On Track for Treasure by Wendy McClure

back at Miss DeHaven. “We . . . we don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, grabbing Harold’s hand. “We were all just leaving.” Her heart was thumping hard and her legs were trembling. From somewhere outside a train whistle shrieked and it felt like a scream from deep in her brain.
    Suddenly, Harold yanked his hand out of Frances’s, his eyes wide.
“I think that’s Papa’s train!”
he yelled.
“We’d better run for it! Run!”
And just like that, Frances’s little brother was off like a shot, hurtling straight out of the waiting room.
    She and the other six children trailed right behind.

8
    T HE NOT-ORPHANS
    â€œT hat was close,” Jack whispered when he could finally catch his breath enough to speak.
    The children had made it all the way outside the depot and had dashed around to the side of the building, out of sight from the front doors. They’d stopped for the sake of Nicky, who occasionally wheezed when he ran.
    Alexander grinned. “That was some quick thinking, Harold,” he said, reaching down and ruffling the seven-year-old’s red hair.
    But Jack wasn’t smiling. “You should know when to keep your voice down,” he told Alexander.
    â€œHow was I supposed to know that Miss DeHaven was there?” Alexander protested. “And besides, what could she do to us—rap our knuckles?”
    â€œShe can do plenty more than that,” Jack said. “You should have been there when she was talking to the depot matron. . . .” He and Frances and Sarah quickly explained to the others what they’d just overheard.
    â€œShe’s awful,” Frances said with a shudder.
    Anka nodded. “Her face has hate.”
    â€œDo you think she recognized us?” Sarah asked. “Does she know we’re the kids who escaped from the Pratcherds?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Jack. “She was definitely suspicious. And she knows we’re from New York.”
    On one hand, Jack figured Miss DeHaven despised most kids, especially the down-and-out ones, and couldn’t be bothered to remember every orphan train rider. On the other, there’d been a moment back in the waiting room when she’d looked him in the eye, and he was sure she knew who he was. Either way, it was better to stay out of her sight.
    By now Nicky’s wheezing had settled down.
    â€œLet’s head out now,” Alexander said. He turned and took a couple of steps in the direction of the rail yard, then stopped short. The stationmaster was right in front of him.
    Jack spun around and saw three porters blocking the other direction.
    â€œThere you are,” the stationmaster said with a sneer. “We’re here to escort you little wretches to your train.”

    â€œWhat are you talking about?
We’re
going to California!” Alexander sputtered as they were being marched back into the depot. The stationmaster had a steel grip on Alexander’s arm and Jack’s, too, and the rest of the kids were being firmly led along by the porters.
    â€œI know orphan trash when I see it,” said the stationmaster, “and I will not have you gangs of street urchins in my depot picking pockets and begging.”
    â€œBut we’re not—” Frances tried to protest, but the stationmaster went right on talking.
    â€œAnd it just so happens there is a lady here
right now
whose job it is to take care of cases like you. Get you kids out of here, send you someplace where you’ll be useful and not such a blasted nuisance. There’s a train about to come in. . . .”
    They were in the depot lobby now, and Jack couldn’t even hear his own stumbling footsteps over the din—hundreds of tapping feet that in the echoing hallway formed the rhythm of a grim march. Marching him to his doom, he thought.
    The stationmaster continued, “It’s a train