No! This was her only chance to confront Edison in public before the Fair. She had to make this happen. She couldn’t have betrayed the MOI for nothing. She couldn’t have betrayed Emmett on a gamble that didn’t pan out. She needed to reach that stage before Tusk could reach her. She began pushing and shoving, moving as fast as she could through the tightly packed crowd.
“My apologies, folks,” Edison said through the Empowernator. “My lab assistant just notified me of an emergency at the Guild Hall. Apparently one of my colleagues needs help screwing in a light bulb. Ha-ha! See you all on Wednesday!” He took his machine and dashed off, leaving a gaggle of bewildered politicians onstage.
“No! Wait!” Molly cried out. “Look down here! It’s me, Molly Pepper! I’m alive! He lied!” But none of the men onstage stood a chance of hearing her over the angry grumblings of the frustrated crowd. The only person on that platform paying attention to Molly was Tusk. The henchman hopped down and started working through the crowd toward her.
“Rats,” Molly hissed. She turned and saw Crikes heading up from the rear.
“Double rats,” she said.
But the unhappy crowd was surging toward the stage too. “ED-I-SON! ED-I-SON!” they chanted.
“Where did he go? What do we do?” Ulysses S. Grant asked.
Grover Cleveland shrugged.
Molly felt like she was trying to swim against the current of a raging river. She started shoving harder, but to no avail. “Gotcha,” Tusk said, grabbing her by the collar. “Now you’re gonna—erk!” A thimble flew into the henchman’s mouth. He dropped Molly and bent over, choking.
“Emmett!” Molly sputtered. “How?”
Emmett tossed aside Molly’s Thimble Cannon, having used up its sole piece of ammunition. He grabbed her hand as Crikes ran past them to pound his blue-faced partner on the back.
Emmett headed toward the rear of the crowd, but Molly tugged him back toward the stage. “We have to get up there and tell everyone,” she said.
“Edison’s gone,” Emmett yelled back over the roar of the crowd. “And those two aren’t the only Onions here!”
Molly’s head zipped back and forth. There were green-suited men heading toward them from every direction. “Triple rats.”
Holding tight to each other, she and Emmett forged off into the least green section of the mob. “How did you find me?” Molly asked.
“You really think Jasper Bloom can keep a secret?” Emmett ducked past a screaming man with a WE LOVE T.A.E. sign. “And I would’ve figured it out anyway, as soon as I read the paper.”
“So you know?”
“I can’t believe Mr. Bell is gone.” He looked like he might have teared up if he hadn’t needed to jump over a shrieking Edison fan who tripped into his path. They stumbled out of the throng onto University Place.
“Listen, Emmett,” Molly began.
“Save it,” he shot back. “I know everything you’re gonna say. You’re sorry. You feel terrible about abandoning me. You’ll never do it again. You’ll— Oh, drat! Here they come!”
Green Onion Boys were pouring from the crowd, first one, then three, then seven. The gangsters charged after the children as they tore down the street toward Washington Square Park. Already out of breath, Molly didn’t see how they’d be able to outrun them. “I finally want to see a cop,” she panted. “And not a smidge of blue in sight!”
“I don’t see anybody, period,” Emmett puffed.
“They’re all back at Union Square.” Molly’s legs were getting wobbly. “You came alone?”
“The MOI are not happy with you,” Emmett replied. “They’re doing things their way. You’re on your own.”
“Not anymore.” She would have liked to have flashed him a smile, but her sides were aching too much. And the Onions were gaining on them. She stumbled again.
“You’re still injured,” Emmett said, reaching out to steady her. “You’re not gonna make it.”
“No, look!” she said, pointing to the next corner. It wasn’t police, but it was the next best thing: a Jägerman was harassing a young flower-seller.
“Hey, baby cop!” Molly yelled. “Leave that small fry alone; take us!”
The Jäger agent looked up, perplexed. The flower girl fled as Molly cried, “We’re orphans! Take us in!”
“Um, yeah,” Emmett said, with less gusto. “We’re, uh, turning ourselves in. . . . Molly, is this the best—?”
Molly squinted to read the man’s badge. “Don’t stand there, Agent Humbert,” she barked. “Cuff us!”
“Um, we don’t carry handcuffs,” the Jägerman said. “And the name’s Hubbard.”
Molly glanced over her shoulder. The Onions were still heading their way. “No time for this, Hubbard. Do your job!” She marched past the agent, yanked open the rear door of the Jäger Society wagon by the curb, and climbed inside. She motioned for Emmett to join her and, hesitantly, he did. She shut the door.
She and Emmett both held their breath—and not just because of the foul stench in the dark, dank wagon.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Emmett finally said.
“Whatever home the Jägers put us into will be far easier to bust out of than the dungeon Oogie MacDougal likely had waiting for us. If he’d even let us live.”
Emmett said nothing.
“Thank you,” Molly said. “For coming for me.”
“You’d have done the same for me.”
“Darn right, I would’ve,” Molly said. And she meant it. Emmett had quickly become the second most important person in her life. And she did feel terrible about abandoning him earlier. “It almost worked, you know. My plan. Edison got scared. He ran.”
“It wasn’t a bad plan,” Emmett said.
“I just shouldn’t have tried it alone. Lesson learned. Give me your hand.”
She spat into her palm and reached out into the dark space before her. She was grateful to find Emmett’s hand waiting for hers. “We never separate again,” she said. “That’s my promise.”
“Did you spit in your hand?”
“Yeah, to make it an official oath.”
“That’s a disgusting oath. I’d have believed you without the spit.”
They could hear Agent Hubbard talking to someone outside and Molly bit her lip, praying that the Green Onion Boys wouldn’t somehow talk this Jägerman into handing them over. She breathed a sigh of relief when the talking stopped and the wagon began rolling. She’d done it. She’d masterfully avoided capture by the Green Onion Boys and was feeling better than ever about her strategic prowess. Edison might think he had a plan for every eventuality, but he hadn’t planned for Molly Pepper.
Sometime later, the wagon stopped and the back door opened.
“Out!” a uniformed police officer called. He pulled Emmett down and handed him over to two men in dark suits.
“Hey, this isn’t the Jäger Society,” Emmett sputtered as one of the officers pulled his hands behind his back and slapped a pair of handcuffs on him. Molly leaned out and saw a bronze sign on a stark stone wall. IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT. The Jägerman shoved her back inside the wagon. “Not you.”
“But—” Molly barely had a chance to register the look of terror on Emmett’s face before the slamming door separated them.
The wagon rolled off once more. Molly pounded on the wall behind the driver. “What are you doing? What’s happening to Emmett?” she yelled. “You can’t send him away! He’s got nobody! He’ll be alone! I’ll be alone!”
“Settle down,” the Jägerman called from the other side. “By tomorrow, you’ll be in a real home, with a real family. So sit back and enjoy the ride. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Edison sends his regards.”
Molly didn’t sit back; she screamed. She screamed and she pounded with all her might. She screamed and pounded and promised herself she would run as fast as she could the moment those doors opened. And that she would not let anyone stop her. She screamed and she pounded and she promised until no more noise
could come out of her mouth and she no longer had the strength to raise a fist. Until hours had passed, and she could do no more than lay her head down on the dirty floor and let sleep overtake her.
Part III
33
Queen of the Orphans
MOLLY DREAMED OF an earthquake, of angry titans thrashing about, shaking her world, leaving no safe place to hide. Walls rattled and the floor rumbled beneath her feet. But worst of all was the loud, piercing whistle.
Whistle?
Molly opened her eyes and sat bolt upright. “Holy whipsnorters, I’m on a train!”
“Oh, gee, is that what this is?” snarked a pointy-nosed girl with mop-like hair who sat across the aisle. She was one of the two dozen young, grime-smudged girls who filled the train car. “I thought we’d been swallowed by a big iron snake.”
“Put a pin in it,” Molly snapped back. She’d always wanted to experience train travel. Books made it seem so luxurious—plush seats, porters doling out refreshments, lush scenery sweeping past the windows. But the thin padding on these seats wasn’t quite worthy of the name “cushion,” no one was serving anything, and the window shades were all closed. “No time for fribbledy-frapp!” Molly said. “I need answers! Where are we and how did I get here?”
Mop-Head shrank back. “Um, we’re on the Orphan Train,” she said meekly. “You were asleep when that guy brought you on.”
Her terrifying experience with Edison’s crooked Jägerman surged back into her mind. The Orphan Train. At least that explained why every passenger was under twelve and in dire need of a bath. Molly had read about the Orphan Train in the Sun. Rather than cram the city’s overstuffed orphanages with more neglected kids, the Orphan Rescue Society was shipping them out of town. It sounded all well and good for those who genuinely needed new families, but Molly had a perfectly good mother, thank you very much.
“I’m not supposed to be here,” Molly said. “I have a mother.”
“So?” said Mop-Head. “Half these girls probably got mothers somewhere. But if your ma don’t want you—”
Molly leapt into the aisle and Mop-Head practically jumped into the lap of the thumb-sucking redhead next to her. “My mother wants me,” Molly said. “The only reason she’s not here with me—”
“Is ’cause she’s not an orphan?” shouted a tiny girl in the next row, who seemed very proud of herself despite having a finger halfway up her nose.
Molly rolled her eyes. “No, I . . . My mother’s in an asylum for the criminally insane.”
“Ooh, that’s more interesting,” cooed Tiny Girl.
“She’s not really insane,” Molly said, frustrated. “She’s the victim of an evil conspiracy!”
The thumb-sucker plucked a shiny wet digit from her mouth. “Wow, this story gets better every time you say something.”
“It’s not a story—it’s my life!”
“Then, please, tell us about your life,” said Mop-Head, leaning in eagerly. “This trip has been really boring.”
Molly glanced at the pleading eyes around her. Why not? She started with the breakdown of the Icarus Chariot and ended an hour later with, “So now I have to get off this train so I can rescue Emmett and my mother.”
“You,” said Tiny Girl, “are the most interesting person I’ve ever met.”
“Do any of you know whenabouts we’re supposed to stop next?” Molly asked. “I’m gonna hop off wherever and find my way back downtown.” She lifted the window shade. Nothing but grass and shrubbery.
“Um, I’m pretty sure we’re long past downtown,” said Mop-Head.
A red barn came into view, and fields of grazing cattle.
“Western Pennsylvania, I reckon,” said Thumb-Sucker. “The old ladies said we should reach Cincinnati by dinner.”
Cincinnati? Molly stared out at the alien landscape. There were already two states and several rivers between her and her mother, and the World’s Fair was in two days. She had to get off the train immediately.
“I’m jumping,” she announced. “Who’s with me?”
The other girls stared. “Um, I think most of us kinda wanna be here,” Tiny Girl said apologetically.
Of course they did. They had new beginnings waiting for them at the end of this ride. For Molly, there would only be an ending. “Well, wish me luck,” she said. Walking on a moving train turned out to be an adventure unto itself. Every rocky step threatened to send Molly for a tumble, and she had to grab seat backs for balance several times. But soon enough, she reached the rear door, through which she could see nothing but open sky. She opened it and stepped out onto a wrought-iron ledge.
“Young woman!” came a shout from behind her. A grandmotherly type had entered the car, pushing a small food cart. She wore spectacles—of course!—and a thick gray sweater. “Get back inside this second! No children outside the train car!”
Now or never, Molly thought, stepping to the edge. The tracks spooled out rapidly beneath her, much faster than she’d anticipated. That jump was going to hurt. Badly. And although she suspected she could still walk back to New York with one broken leg, two might be pushing it.
She huffed and returned to her seat.
After handing out both apples and warnings against horseplay, the scowling old woman pulled all the window shades down “to avoid unwanted stimulation.” The moment she vanished back through the car’s front exit, Molly stood on her seat. “Okay, ladies, you need to help me get off this train.”
“Hee-hee. Ladies,” Tiny Girl giggled. Her finger was back up her nose.
“Look, everything I told you is true,” Molly said. “Thousands of people are going to die if I don’t make it back to New York to stop Edison.”
“Why don’t you just tell the Orphan Rescue ladies about it?” Thumb-Sucker asked.
“Right now, those old ladies assume I’m some random kid. Which is fortunate, because I’m technically still wanted for attempting to assassinate the—”
The door opened and Molly froze. In walked Agent Hubbard, the Jägerman who had arrested—no, abducted—her. He walked down the aisle to her, frowning and holding a small stool. “They told me to get you as far from New York as possible,” he grumbled. “They didn’t warn me you’d be a jumper.” He continued on to the rear exit and stepped outside with his little stool. “Don’t make me come back in here,” he warned coldly before shutting the door.
“That’s the Jägerman who kidnapped you,” Thumb-Sucker helpfully explained, before returning to the remarkable feat of biting an apple without gnawing off her thumb in the process.
“Yeah, I remember him,” Molly said dully.
“We’re on a train with . . . a killer?” asked Tiny Girl.
“I doubt he’s killed anybody,” Molly said. “The Onions probably just paid him off after Emmett and I climbed into his wagon like morons.”
“I still think we should maybe tell the old ladies about the killers,” Tiny Girl said.
“Nuh-uh,” said Mop-Head. “The old ladies are probably working with the killers!”
“Everyone relax,” Molly said, hoping to calm the concerned murmuring that was bubbling up. “I’m sure the Orphan Rescue Society had no idea what this Hubbard guy is up to. They’re not trying to hurt anybody. I mean, they just fed us.”
Several girls began spitting out half-chewed apple bits.
“Tell us the truth: Are we in danger?” Tiny Girl grabbed the front of Molly’s dress. “Are we on some kind of perilous journey?”
“Yes!” Molly stood up. “Of course we are. Look at us. We’re all orphans or half-orphans or unwanted kids. We’ve been living in tiny rooms or filthy alleys or abandoned book carts. We’ve been dining on bread crusts and cheese rinds. We’ve all been hungry and tired and sick, and we’ve had to will ourselves to get better and move on, because it’s not as if we had another choice. And on top of that, we’re girls! What hasn’t been hard for us? What hasn’t felt dangerous? So, yeah, we’re all on a perilous journey. And we should feel pretty
darn good about ourselves for surviving this far. But: think how much easier it’ll be if we look out for one another.”
The girls stared.
“You’re not just talking about this train ride, are you?” said Mop-Head.
THUMP!
“What was that?” asked Tiny Girl.
“Something hit my window,” said a girl toward the front of the car. “From outside.”
THUMP!
“It’s by me now!” shouted another, a few rows farther back.
“Is it one of those robot things you told us about?” Tiny Girl sputtered.
“Oh, please let it be one of those robot things,” said Mop-Head, holding her hands together in prayer.
THUMP!
Molly threw open the shade and saw Emmett’s face staring in at her.
34
The Great Train Rescue
THE GIRLS SCREAMED so loudly that Emmett nearly lost his grip on whatever he was clinging to outside the train.
“Keep it down!” Molly warned. “It’s Emmett!” She pushed her face to the glass for a better look. Emmett was balanced on a long plank, his fingers in a vise-like grip around its edges. The swaying plank extended from a vehicle that was rolling alongside the chugging steam train. “The Marvelous Moto-Mover!” Molly cried. Hertha was at the wheel, with leather goggles over her eyes and a jaunty scarf flapping at her neck. Mary Walton, ever in her knit cap, sat at her side. Behind them, Sarah Goode waved enthusiastically and Margaret Knight tinkered feverishly with some new invention in her lap. Josephine Cochrane sat in the last row, working hard to hold a large-brimmed, orchid-trimmed hat on her head.
“Where’s the horses?” asked Tiny Girl, as every window shade in the car shot up and all the kids piled onto Molly’s side to look. “How’s it moving?”
“Are those the Science Mothers you told us about?” asked Mop-Head, pressing her nose to the glass. “Whoa. I didn’t know inventors got to ride big magic bathtubs. I wanna be an inventor too!”
A Dastardly Plot Page 17
