Escape to the World's Fair (3 page)

T
OO GOOD TO BE TRUE?

J
ack was too stunned to say anything for a moment. Judging from the long silence, everyone else was, too.

The first person to speak was Frances.

“Oh, we're
going,
all right,” she said, opening the car door on her side and jumping to the ground. “We're going to walk the rest of the way to Hannibal, thank you very much.”

“Wait!” Zogby replied. “Please, I can explain . . .”

Frances shook her head. “We're not getting into some ridiculous scheme.” She tugged Harold's sleeve, then Eli's. “Come on, everyone.”

“
Wait!
” Jack blurted out. He hadn't planned on speaking up; it had just happened. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Alexander glaring at him, his hand on the latch of the car door. Alexander had been just about to get out.

“I mean,” Jack went on, “let's hear what he has to say.”

Zogby spoke up. “I can certainly elaborate further. See, I have some business at the Fair that I wish I could attend to, but . . . I can't. It's better if I don't go.”

Jack wondered why, but there was something sort of strange in Zogby's eyes that made him decide it was better not to ask.

But Alexander narrowed his eyes. “Your business sounds awfully secret.”

“Which is exactly why you're just the right people to go in my stead. You're kids—nobody will notice you. And you're—” Zogby seemed to search for the right words. “Well, I get the sense that you're on your own, yes?”

He looked right at Jack, who nodded
yes.

“You look smart, the whole lot of you. I bet you've had to get through some tough times.”

He's got that right,
Jack thought.

“This
business
you're in,” Frances said, a little sarcastically. “Is it against the law?”

“Not any—” Zogby began, then corrected himself. “Not
at all,
I mean.”

Jack wanted to believe him, and he was pretty sure Eli did, too. But he glanced over at Frances and Alexander, who were exchanging wary looks with each other. Clearly they didn't trust Zogby one bit.

“Look,” Zogby said. “All you have to do is deliver
this
for me.” He reached into his striped suit-coat jacket and pulled out an object wrapped in a silk handkerchief. He held it out as he uncovered it. At the first glimpse of something shiny they all leaned in for a closer look. Even Frances had come back to the side of the car to take a peek.

Jack saw metal—dull gold, and a glinting chain. The thing was a medallion of some kind, covered with elaborate sculpted designs. Zogby turned it over so they all could see both sides. On one side was a bird—a hawk or a falcon of some kind—with outstretched wings, and on the other, an ox with a crown on its head.

“
Whoa,
” Jack said under his breath.

The medallion was big enough to cover Zogby's palm, and there was some kind of writing all along the edge. Not writing, Jack suddenly realized—
symbols.

Eli drew back suddenly. “What
is
that thing?” To Jack it seemed like he practically jumped.

“
What
it is isn't important,” Zogby told him. “But I promise it won't bite. You can hold it if you like.” He held out the medallion to Eli, but the boy shook his head
no
.

Jack took it instead. It felt heavy in his hand. Expensive.

Frances reached out to hold it, too. “Is it stolen?”

“I promise you it is not,” Zogby replied. “But it is very valuable, and my . . . my associate will give you a spectacular reward for bringing it to the Fair.”

“Hmm,” Frances said, weighing the medallion in her hand. Harold peered over her arm at the thing but would not touch it. Alexander kept his hands in his pockets.

It seemed to Jack that whatever the thing was, it was important. It made him think of the gold watch that his brother, Daniel, had once pointed out to him in the window at Segal's on New Chambers Street. He'd been saving his wages to buy it. “Imagine having a treasure like that in your vest,” Daniel had said. “Bet it makes you really feel like you're someone.”

Zogby's voice brought Jack back to the present.

“Well?” he asked. “Can I count on you all to deliver this safely to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, otherwise known as the World's Fair, in St. Louis? It's a fine opportunity, if I say so myself.”

Jack looked over at Frances, then at Alexander, but it was hard to read their expressions.

Finally Alexander answered. “Er . . . could you give us a moment to discuss among ourselves?”

“Certainly,” replied Zogby. Then he took the medallion back from Frances and tucked it back in his jacket. “I'll be over here.” He opened his door, stepped down from the car, and walked off a few yards to wait.

Alexander lowered his voice to a whisper. “What do you think of this fellow's idea?” he asked everyone.

“It's some kind of a scheme,” Frances said. “It sounds awfully fishy.
All we have to do
is go to the
World's Fair
? I don't believe it. I think we should just hit the road.”

Alexander seemed to agree. “It sounds too good to be true. There's got to be a catch. If carrying some geegaw to St. Louis is such a swell opportunity, why would he give it to a bunch of runaway kids? Why
us
?”

Jack looked out to the road, where dust still hung in the air from the motorcar. Zogby had crossed to the other side of the road to give Jack and the others more privacy, and now he waited patiently.

“Maybe Zogby was once like us,” Jack said, crouching down farther in the car seat so as not to be overheard. “Maybe he made some money for himself and just wants other folks to be able to enjoy the finer things in life.” Daniel had been like that—he'd always point out the fanciest buggies and motorcars on Broadway, promising that he'd buy one for the family someday. Jack was sure he would have, too, if he'd lived.

Alexander shrugged. “Eli, what do you think?”

“I don't like that gold thing,” Eli said. “I'm not going to carry something with a message on it in some crazy secret language that nobody but the devil can read.”

“What, you think it's a curse?” Jack asked.

“Don't know! And not knowing's good enough reason for me not to trust it,” Eli replied. “But . . .” He looked thoughtful. “If someone else here wants to carry that thing, I'll gladly go to the Fair.”

“Me, too!” Harold put in. “It sounds like the greatest place.”

“We're already heading someplace great,” Alexander said. “California!”

“But how are we supposed to get there with no money?” Jack argued. “Look, if Mr. Zogby is telling the truth about the reward for the medallion, then we'll continue on to California with some coins in our pockets.”

“And if Zogby is lying about the reward?” Frances whispered.

“It'll be the same thing,” Jack whispered back. “Except we'll just sell the medallion. It sure looks like it's worth something, doesn't it?”

“It does,” Frances admitted, though she was still frowning.

“Maybe we can get some odd jobs at the Fair, too,” Eli pointed out. “In fact, I heard some of my mama's cousins were looking to get work there.”

“Come on,” Jack said to Alexander and Frances. “Doesn't the St. Louis World's Fair sound a whole lot better than just walking down that road?”

Alexander sighed. “Yeah, I guess.” But he looked at Frances, as if he were waiting for her to decide.

“Say yes, Frannie?” Harold pleaded.

“
Fine,
” Frances said. “We'll go with Zogby.” She opened the door of the motorcar and climbed back in.

Jack couldn't stop the grin from spreading across his face. He stood up in the back seat. “Hey, Mr. Zogby!” he called, waving.

Just for a moment, as Zogby turned to face them, Jack almost thought it was his brother turning. He had nearly the same kind of dark, slicked-back hair, and he'd pushed his cap back the same way Daniel had done. If Jack needed a sign that this was the right decision—and maybe he did—this was it.

“We'll do it,” Jack said. “We'll go to the Fair!”

A
TICKET TO ST. LOUIS

A
nd just like that, they were back on the road in the motorcar. The noise and jostle of the engine seemed to match Frances's anxious, pounding heartbeat.
What are we doing?
she thought.
And why did Alexander leave it up to
me
?

“Excellent!” Zogby had exclaimed when Jack had told him that they'd travel to the Fair in his place. Then he'd reached into his jacket and pulled out a wad of bills. The sight of all that money had made Frances catch her breath. For a moment, all five of them had been too stunned to move as Zogby held out the cash. Finally Alexander had reached out and taken it.

“This is for your fare to St. Louis,” Zogby had explained. Then he'd counted out several half-dollar coins. “And these,” he had said, dropping the coins into Alexander's hand, “are to get into the Fair. I believe admission is fifty cents a person.”

“Thank you, sir,” Alexander had managed to say.

At that, Zogby had cranked the engine again for the drive to Hannibal. It was just a couple of miles away, and from there the five of them would journey on to St. Louis.

Now the car was slowing down; they'd passed a sign that said
HANN
IBAL TOWN LIMITS.

Zogby pulled over and stopped the car on a quiet street at what appeared to be the edge of town. He pointed to an old clapboard hotel on the corner. “Take a right at the Sawyer Inn and then head down the hill until the street ends. You'll see the ticket office right there.”

This is all happening so fast,
Frances thought as she and her friends climbed out of the car. “Wait, Mr. Zogby,” she said, trying to keep her voice from sounding too anxious. “Aren't we supposed to meet someone at the Fair? To give them that gold medal for you?” She pulled out her
Third Eclectic Reader
from her jacket pocket and fished her pencil out of her stocking. “Can you write down their name in here?” she asked, handing him her book.

Zogby nodded and took the pencil. It took a moment for him to find a blank spot—Frances used all the empty spots inside her old schoolbook to make notes of anything she wanted to remember—but then he scrawled something in the corner of the back flyleaf. He gave the book and pencil back to Frances. She was just about to look inside when he snapped his fingers.

“Why, I almost forgot the most important thing!” he said. “Of course I must give you
this
!”

Zogby drew the medallion from his pocket and unwrapped it. He rubbed the edge with his thumb and gathered up the chain. Just before he handed it over, he hesitated briefly; in those few moments Frances thought he looked a little sad, or even sorry about something. But then he wrapped the handkerchief around the medallion and pressed it into Jack's hand.

“Be careful with it,” he said.

Jack nodded and tucked the medallion into his hip pocket. Eli, standing right next to him, looked a little relieved when the medallion was put away.

Zogby checked his watch and looked around. “I should really be going. They won't begin boarding for St. Louis for another hour, so you needn't hurry.”

But hurrying seemed to be exactly what Zogby himself was doing. He rushed around the side of the motorcar to work the engine crank. “You kids be careful, too,” he called.

What does
that
mean?
Frances thought. By then the car's motor had started up and Zogby was climbing back into the car.

Frances suddenly remembered the book in her hand. She opened it to see what Zogby had written. There it was, in the corner—a name:
Mr. C. McGee.

“Wait!” Frances called, but she had to raise her voice over the noise of the engine. “WAIT!”

“WHAT?” Zogby called back.

“WHERE CAN WE FIND MR. McGEE AT THE FAIR?”

Zogby shook his head. “IT'S
MOSES
McGEE,” he shouted. Or at least that's what it sounded like to Frances. “MOSES McGEE AT THE TEMPLE OF PROMISES!”

“The Temple of . . . THE TEMPLE OF PROMISES?”
What kind of place is that?

The young man nodded. “YEP!”

Frances had no idea what
that
meant either. “Moses McGee at the Temple of Promises.” It sounded odd, but it was easy enough to remember.

Zogby put the motorcar in gear. “SO LONG,” he called. “THANK YOU AND GOOD LUCK!” A cloud of fine dust rose as the young man steered the car into a quick half circle and then drove off in the same direction he'd come in. He turned a corner and was gone.

Jack turned to Frances. “I could've sworn he said the fellow's name was
Mice
McGee,” he said. “Not Moses.”

Eli shrugged. “Nah, it sounded like ‘Moses' to me,” he said. “Just like my pop's name.”

Frances hadn't been certain about the name either, but Eli sounded sure enough. Yet something still didn't seem right about all this. “What about the ‘Temple of Promises'?” she asked. “If you ask me, that sounded even weirder.”

Alexander spoke up. “But didn't you hear him talking about all the bizarre things at the Fair? Ostrich farms, golden chariots . . .”

“I suppose you're right,” Frances said. Nonetheless, she couldn't stop thinking that
everything
was bizarre right now, not just the Fair. After all, one moment they'd been walking alongside some railroad tracks, and now here they were on their way to St. Louis with at least twenty dollars in their pockets.

Jack and Eli and Alexander started to head down the street Zogby had pointed out, but it wasn't until Harold tugged on her sleeve that Frances realized she hadn't moved.

“Aren't you coming, Frances?” he asked.

“Yes, but . . .” She started walking. “Doesn't anyone else think that everything that just happened was . . . was really
strange
?”

Jack looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean this fellow was simply sitting there in his fancy motorcar in the middle of nowhere! Not even on the road! What was he doing, anyway? And what was he planning on doing before we showed up?”

“Are you saying you think he was up to no good or something?” Eli asked.

“I don't know!” Frances sighed. “It seems a little fishy, that's all. And we're expected to take him at his word and get on a train to—”

“A train!” Harold interrupted, his face crumpling up with worry. “I thought we weren't going to get on another train, Frannie!”

Frances turned to Jack and Eli. “Well, we
weren't,
until we met this Zogby character and all agreed to this half-baked plan. And Harold's right. When we left the Careys' we decided it was too risky to take a train. Who knows—Miss DeHaven might have folks on all the trains looking for us by now.”

She got a sick feeling whenever she thought about the cruel woman from the Society for Children's Aid and Relief. Miss Lillian DeHaven had been the chaperone on the orphan train she and Harold and Jack had taken. But she was also the sister of Mrs. Pratcherd, and she'd seen to it that the orphan train children were sent to the Pratcherd Ranch to work long days in the fields.

“Isn't that Miss DeHaven the one who came out to Reverend Carey's farm to check on you?” Eli asked.

“That was her, all right,” Jack said. “She
said
she was making sure we were all right. But she had other plans for us. . . .”

“We'd caught her talking about them,” Frances continued. She remembered the sound of Miss DeHaven's beautiful but cold voice that day in the Kansas City depot. Frances herself had overheard her talking to the station matron. “She said she was going to send us to a man named Edwin Adolphius, who runs an industrial school. But . . . it didn't sound like a school at all. It sounded like a factory.”

“Edwin Adolphius,” Eli repeated the name slowly. “He sounds important. But sometimes, important folks are the worst kind of folks.”

“That's for sure,” Alexander muttered. “Well, we'll just have to stay on the lookout when we're on the train.”

“Speaking of the train, do you suppose it runs along the river?” Jack asked, pointing down the street ahead of them.

They were walking the slope of a gentle hill that Frances now realized was the bank of a very big river. It was in fact the biggest river she'd seen since the Hudson River in New York. It was a great swath of bright silver that glinted under the midday sun.

“The Mississippi,” she whispered.

They had come to the bottom of the hill now, where they crossed one more street. Frances studied the row of brick buildings lined up along the riverbank. “I don't see the depot, do you?” she asked the others.

“Zogby mentioned something about a ticket office,” Jack said.

Sure enough, there was a sign that said
TICKETS
on a tiny little structure that was set back behind the other buildings, with a wooden sidewalk and a flight of steps leading up to it.

Alexander was the first to reach the top of the stairs, and as he did, Frances heard him say, “
Whoa!
Look at this!” She ran up the last few steps to see for herself.

They were at the very edge of the river now. And there, along the stretch of bank that had been hidden from view by the buildings, was a huge, white boat. It was bigger than the Staten Island Ferry and grander, too, with three upper decks trimmed with lacy woodwork. It looked to Frances like the fancy layer cakes she'd seen in bakery windows. The two tall chimney pipes trailed smoke as the boat drew nearer to the bank. Frances realized it was heading for the dock near them.

“Are we going on a
ship
?” Harold asked.

“It's a steamboat!” Eli said. “A good old Mississippi steamboat!”

Jack let out a low whistle. “Three decks! That's really something!”

Painted along the side of the boat were the words
Addie Dauphin.
Frances supposed it was the name of the steamboat—it sounded like it was named after someone fun and adventurous, and for a moment she wished she knew this girl, whoever she was. As Frances stared out across the glittering water at the boat, she felt a thrill unlike any she had felt in days. She was finally glad again to be on the road.
Well, not exactly the road,
she thought.
This time it's the river.

“Guess what, Harold?” she told her little brother. “Looks like we won't be going on a train after all.”