Lantern Sam and the Blue Streak Bandits (4 page)

After we left the dormitory car, I figured that Ellie would go back to her suite and leave me alone, but she kept on following me, like a strip of flypaper stuck to my shoe. The nickel that my mother had given me was burning a hole in my pocket, and I headed for the club car in search of something to spend it on.

“Grape Nehi, please,” I said, stepping up to the counter.

“And I’ll have orange, please,” said Ellie, producing a shiny nickel of her own.

We took seats across from each other and slowly sipped our sodas, relishing every drop. Ellie finished hers first, and sat quietly for a moment before blurting out, “I still don’t believe it. Not really. First, everyone knows that all
calicoes are girls, and second, everyone knows that cats can’t talk. It’s some kind of trick. It
has
to be.”

“It’s not a trick—scout’s honor. It’s hard to describe how his voice sounds in here,” I said, pointing at my head. “Far away, and echoey, like he’s in a cave, or at the end of a long tunnel. But it really is there, I swear.”

Ellie stuck out her lower lip about three inches. “Harrumph. It’s not
fair
. Why does he talk to you and not me? You didn’t even know what a calico was.” She crossed her arms and stared out the window with a pouty face until a New York–bound train on the other track zoomed past, just inches away, making her jump.

“I don’t know why you’re mad at me,” I said. “It’s not like I asked for it or anything. And what good is it, anyway? Big deal, so I can hear a cat talking. Once I get off the train in Ashtabula, I’ll probably never see Lantern Sam, or you, again.”

“Don’t say that!” Ellie said. “We’re going to be friends forever.”

“You’re crazy,” I said, making a face. “You don’t know anything about me. I’ll bet you don’t even remember my name.”

“Henry Shipley. H-E-N-R-Y S-H-I-P-L-E-Y. You live in Ashtabula, Ohio, and you have a little sister named Jessica.
Your father is captain of a ship called the
Point Pelee
. You like science and drawing boats, and you want to be a naval arch—”

“Okay, okay, I get it. I forgot that you remember everything. Still doesn’t mean we’re going to stay friends.”

Ellie shrugged and smiled a know-it-all smile, her nose stuck high in the air. “Say what you want. I’m right. I can just tell. You’ll see, ’specially after we catch those criminals. I wonder where they’re hiding out, planning their next move.”

“What do they look like, anyway?” I asked.

“Kind of ordinary—well, he is, anyway. She’s quite pretty. I didn’t get a good look at what they were wearing because they were behind the baggage cart.”

“One is a woman! You didn’t say that before.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“What are they wanted for?”

“All the usual crimes, I suppose,” Ellie answered. “Murder, probably. Robbing banks. That’s what they’re
all
wanted for—the really famous criminals. Like Bonnie and Clyde, and Ma Barker’s gang.”

I stood up suddenly, checking all around me. “Oh no! I must have left my sketchbook back in the observation car. I have to get it before anybody else finds it. Meet you back here in a minute?”

“You have
one
minute,” Ellie answered. “Then I’m going to sneak back into that car up in the front to see Sam again. Maybe if I listen
really
hard, I can hear him. One … two … three …”

“You’re counting? Criminy!”

“Four … five … six …”

I turned and ran through the car, almost knocking down a pregnant woman in a dress as red as her lipstick.

“Hey, watch it!” growled her husband. The brim of his hat cast a dark shadow over his face, but I did manage a quick look at his eyes as they sparked with fire at me.

“Sorry!” I shouted, turning and catching one last glimpse of Ellie. She was staring openmouthed at the pregnant woman and her husband, who was dressed all in black except for the white minister’s collar at his throat.

By my count, I made it to the end of the observation car and picked up my sketchbook (“Whew! It’s still here!”) in a shade over thirty seconds. The collision had cost me some time, no doubt about that, but the round-trip
couldn’t
have taken much more than a minute—which was why I was so surprised, on returning to the club car, to find no sign of Ellie.

“Where the heck did she go?” I asked no one in particular.

“She went thataway,” said a man in a gray flannel suit, peering over his newspaper at me and pointing toward the front of the car with his chin. “You’re looking for the pretty little brunette, aren’t you? The one with the Shirley Temple curls, wearing a green dress? Is she your girlfriend?”

“N-no! She’s not … she’s only ten!” I headed for the front of the train, through the sleepers and the dining car, stopping at the section where my mother and sister sat.

Mother opened her eyes, smiling as if she were waking from a pleasant dream. “Well, there you are. I was beginning to wonder if you were still aboard, but then I remembered we hadn’t stopped yet, and even
you
wouldn’t jump out of a moving train—I think. What have you been doing?” She pointed at my sketchbook. “Let me see. Did you draw me a picture?”

“I didn’t really … finish it. Um, did you see a … girl … go past, a few seconds ago? In a green dress?”

“A girl? No, I don’t think so. No one has been past for a few minutes. I think I would have seen … who is she? Did you make a friend? Is she pretty?”

“Aw, Mother,” I said, feeling myself blush. “She’s only ten.” What
is
it with grown-ups? Can’t a fella have a friend who happens to be a girl?

“Sorry, I’ll mind my own business. What should I do if I see her? How will I even know it’s her?”

“Just forget it. I’ll find her myself.”

I walked into the dormitory car, slowing and listening carefully as I approached Clarence’s bed, where the curtain was half open.

“Hello? Ellie? Mr., um, Clarence?” No one answered, so I pulled the curtain open the rest of the way. Sam lifted his head, opening his eyes just enough to squint at me.

“Mrrraaa. You again? Did you bring me anything to eat?”

His voice startled me; I still wasn’t quite used to the idea of a talking cat, and to tell the honest-to-God truth, I felt incredibly silly at the thought of trying to talk back to him.

“Oh. Hi, kitty, er, Sam,” I said after making sure no one else was around. “Sorry to wake you.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,”
Sam huffed. “
I was
thinking.”

“Oh, uh, right. I’m looking for Ellie, the girl I was here with earlier. She said she was coming to see you again. I think she’s mad that I can hear you and she can’t. Have you seen her?”

“I don’t blame you for looking for that one—she’s the cat’s meow. Looks like she’s rolling in dough, too. Is she your girlfriend?”

“No!” I said, louder than I had intended. “Why does everyone keep asking me that? She’s
not
my girlfriend. Criminy, I just met her.”

“Okay, okay. Calm down, kid. I’m just having a little fun with
you. You humans are so sensitive. Now, are you sure you don’t have anything to eat?”

“What? Uh, no, nothing … just this one stick of hard candy I had in my pocket.”

“No candy. That stuff will kill you. Listen, because this is
important:
I’m very keen on California sardines, especially the Sail On brand. They use just the right amount of salt. Mmwwaa. My mouth is watering thinking about them. You’re sure you don’t have any stashed away?”

“Sardines? Why would I be carrying around a can of sardines? Yuck!”

“Don’t knock ’em till you’ve tried ’em, kid.”

“Oh, I’ve tried them plenty of times. But what about Ellie? Have you seen her? Or heard her?”

“Negative,”
said Sam.
“Not since you two left here.”

I retraced my route through the train in my mind. After leaving Ellie in the club car, I went to the last car in the train and then all the way to the first car. Eleven cars. The only place I hadn’t looked was the locomotive, but I was pretty sure she wasn’t up there. Where was she?

“Maybe she went into her compartment,”
said Sam.
“Do you know where her family is?”

“They’re in that big, fancy room all the way back in the observation car.”

“No kidding?”
said Sam, clearly impressed.
“The Commodore Perry suite? Who is this kid?”

“Ellie … Strasbourg. Her father is somebody important, I guess.”

“I’d say so,”
said Sam.
“Do you have any idea how much that suite costs?”

“No, not really. But she couldn’t have gone in there anyway. She would have had to get past me, because I was just
in
the observation car.”

“Don’t know what to tell you, kid. If I had to guess, I’d say that, uh, nature called, if you know what I mean. She was probably in the litter box, er, the lav, when you passed her. It’s like what Clarence tells parents when they think their kids have disappeared: when all else fails, check the lavatories. Give her a couple of minutes. Bet she’ll show up right here.”

But she didn’t. Not after five minutes. Or after ten. When the train pulled into Albany, I heard the porters rummaging about in the baggage compartment in the front half of the dormitory car, moving trunks and suitcases around as a few passengers disembarked and a few more climbed aboard.

“Well, I guess she isn’t coming,” I said.

“Sorry, kid,”
said Sam.
“Dames are like that sometimes. Just when you think you have them figured out … whammo! They sock
you one right on the kisser. Or eat your sardines. Or worse, you find out there’s another tomcat in the picture. I can’t tell you how many times that’s happened to
moi.
Now, if you were to, say, pass by the kitchen, and somebody just
happened
to leave a quart of cream out, or a can of sardines, or even anchovies, you would help out an old buddy, wouldn’t you?”

And then—I swear—he waggled his cat eyebrows at me.

“Uh, sure, Sam,” I said.

As I left the dormitory car, I found the corridor blocked by a slow-moving family that had just boarded the train. A man in a straw fedora carried his sleeping daughter, whose face was buried in his shoulder; her long red hair hung down his back. His wife, a tall, stylish woman in high heels and a black-and-white-striped dress, followed closely behind. Her hair, like the daughter’s, was long and wavy and the color of a new penny.

A few feet before they reached the section where my mother and sister sat peacefully watching the scenery fly past, something fell—from the girl’s hair, I thought—hit the floor, and bounced under a seat.

“Excuse me! You dropped something,” I said, but neither parent seemed to hear me. I knelt down and reached my arm as far beneath the seat as I could, moving it from side to side until my fingers landed on something smooth. It was a silver barrette—a far cry from the plain ones that
the girls in my school wore—with a large oval in the center, engraved with a swirling, delicate pattern.

I ran after the family and tapped the woman on the shoulder. “Excuse me.”

Startled, she spun around so quickly that her long hair flew into her face. “What?” she said, her narrowed eyes burning into mine.

“You dropped this,” I said, holding out the barrette. “Back there.”

She stared at it for a few seconds before saying, “I’m afraid you’re mistaken. It’s not mine—or, um,
hers
.” She turned away without another word and hurried to catch up to her husband. I absentmindedly put the barrette in my pocket and sighed.

A moment later, the train pulled away from the station in Albany and began the trek west toward Schenectady, Syracuse, and points beyond.

Half an hour later, I was well on my way to forgetting about Ellie, who had obviously ditched me. What difference did it make? I asked myself. She was just a spoiled, bratty girl, and besides, she was only
ten
. I had much better things to do than hang out with her.

While the Shoreliner chased the sun across upstate New York, I sat across from Mother and Jessica with my
sketchpad on my lap, filling in some details on my tugboat drawing. I lifted my pencil as the train clattered over a bridge and looked up to find Clarence the Conductor at my side. Next to him was a tall, thin woman wearing an elegant charcoal-gray suit and a string of pearls that were the size of my prized “elephant egg” marbles. She was fidgeting—nervously rubbing her hands together, darting her eyes here and there about the car—so much that she made me nervous.