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less of a problem than I’d been afraid of. Jack—helped out by the fat wallet Papa’s magic had given him—bought us tickets for a drawing room compartment on the Golden State Limited to Chicago, with a change to the 20th Century Limited to get us through to New York City. The sleeping-car porter was an old man with bent shoulders, sparse gray hair, and rich black skin. He showed the four of us to the drawing room without so muchas remarking on the fact that we had not one piece of luggage between us, or even seeming to notice about us being different colors, which made me a lot more nervous than it should have.
    I’d never been in a Pullman car before, never mind in one of the private compartments. You could have lived for a month in there and not felt cramped. There was a dining nook by the window with two benches and a gateleg table that folded out from the wall. A curving cupboard overhead held the spare berth. There was a clothes closet, and two chairs, and a daybed made up so tight you could have bounced a quarter on its blue blanket. There was even a carpet on the floor, and cream and green paper on the walls. A separate door opened onto a washroom about the size of a postage stamp.
    If it wasn’t for what it was doing to Papa, I would have had the ride of my life.
    As soon as I got on board, the iron blocked up my magic senses, so everything was kind of dim around the edges and my head felt stuffy, like I had a bad cold. But where I was a little uncomfortable, Papa was sick as a dog, and maybe even sicker. When we first climbed up the steps behind the porter, Papa was as debonair as ever. But by the time we reached our compartment, perspiration dripped from his forehead and he leaned on Mama’s arm so he wouldn’t stagger too bad. As soon as the porter left us alone, Mama propped Papa up in the daybed with the pillows behind him and all the blankets over him because he couldn’t stop shivering.
    All that day, while the train rattled through the mountains and down into the desert on the other side, Papa lay in the daybed, and got worse. Jack shut the transom windows to keep out the draft and smoke, and got an extra blanket from the porter. As it came onto evening, we rang for tea and toast. Papa tried hard to take a sip, but in the end he just pushed the cup away. First Mama, then Jack, offered to try wishing for him, but he smiled and shook his head.
    “It’s just the one night,” declared Papa hoarsely. “We’ll be in Chicago tomorrow.” And then we’d have to get on another train to get out to New York. Mama forced a smile, and squeezed his hand. She looked to me, and I tried to pull out some magic for him, I swear I did, but I could only reach a tiny, shapeless trickle. I was as cut off as Papa was. The difference was, being so cut off was killing him. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t already been so tired out when he got on board, but he had been and it was.
    I suddenly couldn’t stand being in there anymore.
    “I’m gonna go find Jack,” I said to Mama. Jack had gone into the main compartment about a half hour ago, on some errand he hadn’t bothered to explain, and he wasn’t back yet. I didn’t wait for anybody to answer; I just went straight out the door. I especially didn’t look back. I didn’t want to see another of Mama’s hurt, puzzled looks. Or worse, see that she wasn’t looking at me at all, just at Papa.
    Our drawing room was at one end of the sleeping car. After us came the section with the open berths, and after them were the bedrooms, which were smaller than the drawingrooms, just big enough for a couple of bunk-type beds. Past that there was the lounge section with its swivel seats and pairs of sofas facing one another. Some other travelers played cards across the fold-down tables, or read the paper. Cigarette smoke turned the air hazy. Mothers and nurses shushed children and tried to make them pay attention to their books and crayons. A prim woman bent