Read Orphan Train for Free Online Page B

depot for sandwich fixings and fresh fruit and milk, but only Mr. Curran
     gets off. I can see him outside my window in his white wingtips, talking to farmers
     on the platform. One holds a basket of apples, one a sack full of bread. A man in
     a black apron reaches into a box and unwraps a package of brown paper to reveal a
     thick yellow slab of cheese, and my stomach rumbles. They haven’t fed us much, some
     crusts of bread and milk and an apple each in the past twenty-four hours, and I don’t
     know if it’s because they’re afraid of running out or if they think it’s for our moral
     good.
    Mrs. Scatcherd strides up and down the aisle, letting two groups of children at a
     time get up to stretch while the train is still. “Shake each leg,” she instructs.
     “Good for the circulation.” The younger children are restless, and the older boys
     stir up trouble in small ways, wherever they can find it. I want nothing to do with
     these boys, who seem as feral as a pack of dogs. Our landlord, Mr. Kaminski, called
     boys like these “street Arabs,” lawless vagrants who travel in gangs, pickpockets
     and worse.
    When the train pulls out of the station, one of these boys lights a match, invoking
     the wrath of Mr. Curran, who boxes him about the head and shouts, for the whole car
     to hear, that he’s a worthless good-for-nothing clod of dirt on God’s green earth
     and will never amount to anything. This outburst does little but boost the boy’s status
     in the eyes of his friends, who take to devising ingenious ways to irritate Mr. Curran
     without giving themselves away. Paper airplanes, loud belches, high-pitched, ghostly
     moans followed by stifled giggles—it drives Mr. Curran mad that he cannot pick out
     one boy to punish for all this. But what can he do, short of kicking them all out
     at the next stop? Which he actually threatens, finally, looming in the aisle above
     the seats of two particularly rowdy boys, only to prompt the bigger one’s retort that
     he’ll be happy to make his way on his own, has done it for years with no great harm,
     you can shine shoes in any city in America, he’ll wager, and it’s probably a hell
     of a lot better than being sent to live in a barn with animals, eating only pig slops,
     or getting carried off by Indians.
    Children murmur in their seats. What’d he say?
    Mr. Curran looks around uneasily. “You’re scaring a whole car full of kids. Happy
     now?” he says.
    “It’s true, ain’t it?”
    “Of course it ain’t—isn’t—true. Kids, settle down.”
    “I hear we’ll be sold at auction to the highest bidder,” another boy stage-whispers.
    The car grows silent. Mrs. Scatcherd stands up, wearing her usual thin-lipped scowl
     and broad-brimmed bonnet. She is far more imposing, in her heavy black cloak and flashing
     steel-rimmed glasses, than Mr. Curran could ever be. “I have heard enough,” she says
     in a shrill voice. “I am tempted to throw the whole lot of you off this train. But
     that would not be”—she looks around at us slowly, dwelling on each somber face—“Christian.
     Would it? Mr. Curran and I are here to escort you to a better life. Any suggestion
     to the contrary is ignorant and outrageous. It is our fervent hope that each of you
     will find a path out of the depravity of your early lives, and with firm guidance
     and hard work transform into respectable citizens who can pull your weight in society.
     Now. I am not so naive as to believe that this will be the case for all.” She casts
     a withering look at a blond-haired older boy, one of the troublemakers. “But I am
     hopeful that most of you will view this as an opportunity. Perhaps the only chance
     you will ever get to make something of yourselves.” She adjusts the cape around her
     shoulders. “Mr. Curran, maybe the young man who spoke to you so impudently should
     be moved to a seat where his dubious charms will not be so enthusiastically embraced.”
     She lifts her