Do Not Become Alarmed(54)

Penny had always suspected that this moment would come. They would abandon her because she was slow and bossy and annoying. “Don’t leave me!” she screamed.

“Run!” Oscar shouted. His face looked desperate. The train rumbled and creaked, metal on metal.

It was hard to run in flip-flops, and she had never been fast. Oscar grabbed her hand and pulled her forward, limping. She stumbled and went down on her knee.

The others were all shouting, and she heard Sebastian scream her name. Finally Oscar picked her up and heaved her into the train with a grunt. She landed painfully on her side.

“Come on!” June screamed at Oscar.

He ran and struggled to climb up, the others pulling at his clothes. Then he was in. He collapsed on his back, breathing hard and moaning. June unzipped the pocket on the backpack and peered inside, then reached in and pulled out the bunny, like a magic trick. Its nose twitched and she hugged it to her face.

The train jostled its way down the track, with all of them aboard. Penny sat up and looked at her knee. Sticky blood ran down her shin. She wanted to cry, but that didn’t seem right when they had done something so impossible. “Where are we going?” she asked.

Oscar shook his head, still out of breath.

“We’re going northwest,” Marcus said.

“What’s there?” June asked.

“Nicaragua,” Marcus said.

“We’re going to Nicaragua?” his sister said.

“No,” Oscar said. “We’re just resting, and getting to somewhere with food.”

“Will they have insulin, too?” Sebastian asked.

Penny had a terrible thought, and she put her hand on her pocket and felt no paper bag. An icy flush passed through her body, even in the heat. The bag must have fallen out of her pocket when she ran for the train. “I thought we were going to the embassy,” she said.

“We were,” Oscar said. “But people are trying to kill us. And we can’t keep walking. I can’t keep walking. We need to rest.”

Isabel was watching Penny, with flat eyes and a tiny smile—she knew she’d lost the insulin. Penny hated her.

Sebastian unscrewed the pen and took out the old cartridge. “This one is empty,” he said. “Can I have a new one?”

“Just a minute,” Penny said.

He rolled the empty cartridge between his fingers. “Do you think Mom and Dad will find us?”

“Of course.”

“Can we call them?”

“We don’t have a phone.”

“We had a phone,” Isabel said, “but Oscar threw it away.” Penny’s mother would have told her she didn’t like that tone of voice.

“How far is Nicaragua?” June asked.

“We’re not going to Nicaragua,” Oscar said.

“But how far is it?”

“I have no fucking idea.”

June blinked at him.

“Probably about a hundred miles,” Marcus said.

“See, he knows,” Oscar said, and he closed his eyes. “He can be leader now, okay? I quit.”





32.



THE TRAIN HAD a different motion from the truck, and Noemi woke to the new rocking, trying to figure out what was different. It jostled in a different way: more rhythmic.

Chuy had chosen their car and they had climbed in at night in the dark, and then realized it wasn’t empty. A woman and a little boy were inside, hiding against the wall. But Noemi was tired, and she had shrugged her backpack off. She didn’t want to have to go find another car. Her once-pink backpack was scuffed and grayish with dirt. So was the plush pig.

The woman in the train car had seemed nervous. Noemi had tried to be friendly to the little boy, she had showed him the pig, but he didn’t want to talk. She thought maybe in the morning these people would see that they didn’t have to be afraid of Chuy, and then she and the boy could be friends.

Now, as she woke, with her pig as a pillow, she saw that the woman and the little boy were gone. It was light out, and the train was crawling.

“Why does it go so slowly?” she asked Chuy.

“You in a hurry?” he asked. He was rolling loose tobacco in a piece of paper.

“I just wanted to know.”

Chuy licked the paper to seal the cigarette.

She sat up and watched the trees go by, thick and green and tangled. After a while, she asked, “Where do you think the woman and the little boy went?”

“To find another car.”

“She was afraid of you.”

Chuy lit his cigarette. “Not my fault.”

“Did you talk to them?”

He nodded.

“Where are they going?”

“Texas.”

“Maybe we’ll see them there.”

“They won’t make it.”

“Why not?”

He shook his head and blew out smoke.

Noemi searched Chuy’s broad face. “Why didn’t my parents want me to know about you?”

“They think I went bad.”

“Did you?”

He paused, then said, “For a while.”

“So why did they change their minds?”

“Because your grandmother couldn’t keep you.”