Shadows on the Train (19 page)

Talbot took me by the elbow and swung me round. “You better think about what happens when Madge and Jack, having turned sixty-five, finally end their smooch,” he advised, not unkindly. “They may start pondering just how this LaFlamme mix-up happened.”

Pantelli nodded, his eyes gleaming. “Yeah, Di. Bustin' into Jack's e-mail,” he said and drew a finger across his throat.

But I wasn't feeling too worried. True, Madge and Jack would be furious. They'd get over it, though. That was the thing about having loved ones. About belonging. You knew, no matter what, that they accepted you.

I checked on the smoochers. Note that I said I wasn't feeling
too
worried. Slightly concerned, yes.

They were still smooching. Phew! Off to one side, Toronto police officers were escorting Mrs. Chewbley off the train. In spite of being handcuffed, she nevertheless managed to transfer two chocolate creams from her pocket up to her mouth. Cheeks bulging, Mrs. Chewbley raised her handcuffed wrists and flapped her hands at me in a wave. And shrugged. So ends my chase for the king, the piano teacher seemed to be saying.

I can't say I liked Mrs. Chewbley, not with all the dangerous cups of tea she'd gone around plying people with. But at least, as a villain, she was a good sport.

I had a feeling her son wasn't going to be. Head Conductor Wiggins had heard from the police about Freddy. Two broken legs, a broken arm and a fractured hip, and Freddy had
still
been crawling into the cornfield after the envelope. In the prison ambulance, he'd fumed about “that little pipsqueak” and said some other words Mr. Wiggins refused to tell me.

I squinted. Past Mrs. Chewbley and the police, Ryan and his mom were heading out of the station. “Ryan!” I shouted—and paused. I wanted to yell something encouraging, but what? He had such challenges ahead of him that any of the usual messages—good on ya; all the best, huh?—I could fling at him would sound silly. Besides, he was too smart a kid for those.

Ryan couldn't tell where I was shouting from. He glanced left, right and even up.

“End-of-smooch alert,” Talbot advised.

Jack and Madge were marching toward me with quickening steps. They kept glancing at each other, then at me, and each time their faces grew more thunderous. I thought I knew how Charles the Second had felt, waiting in that tree for the Roundheads.

Then my mind went to a different king. All at once I had an idea for what to tell Ryan.

“I'm going to make one of my trademark speedy exits,” I informed Talbot and Pantelli.

“But I was looking forward to this,” Pantelli objected.

Talbot laughed. “Don't crash into anything,” he told me.

I zoomed past the station's limestone columns to catch up to Ryan and his mom. I had to keep looking up for Ryan's mother because most of the people around me were taller than I was. (Like, sigh, what else was new?)

“Oh, that girl's admiring the vaulted ceiling,” a woman remarked, riffling through her guidebook. “Soft gold tiles—so majestic! Edward the Eighth officially opened it. ‘You build your stations like we build our cathedrals,' he remarked. Such a witty king. Always knew the right thing to say…Ooo, here's a photo of him. So handsome. So graceful.”

Not that king
, I thought.
Not that one
.

Distracted by the woman, I forgot Talbot's warning and collided with someone. The someone lost his footing momentarily, then bounced back.

“Beanstalk!” I exclaimed as the assistant head conductor curved over me in a disapproving
C
. “Sorry, I mean Assistant Head Conductor, er—”

“
Head
conductor is what you mean,” Beanstalk smirked, straightening himself. “With Mr. Wiggins's abrupt retirement, I've been promoted. And though Gold-and-Blue policy is to value all passengers highly, I must say, Miss Galloway, that I am not sorry to see the last of you.” He wagged a long finger at me. “One disturbance after another! I—”

“But we might see each other again,” I said cheerfully. “Madge, Pantelli, Talbot and I are heading
back
to Vancouver by train too.”

Beanstalk's forefinger flopped. His already naturally pale face blanched even more.

“Y'know,” I mused, starting to walk away, “up to now I've always had problems with authority figures like you, Beanstalk. Maybe this time will be different. I'm going to make a real effort.”

There was some sort of mangled cry behind me, but I couldn't pay attention to it. Ryan and his mom were leaving the station; Mrs. Zanatta was waving down a cab…

“Now what's so life-and-death, Dinah?” Mrs. Zanatta asked, trying not to smile. “Or maybe I should say, what
isn't
life-and-death with you?”

We were at the curb outside the station, on Front Street West. Tall office buildings jutted up around us like asparagus spears, blotting out the sky. Cars stuck in jams honked. Masses of anxious-faced people wedged together in packs hurried by on the sidewalk. Toronto seemed at once grayer than Vancouver and more exciting.

Ryan was about to hurry on to the rest of his life too—and he had as much right to the feeling of belonging as I did, or anyone else.

His new doctor would help. But nothing would be easy. It never was, for anyone. Sometimes you got through the rough parts by singing and sometimes by just being too dang stubborn to give in to them. Or sometimes you didn't get through them and drank yourself silly and wrapped your car around a tree. And that was it. Kaput.

I had a story for Ryan that might make a difference to him. You never knew.

I sat down on the sidewalk. I was still wondering how to word what I had to say. It was occurring to me, for one thing, that Jonathan was wrong about shadows. You shouldn't try to banish the past, because it was part of you. My dad, his dying. Like it or not, I wouldn't be Dinah Galloway without those.

And I wouldn't want to be. When I sang, I was singing into the shadows as well as everywhere else. Maybe I'd tell Jonathan this one day.

But with Ryan I had to keep it simple.

Sing
? Ryan mouthed.

“Not this time. Another time, though. Soon,” I promised and laced my fingers through his. “Remember how Talbot told us that everyone was searching for a stamp? That on this stamp was a glamorous king, Edward the Eighth, who was smooth and clever?”

Ryan nodded.

“Right on. Well, Edward couldn't have cared too much about keeping his crown because he gave it up. And everyone was sorry. It was kind of like having a fun TV personality go into retirement.”

I shoved my glasses up my nose, the better to gaze firmly through them at Ryan. This next part was the important one.

“So then Edward's younger brother George became king. George the Sixth. A lot of people thought George would be an embarrassment because he was shy and awkward, and,” I paused for emphasis, “he stuttered.”

Ryan's mouth formed a long
O
.

“Yup,” I said. “A king who stuttered. And you know what?
He was the best king ever
. In spite of his stutter, he forced himself to give wonderful, inspiring speeches on the radio that got his country through the horrible Second World War. George the Sixth was courageous too. He and his family stayed on in London all the time the enemy was dropping bombs on the city. He refused to leave.

“Maybe George the Sixth wasn't smooth-talking,” I finished. “But smooth doesn't count for a lot when things go wrong. It's what's here,” I pounded my heart, “that's important.”

Ryan's
O
was lake-sized now. “A st-stutterer?” he blurted. Then the
O
spread into a wide smile. He exclaimed, without stuttering at all, “That's Dinah-mite!”

Mrs. Zanatta was mopping at her eyes with a tissue. These grown-ups! To distract Ryan, our architect-in-the-making, from her silliness, I pointed up to the CN Tower. Even past these tall, spear-like buildings you could see it.

“Wow,” Ryan said of the Tower, which stretched on and on, like the possibilities everyone should have.

Other books in the Dinah Galloway series

The Spy in the Alley
The Man in the Moonstone
The Mask on the Cruise Ship
The Summer of the Spotted Owl

Visit
www.orcabook.com
for more information
on these books.