Free Escape to the World's Fair by Wendy McClure Page A

Eli and Owney. Jack slipped an orange into his pocket, then another. It still felt strange to Jack to “liberate” things, but it was hard to say no to a good orange, which you could keep for days and which could be eaten when you were both hungry and thirsty.
    â€œTry ’em,” Eli urged. He’d peeled one open and was popping the juicy sections into his mouth. “They’re good!”
    Harold was sitting on the deck with a pile of orange peels in his lap, his face sticky and flushed and happy.
    Frances beamed at him and turned to Jack and Alexander. “He ate the whole thing. And look at him—he looks better than he has in days. Oranges are just what he needs right now.”
    â€œFrannie, can I have another?” Harold called.
    â€œOf course!” Frances said. She retrieved one from the crate and handed it to her brother. Then she bounded over to Alexander and hugged him. “Thank you so much!” she told him.
    Jack could see Alexander grinning over Frances’s shoulder.
He sure looks proud of himself.
    They all soon realized they could fit only a few oranges each in their pockets, so they decided to eat as many as they could there in the cargo hold.
    â€œWe need a place to hide the peelings, though,” Eli noted.
    â€œWe can use that trunk in the corner,” Chicks said, pointing to one that stood open and empty behind some of the crates.
    Jack went over to the trunk to toss out his peels and noticed that there were marks carved in the wood trim. There were little hash lines, crossed off in groups of five, as if someone had marked days or hours; a word all in caps—
PAZ
; and then some other marks that weren’t letters or numbers.
    They looked, in fact, like the markings on the medallion Zogby had given them! One he knew for sure—a little circle with two points on top. It resembled a loop of string with two loose ends. There was also one that looked like a letter
M
with a downward-pointing arrow.
    He wanted to show Alexander and Frances. But Alexander was busy playing catch with Owney, tossing one of the oranges back and forth. “Hey,” Jack said, trying to wave Alexander over between tosses.
    â€œWhat?” Alexander said. At that very same moment, Owney threw the orange back. It sailed past Alexander before he had a chance to catch it. It bounced once at the door to the cargo hold, then dropped down over the short ladder to the deck.
    â€œGet it quick!” Dutch said. “Nobody should know we’re in here!”
    Jack leapt down the ladder with the others close behind. He spotted the orange rolling along the deck and scrambled to retrieve it. By the time he reached it, though, something had stopped its rolling. Or rather,
someone
. Someone with fine black shoes—gentleman’s shoes—that were so clean they gleamed.
    Jack felt a chill. He had a feeling he knew whose shoes these were. He looked up and saw that he’d guessed correctly.
    Because he was looking right into the furious face of Mr. Edwin Adolphius.

12
    B OUND FOR THE FACTORY!
    â€œA re we in jail now?” Harold whispered.
    â€œOf course not,” Frances whispered back. “There’s no jail on a boat. This is just a pen for animals. See all the straw?”
    Still, she had to admit that the tiny pen near the back of the steamboat seemed a lot like a jail cell, with iron bars that went all the way to the ceiling. It didn’t help that the sun had set for the evening, and the lamp in the corridor threw all kinds of strange shadows.
    Owney touched the bars grimly. “Bet they built it this way for the goats. So’s they won’t chew their way out.”
    Frances sighed. Not even
goats
wanted to be in this place, which was dark and smelly, with only bales of straw for sitting. She sank down glumly next to Harold on one scratchy bale. The older boys, Eli, and Alexander had found spots on the floor, but Jack stood by the entrance. He