“Well suit yourself, ” Mrs. Kovack says with a little huff. Then, under her breath, as if Dewey can't hear her from five feet away, she adds, “No wonder poor old Mrs. Gallucci had a stroke, with sass from the likes of you. ” She closes the door with more force than necessary, to show Dewey that she does not approve. But Dewey already knows.
Dewey turns to make sure her suitcase is still there. No one else has been on the porch, but it is all she has. One brown suitcase and a Marshall Field's shopping bag. She moves the bag a fraction of an inch, so its corners line up square with the edge of the top step, and pulls her good wool coat tighter around her. She looks down Hollis Street, toward the newsstand on the corner, hoping for a glimpse of Papa's big green Studebaker.
Five minutes later a car turns the corner. Not a green Studebaker, just a black Ford. She expects it to drive by, but it pulls up at the curb in front of Nana's house. A woman in a green army uniform, a WAC, gets out, looks at a piece of paper in her hand, then up at the house number. She sees Dewey and strides quickly up the walk, tugging at her skirt to straighten it.
“Is this the Gallucci house?” she asks.
Dewey shakes her head. “Next door. ”
“Oh. Well, I'm looking for a Duâ” She looks down at her paper again. “Miss Kerrigan?”
“I'm Dewey, ” Dewey says, and a little wave of fear makes her stomach flutter and then knot. Why would an army person be here, unless something has happened to Papa?
“Is Papa okay?” she asks in a voice that trembles, just a little.
“What? Oh, no, it's not that, honey. ” The WAC smiles. “He's fine. Just a little busy right now. The war, you know. So they sent me to pick you up. I'm Corporal Beckwith. Margaret. ” She smiles again. “Is that all your things?”
Dewey looks at her suitcase and nods.
“Okey-dokey, then. You go say good-bye to your grandmother while I put your gear in the trunk. ”
“Nana had to go to the Home, ” says Dewey quietly. “This is just the neighbor's house. ”
“Oh. ” Margaret seems startled by this news. “Oh. I'm sorry. Do you want to say good-bye to your neighbor then?”
“Not really, ” says Dewey. “But I guess I should. ” She turns and walks up to the front door, opening it a few inches. “Mrs. Kovack? I'm leaving now. Thank you for letting me stay here, ” she calls down the dim hallway.
There is silence, then a muffled response from the kitchen. Dewey waits for a moment, but when Mrs. Kovack does not appear, she closes the door quietly, and walks down the steps to the big black Ford.
Her suitcase is already in the trunk, and Margaret has come back for the shopping bag. She looks down into it in surprise. “What's all this?”
“Just my radio set and some experiments. And a few books. ”
Margaret pulls a stuffed yellow duck from the top of the bag and smiles. “And who's this?”
Dewey shrugs. “Einstein. He was a present from Papa, when I came from Boston on the bus to live with Nana. I was only seven then. ”
Margaret puts the bag in the trunk and closes it with a solid thunk. “How old are you now?” She walks around and opens the passenger door for Dewey.
“Eleven next month. ” Dewey gets in and presses her face to the window to look at Nana Gallucci's house one last time. Her coat still smells like Nana, like face powder and cocoa. She wonders how long that will last. “Goodbye, Nana, ” she whispers to the vacant house.
Margaret pulls the car out and they drive away.
“What time will we get to Chicago?” Dewey asks after about a mile. It is already the middle of the afternoon, and that's a long, long drive. She wonders if she will have to nap in the car, if Papa will be awake when they arrive.
Margaret frowns. She turns, still watching the road, and talks in Dewey's direction. “No one's told you?”
“Told me what?” Dewey feels the fear creep back into her stomach like a trickle of ice water.
“Well, there's been a little change in plans, ” Margaret says slowly. “Your father's not in Chicago anymore. He's working out west. ”
“Out west where?”
“Somewhere in New Mexico. I don't know any more, actually. It's top secret. My clearance is only high enough to pick you up and drop you off. ”
“War stuff?”
“Exactly. Your father must be pretty important, to have the army send an escort for you. ”
“I guess so, ” Dewey says. She doesn't like this. Everything is changing, and it is all changing too fast. She takes a deep breath. “If you don't know where Papa is, how are you going to drive me there?”
“I'm not, honey. My orders are to get you to Union Station in time to catch the four o'clock Chief. Your ticket's in my pocket. ”
Dewey says nothing. She feels like a package that is being delivered. Her excitement about seeing Papa again has gone away and in its place is a growing dread of what will happen next. She does not like surprises, and there have been too many this week. She sits and looks out the window, numbly watching the houses of St. Louis turn into businesses as they near downtown.
The train station is a huge stone structure that looks like a castle with a tower. Margaret pulls the car up in a line of twenty others. There are people everywhere, hundreds of them, all walking very fast in every direction. Most of them are men, and half of those are in uniform. Dewey stands on the curb and feels very small and alone.
“Well, here we are, ” says Margaret. She takes Dewey's things from the trunk and waves a finger in the air. A Negro man in a gray uniform hurries over. He tips the shiny black brim of his red cap.
“Yes, ma'am. Where to this afternoon?”
“Checking one bag through to Lamy, New Mexico, ” Margaret says. She hands the man a white envelope. “This is her ticket, and three meal vouchers. Will you see to it that the porter keeps an eye out for her?”
Dewey feels even more like a package.
“I will surely do that, ” the man says, smiling. He squats down so that he is at Dewey's eye level. “If I'm gonna introduce you, I better do it proper. What's your name, little miss?”
“Dewey, ” says Dewey.
“Ain't that a pretty name. Now, lemme see. The train for Lamy leaves from Track Seventeen in 'bout half an hour. I'll take you and your valise there directly. ” He stands up again. “Is you ready?”
I'm not ready for any of this
, thinks Dewey, but she says nothing out loud.
Margaret hands the man a dollar bill and looks down at Dewey. “The porter will take good care of you. I'm sure your parents will be waiting in Lamy tomorrow afternoon.” She pats Dewey on the shoulder. “Have a good trip. ”
“Well, well, well, ” says the man, picking up her suitcase and the shopping bag. “All the way to New Mexico, all by yourself? You off on an adventure. ”
“I guess so, ” says Dewey. But she is not very sure at all.
The train is long, shiny, and silver. There are so many people, all taller than Dewey, and the only thing she can see is the back of the man in the red cap. The air is filled with the sounds of shouting and talking, of machines and engines roaring, of the metal wheels of trains and luggage carts rolling over rails and cement. If the redcap disappeared right now, Dewey thinks, she would be as lost as if she were in a dark forest.
“Here we is, ” says the redcap. He hands her ticket to an older man in a fancier uniform, blue with brass buttons. He is also a Negro. All the passengers are white. “Eddie, this here is Miss Dewey. She's gonna be ridin' with you all the way out to New Mexico. ” He tips his cap to Dewey and walks away with her suitcase.
“You want me to take that bag, miss?” says the new man, Eddie.
“Am I allowed to keep it with me?”
“Sure thing. There's a rack you can put it up on. I'll just show you where your seat is. ”
He helps Dewey up the steep metal steps and into the train car. A narrow aisle separates two pairs of gray fabric seats, each with a wide white napkin across its back. A dozen people are scattered through the car, most of them men reading newspapers. Dewey's seat is at the far end, next to the glass-and-metal doors that open with a hiss.
“Nobody's next to you, least not until morning. You 'bout as small as a bug in a rug, so you can stretch out and have a nice sleep, ” says Eddie.
“Sleep?” In all the confusion, it hasn't occurred to Dewey that the train will involve bedtime. She has never slept without a bed, or in the middle of a whole room full of strangers. It doesn't feel safe.
“Yes, miss. Right after we leaves Kansas City, I'll come by with a pillow and a blanket for you, make this seat up into a nice comfy bed. Then it's lights out and off to dreamland for everybody. Scoot right in here, make yourself to home. ”
Dewey climbs into the seat. The fabric is scratchy on the backs of her bare legs, under her plaid dress. Her feet do not reach the floor, not by many, many inches.
“We pull out at four o'clock sharp, ” Eddie says, putting her shopping bag on the empty seat next to her. “Dinner service starts at six. You want me to come take you down to the dining car?”
“Okay, ” says Dewey softly. “Is there anything about the train I can read?” She will feel better if she knows some things without having to ask.
Eddie furrows his brow and thinks. “Best I can do is a timetable. It tells where we're goin', when we get there, and a few other things besides. ”
Dewey nods. Eddie tips his cap and is three steps away when she remembers something very important. “Mister?” she says, and he turns and leans over her seat.
“Yes, miss?”
In a voice that is just barely above a whisper, Dewey asks, “Is there a bathroom?”
“Why, yes, miss. Up by the front there, where we came in. Commode and a sink. ”
“Thanks. I canâ” Dewey stops in mid-sentence in a small panic. “I don't have a toothbrush. ”
“Didn't nobody pack one for you?”
“Nobody packed me except me, ” Dewey says. “I have a toothbrush in my suitcase, to take to Chicago, but now I'm not going there because the war moved my papa again. ” She
always
brushes her teeth before bedtime. Now there is no order, no routine, nothing familiar at all.
Eddie makes a clucking sound with his tongue. “That's a shame, ” he says. “This war shakin' up families all over. I see it every day. ” He smiles down at Dewey. “But least I can find you a toothbrush. You just sit tight. ” He tips his cap again, then hurries to help a woman with two large hat boxes.
When the train pulls out of the station, the car is about half full. Dewey can't see any faces, just hair and hats over the seat tops. She watches out the window as the backs of downtown buildings roll past, dirty brick and stone with ashcans and piles of wooden crates stacked up on loading docks.
When the buildings turn into farmland, she takes a book out of her bag and begins to read. It is called
The Boy Mechanic
, and she is reading a chapter about building radios. Her fingers itch with the urge to have all the parts in front of her, to pick them up and put them together the way the book shows. They're in her bag, but there is no place to spread them out, except on the seat next to her, and she is afraid the tiny pieces will get lost. Instead she reads about how they will work, and soon she is absorbed in the world of facts and diagrams, a world with very few surprises.
At 6:00, Eddie comes back. He hands her a timetable and a red plastic toothbrush, still wrapped in crinkly cellophane. “You ready for some supper?” he asks. Dewey nods, her stomach growling. The cheese sandwich Mrs. Kovack made her for lunch seems like it was years ago, in another life.
The dining car is very fancy, with real silverware and white tablecloths. It is noisy with people laughing and talking, the clatter of knives and forks, and the tinkling sound of ice cubes in glasses. The table is too tall, but the waiter brings her a thick cushion to sit on. She orders the pork chop. At home, Nana mostly made red-sauce spaghetti, because their meat ration coupons only allowed for chicken on Sunday. The waiter brings her a basket of hot rolls and a Shirley Temple cocktail, pink and bubbly with ginger ale and lots of cherries.
She is sorry that she didn't bring her book, because she's bored eating all alone. She reads the timetable, twice. At least it is words. The pork chop is very big, and she can only eat half. But the waiter brings her a chocolate sundae anyway, with nuts and a cherry. It has been a long time since anyone has given her a treat, and she lingers over it, smiling down to the last spoonful.
When she is through, the clock says 7:00, too early to go to sleep. Dewey is tired of just sitting. She decides to explore, just a little.
It is strange to walk through rooms that are moving. The train sways and rolls from side to side, and she has to concentrate to keep her balance. In between cars, the noise of the wheels and the wind is much louder. The first two cars look like her own, with different people. Not very interesting. If the next car is just more people, she will go back to her seat and read.
But the next car is different. A sign on the door says OBSERVATION CAR. Maybe she will be able to see the stars. She opens the door and walks into a long, smoke-filled room. Twenty or thirty people, men and some women, are sitting in armchairs around the edge of the car, not in rows and aisles. They are smoking cigarettes and drinking cocktails and talking very loud. In the middle of the car, a fat man with a yellow tie suddenly bursts into laughter and slaps his pin-striped thigh.
Dewey stands near the doorway, pressed against the wall where she won't be in the way. Round tables with ashtrays in their centers are scattered among the chairs, their shiny chrome surfaces covered with glasses and packs of Camel cigarettes and the bull's-eyes of Lucky Strikes. Large windows line both sides of the car. It is dark outside, so all she can see are the reflections of the talking people. The end of the car is a curve of windows from floor to ceiling. Dewey wants to go and look out, but it is too crowded.