Wanderville (12 page)

M
ornings happened at night in this place. It was still dark when they made you get up and work. Maybe it would get better.

Harold wasn't afraid of the dark, so he was okay. It was just that when he had to line up with the other kids, waiting and silent in the gnawing cold, he felt a different kind of scared. He felt it from the others.

He knew some of them from the train—there was Lorenzo and the boy with the knit cap and a girl who was Frances's age and other familiar kids. There were faces he didn't know, too—had they come on other trains? Wherever they'd arrived from, they all had to go out and drag heavy things along the ground to make rows in the dirt. He hoped they didn't have to do that
every
day. In fact, he was sure there would be a day here when they would all play quietly just like Sundays at the orphanage. And the orphanage hadn't been bad, either, had it? He was tired, so he couldn't remember.

He wondered where the lady from the train was. The nice one who had given him lemonade yesterday.

“Are you lost?” she'd asked him. “Where did you come from?”

Harold had kept his mouth shut because the sheriff was right there, and of course he couldn't say he was from Wanderville. But the nice lady kept asking questions.

“Do you live with the Pratcherds?” she'd asked.

That was when Harold slipped up and opened his mouth. “You mean, on the ranch?” he said. As soon as he'd spoken, he knew it was a mistake.

“Another runaway!” the sheriff had said.

And that was how Harold wound up in the back of the big black wagon. Now he was at the ranch, the place with the hundred children all being made to work and work and work.

But maybe they were almost done with all the work.

Harold didn't know if there were truly a
hundred
children
.
There were about a dozen from his train, and then there were kids who had been here longer, and they were hard to count because they kept their heads down and you couldn't tell them apart. Sometimes, Harold thought, it was like some kids weren't even there—their clothes were the same color as the dirt outside, and they were like ghosts.

He wondered how long you had to be here before you became like a ghost.

The bunkhouse was long and narrow like a train car, except with only a couple of windows, and instead of benches there were beds built against the walls, with straw pallets. Each bed had only a single scratchy blanket that you had to fold in the morning, or else. Harold was pretty sure that Rutherford Pratcherd was in charge of the
or else
part. The sun had come up over the field, but Harold and the other kids had to keep working. And when the day got warmer, they kept working still, dragging the tillers to make row after row and picking out stones from the dirt.

“What do they grow here?” Harold asked Lorenzo, who worked next to him with a rake.

“Sugar beets,” Lorenzo whispered. “They look like dirt clods. We dig them up and then they get sent off to be made into sugar.”

Harold's eyes widened. “Real sugar? How does it taste?”

Lorenzo shook his head. “Who knows? All they ever give us to eat are potatoes. Boiled potatoes and bread.”

Harold was sure they'd get to have some of the sugar once all the work was done. He was just about to say so when a dull clang came from a bell in the bunkhouse yard. Lorenzo dropped his rake and ran over to the yard. Harold followed. At first he hoped it was time for dinner, but then he saw that the other children were only lining up for a chance to drink from a dipper at a water barrel.

Next to the barrel stood a man, a great big hulking man who leaned on a cane. He had the same lantern jaw as Rutherford, and Harold wondered if they were related. He found out soon enough.

“Don't you think you ought to thank Mr. Pratcherd here for those extra drinks of water you took?” Rutherford bellowed.
“Don't you?”

The line in front of Harold fell apart as the other kids stepped back in fear. Harold stepped back, too. Who was he yelling at?

“You hare-lipped chump,” Rutherford went on, and suddenly Harold could see who the unlucky kid was:
Quentin
, the bully from the train. Now he was the one being pushed around. He was backing away from Rutherford, stammering apologies.

“Honest, I'm sorry,” Quentin said, his eyes desperate, searching the faces of the other kids, who were silent.

Mr. Pratcherd held out his cane. Rutherford grabbed it, and in one swift motion he turned and struck Quentin across the legs. Quentin stumbled and fell on his face. “Augh!”

He began to get up, but Rutherford planted a foot in his side and shoved him over hard, then kicked him twice. “Apology accepted,” Rutherford said, a sneer in his voice. He handed the cane back to Mr. Pratcherd.

“Got to teach these ungrateful kids,” Mr. Pratcherd said. Then the two of them walked off across the yard toward a big house in the distance, a fancy one with a tower.

Lorenzo and one of the other boys from the train hurried over to the water barrel and grabbed the dipper. “Rutherford's going to send us back into the fields,” Lorenzo said. “Get a drink, quick.”

But Harold didn't move a step, because he couldn't take his eyes off Quentin, who'd managed to drag himself to the side of the bunkhouse. Quentin slouched against the wall and tried to stanch his bloody nose with his dirty shirt cuff. Harold had been terrified of Quentin just a few days ago, but it was nothing compared with what he felt now. That different kind of scared.

Nobody was helping Quentin, but someone should, Harold thought. Maybe the nice lady. Didn't she live around here?

“Where is the lady from the train?” Harold asked the boys at the water barrel.

“Who?” Lorenzo asked. “What lady?”

“The one who had lemonade. The nice one.”

The boys just stared at Harold. Lorenzo let out a short laugh that sounded more like a sigh.

“What are you talking about?” the other boy said. “There isn't anyone in this place who's
nice
to us.”

W
hitmore Mercantile was usually the first store on Front Street to open on weekdays. Mr. Conklin, the proprietor, swept the store floors first thing in the morning instead of at closing time in order to clean up any sugar or oats or cornmeal scattered in the night by vermin.
Better rats and mice than those thieving kids
, he thought.

As he stepped out onto the front porch and continued sweeping, the windows began to rattle. It was just after nine in the morning, and there was a train due, its hollow whistle sounding in the distance. Mr. Conklin looked up and glanced across the street at the depot. Was there someone on the platform? He thought he'd seen movement out of the corner of his eye, but the depot was deserted.

He might have gotten a closer look had it not been for the train, which pulled in just then in a tumult of smoke and noise and slid to a stop. The town seemed to wake up with the train's arrival. A few vehicles were now making their way along Front Street—the postmaster, a livery coach, the Pratcherd wagon. The mercantile would have customers soon. Mr. Conklin finished sweeping and went inside.

The train slid away, leaving three figures on the platform: a girl and two boys around the ages of eleven or twelve. Nobody seemed to notice them.

“Look around,” Jack whispered to Frances and Alexander. “Act like we just got off the train.”

“I'm acting as natural as I can,” Frances said.

So far, Jack's plan had gotten them into town unnoticed. That had been Step One. The three of them had set out at the first light of morning. They'd made their way to Whitmore by crossing the prairie instead of following the creek, since Jack suspected the sheriff would be looking for them in the woods where he'd chased them before. When they reached the depot, they hid nearby and waited. The commotion of the morning train had been a perfect distraction, letting them slip into town in plain sight.

It was all going smoothly enough. Alexander, though, kept glancing around in every direction as they crossed Front Street and found the alley.

Suddenly he stopped. “I'll be back,” he told Jack and Frances. He turned sharply and disappeared down one of the other side streets.

“Wait!” Jack whispered after him.

Frances tugged Jack's arm. “But it's better if the three of us aren't seen walking together, right? Now it's just two of us out here.”

“I suppose,” Jack said. He kept walking and tried to breathe normally. “Let's just go to the waiting place.” They'd decided—no,
he'd
decided—to hide out in the empty stable behind Second Street until it was time for action, for Step Two. It had seemed simple enough the night before, back in Wanderville, when Jack told the others his plan. Now, though, he was so anxious he could almost hear his own heartbeat in his ears. It kept pounding as he found the stable and darted inside behind Frances.

Jack's eyes strained to adjust to the dark. One of the horse stalls appeared to be occupied, but otherwise the stable was just as they'd left it three days ago.

Frances was tiptoeing over to the stall. “Hello?” she said.

“Are you talking to a
horse
?”
Jack said.

“Of
course
,” said the horse.

“Augh!” said Jack.

“Gaah!” said Frances.

But it wasn't a horse; it was Alexander. He came out of the stall holding two big loaves of bread.

“You scared us half to death!” Frances said. “Why did you disappear like that?”

“I figured I'd stop by the bakery to liberate some bread that we could eat while we were waiting for Step Two,” Alexander said. He tore off hunks of bread and handed them to Frances and Jack. “I assumed it'll be a while.”

“I wouldn't be so sure,” Jack said. He nodded in the direction of the window. “I think Step Two just stepped out.”

They looked out and saw Rutherford Pratcherd across the street, pacing back and forth along the wooden sidewalk in a pair of new boots. He paused to look at his reflection in a store window.

Alexander chuckled. “Are you ready, Frances?”

Jack turned to grin at Frances. But she was already nearly out the stable door.

“Don't forget to drop the button,” she said over her shoulder. “If you don't, I won't know that you've managed to get inside the wagon.” A moment later she was crossing Front Street, straightening the hat she had tied under her chin with a worn ribbon. “And you'd better be quick, too!”

“Excuse me, sir,” Frances called out. “Where might I find Tenth Street?”

Rutherford Pratcherd stopped pacing and looked up from his boots. “You won't find it,” he said. “The town only goes up to Seventh Street.”

“Well . . .” Frances wanted to smack herself. It was one thing to ask for directions in New York. It was another thing to do it in a tiny Kansas town. “Well, of
course.
I was simply asking where I
might
find Tenth Street. Because . . . oh my goodness, look how your boots are
shining.
Are they
new
?”

Frances was trying her best to smile, to talk like Miss DeHaven when she wasn't being cruel, and to keep from looking over at the Pratcherds' black wagon, which stood waiting down the street. “I mean,” she continued, “they look so fine and . . .
clean
.”

“They sure are new,” said Rutherford. He smiled and showed a row of teeth stained with tobacco. “Pleased to meet you. Uh, my name's Ford. Ford Pratcherd.”

“Ford,” Frances repeated.
Ford?
“What an exquisite name.” She choked on a laugh and hoped Rutherford would think it was a coquettish giggle. “My name is . . . Amaryllis Vanderbilt.”

Rutherford's eyes widened. “Vanderbilt? Any relation to those rich railroad folks?”

“Oh, they're cousins,” she said distractedly as she walked up the sidewalk toward the wagon, peering at the ground.

“What are you looking for?” Rutherford asked.

“A button from one of my shoes,” Frances said, lying. “I think I lost it somewhere around here.”

“How long are you in town for, Miss Vanderbilt?” Rutherford was following her. “Might you have a calling card?”

Frances's mind raced as she tried to think of answers while scanning the ground for the button Jack was supposed to drop. “Why, I'll just be a few . . . I haven't any cards. . . . I . . . I
found it
!” There it was, the button, lying near the back wheel of the wagon. She grabbed it and straightened up. “Thank goodness,” she said. “I'd better go get this sewn back on!”

Rutherford smirked. “You'd better. Ain't proper for a gal to lose buttons.”

Frances's face was hot.
It's not proper to steal my little brother
,
she thought with rage. But all she said was “It was
lovely
to meet you,
Ford
.”
She knew that Jack and Alexander were just a few feet away in the wagon, and she hoped they wouldn't start snickering.

“Likewise,” Rutherford said as he climbed up to the buckboard of the wagon. He tipped his hat at Frances and flicked the reins, and then the wagon started off.

Jack peered out the back window of the wagon. He could see Frances back on the wooden sidewalk. She stood there for a moment before she pulled her coat around her shoulders and hurried away.

He nodded toward Alexander to silently indicate everything was going smoothly. They'd been relieved to find the back of the wagon empty when they crept inside. Their plan would be hard enough without having a passel of scared new arrivals from the orphan train to contend with.

Jack caught one last glimpse of Frances as she headed toward the alley. How did it feel to have to go back into the woods to wait for your brother? What if after all that waiting there was nothing? Then it would be just like when he lost Daniel, that awful falling feeling.
I won't let that happen, Frances
, he thought.

The wagon turned a corner, and then they were on a country road.

Alexander nudged him, his expression grim. “It's the road to the ranch,” he whispered.