Restoring Harmony Page 4

  I dove into the tune with quick, short strokes, my fingers flying. Some people started clapping along and despite my sore feet, I couldn’t keep my toes from tapping with the rhythm. One tune flew off my bow after another, and I was starting to think that if we had room, we’d have a full-fledged dance right here.

  I played for almost an hour while the train moved along at a pace that my dog, Black Bart, could’ve outrun. After a while, my audience had that sort of glazed look that people get from too much fiddle and I knew they’d heard enough. Fiddle music is like that, so I packed up Jewels and sat down with Jane. Only diehards like me and my dad can listen to it endlessly.

  Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the train stopped for almost three hours without explanation, and then it started up again. Jane had a deck of cards, and she taught me to play rummy. She tried to help me, but it was hopeless, and I lost every hand.

  Just before noon, the train pulled into Jane’s hometown of Kelso and the conductor came through the car and told us we’d be there for two hours, so we should get off and enjoy the sunshine.

  “If I lived a little closer, you could come to my house and we could find you some shoes,” Jane said, “but I think you should wait here in case the train leaves early.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m staying right here,” I said, sitting down under a leafy dogwood tree.

  Jane gave me a hug good-bye, and I tried not to cry. My dad told me that one of his favorite things about travel had been meeting new people, but I hadn’t really understood until now.

  “If you need a place to stay, or a meal on your way back, stop by,” she said. “I’d be happy to see you anytime, dear. Good luck with your grandpa.” She handed me her address on a scrap of paper, and I hugged her again. I watched her hobble off until the crowd swallowed her up.

  Jane had given me a pair of purple knitted slippers from her small shoulder bag. I used a little of my water to clean my feet off and then I put them on. The soft wool cushioned my sore feet, but they were really warm on a summer day.

  Just over two hours later, the conductor called “All aboard,” and the rest of the southbound travelers got back on. Around four thirty, I saw a bridge ahead of us and I just about lost it. No one said we were going to have to cross a bridge! They’d been falling down all over the world ever since the Collapse, when tax money to repair them had dried up. Before I could find a conductor to ask if this really was a stable bridge, the train groaned across it and below us a wide green river snaked on its way.

  I clamped my eyes tight, and I swear I held my breath all the way across. I’d seen a bridge in Victoria, but I’d never, ever been on one. All I could think about was it cracking under our weight, sending us plunging down into icy water. When we crept over a second, equally shaky bridge, I thought for sure I was going to faint, but then we were on solid ground again and after a few minutes, the train slowed and stopped.

  “Portland, Oregon!” called the conductor. “This is Portland, Oregon!”

  7

  EVERYONE STREAMED THROUGH THE MUSTY STATION, out big doors into the early evening heat, and walked away in one direction. I limped after them because Dad had said that I needed to take the electric train called MAX and most people would probably be going that way. I had to ride it to Gresham, Oregon, a city about twenty-five kilometers away.

  “It’s really just a suburb of Portland,” Dad had said. “You won’t be able to tell when you cross from one into the other. Should be pretty easy.”

  He’d run his hand through his hair then, tugging at it. When he was worried, his curly hair stood up like a clown’s wig from doing that, but I pretended not to notice he was nervous about me making this trip. Even though I’d been scared at the time, I’d liked being the chosen one for a change, instead of just James’s and Katie’s little sister. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  This part of the city looked a lot like the deserted bit of Seattle. Buildings had big condemned signs posted on them, and colorful graffiti decorated everything. I saw the rosy-cheeked woman with the toddler pushing a stroller, and I hurried after her.

  “Is this the way to the MAX train?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Yep. We’re going that way too.”

  “I need to get to Gresham.”

  “MAX will take you there. Hopefully a lot faster than that stupid train from Seattle. I catch the one going the other direction, but I’ll show you.”

  “Thanks.”

  The MAX station turned out to be just a narrow road paved with crumbling red bricks, and two tracks. People crowded together on both sides of the street, huddling in the shade of the buildings. Rivulets of sweat trickled down my spine under my backpack. I had a feeling my hair looked like my mom’s after she’d cooked a big meal. Humidity in the kitchen made her long, frizzy hair bush out even worse than my dad’s clown hair.

  “You catch your train across the street,” the woman said. “Good luck. And we really loved your music.”

  “Thanks.”

  My dad had told me to buy a ticket from one of the machines before I boarded. I saw a big dispenser with cracked red buttons and a little screen. The entire thing was covered with graffiti. There was a spot to put money in, but a strip of metal had been screwed over the top of it so you couldn’t use it.

  A guy with sandy hair and a sunburned nose stood leaning against the machine, watching me. I pushed a button just to see if maybe the screen would light up, but nothing happened.

  “Those machines haven’t worked since the Collapse,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  “The MAX is free for anyone who lives in the county. It’s a social service,” he explained. “You just apply for a pass and they send you one every month in the mail.

  “How do visitors pay?”

  “You buy a pass at Pioneer Square.”

  I was totally confused now. “In Seattle?”

  “No. Downtown.”

  “Oh.” Did every city in the U.S. have a Pioneer Square? “Can I walk there?”

  “Sure. It’s not far, but it’s kind of confusing. I’ll take you there if you want,” he said, smiling.

  He looked normal enough. He was clean and wore shorts and a T-shirt, and I didn’t think his pockets were big enough to hide a gun, but he could have a knife. I was done trusting strangers. Getting burned once today was enough.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I can find it. Just tell me where it’s at.”

  He studied me for a second, then shrugged and started giving me directions.

  “Stop,” I said after about fifteen seconds. “You were right. I’m already lost. Are you sure you don’t mind taking me there?”

  He laughed. “No problem.”

  We walked down the street, under a bridge where more people waited at another stop, and then turned right and headed up towards the heart of the city. I studied the guy out of my peripheral vision. He was definitely older than me, but not by much. Maybe early twenties.

  Everything about him was average, from his sun-bleached hair to the light sprinkle of freckles across his nose. He had an athletic build, strong and lean, tall enough, but not too tall. He was wearing shorts, and his tanned calves were thick and hard with muscles, which probably meant that he rode a bike. I liked the way he looked, and it made me want to explain my own disheveled appearance.

  “I lost my shoes,” I said.

  “I noticed.”

  “I was barefoot and my feet were bleeding and someone gave me these slippers. I’d take them off but the pavement’s really hot.”

  He smiled.

  “Normally I don’t wear slippers outside. Or at all, really. I mean, in the winter I do because it’s cold. But not in the summer. It’s just that I-”

  “Lost your shoes. I know,” he said.

  “Do you think there’s anyplace to buy a used pair?” I asked him.

  “Mmm . . . Maybe tomorrow. I think all the shops are probably closed by now.”

  “Oh.”

  We walked in silen
ce for a few blocks while I tried to think of something else to say. Finally I burst out, “I’m from British Columbia.” I said it like it was some amazing feat, like I’d come from the moon or crossed a desert. “I’m here to get my grandpa and take him back home with me.”

  “I’ve been thinking of moving up to Canada myself,” he said.

  “You mean to live?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t think you can. Unless you have relatives up there. Do you?”

  “Nope,” he said.

  “I don’t think they’ll let you in, then, except to visit.”

  “Yeah . . . well, I know people who know people. They’d help me get in.”

  “Unless they’re family-”

  He smiled. “They’d have to catch me crossing the border.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He leaned towards me a little and said quietly, almost as if he thought the brick buildings could hear him, “There are ways to sneak in, you know? Boats go places where they don’t expect you to cross. Or I could probably get through the Rockies. Or I could just go for a visit and stay the rest of my life.”

  “Oh.”

  I wondered if a lot of people were sneaking into my country. With just a little help and a bribe, it really hadn’t been that hard for me to sneak into the U.S., so it probably went both ways.

  “This is a nice city,” I said. “My dad thought it might be really run-down.”

  “Portland’s built on two rivers, which helps with transportation of goods,” he said. “So there are still some jobs.”

  We walked down a tree-lined street with sidewalks made of brick until we came to a large plaza. I saw more MAX tracks on either side of the square and big crowds of people waiting for the trains.

  “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 glass window sat a woman with enormous purple-framed glasses, chewing on an apple and reading an E-ZBook Reader by kerosene l amplight.

  “Excuse me? I’d like to buy a visitor’s pass 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 sunshine, 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 shaggy 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. Nobody 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 pass, 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 pass.

  “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 pass, 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-”

  “Hello, 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 pass and a photo ID. Then he nodded at me. “You don’t want to give her a citat
ion. 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 pass 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?”