms, between my legs. The women in the exercise book only have glossy, long hair pulled in high ponytails, no other, ugly hairs as far as I can tell. Every day, I wish harder and harder for a body like the exercise ladies’, like the singers’ on TV.

The harder I wish, the less I eat.

I feel proud when I get through a whole day with only a bite of beef and a few spoonfuls of rice and a glass of melon juice. My stomach rumbles all the time, but I embrace it as a sign I’m getting thinner.

No one notices but Niño Carlitos. He notices me much more than the Doctorita does. He notices how my breasts have been growing. Sometimes, when he thinks I’m not looking, he stares at them. After dinner one night, as I’m washing the dishes, he studies me with concern. “Are you all right, daughter? You seem so thin. And pale. Do you feel sick?”

“I’m fine,” I say, pleased he can tell I’m thinner. And the pale skin is an added bonus. “Just fine.”

There was another time, years ago, back in Yana Urku, when I felt the thrill of turning white. It happened when I got my first pair of shoes, when I was about six. Matilde brought me to the market with the riales I’d saved from my snack money during those six torturous weeks in first grade. The vendor handed me the boots—black rubber with zigzag soles, just like Papito’s—and I was the happiest girl in the universe.

That afternoon, I wore my shoes to pasture the cow and sheep. With abandon, I ran and skipped and kicked big rocks and stomped through mud puddles. I showed off my boots to every child I passed. My feet sweated and slid around inside them; when I reached the pasture, I discovered that two blisters had formed on the thin skin over my anklebones. By the time I came home, the blisters had popped and their water mixed with the sweat in the boots; even this, somehow, seemed beautiful to me.

All week I wore the boots. Every evening I cleaned them, using a stick to remove any last trace of mud from the zigzag soles. After I took off my boots, my feet looked wrinkled and tender and white. That’s when I realized that these were magic shoes. Mixed with sweat, they had the power to turn me white!

The next morning I woke up early, excited. Inside the kitchen, I poured water from the pot into my boots, filling them up, then carefully wedged my feet back inside. Some of the water spilled over the sides, but the remaining water still reached the rims. Now my ankles and calves would turn white too. And then the whiteness would spread to the rest of me. This was my deepest, secret hope.

All day in the pastures, I sloshed around in my boots with my goat, Cheetah, and Josefa and the other cows and sheep. People I passed gave me strange looks. “What’s wrong with you, girl? Why are you walking like that?” I didn’t tell them my secret. They would see, tomorrow.

At home that evening, I took off my shoes outside and dumped out the water. I examined my feet. White! All the way past my ankles! White and very wrinkled.

I sipped my soup in bliss.

When I finished, I examined my feet again.

Brown and pink.

The same feet as always.

Tears welled up first and then rage, a deep sense of injustice. It stung like Mamita’s slap when she’d told me, “We will always be
indígena.
Nothing will change that.”

After a few months of eating nearly nothing, it takes every bit of strength I can muster to do the little arm circles. When I stand up after doing sit-ups, I feel dizzy and steady myself with the wall. As I sweep, the joints of my shoulders and elbows ache. Sometimes a sharp pain, like a needle, shoots up my arm while I scrub the bathroom. Climbing the stairs, my knees hurt, as though they’re tired of carrying me everywhere. I doze on the red velvet sofa whenever I get a chance, too exhausted to follow Jaimito and Andrecito around. It’s the price of beauty.

And then one day, I can’t hold the broom.

It falls from my hand and whacks the floor.

“What’s wrong with you?” the Doctorita demands.

“My arm hurts.”

“Why?”

I shrug. “It just does.”

“Pick up the broom.”

I bend down, and my body aches, but I muster up all my strength and manage to pick up the broom. I am like an old lady.

This scares me.

Still, I eat even less and exercise even more.

From time to time, the Doctorita piles us all in the truck for a trip to her relatives’ house in Santa Rosa, a couple of hours away. I love these trips. Unbelievably, her mother, Anita, and niece, Silvia, and nephew, José, are sweet and dote on me, giving me hand-me-down clothes and telling me how beautiful I am. They treat me like a niece, or a granddaughter. Whenever they’re around, the Doctorita hardly ever hits me or calls me
longa.
If she slips up and yells or orders me around, Anita scolds her. “Treat our Virginia with respect,
hija.
And be easy on her. She’s just a young girl.”

Silvia always looks at me deeply, with kind eyes that really see me, that really look, and when she asks, “How are you, Virginia?” I feel like she means it, like she truly wants to know.

A week after dropping the broom, I’m at Anita’s house, eating dinner with the whole extended family. They never ask me to serve them, and they let me eat off china plates and use good silverware with the rest of them. I’m casually rearranging the food on my pretty flowered plate, pushing the meat around, wondering if I can slip any into my pockets and throw it out later. Today I’m too tired to enjoy their conversation and kindness. I can only think about resisting food and sleep, which is hard with a permanently rumbling stomach and eyelids that hang heavy as stones.

“Virginia,” Silvia says, her forehead wrinkled in concern, “you don’t seem like yourself. Have you been sick?”

I shake my head, too exhausted to form words.

Anita turns to José. “Why don’t you take a look at la Virginia, dear.”

José is a doctor, young and handsome. He studies my face, and I feel self-conscious, wondering if they’ve noticed I’ve only had two bites of meat and a quarter of a potato, and worrying I’ll somehow get in trouble. “Virginia, are you sure you feel all right?”

Dully, I nod.

After lunch, José brings me to his office in the clinic and sits me on a little bed covered in a tight white sheet. The room smells like disinfectant and bleach and a hint of his cologne. Normally this would thrill me, to be alone with this handsome doctor paying attention to me, but all I want to do is lie down on the bed and slip into sleep. He listens to my heartbeat with a stethoscope. “Pretty fast.” He takes my blood pressure. “A little low.” He feels my face with the back of his hand. “Cold.” He studies my face.

“Do you always breathe so fast, Virginia?”

I shrug.

He rubs his hand over his eyes. “Has Romelia been feeding you well?”

I shrug again.

“You’re thin and pale,” he says.

Good. Thin and pale is exactly how I want to be.

“Too thin, Virginia. You’re malnourished and anemic.” He looks sad, or angry, or some other feeling he’s trying very hard to hold in. He takes a deep breath and presses his lips together, then says, “Let’s go.”

I set a slow pace back to the house. Walking makes me short of breath. A block seems like ten kilometers. “Will I get in trouble, José?”

“What?”

“With the Doctorita. She’ll get mad at me, I know it.”

His mouth tightens into a hard line. “I’ll talk to her. Don’t worry, Virginia.”

Inside, the Doctorita is watching TV and talking with her mother. José tells me to wait in the kitchen, but I peek out and listen. His face is red and he’s talking to the Doctorita in a low voice that makes me think of opening the lid of a pot just a little so steam can pour out, so it won’t explode. “This girl’s starving, Tía—how can you keep her malnourished like this? Don’t you feed her?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Virginia has anemia and vitamin deficiencies.”

Anita looks at the Doctorita in horror. “How could you do this to our Virginia?”

The Doctorita blinks. “I give her plenty of food.” She turns to Niño Carlitos. “Don’t I?”

He says nothing, just looks thoughtful.

Anita and José eye her suspiciously. “Admit it. You’ve never treated her well.”

“I give her lots of food!” the Doctorita shouts.

And then Silvia comes in and when she hears what’s happened, she’s yelling too, and then the Doctorita is crying. She snivels and sniffs and finally calls me out of the kitchen and glares at me. “Don’t I feed you?”

I nod.

“Then why is she malnourished?” José demands.

I have to tell the truth. “I wanted to be thin.”

The Doctorita has that look in her eyes like she wants to smack me, and she would if there weren’t people around.

José closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Look, Virginia, I’ll give you vitamins and shots to help you build back your strength. But you have to eat.
Bruta,
you have to eat if you want to grow. You’ll stay short forever if you don’t eat. Your bones are growing. You need to eat. How can you grow up if you don’t eat?”

These are the magic words. The one thing I want more than anything is to grow up so the Doctorita can’t hurt me, so I can leave and start my own life. I want this more than being thin.

For the rest of the afternoon, José and I sit in the kitchen. He explains how my body is growing and all the nutrients it needs. Vitamin A from carrots for my eyes. Calcium from cheese for my bones. Iron from meat for my blood.

“Virginia, promise me you’ll start eating again.”

“I will. I promise.” I pause. “José?” I don’t know what I want to ask exactly. “Do you think it’s my fault? Do you think I’m bad?”

“Oh, Virginia, of course not. Your life isn’t easy. We know this. Just remember, you’re beautiful how you are.”

When it’s time to go home, Niño Carlitos puts his arm around my waist and helps me into the truck, fussing over me. The boys cuddle with me, sensing something is wrong. On the way home, the Doctorita doesn’t look at me. “Doesn’t matter to me if you get sicker and sicker,” she says, looking out the window. “I should just let you die instead of spending this money on shots and vitamins. Don’t eat. See if I care.”

But at home, she watches me at mealtimes like a hawk, mumbling, “
Longa estúpida,
how could you think you could stop eating?” She watches me and makes sure I eat every last grain of rice, every last crumb of bread, every piece of gristle on the meat.

Niño Carlitos buys chocolates for me on the way home from work. “Here,
m’hija,
” he says, rubbing my back. “Eat. You need to fatten up.” He does this when the Doctorita isn’t around. He doesn’t want to make her jealous that I can eat lots of candy and she can’t.

At first, all this food makes me nauseous, but after a couple of months, I feel strong again. My joints stop aching and I gain weight and I grow taller. My body isn’t turning out like the exercise ladies’, but it’s growing, and the more it grows, the sooner I’ll be grown up and the sooner I’ll leave this place forever.

In the meantime, while I watch the thin, beautiful
mestizas
living glamorous lives on TV, and the fat, ugly
indígenas
serving them, I try hard, very hard, to hang on to José’s slippery words.
Just remember, you’re beautiful how you are.

Other books

Crows by Candace Savage
13 Treasures by Michelle Harrison
Whisker of Evil by Rita Mae Brown
Underworld by Reginald Hill
Island Heat by Davies, E.
The Maharajah's General by Collard, Paul Fraser
Strategic Moves by Franklin W. Dixon


readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024