Tarnished by Kate Jarvik Birch Page A

tracks.
    I stumbled to my feet.
    “Hey! Hey you, girls! Stop right there!”
    I turned. We were parked next to another train and on the other side of it, a man in a dark blue jacket and a red baseball cap waved his arms at me.
    My legs felt like stumps, too big, too blocky to actually move. They were still so sore from walking so long the night before and now the muscles not only felt tired, but cramped from sitting still for so many hours. I couldn’t possibly run after Missy. I turned my head away from the screaming man and forced my body to follow her. Already she’d scrambled across two sets of train tracks and was making her way toward a dark wall of trees on the other side of the yard.
    “Wait right there,” the man called after me. “You’re trespassing!”
    Trespassing? If he caught me he would turn me into the police. And if the police found me, I’d be back at the congressman’s house before I knew it. But not of my own volition. I’d be a prisoner again. And that wasn’t how I’d planned this to go.
    My arms pumped at my sides as I leaped between the tracks. My foot caught on one of the rails and I fell, catching myself on my hands again, but it only took a second for me to get to my feet.
    Missy reached the trees and turned around. “Come on, come on!”
    I crashed headlong into the woods. Trees slapped at my face and arms, grabbed out for my legs like they were trying to pull me down.
    “This way!” Missy grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me down a small embankment. The dead leaves slipped beneath my feet, and I slid, grabbing onto thin trunks and branches. A few times I slid all the way down, but I was back on my feet in seconds. In front of us, a large outcropping of rocks jutted up out of the undergrowth and we dove for them, pressing our bodies into the damp earth.
    My chest shuddered as I gasped for breath. Missy slid her hand over my mouth and held it there, listening. Her own breath was ragged next to my ear.
    After a minute she peeked up over the rock.
    “What did he say?” she asked, finally taking her hand from in front of my mouth and wiping her palm against her pants.
    “Wait…he just said wait,” I panted. “He said we were trespassing.”
    Missy rolled her eyes. “Well, no kidding.” She shook her head. “I didn’t even see him there. He must have been behind the other train when I looked.”
    “Do you think he’ll call someone? The police? Do you think he recognized us?”
    Missy stood back up, brushing the dirt and leaves from off her tights. “Nah, he was just some dumb railroad worker. He’s not going to bother.”
    I sat a moment longer and rested my head in my hands. My body was still shaking. All of it. Even muscles I didn’t know existed were cramped and trembling.
    “Come on. It’s time to get up,” Missy ordered. “We can’t just waste time sitting around in the woods.”
    I took a deep breath and stared up past the branches toward the bright blue sky above me. Why couldn’t we just stay here a little bit longer? Rest. Breathe. The air was crisp and full of the loamy smell of life, so much nicer than the stale air inside the train. It reminded me of Penn’s garden. I wished I could bottle it, take this perfume with me because something told me that the place we were headed wouldn’t be anywhere near as nice as this.
    T he woods weren’t wide, only a small stretch that separated the railroad from the rest of the town. We followed the cover of the trees as long as we could, but after a while they gave way to buildings and we moved out onto the sidewalk. The streets were lined with old brick buildings. A few had signs in the windows, but it was hard to tell whether they were open anymore or whether the signs were left over from years ago when it had actually been busy. Clearly, this wasn’t the best part of town.
    A car drove past and I stepped closer to Missy.
    “Stop it,” she snapped. “You can’t cower at everything. It draws attention. You have