Escape to the World's Fair (9 page)

C
LANG, CLANG, CLANG!

“I
knew that medallion thing was bad luck!” Eli muttered as they ran.

“It's not!” Jack insisted, between breaths. “We've got to get it back!”

The five of them were racing down alleyways and narrow streets among the vast riverfront warehouses, dim passages that smelled of hot tar and sometimes fish. Frances kept looking over her shoulder expecting to see someone from the
Addie Dauphin
running after them, but as far as she could tell, they weren't being followed.

Instead,
they
were the ones doing the chasing. Frances wished she'd been close enough to do something—
say
something—when she'd seen Dutch and his gang shake down Jack for the medallion. She still didn't think there was anything special about that crazy piece of junk, but she hated that those boys were being bullies, especially Finn and Chicks. Frances knew that Jack wanted to get the medallion back, but more than anything she wanted to catch those louts so she could yell her head off at them.

Just then the five of them reached the end of the alley where it met with a wide street that bustled with traffic. They were getting closer to downtown St. Louis! They stopped to catch their breath.

It felt strange to be in a city again, with the sky chopped up into the little strips between buildings. That used to be the only way Frances would see her days, and she'd had no idea it could be so different.

“Which way do we go?” Alexander panted.

“And where's the Fair?” Harold asked.

“I think I just saw them!” Jack cried. “Across the street!”

Sure enough, there were Dutch and Owney and Finn and Chicks, striding along two by two, talking among themselves. Frances glared at them.
Those rats!

As if they could sense her glare, Finn glanced across the street, and then so did the other boys. When they saw Frances and her friends, they took off running.

Jack was the first one to dart out into the street after them.

“Watch out!” Eli yelled as a milk truck missed hitting them so narrowly that it made the horses rear up.

They wove their way through the stream of buggies and trucks and motorcars as fast as they could, until suddenly—
Clang! Clang!—
the bells of an approaching trolley warned them.

“It's been a while since I had to stay out of the way of one of these things,” Jack remarked as they jumped clear of the tracks in the street.

It took only a moment or two for the trolley to go by. Then they sprinted the last few yards to the other side of the street.

But the boys were gone.

Frances whirled around. “They caught the streetcar!”

The trolley was more than a block away by now, but she could still make out the figures of four boys clinging to the iron stairs in the back of the car.

“
Blast it!
” she spat, not even caring that Harold would hear her swear.

Jack was looking at a placard attached to a lamppost. “This sign says this line goes to the Fair. All we have to do is catch the next one!”

They found a corner where the trolley would stop. Frances couldn't stand the wait, so she crouched down to check the buttons on her little brother's shoes.

“Why didn't Finn and Dutch and the rest of them want to stay with us?” Harold asked. “I thought they were going to become citizens of Wanderville.”

Frances sighed and looked over at Alexander, who was standing nearby with his hands deep in his pockets, staring down at the bricks of the street. “They didn't understand what Wanderville was,” she said.

“I should have explained it to them better,” Alexander added softly.

But what if they understood and
still
didn't want to be citizens?
Frances wondered. She was glad when the next trolley appeared after a few minutes and she didn't have to think about it anymore.

They climbed aboard and Alexander paid the fare for all of them from the money Zogby had given them.

“I wish we didn't have to spend this money,” Frances whispered as they found long wooden benches to sit on. “I bet Dutch and his friends managed to hitch a ride on their car without paying.”

“We can't risk getting in trouble now,” Alexander pointed out. “Not when we just escaped. And speaking of that, we still have the steamboat fare money that we didn't spend.”

“It's not enough,” Jack muttered.

“Not enough for what?” Frances asked.

Jack didn't answer. But just then the view outside the trolley changed, with the brick row houses giving way to a vast park, and in the distance—just a mile or two away—the domes and spires of what appeared to be an enchanted city. They all stood to get a better view.

“It's the Fair, isn't it?” Eli said.

“Look at the wheel!” Harold whispered. “It's huge!”

There it was, the famous Ferris wheel, looking exactly like the etching Frances had seen once in an old newspaper. She had heard some of the upper-deck passengers on the
Addie Dauphin
talking about how it had been built in Chicago years ago and then rebuilt here for the Fair. Now the wheel turned slowly, stopping every so often and then starting again, quiet and graceful in the distance. It looked almost magic, Frances thought. Like you could look at it and make a wish.

As the trolley sped closer to the Fair the buildings began to appear even more jewel-like, and just beyond them lay the shining surface of a lagoon. It was all far more grand than Coney Island, Frances realized.

“It's so . . . big,” Jack said, and from the tone of his voice, Frances could tell what he was thinking: How were they ever going to find the older boys in a place as big as the St. Louis World's Fair, much less the person who was supposed to get the medallion?

They were still dumbstruck when the trolley came to a terminal and slowed to stop.

“End of the line!” the conductor called. “The Louisiana Purchase Exposition!”

Frances grabbed Harold's hand as the five of them stepped down from the trolley steps and walked into a bright, bustling plaza outside the Fair's front gate. The sun was high overhead and Frances counted nearly a dozen black parasols being carried by fairgoers. There was no sign of Dutch or Finn or the other older boys, though Frances had a feeling that they couldn't be far.

“Look!” Harold cried. “A mountain! Right over there!”

They all looked where Harold pointed. Just to the right of the front gates was a mountain—a very fake one, craggy and with fake snow—looming over a boundary wall. “I want to look!” he said, and he dropped Frances's hand and ran over to the wall for a closer look. Frances and the others followed.

“That's not a real mountain, you know,” Frances said, even though she secretly thought it was impressive.

Alexander agreed. “And look, Harold. Real mountains don't have doors on the side of them.” He motioned over to a steel door in the wall, partially hidden by hedges, that said
TYROLEAN
ALPS
—
EMPLOYEES
ONLY
.

“I wonder if it opens!” Harold said, running over to the door.

“Harold, no!” Frances said. She started to go after him but suddenly felt a sharp pull on the back of her collar.

“As a matter of fact, Queenie, it
does
open,” said a voice.

Finn!

“Let me go, you snake!” Frances yanked herself free, then whirled around to see that Dutch had Alexander by the collar, and Chicks and Owney had Jack and Eli.

“So good to see you all again!” Dutch said.

Harold stood with his hand on the doorknob, his mouth open in shock.

“You can open that door, Harold,” Dutch said. “And let's all go inside, shall we? We got business to discuss in private.”

A
DEAL IS STRUCK

T
he door in the mountain led to a stuffy passageway lit by an electric bulb. Once they were all inside, Chicks shut the door.

Jack braced himself, ready to fight, but Chicks had let go of his collar, and no one else was being restrained.

“You'd think it would be more exciting inside the Tyrolean Alps,” Finn remarked, motioning around him. “But it ain't.”

“Can't even sneak into the Fair this way,” Dutch grumbled. “We already tried.” He pointed to a ladder that stretched up into darkness. “That thing just leads up to a little door at the top of the mountain. So then you're inside the fairgrounds but you can't go nowheres except down the ladder again, because it's too steep to get down the outside of that mountain without breaking your neck.”

“What's your point?” Jack said.

Dutch reached into his pocket and pulled out the medallion. He handed it to Finn, who was tall enough to hold it up out of everyone else's reach. “Maybe we were wrong to throw you over and try to get the reward ourselves,” he told Jack and his friends.

“Oh, really?” Frances folded her arms.

“Well, have you seen the Fair?” Owney said. “It's huge!”

Finn swung the medallion. “We suspect you might know more about where to deliver this thing.”

Alexander's face brightened a bit. “So, you still want to split the reward with us, if we tell you what we know?”

But Dutch only glowered. “Here's the thing. We don't trust a word you little weasels say. You haven't exactly been truthful about this Wanderville business. We weren't even sure if you were telling the truth about this medallion!”

“We are, we swear,” Jack said. He wanted so badly to just jump up and snatch the medallion out of Finn's hand.

Chicks shook his head. “The only reason we know that it's worth anything is because you followed us to get it back.”

“Look,” Alexander said. “I'm sorry if we gave you the wrong idea about Wanderville. But we all can still help each other.”

Dutch and Finn exchanged glances. “Maybe we'll
make
you tell us how to deliver the medallion and collect the reward,” Dutch said.

“Or maybe you'll just have to trust us!” Frances said. She went over and pulled Harold closer. “
We
trusted
you
when we were escaping from the steamboat. Remember when Harold almost fell and you said you would catch him? We believed you!” Harold nodded at that. “And now you need to believe us.”

Jack held his breath and kept his eyes on the medallion and its shiny carvings. The wings of the bird glinted in the dim light of the passageway, and he stared hard at the strange symbols. There were so many reasons why he wanted the medallion back again, but one of the biggest ones, for sure, was to find out what those symbols meant.

Dutch was silent for a moment. Then he motioned to Finn, who finally lowered his arm and held out the medallion.

“All right,” Dutch said. “We're a team again.”

Jack grabbed the medallion and felt a strange surge of relief as he closed his fingers around its edges.

Eli spoke up. “There's just one thing,” he said. “What about Edwin Adolphius and Miss DeHaven? They're going to be looking for us. And they know we were heading here to the Fair. Jack and I heard the deckhands say so.”

Jack suddenly remembered what the deckhand had said:
What kid wouldn't want to see that fair?

“Good point,” Owney said. “But that's where we can help. Because we've been thinking . . .” He looked over at the ladder. “The top of this here mountain is a great lookout.”

“It sure is,” Finn added. “We can see everyone who comes through that front gate, and a lot of the fairgrounds, too. If Miss DeHaven and Edwin Adolphius come here after us, we'll spot 'em.”

“But if we're at the Fair,” Frances said, “and you're up there, how will you warn us that they're coming?”

“We could whistle,” Chicks said. “I can whistle real good!”

Finn laughed. “Naw. You might be able to call home our hound dogs from the woods, but no way any whistle, even yours, can carry over all that noise and ruckus out there.”

“Wait, I got it!” Dutch said. “We'll fly a flag up there!”

Owney pulled a red bandana out of his pocket. “We can tie this to a stick and put it out if we see Adolphius.”

“That's perfect!” Frances said. “Besides, they'll be looking for nine kids together, so if you fellows are on lookout, there will be fewer of us walking around the fairgrounds.” She turned to Jack. “Don't you think that's a good plan?”

“Uh, sure,” Truthfully, Jack didn't like the idea of splitting up. He always worried that someone would be left behind, the way Quentin and the other kids at the Pratcherds' had been. Or the way he and Daniel had gotten separated in the fire back in New York. It didn't matter whether Dutch and Finn and Owney and Chicks were his friends—all he knew was that they needed to be free. And the reward money from the medallion would do them some good. Jack would be able to help them, and he figured their luck could only get better once he went back to New York.

“We could take turns on lookout duty,” Alexander suggested.

“Nope,” Dutch replied. “Me and my gang don't mind keeping an eye on things. Make sure no funny business happens.” He gave Jack and Alexander and Eli a pointed look. Jack was sure that by “keeping an eye on things” Dutch meant keeping an eye on
them.

“Suit yourself,” Jack told Dutch. He tucked the medallion back into his pocket.

“But we'll come back with the reward no matter what,” Frances put in.

“We promise,” Alexander added.

Then one by one, Jack, Eli, Frances, Harold, and Alexander slipped out the door in the wall beneath the mountain and went back to the plaza outside the entrance gates. From their hiding spot, the older boys nodded as if to say
good luck
. Then they shut the door.

“I bet they're going up to the lookout now,” Frances said, squinting up at the peak of the big fake mountain.

Jack squinted as he looked up, too. They couldn't see much from the ground, but after a few minutes, they could just make out a hand waving back at them from behind a crag near the peak.

Alexander nodded at Jack. “There's no turning back now.”

Jack patted the pocket where he kept the medallion.

“That's for certain.” He turned to grin at Frances and Harold and Eli. “Guess we have no choice but to go to the World's Fair.”

And, with that, they headed straight for the turnstiles.