Restoring Harmony Part 4

"In there," he said, showing me through a double door into a cavelike room. I turned to thank him, but he was gone. I spun around and searched the square. It was like he'd become invisible. I shrugged and went inside. Behind a gla.s.s window sat a woman with enormous purple-framed gla.s.ses, chewing on an apple and reading an E-ZBook Reader by kerosene l amplight.

"Excuse me? I'd like to buy a visitor's pa.s.s for the MAX."

"For what day?" she asked, looking up from what she was reading.

"Today."

"I've sold the allotment." She flipped through a little file box. "I have one left for tomorrow and twelve for the day after that."

"But I don't have anyplace to stay tonight."

"Sorry, but they're trying to control crowding on the MAX, so I can only sell fifty a day, and I'm sold out."

"Where will I go?"

"There's a mission by the train station," she suggested. She gave me directions back to where I'd just come from and reminded me to buy tomorrow's ticket before I left since she only had the one.

"How does it work?" I asked, letting her choose some bills.

"Just have it ready to show the fare inspectors when they get on the train."

Maybe I could sneak on with tomorrow's ticket, I thought.

"Today's is orange," she told me, reading my mind. "You can get on, but they'll fine you if you're caught, and if you can't pay"-she paused, leaning forward for maximum effect-"they'll arrest you."

"Arrest me?"

"Yep."

"Wow. Well . . . thanks for the warning," I said. I accepted the lavender ticket marked for tomorrow. She'd sounded so dramatic that I wondered if she was just trying to scare me into doing the right thing, but I couldn't be sure.

Outside I blinked in the bright suns.h.i.+ne, and my bruised and battered feet begged me not to walk all the way to the shelter. I was so close to getting to my grandpa's house. I scanned the square for the sunburned guy, hoping he'd have a suggestion, but I couldn't find him.

There was a big crowd waiting to get on the MAX, maybe as many as two hundred people. How could the fare inspectors possibly catch me with all those people onboard? I hobbled across the hot bricks to the eastbound platform and stood near the waiting crowd. We could hear the MAX horn long before the train got to us, and we pressed our hot, sweaty bodies into one another, trying to be closest to the edge without being shoved off and run over.

I weighed my options one more time. I could sleep in a corner of this square, go to the shelter, or get on the train. The first two choices seemed infinitely more frightening than sneaking aboard. After all, I'd already stowed away on a government flight and crossed the border illegally. If I had to, I would just tell them I was a foreigner and I hadn't understood how the system worked. It was just a local train. How much trouble could I get in, anyway?

8.

AS SOON AS THE DOORS OPENED, PEOPLE PUSHED and shoved, and I rode a wave of smelly bodies up into the train car.

"Move," a woman shouted from behind me, pressing on my pack and sending me staggering forward into a guy with s.h.a.ggy dreadlocks. All the seats were instantly taken, so I grabbed a ring hanging from a bar to steady myself, my hot feet throbbing, my backpack pulling at my shoulders, and Jewels in my other hand.

The doors shut, and the train slid forward. I saw a map above me of the route, but instead of helping, it confused me more. The city of Gresham had six stations. How did I know which one was mine?

The train stopped every few minutes to let people off and after about half an hour, I found a seat. From the wide windows I could see an old highway on one side, rutted with potholes and so overgrown that saplings had struggled through the cracks. A few people walked along it, and I saw a couple of carts and horses, and more cyclists than we have on our entire island.

There was also a group of boys, dressed in black and white, riding together. I noticed them not just because of their unusual clothing, but because they wore bike helmets. n.o.body had helmets on our island because the whole point was to feel the wind in your hair.

I studied the map trying to figure out how long it would take to ride to the end, but nothing seemed to be to scale. I was so absorbed in my worries that the train's doors had shut behind two burly men in gray uniforms before I even noticed them.

"Fares, please!" they shouted.

All around me there was the rustle of people getting their wallets out. I clutched my visitor pa.s.s, heart thumping. I should've known this wouldn't work. When the inspector got to me, he held out a meaty hand. He wore two gold rings, one wedding and one pinkie, and his palm looked soft and pink. He'd never held a pitchfork in that hand, that was for sure. I showed him the lavender pa.s.s.

"This is for tomorrow," he said. He sounded really happy that he'd caught someone. "Do you have one for today?"

"Oh, that's the wrong one?" I asked, feigning innocence. "I have today's in here somewhere." I dug through my pack like I was looking for it. "I, ummm . . . I must've lost it. It's orange, right?"

"If you don't have the correct pa.s.s, then we'll be stepping off at the next stop. There's a fine, you know," he said gleefully.

He took a handheld computer out of his back pocket and began to type something into it.

"I'm from Canada," I said. "I didn't know . . . I mean . . . I don't have any money to pay-"

"If you can't pay the fine, you'll get free accommodation for the night," his partner said. He had crumbs in his beard, and some of them flew off when he laughed.

It wasn't funny to me, though. This was just great. I really had thought the ticket lady had only been trying to scare me with the threat of jail.

"What's your name?" the man asked.

"Ummm, Mol-"

"h.e.l.lo, sir," I heard a voice say behind me. I turned in my seat and saw the guy who helped me find the MAX office. "I hate to interrupt," he said, "but I don't think you checked my fare."

He held out an open brown leather wallet, showing off his pa.s.s and a photo ID. Then he nodded at me. "You don't want to give her a citation. She's my guest."

I saw a shadow cross the fare inspector's face as he looked at the guy's wallet. He tugged at his beard. "Oh, right," he said. "She's your guest. No problem."

The first inspector quickly stuffed his computer back in his pocket. "Okay. Sorry about that."

They hurried down the aisle, calling, "Fares, please!"

"What just happened?" I asked the guy.

He shrugged. "Nothing."

"But they were going to give me a ticket."

"The transit company has an arrangement with my employer," he said. "Our guests don't have to pay."

"Ummm . . . well . . . thanks."

"No problem."

I scooted over into the seat by the window and he sat next to me. I was grateful, but curious too. Why had the inspectors looked . . . almost scared of him? I'd definitely seen their fear. Still, he was kind of cute in that boy-next-door way, so I decided not to worry about it too much.

"I tried to buy a pa.s.s for today," I explained so he wouldn't think badly of me. "But they were sold out. I kind of had to sneak on."

"You're bold. I like that," he said.

I smiled. If he only knew about how I'd gotten into the country, he'd probably be highly impressed. One thing about him that I noticed as we sat there was that he didn't really look at me. His blue eyes never stopped scanning his surroundings, which made me even more nervous.

"I was just wondering," I said, "I've got the address where I'm going, but I don't know how to find the house."

I handed him the paper, and he examined it. "I'm not really sure. Anyone know where Creekside Way is in Gresham?" he called out.

"It's that housing development out past Burnside," someone answered.

"Oh, yeah. The ritzy one that's not so ritzy anymore."

There was a general agreement. "Get off at the last stop, then," he said. "That's my stop too. You'll have to walk about two and half miles. Will your slippers hold up?"

"My slippers probably will, but I'm not so sure about my feet."

"Can anyone draw her a map?" he asked.

A man in faded blue jeans and no s.h.i.+rt drew a rough sketch of my grandpa's neighborhood on the piece of paper for me. "That's about right," he said. "I think so anyway."

At the last stop, we stepped off the train and the evening air blew hot in my face, reminding me of the woodstove in winter. I stood around while the guy unlocked a bike from a rack, hoping he'd say something more, but then I saw he was just going to leave, so I blurted out, "My name's Molly."

"Nice to meet you, Molly," he said. He rode off with a quick wave, and I was more disappointed than I should've been because it wasn't like I was ever going to see him again.

Just over thirty hours after Poppy put me on the plane, I was finally getting close enough to my destination to believe I might actually make it. I checked the map and headed down a paved road, cracked from weeds pus.h.i.+ng through. Three-story apartment buildings lined the street on either side, and residents sat around on cement porches. A couple of darkly tanned boys kicked a deflated basketball past me, and two little girls played with a jump rope on a sc.r.a.p of gra.s.s.

I limped along for about ten minutes until I came to a wide road, which intersected the one I was on at an angle. Across the street I saw an old building with a faded Fred Meyer sign on top. That was my landmark, and I crossed the empty street to a parking lot that was now an outdoor market.

Men and women were dismantling tents and canopies, loading boxes into carts attached to bicycles or horses, and generally laughing and shouting while they closed for the day. I skirted the market and found the road that ran behind it and climbed a long, winding hill that normally would've been a breeze but was no picnic in a pair of slippers. A few houses were set back off the road, the lawns overgrown, garbage piled in the yards. Occasionally people pa.s.sed by on foot, or a person on a bike dragged a cart up the hill, but no one seemed to notice or care about me.

Big rustly maples lined the street, and the branches hung heavily overhead, nearly touching in the middle, forming a dark green tunnel. The map told me to turn at the top of the hill onto a side street. There weren't any big trees on this road, and the last of the evening suns.h.i.+ne poured down on me. I stared in amazement. Giant houses stood in neat rows, so close together they were practically on top of each other. They were built of wood or brick, and all looked alike. Wide driveways led up to two- and three-car garages, and cracked pathways wound through the weeds to ma.s.sive, carved front doors.

The streets were deserted, but I could hear people calling to each other, their voices floating on the summer air. I had an eerie feeling, like people were watching me and then ducking into the shadows of their doorways quicker than I could turn and see them. I tried to shake off the feeling of being out in the open, being vulnerable, being observed.

I made my way through the neighborhood checking the weathered green street signs on the corners. Some of them were missing, but there were enough to keep me on track. I found Creekside Way and turned down it. These houses were even larger, and all of them had low stone walls in front of them. Halfway down the short street, I found the house. I stared at the building, fear looming up inside me. It was a ma.s.sive soulless place, and all the ground-floor windows were boarded up.

Could Grandpa still be living here, or had he gone away after my grandmother died? I tried brus.h.i.+ng off my clothes, but travel had made me dusty, and it didn't help much. With each step towards the front door, my heart thundered in my chest and the pain in my feet shot up through my legs. What would I do if I'd come all this way and he was gone? The little money that Jane had collected for me wouldn't get me back home, and my mother needed my grandpa. He had to be here. I raised my hand, tightening my fingers into a fist, and knocked.

Nothing happened.

I tried again in case he hadn't heard. A moment later, the door creaked open, but instead of my grandfather, a woman answered. I stumbled backwards, thinking I was seeing the ghost of my mother. The woman's face was lined and creased, and her gray hair was frizzy and out of control just like Mom's. Her big doe eyes stared out at me. I clutched Jewels to my chest and staggered backwards down the two porch steps.

A voice boomed from inside the house. "Katharine? Where are you?"

Katharine? Had the voice inside really called out for Katharine? It wasn't a ghost! The woman was my grandmother. She hadn't died after all. She'd been Had the voice inside really called out for Katharine? It wasn't a ghost! The woman was my grandmother. She hadn't died after all. She'd been discharged discharged from the hospital just like we'd tried to tell my mother. All these months of worry and she was standing right there, very much alive! from the hospital just like we'd tried to tell my mother. All these months of worry and she was standing right there, very much alive!

"Grandma? It's me. Molly McClure. Your granddaughter."

She didn't say anything.

"Brianna's daughter," I tried.

I thought I saw a tiny flicker in her eyes and then they returned to dull staring.

"Can I come in?"

"Katharine? Why do you have the door open? Who's there?" demanded a man's voice from inside. "We don't want any! Go away!"

A skinny hand pulled my grandmother back into the house and slammed the door shut. I heard a bolt slide into place.

9.

I STARED AT THE CLOSED DOOR IN SHOCK FOR A second and then knocked again. I thought for sure Grandma would tell him it was me, but the door stayed firmly closed. This could not be happening. I set Jewels and my pack on the steps and banged on the door.

"It's me! Molly McClure!"

No answer. Tears of frustration and anger dripped down my face as I pounded so hard my hands began to feel bruised. "Fine!" I shouted. "Be that way!"

But I hadn't come that far to give up. Especially now that I knew Grandma was okay.

I unzipped my pack and pulled things out, flinging them all over the porch. The Solar Fone was in there somewhere, and I'd been saving my one call for something really important. This was it. I found the phone in the bottom and pulled it out of its case.

"Call home," I told it.

I knew my family would be on the porch, enjoying the evening air while sitting in rocking chairs, probably listening to Dad play the fiddle. I hoped that they would hear the phone. Of course, I should've known they'd be waiting for it.

"Molly?" Dad's voice asked after half a ring, the connection crackly.

"Grandma is alive!" I said. "She seems okay." That was what they were waiting to hear, and I had to get it out before the phone died. I could hear my family's cries of joy as my dad relayed the message.