The Last Grand Adventure

by Rebecca Behrens

  I summoned all my courage and pushed my way out of the El Capitan into the in between, wobbling as I inched over to the other car.

  Then one problem turned into two. The door into the Super Chief  was locked.

  EIGHT

  Lamy

  I shifted the box of food to my hip, almost toppling one bottle of root beer, and with my free hand I wiggled the door handle again. My palms were sweaty and slippery. Through the gaps in the walkway, the tracks flashed silver as the train raced along. I winced with every bump and shake. How am I going to get back inside? Panic spread through my body like a shiver. The door hadn’t been locked on the other side—but maybe that was because the people on the Super Chief didn’t usually want to cross over to the El Capitan. I bet lots of the people cramped in coach seats would love a chance to stretch out below the glass of the Pleasure Dome.

  The train rattled, and soda sloshed onto my dress, dripping down to my leg. Ruth had warned me to avoid walking with a full open bottle for that very reason. I pitched forward and bumped, hard, into the cold metal door. I lowered myself to the safety of a crouch—although being nearer to the gaps didn’t feel secure at all. I was chewing on my lower lip and thinking of how I could possibly solve my problem when the door swung inward, and I tumbled partway inside, sprawling onto the Super Chief  transition car. Thank goodness. By some miracle, the food wasn’t all over the floor. I scrambled to stand up.

  “Young lady, what exactly do you think you’re doing?” An attendant scowled at me. I scowled right back—until I remembered I wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. My heart skipped a beat, or maybe it was only a particularly strong rattle of the train.

  “Trying to get back to my grandmother.” I spoke slowly. Play it cool. “She’s very hungry and needs to eat.” I lifted up the box of food.

  “And why is she on a different train than you?”

  “She’s not,” I blurted. “I went over to the El Capitan for the lunch counter. And”—I anticipated he might ask why I didn’t get lunch on my own half—“because I was curious to see what the other train’s like.”

  The attendant studied my face, like he was a human polygraph. Then he sighed, showing I must’ve passed his test. “Let me help you get settled in the right place.” He motioned to the food box. “Hand me that, please?”

  I clung to the sides of the soggy cardboard. “Thank you very much, but I think I’m fine now.” I’d rather he didn’t see where Pidge and I were hiding out.

  “I insist,” he said, not budging. Reluctantly, I handed him the box, and we walked down the aisle toward the roomette. Maybe it was the train’s movement, but my legs were feeling like jelly. I swallowed hard, hoping that Pidge wouldn’t be mad when I came back accompanied.

  When we got to our door, I knocked three times, softly. Then I knocked again, loudly, hoping that Pidge would pick up on the fourth knock and realize it was a warning. The door rolled open to reveal my grandmother, thankfully no longer in her pajamas, standing with one hand on her hips. “No lunch? Then where have you been all this time? I worried that you got thrown off the train. And did you forget you were supposed to knock three times?” Then the attendant stepped into view, holding our food, and Pidge’s mouth formed a speechless O.

  “I had trouble getting back from the lounge car with our lunch.” My voice trembled.

  “I’ll just set this down for you and be on my way,” the attendant said crisply, moving past us and into the roomette. He scanned the sorry state of the tiny compartment, with the linens piled up on the bed and our suitcases half opened and a Twinkie wrapper crumpled on the floor. “Do you need assistance putting up the bed? I apologize no one has been by yet—that’s unusual.”

  I clamped my hand over my mouth to stop a groan. Unusual. He was going to figure out it was because we weren’t supposed to be in there.

  Pidge cleared her throat. “Oh, it’s fine as is—I’m so eager to tuck into my lunch I’d rather not wait a second longer.”

  He narrowed his eyes as he nodded to her. I stood very quietly in the doorway while he placed the food down. With one last suspicious glance at our room, the attendant backed out to the hall. “Anything else I can do for you?”

  “Accept our thanks for your assistance,” Pidge said, her voice turning sugarier than the Twinkie.

  He tipped his hat in our direction and headed down the aisle. I walked over to the window and sank onto the bed, as much as its firmness allowed for sinking. “Do you think . . .” I started, but trailed off. What was the point in asking? Of course they were on to us now.

  She nudged the linens into a heap on the floor and plopped onto the bed next to me, rubbing at her temples. “I guess we’ll see. Might as well enjoy this food in the meantime.” She picked up her sandwich and unwrapped the wax paper, taking a bite. “Did you already eat?”

  I nodded. “I ran into Ruth, so we grabbed a bite together.”

  “That’s sweet.” Pidge reached into her suitcase and pulled out another Twinkie. “The last of my secret stash. Here, dessert.” She tossed it to me, then patted the blanket we were sitting on. “This reminds me of a picnic at Kinner Field.” Despite my nervousness, I smiled. I liked that we were sharing a picnic like she and Meelie used to.

  Pidge reached for the unspilled root beer, but struggled to twist off the cap. “Let me,” I said. I grabbed the hem of my dress to help me twist and only then realized that it had acquired another large stain, either of root beer or possibly steak sauce, during last night’s dinner. The bottlecap popped off and I handed the drink to Pidge.

  “I’ll change clothes after eating.” No point in doing so before, because an errant gob of mayonnaise on my blue jeans would mean I would be down to one clean outfit. I’d packed light.

  I had only started to unpeel the Twinkie wrapper when we heard a sharp and official-sounding knock on the roomette’s door. Pidge squeezed her eyes shut for a second. “And I was so going to enjoy this cold root beer and sandwich.” She offered me a halfhearted reassuring smile. “Follow my lead, darling. We’re going to act confident. But first—pretend like you are trying to rearrange the bed.”

  She opened the door to the glowering conductor and launched into speaking. “Oh, perfect—I was hoping that nice attendant would send someone by. My granddaughter and I have tried like the dickens to make up the bed. Could you possibly help us? My back is aching something terrible, and I need a rest.” Pidge all but batted her eyes at him, in some kind of old-lady charm offensive. I tugged at the sides of the chairs and blew my hair out of my eyes and tried to seem like I was not desperately nervous.

  “Ma’am, could I have your name, please?”

  Pidge paused, lips parted and eyes squinting. I could almost see the wheels turning in her head, spinning a plan.

  He cleared his throat. “Because, well, no matter what your names are, we have a problem. This roomette is unoccupied,” he huffed.

  “Nonsense—the train of the stars never has a vacancy!” Pidge laughed, but it came out strained. “Anyway, clearly it is occupied, by my granddaughter and me. We are on our way to my hometown for a trip down memory lane. My . . . daughter-in-law booked the tickets. Oh, dear. Where did I put them?”

  “Oh, no!” I exclaimed. “They weren’t in that bag I threw out this morning, were they?” Behind the conductor’s back, I winked.

  Pidge, pleased, sneaked a wink back. “Perhaps my daughter-in-law has the ticket numbers written down, back at home.”

  The conductor was not buying what we were selling. “Ma’am, I hate to accuse you in front of your granddaughter, but I think you knew very well that there were no tickets, and that’s why you ran out on your check at dinner last night.”

  I looked at Pidge, horrified. It had never occurred to me that we hadn’t paid for our meal. Pidge stammered, “W-well, I—I never! I am so confused about what possibly can be happening here. There must be some mistake . . .” Her voice trailed off and my heart sank like Meelie’s oranges in
the Atlantic, realizing that Pidge was floundering. Or maybe she really was confused about the dodged bill?

  The anger left the conductor’s face and he looked more sad, or worse—embarrassed for us. “It pains me to do this, but I have to treat you two like any other stowaways. Please gather your things. We’ll help you exit the train at the next station.”

  My face flushed with shame and guilt, and I felt sick. My chest became tight and airless. What’s going to happen to us? In a moment, the trip had gone from an adventure to a complete and utter disaster. A quick glance out the window told me we were hurtling through the middle of nowhere—and how would we keep going from there?

  It’s funny, because I worried about so many things—things that didn’t directly intrude on my life, like the war overseas or protests in far-off cities. Or things that were out of my control, like bombs that the Russians could drop on us. Now I felt fear with immediacy, and it made all the loose worries that usually roamed my brain seem, if not silly, then kind of pointless.

  For a moment, I thought Pidge might argue with the conductor, try to convince him that he was wrong. She leaned forward, a determined look on her face, and I waited for the perfect excuse to come out of her mouth. But then she relented, resigned to whatever would happen next.

  “Well, I’m certainly not going to tip for any help with our baggage.”

  • • •

  We found ourselves marooned on the platform at Lamy, New Mexico, watching the train chug away from the station. The silver sides of the streamliner glinted in the hot desert sun. Pidge hugged the valise of letters to her chest, clinging like it was a life raft. I was sitting across the tops of my O’Nite bag and her suitcase, the knapsack and Pidge’s pocketbook at my feet. I hadn’t had time to change clothes, as it turned out. With my stained and wrinkled too-short dress and our hastily packed luggage—part of a white silk shirtsleeve dangled out of Pidge’s suitcase like a flag of surrender—we must’ve looked like a real mess. It was 2:30 p.m. and the sun was high, and in the few minutes we’d been standing there, unsure what to do or where to go, I already felt like I’d started melting. Sweat beaded at my hairline and I could feel it running down my back. I could even smell the heat—like mud pies in Sally’s Easy-Bake Oven.

  In our frantic exit, I hadn’t time to chug down the remainder of my root beer, and I thought longingly of it sitting in the cool metal roomette, now that my mouth felt dry with anxiety and thirst.

  “I suppose we should head inside and get our bearings.” Pidge’s shoulders sloped, and the sureness in her step had disappeared—but we were walking across hot gravel, and she was wearing dress shoes.

  I surveyed our surroundings before heading into the waiting room. There wasn’t much to see, other than the rolling tawny hills, dotted with green desert shrubs. In the distance were more mountains. From what I could tell, the town consisted of the adobe-style train station and a dilapidated old hotel. The farther away the Super Chief got from us—now just a flash of silver in the distance, snaking away to Kansas—the more I felt like the whole world had left us behind in the desert.

  I scurried inside, where Pidge had wandered over to a display rack with lots of pamphlets. No other passengers were in the waiting area, and the ticket window had been rolled to a close, probably since the train had already passed through. Pidge gathered a few brochures and motioned for me to join her at the seats. I dragged the suitcases along with me, scanning for a bathroom so I could finally change. Although I wasn’t sure I could handle blue jeans in the middle of the desert. But I didn’t see a bathroom—just a lonely pay phone in the far corner and a dust-covered vending machine.

  “Good news first, or bad news?” Pidge asked.

  “Can I skip the bad news altogether?”

  “No, so I’ll start with the good. We can hop a bus to Salina, Kansas. It’s not too far from there to Atchison.”

  “So what’s the bad news?”

  “Bus doesn’t leave from Lamy. We have to get to Santa Fe first.”

  Hearing her say “Lay-mee” distracted me for a minute—Sally sleeps with a stuffed lamb toy, which she calls “Lammy.” Her version of Donk and Ellie, I guess. It’s so overhugged that its curled fur is going bald. I shook my head to bring myself back to this Lamy. “How far away is that?”

  “About eighteen miles. So we should get a move on.”

  I swallowed hard and willed myself not to think more about the left-behind root beer. “So there’s another bus to get from here to Santa Fe?”

  Pidge shook her head. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to start on foot.”

  My mouth fell open, like when the hinge on my doll’s jaw stopped working. “We’re walking eighteen miles? In the desert?”

  The look Pidge returned to me was the most unsettling I’d ever seen, because it was honest. She wasn’t going to sugarcoat this for me. “Until something better comes along. Frankly, my dear, we don’t have other options. Nor time to waste.”

  “But we have all this luggage.” I tugged at the Peter Pan collar of my dress. The neckline felt tight all of a sudden.

  “I know. We’ll rest a lot,” Pidge said, trying to soothe. “We’ll be walking along a main road. Hopefully, some kind stranger will give us a lift.”

  “A stranger? Picking us up out in the desert?” My voice rose with panic.

  “Or perhaps we’ll find a nice place to stop on the way. You know, Meelie was flying across the country once, with a map pinned to her clothes—and a gust of Texas wind blew it clear out the window. Lost, she ended up landing in a little town in New Mexico. As in, she put her plane down on Main Street. Kind strangers gave her a good meal and a clean bed, and helped her take off in the morning. So Earhart travelers have luck with unexpected stops in this state.” She stood up and stared out the window at the long road stretching into the desert. “Do you think you can do it, Beatrice? You have free will. I won’t make you—but I don’t know what else we can do, other than admit defeat.” She held out her hands, palms up, like she was offering to help me to my feet. Pidge smiled at me, and as the skin around her steely eyes folded, I noticed the bags underneath. We hadn’t gotten enough rest on the Super Chief, sharing that tiny, hard, cold bed and hiding out from the train crew. Now we were going to try to trek to Santa Fe? It did not seem like a good idea at all.

  I eyed the pay phone in the back corner and sneaked my hand into my dress pocket, where a few coins lingered with a candy wrapper and some lint. I could walk over to that phone and dial home. I could call my dad and Julie, tell them to come out and collect us. I could call the operator and ask for the number to Look magazine and try to track down my mom.

  Or I could go along with Pidge’s plan, as foolhardy as it was becoming.

  I think Pidge knew what I was considering. She didn’t say anything but looked deep into my eyes. I saw hope and determination in hers. I remembered what Meelie had written to Pidge, and what Pidge had repeated to me.

  We Earhart girls have always been the capable type.

  I did want to be like that.

  I thought about Amelia’s story of all the things going wrong during her flight: a bad seam, icy storms, lost bearings. Maybe snafus are just another part of having a grand adventure. She kept on going, and we could too. I stood up without Pidge’s offered help, and she folded her arms back against her chest—like I’d offended her by not letting her pull me up. But I was the young one, after all. “Can I take a minute to write something down in my journal, before we go?”

  Pidge thought it over. “Just one minute. We need to be off the road by dark.” The only way that would happen was if we were successful in hitching, or if we found a decent place to stay. But it was already midday on July 22—in fewer than forty-eight hours, we needed to be in Atchison. We didn’t have a night to spend along the road to Santa Fe.

  I pulled out my two notebooks. I did not know which one to write in about the experience of getting kicked off the train. (Nor the sinking feeling I got while wat
ching the Super Chief fade away into the desert hills.) Now we were stranded. I pulsed with worry about what we’d find along the road, if we could get where we needed to go. If we’d find ourselves lost without a Lassie to come save us. Yet we were also at the start of another leg of this journey, and anything could happen next—including good things. But I had one minute, and I wasn’t going to scribble down my feelings in both notebooks. I had to choose one.

  I took a deep breath and went for adventure.

  • • •

  Starting off, I insisted on carrying both suitcases. Pidge shouldered my knapsack and her pocketbook and clutched the valise in her opposite hand. I also insisted that we spare enough change for two ice-cold sodas from the vending machine in the waiting room. I’d seen magazine pictures of Peter O’Toole acting in Lawrence of Arabia, so I feared the wild-eyed, desperate thirst you could get in a desert. It was hard to balance the bags and the soda, especially as the sweat beaded on the bottle and made my hand clammy.

  Pidge grinned at me. “Weren’t you fussing about being cooped up in that nice roomette? Well, now you’ve got the whole wide desert at your disposal.” Comparing the two, I’d take the roomette. It was air-conditioned.

  As we took the first steps on our way, Pidge turned back to me. “Beatrice, we have the runway of life stretching in front of us, with nowhere to go but the future.” Hadn’t I heard her say something like that before? Maybe when we left Sun City, with Snooky. It was actually not a runway but a highway, called the Old Lamy Trail. It looked like back in the day it could’ve been a cow trail—or a wagon one; I wasn’t really sure if they ever kept cows in the desert. Scrubby green grass poked up from the dry dirt, in defiance of the blazing sun and heat. Occasionally a shrub dotted the roadside, like a permanent tumbleweed. There were no buildings around, just one long road reaching toward Santa Fe. The bright blue sky domed above us, dotted with high white clouds. I felt like I was at the edge of the world. It was marvelous. “Wait,” I wheezed to Pidge, even though she was walking a few steps behind me. I set down the bags and the soda, my arms praising me for ridding the weight. If they felt that noodle-like after ten minutes of walking, I hated to think how they’d feel in an hour. Or several—we had a long, long way to go.