Escape to the World's Fair (7 page)

B
OUND FOR THE FACTORY!

“A
re we in jail now?” Harold whispered.

“Of course not,” Frances whispered back. “There's no jail on a boat. This is just a pen for animals. See all the straw?”

Still, she had to admit that the tiny pen near the back of the steamboat seemed a lot like a jail cell, with iron bars that went all the way to the ceiling. It didn't help that the sun had set for the evening, and the lamp in the corridor threw all kinds of strange shadows.

Owney touched the bars grimly. “Bet they built it this way for the goats. So's they won't chew their way out.”

Frances sighed. Not even
goats
wanted to be in this place, which was dark and smelly, with only bales of straw for sitting. She sank down glumly next to Harold on one scratchy bale. The older boys, Eli, and Alexander had found spots on the floor, but Jack stood by the entrance. He glared out at Edwin Adolphius and the three mean-looking deckhands who had shoved them one by one into the pen.

“You have no right to keep us here!” Jack growled.

“I have
every
right!” Mr. Adolphius spat. “You kids are stowaways and thieves. You've trespassed on my property and stolen from me!”

“They're just oranges,” Frances muttered.

Mr. Adolphius narrowed his eyes. “
Them
oranges,” he said, “are meant to be
canned.
They're headed to my factory. Just like you and your grubby little friends,
girl.
”

The words hit Frances like a blow. “
What?
” she whispered. She turned to Alexander and saw his face had gone ashen again, just like it had when he'd come back from his excursion.

“What are you talking about?” Jack asked Mr. Adolphius, his voice becoming frantic.

Edwin Adolphius just smiled and cocked his head. “I think I hear your chaperone coming. I'll let
her
explain.”

Even though Frances recognized the hard, small footsteps that tapped their way along the boards of the deck, she still wasn't quite prepared to see Miss DeHaven's gloating face. Would she ever be?

“My
dear
children,” Miss DeHaven said. “I
do
hope your new accommodations are satisfactory.”

“What's going on?” Jack demanded.

“Why, you're the luckiest children to ever stow away on a steamboat! Despite all your
criminal
actions, Mr. Adolphius has graciously agreed to admit you to his industrial school, where you'll be joining
these
”
—
she motioned toward the four older boys—“most
fortunate
lads.” Dutch glowered at Miss DeHaven, but she just smirked and continued. “All of you are being given a
wonderful
opportunity! I'm
so
glad.”

Frances knew that Miss DeHaven liked to say things that were the opposite of what they really meant. But she had a feeling that for once Miss DeHaven really
was
glad that they were being sent to “industrial school.”

“It's not really a
school,
is it?” Frances said bitterly. “It's just an awful canning factory, isn't it?”

Miss DeHaven's face seemed to twitch a little at the question.
Doesn't she ever get tired of lying?
Frances thought.

But then the woman seemed to compose herself. She smiled sweetly and pointed to Alexander. “Of
course
it's a school. Why, your friend here heard me and Mr. Adolphius talking all about it when he stole up to the first-class deck! He heard all about how much I wanted to
find
you poor children again and send you someplace where you could
learn a lesson.
He knows how much I want to
help.”

Alexander, who had been silent this whole time, suddenly sprang to his feet and leaned against the bars next to Jack. “This isn't ‘help,' and
you know it
!” he screamed.

But Miss DeHaven was already walking away down the corridor, followed by Mr. Adolphius and the deckhands.

Frances felt her face get hot. She couldn't believe how Alexander had misled them. “You knew what Miss DeHaven was planning?” she asked him.

“And you
didn't tell us
?” Jack added.

Alexander sighed. “I didn't know how to tell you.”

“If we'd known, we would have laid low and stayed hidden all the way to St. Louis, instead of raiding a bunch of silly orange crates,” Jack said, pacing back and forth. “It's just like you to decide things for us without giving us any say.”

Jack and Alexander fought about this kind of thing all the time, Frances knew. But Jack was right. Alexander had been foolish, and selfish, too.

“I'm sorry,” Alexander said weakly. But Jack sat down next to Eli and turned his back. Frances put her arm around Harold and wouldn't look at Alexander.

She heard him sit down next to the older boys. “I suppose you're mad at me, too?” he asked them.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see Dutch shrugging. “Nope.”

“Really?”

“Ain't much worse for us than it's always been,” Owney said. He'd pulled a corner of one of his trouser patches loose, and he fiddled with it idly.

“Matter of fact, my brother and I were probably going to sleep in here anyway,” Chicks said. “Since it's got some straw and all.”

“Right . . . and when you consider that we got to eat our fill of oranges,” Finn added, “I have to say our lot in life has actually improved somewhat.”

“Yep,” Dutch agreed.

“Oh . . . okay,” Alexander said, sounding relieved. “That's good.”

Frances couldn't pretend to ignore all this anymore, and she turned to face Finn and the other older boys. “Are you just saying that to be nice?” she asked. “Because you don't have to be nice to Alexander.”

Finn shook his head. “It's all the same to us, I tell you. We were being sent off to work in some wretched factory before we met you. And now we're still being sent off to work in some wretched factory. Only difference is, we got oranges now.” He smiled a thin, sad smile.

“Too bad none of us are going to Wanderville,” Chicks said. “It sounded real nice.”

“But we can still go—” Alexander started to tell him, but Chicks just shook his head.

“Our mama still needs us to work to pay off her debts. Same with Dutch's pa, and Owney's folks.”

Frances had nearly forgotten that the boys' families owed money to Edwin Adolphius—or someone who worked for him.
That must be an awful feeling,
she thought. They were all quiet for a moment, and Frances wondered if Alexander was thinking the same thing she was. These boys didn't mind sleeping in filthy straw in a livestock pen. They were a lot worse off than she and Harold and her friends.

Finally Alexander spoke up.

“What if you could just pay those debts?” he asked the older boys. “Instead of having to work them off.”

“How?” Dutch muttered. “With what money?”

“Reward money,” Alexander said. “Like the money we're going to get at the World's Fair. If we can all escape from this boat, that is.”

Frances caught her breath in surprise and saw Jack and Eli turn around, intrigued. It was an interesting idea—all of them working together to escape the steamboat! And if they split the money, it would help these boys. Maybe she was wrong to think Alexander was so selfish.

“Hmm,” Finn said, looking at Alexander. “Tell us more.”

Jack took out the medallion to show everyone, and Alexander told them all about meeting Zogby and how he'd given them instructions to find a person named Mr. McGee at the World's Fair and deliver it to him for a reward.

Owney grinned. “Sounds easy enough.”

“I don't know,” Dutch said. “It seems a little fishy. Why do you trust this Zogby fellow? You'd only just met him. What if he's lying?”

Even though Frances hoped the older boys were willing to help them escape, she had to admit she'd had similar worries about Zogby. She still did, in fact.

“Look, if the fellow's lying, we still have the medallion,” Jack pointed out. “Which we can sell.”

The older boys appeared to think about this for a moment and exchanged looks with one another. Finally Finn said, “Okay, we'll escape with you. But we're still all going to Wanderville, too, right?”

“Of course!” Alexander exclaimed.

“Do you think we could go there first?” Owney asked.

“We're always there!” Harold said.

Owney dismissed him with a wave of his hand and turned back to Alexander. “I know you've gone there a lot, but maybe you could take us there
before
we go to the Fair. If ain't too much trouble, that is.”

“Yeah, those hot buttered rolls sound good,” Chicks said.

“Sure!” Alexander said, grinning. “It's never too much trouble to go.”

“Do you think I could work in that bakery?” Dutch asked. “You know, the one that sells those rolls. You suppose they pay good wages?”

Alexander nodded and grinned. “You can do whatever you want,” he said.

It was then that Frances realized that there was something strange about the conversation Alexander was having with the older boys. She looked over at Jack, who was also listening in, and she could tell by his expression that he knew it, too.

These boys don't know what Wanderville really is,
she realized. They still thought it was like other towns—real-life towns. She and Jack could tell by the way the boys talked about it, and by the questions they asked Alexander.

But Alexander couldn't tell.

H
OCUS-POCUS STUFF

J
ack guessed it was pretty late at night, judging from the way the ragtime piano music from the upper decks had given way to slower songs and the din of passenger voices had quieted down.

By now Harold was curled up fast asleep in the straw, and Eli had dozed off as well. Frances had her
Eclectic Third Reader
out and was trying her best to use the meager lamplight outside the animal pen to make out the words. Meanwhile, Alexander and the older boys were still excitedly talking over in the far corner. As for Jack, he had been lying in his corner for a while trying unsuccessfully to sleep. Finally, he crept over to where Frances sat with her book. She seemed grateful to have someone to talk with, too.

“It's too dark to read.” Frances sighed. “I've just been listening to Alexander and the boys talking. They're talking about the World's Fair now, but before that, they were talking about Wanderville, and . . .” She took a deep breath. “And, well, you heard how
that
went. It's clear those boys don't know the truth.”

Jack nodded in agreement. “The problem is that Alexander thinks they're just playing along and thinking up new things to build.”

“Should we tell them what Wanderville really is?”

“I don't know,” Jack said.

“I don't either,” Frances whispered. “Maybe not yet. Or not here. It would change everything.”

Over in the corner Alexander was smiling from ear to ear as Dutch dealt out playing cards to their group.

“I was so mad at him for not telling us about that conversation between Miss DeHaven and Mr. Adolphius.” Jack rubbed his cramped legs and sighed. “But I guess it was just too hard for him to tell us. And now that I see how happy he is, I feel the same way about telling those boys Wanderville isn't what they think it is. It would be too hard.”

Frances agreed. “He
is
happier now. And I'm glad he's getting along better with Finn and his gang.”

“Also, he's excited about going to the Fair,” Jack pointed out. “Remember when he didn't think it was a good idea for us to go?”

Frances's expression suddenly shifted. “Yeah, well . . .”

“What? You're not still suspicious of Mr. Zogby, are you?”

“I'm not the only one who is, Jack. Didn't you hear Dutch say it all seemed kind of fishy?” She turned to the flyleaf of her book where she kept her notes. “All Zogby wrote was a name, ‘Mr. C. McGee.' Then as he was driving off he said to look for ‘
Moses
McGee at the Temple of Promises.' Come on, the
Temple of Promises
? None of it makes any sense! And then there's that medallion thing you've got—”

Jack interrupted. “Look, there's something going on with that medallion, I tell you.” He pulled it out of his pocket and held it up in the light. “I didn't have a chance to tell anyone yet, but when we were over by the orange crates I saw something carved into the wood on a trunk over there.”

He found the symbols on the medallion—the one that looked like a loop with loose ends, and the one like a letter
M
with an arrow—and pointed them out to Frances. “See these? Somebody scratched those into the wood! I don't know what it means but it can't be coincidence, you know?”

Frances just squinted at him.

Jack sighed—of course she wouldn't understand.
He
didn't understand what the symbols meant either. He simply had a feeling that the medallion had come their way for a reason, and the feeling had gotten stronger once he'd seen the symbols scratched into the trunk. But he couldn't tell Frances any of this. She'd only laugh and say it was all “hocus-pocus stuff.”

So instead he said, “Look. I don't care what you think. Going after the reward for the medallion is the only choice we have! It's the only way we can keep Wanderville going and get us money for California.”

“Oh, what do
you
care?” Frances sputtered back. “
You're
the one who's planning on going back to New York!”

“I'm
not
planning! That was just an idea!” Jack protested. That wasn't quite true—he really had been thinking a lot lately about going back to New York—but he hadn't decided anything. “Honestly, I don't know what I'm going to do. All I know is that we have to escape
this
place first!”

“Yeah, that's for sure,” Frances muttered. She closed her book and crawled over to sleep near Harold. “Maybe that magic medallion of yours will tell you how. Good-night, Jack.”

• • •

Frances woke to the sound of the
Addie Dauphin
's bells clanging. She could glimpse a bit of blue sky and morning daylight over the stacks of cargo that surrounded the pen.

Everyone else was awake by now—though Frances wondered if Alexander and the older boys had even slept, since they were still yammering on, only now Jack and Eli had joined them and they were talking about escape plans.

“What if we jammed something in that big paddle wheel?” Chicks was saying. “Would that stop the boat?”

Oh, brother,
Frances thought. She was glad the older boys were going to escape with them, but she wondered if any of them were really smart enough to figure out how. She listened until Harold tugged her sleeve.

“Frannie, my nose isn't leaking anymore!”

Frances smiled and began to pick bits of straw out of her little brother's hair. “The oranges must have helped cure your cold.”

“I wish we could have more,” Harold whispered. “I'm hungry.”

But they hardly needed to wonder about food, because a few minutes later they heard the sound of boots in the corridor outside the pen, and one of the deckhands appeared with a big pot and two wooden spoons.

“The cook saved some mush for you brats,” he muttered. He tried to shove the pot between the bars of the pen, but it was too wide. Grumbling complaints under his breath, he unlocked the tall gate, stepped inside, and set the pot down with a
thunk.

Everyone was silent for a moment.

“Er . . . thank you,” Alexander said.

“Two hours 'til we dock in St. Louis,” the deckhand told them. “Then we'll come back down and take you to the factory.” He tossed out a rag from his pocket. “Make sure you clean that pot real good when you're done with it.”

Dutch nodded. “Got it.”

“And you're not getting out of this pen until we come get you, you hear? Especially
you
.” The deckhand turned to Eli, who was now standing right by the open gate. “I don't trust your kind. You weren't trying to slip out, were you?”

“No, sir!” Eli replied, and he sat back down.

The deckhand pulled the gate shut and locked it with a key he kept on a ring on his belt. Then he stomped off out of sight, the noise of his boots fading away.

The mush—some kind of cornmeal, Frances guessed—was cold and tasteless, but it wasn't hard to eat. The nine of them passed the pot around twice, and while they did, they continued to discuss their escape. From what Frances could tell, the only plans the older boys had come up with involved ways to subdue the deckhand.

“I can trip him,” Dutch said. “And then Finn, you can jump on his back and start clobbering him!”

“Shouldn't we start thinking about ways to actually get
off
the boat, too?” Alexander asked.

Owney ignored him. “Frances, maybe you'll have to be the one to clobber Miss DeHaven, since you're a girl.”

Frances almost choked. “What? Wait a minute—why do we have to clobber
anyone
?” She tried to imagine winding her arm up and punching Miss DeHaven in the nose. Fine—so it was fun to
imagine,
but it was another thing to
do
it.

“Well, do
you
all have any other ideas?” Finn asked, looking at Frances and her friends.

Everyone fell silent. Then Eli, who hadn't said anything for quite a while, spoke up.

“I've got a lot of ideas. But first, we've got to get out of this pen,” he said.

Dutch laughed. “No kidding. But how?”

Eli got up and went over to the gate. He knelt down and peered into the lock, then took a long piece of straw and threaded one end through the keyhole. He reached through the bars around to the other side of the lock and grabbed the straw end where it came out.

“You can't pick a lock with straw,” Finn whispered. “Can you?”

Eli motioned for everyone to come over for a closer look. “One of the sheds at the Carey farm had a lock like this and I learned how to keep it from sticking.” He pointed to the little slot along the edge of the gate where the latch was supposed to fit. It was packed with straw. “See that straw? I stuffed it in there when the deckhand fellow brought us breakfast. Now I can pull the latch back even more with a strong piece of straw.”

Eli had both ends of the straw now, one in each hand, and he yanked it back and forth, hard, until it seemed to catch on something.

“Almost got it,” he said. “Now someone's just got to try the handle.”

Frances stepped forward. Holding her breath, she turned the handle just above the gate lock. To her surprise, it gave way with a soft
click
!

“I think it's unlocking!” she said with a gasp. And then, in one easy motion, she pulled open the gate.