Escape to the World's Fair (6 page)

A
LITTLE TASTE OF CALIFORNIA

W
hat kind of a name is “Chicks”?
Alexander thought to himself.
Or “Owney”?
He paced back and forth on the deck.

He'd come all the way over to the other side of the
Addie Dauphin
to clear his head, but it was no use: His head was still too full of annoying questions, like,
What kind of fool would name a kid “Dutch?”
and,
Is Dutch even Dutch?
Alexander also wondered what country the Dutch came from. He wondered if he was supposed to have learned that in school. He wondered if Frances knew.

He paced back and forth some more, then he stood and watched the great big paddle wheel that churned up water in back of the boat. It went around and around like the thoughts in his head.

The thing he wondered the most was:
What if Frances likes them better than me?
That was the worst question of all. He couldn't believe she didn't mind when those older boys called her “Queenie” and “Your Majesty.” Once, back at the Careys' farm, he'd called her “Fancy,” just as a joke, and she'd kicked him in the shin. What did those boys have that he didn't have? At least
he
had all his teeth, he thought, unlike that Finn kid. . . .

A steady breeze was blowing across the deck. His face had been too angry-hot to notice it at first, but now it felt cool and gentle. Alexander unclenched his hands and stretched his arms. He was beginning to feel better, in a mood to explore, even, so when he saw a short ladder leading up to another cargo hold, he climbed it and peered in at the rows of barrels and boxes.

He caught glimpses of bright yellow between the slats of some of the crates. No, not yellow—a deeper color
.
He went to get a closer look.
Could they be?
He could smell them—a perfumey scent that was sweet and sharp. He tugged at the crate slats until he found a loose one and pulled it forward, and then he could see for sure.

Oranges!
One of them rolled out and fell right into his hand. It was fresh and peeled easily. Alexander broke off a section of the delicious fruit and popped it into his mouth.

“It has to be a sign,” he said under his breath. A sign, he thought, that they would make it out west. Hadn't he'd been promising oranges in California to the citizens of Wanderville?

He pulled two more oranges free from the crates and stuffed them in the sleeves of his jacket.
Wait till everyone sees these,
he thought.
Especially Frances.
She'd be so happy and remember that he was the one who first built Wanderville. And she'd forget those boys. As Alexander climbed back down the cargo ladder he was in such good spirits he felt like he could just leap off the last step and keep walking on air.

As he started to make his way back to the luggage hold where his friends were, he passed a set of narrow stairs, which gave him another idea: Why not get a peek of the deck above and tell the others about it? The upper decks had to be grander. Maybe there was even some more food up there he could liberate. Oranges weren't enough for a full meal, after all. He crept up the stairs carefully so as not to make noise and tiptoed down a narrow passageway.

The passage ended at a great, long parlor that smelled of both cigar smoke and perfume. The polished woodwork gleamed, and there were ferns in brass vases and a thick Oriental carpet on the floor. Alexander's footsteps were silent as he trod on it, and for a moment it made him feel like he'd become a ghost. But he knew that here, more than ever, he'd have to be careful to escape notice. All the finely dressed passengers were in this section—portly men gathered around card tables, the chairs and divans filled with women who fanned themselves or gazed out the windows. The sky above the riverbank was turning pink—it must have been early evening—and Alexander supposed everyone was dressed for dinner.

He found a tall chair to stand behind. There was no use hiding in this room, but the top of the chair came almost to his shoulders and he could conceal his worn, dusty jacket. The trick to being in places like this, Alexander knew, was to act like he was supposed to be there. He'd done the same thing back at the mercantile in Kansas where he'd taken things that Wanderville needed.
Nothing to it,
he thought.

He glanced around and spotted a platter of jam sandwiches that had been cut into tiny triangles. He knew he'd be able to slip a few of those into his sleeve, if he could just make his way over. . . .

Just then a voice seemed to rise up over the murmur of the crowd.

“But
of course,
dear
Edwin
. It would be a
lovely
excursion!”

Alexander tried not to shudder. Miss DeHaven was just a few feet away!

She sat at a little table next to the bearded man, the one they'd seen at the dock. The man the older boys said was Edwin Adolphius. Miss DeHaven had just called him
Edwin,
too
.

Alexander's mind raced. The chair that he stood behind was made of painted wicker, with a high, latticed back like a screen. He slowly moved the chair so that its back was to Miss DeHaven's table, and then he sat down. The chair was tall enough to completely hide him, but when he turned his head to the side he could peer out through the little openings in the latticework. He could see them both now: Mr. Adolphius was pouring a drink for Miss DeHaven—some kind of amber cordial served in tiny little glasses shaped like tulips—and bragging about his motorcar.

“Let me tell you, it drives so smooth that they say a lady could take the wheel. Why, I'll even let you try!” Mr. Adolphius declared. Alexander could tell he was the kind of man who never noticed that his voice was always just a bit too loud.

“Perhaps I shall,” Miss DeHaven replied. “I hope it won't be too
difficult
.”

Alexander suspected that Miss DeHaven was more clever than Mr. Adolphius, who tried to act refined but was really sort of coarse, and that she was trying to humor him.

“Won't be hard at all, Miss Lillian!” Mr. Adolphius replied. “After all, you sure know how to handle those charity cases! Those boys are uncorkable, but a year or two of cannery packing will shut them right up.”

“I
think
you mean
incorrigible,
Edwin. Not
uncorkable,
” said Miss DeHaven. “And don't forget to call it an industrial school instead of a cannery. Because are they not
learning
to be
industrious,
these wretched boys? Educating
themselves
about the rigors of work while they have the
great privilege
of
helping
you?” She picked up her glass and sipped it.

Edwin Adolphius grinned. “I like how you say that!” he boomed. “Industrial school sure sounds better than packing tins with fish guts.”

Miss DeHaven made a face. “Indeed it does. And I am
happy
to help you find
students
and escort them to the factory in St. Louis. And as a matter of
fact . . .”
She let her voice trail off while she slowly traced her finger around the rim of her glass.

“Yes?” Mr. Adolphius murmured. “What is it?”

Alexander could tell the fellow was entranced by Miss DeHaven. He supposed she
was
pretty, like Owney had said. Was Frances prettier? Alexander didn't know. With Frances, it wasn't about “pretty,” the way he liked her. He hoped he wouldn't ever make a fool of himself in front of Frances the way Mr. Adolphius was doing right now, gazing at Miss DeHaven like she was made of pure gold.

Miss DeHaven seemed to enjoy the attention. “As a
matter
of fact, Edwin,” she said. “I know of some
orphans
who would be
perfect
students. It's been
so
very hard finding an
ideal
placement for them. They have an
unfortunate
tendency to run away.”

Alexander froze in his seat. Was she talking about
them
? He wasn't sure. Either way, he knew he had to get out of the room. He stood, but stayed crouched behind the chair.

“Well, I'll make sure they don't run away from the canning factory,” Mr. Adolphius remarked.

“Yes, but I'll just have to
find
them first,” Miss DeHaven replied. “They absconded from a farm near Bremerton. . . .” She was no longer trying to speak in a pleasant voice.

And now, Alexander
knew
she was talking about them.
How did she know we left the Careys' farm?
he wondered. He tried to stay hunched down as he moved toward the doorway.

“. . . but I have reason to believe they're still in Missouri,” she added.

He was close to the doorway now.
Just a few more steps.
He could just make out the outline of Miss DeHaven from the corner of his eye. She'd had her head turned in the opposite direction a few moments before, and if she stayed that way, he'd be safe.

He just needed to make sure . . . he turned to look, just for a second . . . and found that Miss DeHaven was staring right at him.

He darted out the door, his face hot.
She didn't recognize me,
he told himself.
It was just for a moment. Right?

Alexander could hear Mr. Adolphius, his voice too loud as usual. “We'll find them!”

The words rang in Alexander's ears as he ran down the stairs and all the way back across the lower deck.

T
HE FRUIT OF THEIR LABORS

T
he mood on the lower deck had changed now that Alexander was elsewhere and there was no more work to be done in the cargo hold. The sun hung lower over the river and they could all hear piano music clinking gently from one of the upper decks. The older boys formed a little square as they sat cross-legged on the deck playing cards, while Frances stood with Harold and Eli at the railing, taking in the view.

“It's nice, isn't it?” Frances murmured. The river was one wide stripe of silvery blue, and then above it the deep green stripe of the riverbank trees, and finally the brighter blue of the sky.

“It's so slow,” Harold said listlessly. “Not like the train.” He wiped his nose on his sleeve. Frances had seen him do that twice already today, and she was starting to worry that he was getting one of his colds again.

“Sometimes slow is good,” Eli said. “Remember Ora, back at the Careys? Well, she used to tell all about a rabbit and a Mississippi mud turtle that ran a race. . . .”

“Yeah?” Harold said, perking up a little as Eli began to tell the story.

Frances had read Harold every poem or tale in the
Third Eclectic Reader
at least four times, so she was grateful that Eli had all these new stories and could tell them so well, even doing different voices for the animal characters. The tale he was telling now was so entertaining that the older boys put down their cards and scooted closer to listen.

Frances looked around for Jack. She found him sitting on the deck against one of the trunks, out of sight of the older boys. As she sat down next to him, she noticed he had taken out the medallion that Zogby had given them and was turning it over in his hands, studying it.

“Can I look at it, too?” she asked. Jack nodded and handed it to her.

She spent a long time peering closely at the little images carved in gold—the bird on one side and the beast on the other side. Was it a cow? An ox?

“This thing is so weird,” she said. “I wonder what it's for.”

“Telling fortunes, maybe?” Jack suggested.

“We should rub it and ask it about the future or something,” Frances said. She didn't really believe in that sort of thing, but she thought maybe if she just knew the medallion's purpose she wouldn't think it was so creepy. “Should we ask it about California?” She laughed.

But Jack didn't answer or even laugh. And when Frances had said
California
he'd looked away.
What's going on?

“Okay, Jack,” she said finally. “What is it?”

“Maybe . . .” Jack began. “Maybe I won't go to California with the rest of you.”

“
What?
Why?”

“I've just been thinking it might be better if I went back to New York,” Jack said. “It seems like the more I try to save other kids, the worse things get, and I don't want them to get bad for you too.” He was talking faster now, the words tumbling out. “I could look for my family. Maybe my father would want me again.”

Frances looked him in the eyes. “
Jack.
Stop thinking this way. Are you sure you want to leave? Or that your folks would want you back?”

“No,” Jack said. “I'm not sure at all. But the only way I can be sure is if I go.”

Frances shook her head. She knew what it was like to be all on your own in New York. And there was a good chance that this could be Jack's fate as well.

“It won't be the same there, Jack,” she said.

“I suppose,” Jack replied. “But maybe after the Fair I could find a train back to New York and—”

Another voice spoke up. “And you'll
what
?”

Frances turned to see Eli standing there. He must have been walking over to see them and had overheard the conversation.

“It's nothing,” Jack started to say. “I was just thinking . . .”

Eli cut in. “Yeah, well,
I
was thinking, too. Thinking about whether I ought to look for my mama's cousins in St. Louis. 'Cause even though I don't know them so well they're part of the family I was born to. But the thing is,” he said, looking straight at Jack, “I thought Wanderville was going to be my family now. Everyone in it, I mean. Is that still true?”

“Of course it's true,” Frances said. “Isn't that right, Jack?”

Jack didn't say anything for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and nodded. “Right,” he said. “We've got Wanderville, no matter what.”

That seemed to satisfy Eli. But Frances suspected Jack wanted to say more:
We've got Wanderville, but . . .

Instead, though, Jack changed the subject. “And we've got
this,
too!” he exclaimed, grabbing the medallion back from Frances and grinning big. “Our ticket to the World's Fair. It's really something, isn't it?”

Frances tried to smile back. “It sure is,” she said.

Only now she wished for real that the medallion could tell them the future. That way she'd know what Jack was going to do.

• • •

Jack still didn't quite trust the older boys, but at least they had gotten friendlier as they all whiled away the afternoon in the luggage hold. The boys had liked Eli's stories, and then Owney volunteered to tell one, too—a cowboy story from a dime novel he'd heard read aloud at the broom factory. It was a pretty exciting tale about bank robbers making a daring escape.

“The robbers ordered everyone out of the stagecoach,” Owney told them. “Then they took their trunks and emptied them out right there on the road!”

“Why'd they do that?” Harold wondered. “That's mean!”

“So they could have a place to hide the gold they stole from the bank,” Owney explained as he tugged at a loose thread on his patchwork trousers. “And then the robbers could disguise themselves as regular old stagecoach drivers.”

“Oh,” Harold said, wiping his nose on his sleeve again. He seemed to be thinking. “Do you think anyone is hiding gold in
those
?” he asked, pointing over to the trunks they'd just stacked.

Chicks laughed. “Naw, probably not. But someone sure could hide something in those if they really wanted to.”

Jack couldn't help thinking there was something very strange about those empty trunks. But he didn't know what, exactly. He was about to say something when suddenly Frances stood up in surprise.

“Hey! You're back!” she said.

Jack turned to look behind him. There was Alexander, nodding slowly. He was slightly out of breath, and he looked a little sick, too. Not green in the face, exactly, but ashen. Like he'd seen a ghost.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked him. Alexander never looked that grim unless it was about something big.

Alexander shook his head.

Frances stepped closer. “Alex, what's wrong?”

“I just saw . . .” Alexander began. But then he shook his head again. He took a deep breath. “Nothing's wrong!” he said, his voice suddenly brighter. “Look!” He reached up his sleeve and pulled out an orange. “See what I found!”

Finn's eyes got wide. “
Oranges?
Where'd you get those?”

“Never had a whole orange before,” said Owney.

“Well, here you go,” Alexander said, tossing the fruit to Owney. Then he pulled out two more oranges, giving one to Harold and handing the other, with an elegant bow, to Frances.

Dutch had his unlit cigar clenched in his teeth again, and he pushed it to the other side of his mouth so that he could sneer. “I suppose you went a-begging on the upper decks?” he asked Alexander. “Sang a little song, did you?”

Alexander seemed to tense up. “Not at all,” he replied. He turned to take a quick look behind him, then he lowered his voice. “Look, there's plenty more oranges where those came from. I'll . . . I'll show you.”

“What if we get caught?” Chicks asked, glancing at his brother.

“We won't,” Alexander shot back. “There's nobody around there. Come on!” He was talking fast now, his voice insistent. Jack hoped Alexander knew what he was talking about.

They all followed Alexander over to the other side of the lower deck, and he showed them where a short ladder led into a little room filled with crates. He walked up to one and pulled a slat aside, and three oranges rolled right out onto the floor.

“Wow!” Dutch said under his breath. He and Finn snatched them up while Chicks reached into the crate to grab more. Meanwhile Alexander opened up another crate for Eli and Owney. Jack slipped an orange into his pocket, then another. It still felt strange to Jack to “liberate” things, but it was hard to say no to a good orange, which you could keep for days and which could be eaten when you were both hungry and thirsty.

“Try 'em,” Eli urged. He'd peeled one open and was popping the juicy sections into his mouth. “They're good!”

Harold was sitting on the deck with a pile of orange peels in his lap, his face sticky and flushed and happy.

Frances beamed at him and turned to Jack and Alexander. “He ate the whole thing. And look at him—he looks better than he has in days. Oranges are just what he needs right now.”

“Frannie, can I have another?” Harold called.

“Of course!” Frances said. She retrieved one from the crate and handed it to her brother. Then she bounded over to Alexander and hugged him. “Thank you so much!” she told him.

Jack could see Alexander grinning over Frances's shoulder.
He sure looks proud of himself.

They all soon realized they could fit only a few oranges each in their pockets, so they decided to eat as many as they could there in the cargo hold.

“We need a place to hide the peelings, though,” Eli noted.

“We can use that trunk in the corner,” Chicks said, pointing to one that stood open and empty behind some of the crates.

Jack went over to the trunk to toss out his peels and noticed that there were marks carved in the wood trim. There were little hash lines, crossed off in groups of five, as if someone had marked days or hours; a word all in caps—
PAZ
; and then some other marks that weren't letters or numbers.

They looked, in fact, like the markings on the medallion Zogby had given them! One he knew for sure—a little circle with two points on top. It resembled a loop of string with two loose ends. There was also one that looked like a letter
M
with a downward-pointing arrow.

He wanted to show Alexander and Frances. But Alexander was busy playing catch with Owney, tossing one of the oranges back and forth. “Hey,” Jack said, trying to wave Alexander over between tosses.

“What?” Alexander said. At that very same moment, Owney threw the orange back. It sailed past Alexander before he had a chance to catch it. It bounced once at the door to the cargo hold, then dropped down over the short ladder to the deck.

“Get it quick!” Dutch said. “Nobody should know we're in here!”

Jack leapt down the ladder with the others close behind. He spotted the orange rolling along the deck and scrambled to retrieve it. By the time he reached it, though, something had stopped its rolling. Or rather,
someone
. Someone with fine black shoes—gentleman's shoes—that were so clean they gleamed.

Jack felt a chill. He had a feeling he knew whose shoes these were. He looked up and saw that he'd guessed correctly.

Because he was looking right into the furious face of Mr. Edwin Adolphius.