Escape to the World's Fair (14 page)

W
HAT MISS DEHAVEN DID

“D
on't
worry,
children,” Miss DeHaven said. “We wouldn't
dare
leave without you.”

She began to walk toward them slowly and deliberately, then nudged the two guards, who joined her. “In fact, we've been
waiting
for you this whole time,” she continued.

With each step of Miss DeHaven's approach, Frances took a step of her own in the opposite direction, pulling Harold along with her. Jack and Alexander did the same thing, each one faced with a guard.

“Just keep backing up,” Jack whispered. “Slowly.” Frances wanted nothing more than to turn around and run, but maybe Jack had a plan of some kind.

“I
do
hope you had a
delightful
visit here at the Exposition,” Miss DeHaven said. “Your friends here”—she nodded toward the car—“couldn't
resist
leaving their little hiding place to see the sights!”

Frances took another step back, then another, trying to keep Harold shielded behind her. Any moment it seemed Miss DeHaven or the guards might lunge at them, but still they didn't.

She
wants
us to run,
Frances realized. Running would cause a scene, attract more of the Jefferson Guards. But as long as they kept moving backward, each step took Miss DeHaven and the guards further from the motorcar where the older boys were being held.

She took another step back as the chaperone moved toward her.

“I
trust
you'll find the industrial school to be
quite
exciting,” Miss DeHaven said. “I
do
hope your young brother is willing to work
hard
!”

A cold prickling feeling swept all up and down Frances's arms and she froze in her place. She took a deep breath.

Miss DeHaven stepped forward. And forward again. Harold retreated a few more paces, but Frances stayed where she was.

She stayed rooted there until Miss DeHaven was right in front of her, looking her up and down the way she had back in New York, the day she'd come to the Howland Mission for Little Wanderers. She'd had no idea who Miss DeHaven was at the time, but Frances often thought about what she would have done if she had known.

Miss DeHaven took one more step.

Frances put her hands out and shoved her as hard as she could.

“Why—YOU!” Miss DeHaven screeched. She staggered backward a few steps on her heels. “You little hellion!”

Frances charged forward and pushed her again. Her eyes burned with hot tears, and the edges of her vision were blurry white. She sensed things happening beyond the white—there were shouts, and the noise of pounding feet—but all she wanted to do was shove and push and shove and shove.

Just then someone grabbed her arm and yanked her away.

“That was really something, Queenie!”

Dutch!
The older boys must have seen their chance to escape from the car!

Chicks and Finn and Owney had joined Jack and Alexander in their standoff with the two guards. The two sides glared at each other as if daring the other to make a move. As for Miss DeHaven, she had retreated several paces back and now hung limply on the arm of the chauffeur—though Frances didn't believe for a moment that she was truly feeling faint.

A quick pang of worry hit Frances just then. “Where's Harold?” she gasped. She turned and saw that he'd run back down the alley and was now standing with Eli and his cousin, who she supposed had come looking for them.

Pheee-eeeeee!
Someone was blowing a whistle down at the end of the alley.

Another Jefferson Guard had appeared. “
Order!
” he called, and everyone turned.

“Stand down, men,” he said to the two guards. “The reward for catching these kids has been cancelled.”

The two guards nodded. They shrugged at Jack, Alexander, and the four older boys, who relaxed their stances and breathed sighs of relief.

“What?” Miss DeHaven cried. “What's going on?”

The guard pointed to the motorcar. “Is this Mr. Edwin Adolphius's automobile?”

The chauffeur nodded as the guard approached him and Miss DeHaven.

Frances recognized the guard's curled mustache—he'd been with Mr. Adolphius earlier! He handed a note to the chauffeur, who read it, stunned.

“Give me that!” Miss DeHaven grabbed the note to take a look. After a moment she gasped. “
Arrested?
For
smuggling
?”

The guard nodded gravely and turned to the chauffeur. “Mr. Adolphius asked that his car be returned to the Southern Hotel.”

Miss DeHaven turned the note over, and when she saw the other side was blank she crumpled it and tossed it down. “Did he have any message for
me
?”

The guard and the chauffeur exchanged sheepish looks. “Er . . . no, ma'am.”

The color drained from Miss DeHaven's face. But then she seemed to compose herself, reaching up to fix her hat, which had gone askew when Frances had shoved her. “Very well,” she muttered.

Frances had been almost holding her breath ever since the guard blew his whistle. But now she met Jack and Alexander's questioning looks—Miss DeHaven couldn't do anything to them now, could she
?

“What are
you
filthy brats looking at?” she said, glancing over at Frances and Jack and the others. Miss DeHaven enjoyed being a bully as long as she could threaten to send children to Mr. Adolphius's factory or to the Pratcherd Ranch, but there wasn't much she could do all on her own.

“N-nothing,” Alexander said.

Mr. Adolphius's chauffeur dutifully walked over to the back of the car and began to work the crank. Miss DeHaven patted her hat again and looked all around—she seemed nervous, almost fidgety. She opened the small beaded pocketbook she carried, frowned, and then shut it again.

After about a dozen cranks the automobile engine sputtered and then began to chug, with a regular rhythm. Frances watched as the chauffeur detached the crank, then put it away in the trunk.

He looked up as he closed the trunk. “Hey!” he yelled.

Frances turned in time to see Miss DeHaven shut the car door. She'd climbed into the driver's seat.

“She's taking Mr. Adolphius's motorcar!” Jack exclaimed.

Miss DeHaven's face was grimly determined behind the wheel. The car shot forward, braked abruptly with a screech, then lurched into the alley.

Frances stood frozen in amazement until Alexander grabbed her arm and yanked her over to the edge of the alley with the others, safely out of the way.

“Stop!” the chauffeur bellowed as he lunged into the motorcar's path. But Miss DeHaven steered right around him. Then, with a few more lurches and a sharp
pop
! of the engine, she turned and drove out of the fairground gates.

The three Jefferson Guards grinned and scratched their heads.

“That was the darnedest thing I've ever seen!” said Finn.

“Was that car a Pierce-Arrow?” called Eli's cousin, Willie.

“Report that car stolen!” the chauffeur demanded of the Jefferson Guards.

Frances turned to Alexander and Jack. “Where do you suppose Miss DeHaven's headed?”

“Back to New York?” Alexander guessed.

Frances tried to read Jack's face at the mention of New York, but she couldn't. He gave only a wry smile.

“Maybe she's going someplace where she feels more at home,” he said.

• • •

“Is it true what that guard told us?” Chicks asked as they all walked back along the Pike to the Temple of Palmistry. “That there ain't no reward for catching us now?”

Jack nodded. “It's true, all right.” But his smile wasn't as glad as it could be, and Frances knew why.

“But, um, speaking of rewards,” Frances began. She knew the older boys got along with her the best, so she figured she ought to deliver the bad news. “We found the owner of the medallion. But . . . there wasn't a reward.”
Not money, anyway,
she thought to herself.

Finn's face fell. “Oh,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets.

Owney shrugged. “I figured.”

“That's just how it goes,” Dutch mumbled. “Stuff like that, it's always too good to be true.”

“The thing is, though,” Alexander said suddenly, “we
do
have something we can share with you.”

Frances and Jack exchanged confused looks.
What was he talking about?

Alexander reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of bills. Right away Frances realized what it was.

Jack did, too. “The steamboat fare!” he whispered. They'd forgotten all about it.

“Mr. Zogby gave this to us,” Alexander explained, “so that we could travel first-class on the
Addie Dauphin. . . .”

The memory came back to Frances. “But the man selling tickets told us to ride with the ‘river rats,' and so we kept the fare. Saved it.”

Dutch grinned. “River rats. That's us!”

“Anyway,” said Alexander, “Mr. Zogby gave that money to us because he wanted us to have a good journey. . . .”

“And we did! Thanks to you,” Jack told the older boys.

“You helped us escape!” Eli said.

Alexander looked around at his friends' faces. By now Frances had guessed what Alexander wanted to do, and she nodded, as if to say
Go ahead.
Jack nodded, too.

The older boys guessed, too. “You're sharing that money with us?” Finn said. “After everything that's happened?”

“Like when we took your medallion,” Dutch said. “Because we didn't trust you. I mean, we never trust anyone!”

“But do you trust us now?” Alexander asked.

Dutch didn't say anything for a moment or two. He exchanged glances with Finn and Chicks and Owney.

Finally they nodded their heads.
Yes.

“
Let's shake hands!” Dutch said, reaching out with his. When he got to Frances, he bowed. “Was a pleasure meeting you, Queenie.”

She laughed. “Likewise, Mr. Dutch.”

Owney spoke up. “I know what we should do with the money! The four of us can take a train somewheres. Someplace we can be on our own. And where we can start our
own
Wanderville.”

Alexander's face lit up. “That's . . . that's a fine idea! An
amazing
idea!”

“Can there be more than one Wanderville?” Harold asked.

Alexander reached over and tousled his red hair. “Sure,” he said. “Why not? It's a town that can go anyplace. Maybe that includes being in more than one place at a time.”

They all decided right then that it would be another law of Wanderville:
There can be as many Wandervilles as anyone ever needs.

M
EET ME IN ST. LOUIS, LOUIS

B
ack at the Temple of Palmistry, Madame Zee had brought them all sweets from the restaurant at the Streets of Cairo exhibit—pieces of Turkish delight, sweet cakes, and little round doughnuts dripping with honey.

All ten of them—Jack and his friends, Eli's cousin, and Dutch's gang—sat on the pillows and carpets in the front room, eating all they could and listening to Madame Zee's stories of fortune-telling and performing illusions.

“In fact,” she said. “I will tell my own fortune now. I foretell that my son Philander will read in the newspaper about Mr. Adolphius. And then he will send me a telegram!”

“I think that will happen!” Eli said. “I hope it's soon.”

Afterward, Madame Zee gave them all the leftovers wrapped in paper and wrote down her address in Frances's reader so that they could write to her one day.

Then they walked to the end of the Pike to the exit gate, where Dutch, Finn, Chicks, and Owney bade them goodbye. There were train tracks that ran outside the gate, and the older boys said they were going to follow them on foot for a while.

“Maybe we'll find a freight car and ride the rails, like you did,” Finn said.

“If you ever come across a couple of kids named Quentin and Lorenzo,” Jack told them, “say hello for us.” He didn't know if they would ever possibly meet, but he hoped so.

The older boys waved one last time through the gate, and then they were on their way.

The group turned to head toward the grander plazas and palaces of the Exposition where they'd walked the day before. But in front of the great monument, Eli suddenly stopped.

“Speaking of goodbyes . . .” he said.

Jack had a heavy feeling in his chest all of a sudden.

“I've been thinking about family a lot,” Eli said. “And then today when Madame Zee was talking about her son, I was thinking about family a lot more. And then . . .” He looked over at his cousin Willie. “I
found
my family! I think maybe it all means something, you know?”

“What's that?” Jack asked, though he was starting to understand what Eli meant.

“Well, being in Wanderville with all of you has made me realize how much I needed to have kinfolk. I never really had that with my pop. But
you
became my kin.”

There was a lump in Jack's throat, but it was all right. Harold sniffled a little, but he smiled, too.

“But now,” Eli continued, “I have a chance to be with my mama's family. Willie says there's room for me to live with my aunt and uncle, and they're good people.” Eli's cousin nodded. “Anyway. Whenever you head out for California, I just wanted to let you know I'm staying here.”

Frances reached out and squeezed Eli's hand. “I'm glad you have family.”

Jack nodded. “Me, too.”

Eli and Willie hung back by the lagoon bridge to talk about plans. Now it was just the four of them, walking along the plaza paths to get one last good look at the World's Fair. They walked quietly for a while, watching the Ferris wheel turn in the distance and listening to the music that floated from some of the palaces. There was a song about the Fair that Jack realized they'd been hearing all along, with a refrain that went:

Meet me in St. Louis, Louis,

Meet me at the Fair

Don't tell me the lights are shining

Anyplace but there . . .

“‘Anyplace but there,'” Frances sang softly. “But you know what the marvelous thing is? We're
here.
”

“In Wanderville?” Harold asked, looking around at all the palaces. “Is
this
Wanderville right now?”

Jack took everything in—the water cascades, the towers, the terraces. “I think so,” he said. “Not just because it all looks like a dream . . .”

“But because we're here together!” Alexander said. “Yes.” He turned all around, gazing up at the sky. Then he stopped turning when he faced Frances and leaned over and kissed her. Right on the mouth!

Harold clapped his hands over his own mouth to muffle a giggle. Jack felt himself grinning, too.

As for Frances, she stepped back and for a moment looked like she might punch Alexander. Then her face turned deep red.

“Give me the map,” she said, grabbing it from Alexander's hands. She pretended to study it, a crooked smile on her face. Jack really had to keep himself from laughing out loud then. After a few moments, Frances was sharing the map with Alexander, and her smile had grown bigger.

“Say!” Frances said as she began to look over the map in earnest. “All the states in the union have exhibits here! There's one for Oregon, and South Dakota . . . and one for California!” She put down the map. “What do you think, Jack? Should we go
there
?”

Jack knew what Frances was really asking him.

“And by ‘we,'” Alexander said, meeting Jack's eyes, “that means you too, you know. Where do you want to go? Back to New York?”

Jack knew what he wanted to tell them. He'd known, in fact, for a while, but he hadn't been able to say why he felt that way. But now, as he looked up to see the afternoon clouds drift by the palaces—not like a dream at all, he realized, but like Frances said, just
here—
he knew why.

“I want to go where my family is,” Jack said at last. “And by ‘family' . . .” He took a deep breath. “I mean all of you.”

It felt good to say it. All he'd ever wanted was to be there when someone truly needed him. Now he would be there for them.

Harold grinned. “I know.”

“Me, too,” said Alexander. He reached over and squeezed Frances's hand, and then she kept their hands clasped.

Frances's eyes were bright. “So we're going to California?” she asked. “The real California, I mean?”

Jack laughed. “We're going,” he said. “For real.”