From Norvelt to Nowhere (Norvelt Series) by Jack Gantos

Author:Jack Gantos [Gantos, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
Published: 2013-09-24T00:00:00+00:00

9

Sleeping on a train is like being gently rocked back and forth in a cradle. Waking up is more like being tossed out of one. I was curled up into a ball of infant bliss when the head-banging started against my door. I knew who it had to be.

“Miss Volker,” I called out, and threw my covers to one side. “I’m coming.”

I dropped to my knees in front of the door and unlocked it with my key. I remembered how she had rammed me the last time, so this time I carefully slid the dead bolt halfway and got into a position to leap to one side. At that moment, she hit the door so hard the dead bolt tore loose and she bore down on me like the carved maiden on the bow of a whaling ship. She rammed her wood-hard head directly into my chest. The air rushed out of my lungs and we both fell back onto my bunk. Not this again, I thought.

“I just read Spizz’s note!” she said in a panic. “Did you read it?”

“No. I can’t … read … Esperanto,” I wheezed with my last thin wisp of air.

“I’ll teach you someday,” she said hastily, then turned her head to see if she had been followed. “But for now we have to get off this train.”

I agreed, and wanted to blurt out my news about the second detective and Spizz, but without air I just gummed my words like actors in silent films.

“What are you? A ventriloquist’s dummy? Say something!” she demanded. Then in an effort to push herself off of me she pressed her claws down on my windpipe.

I raised my hands and used my fingers to give clues, as if I were playing charades and trying to act out the words for “choking to death.”

“Are you using sign language for the deaf?” she asked. “Because I think you just spelled out ‘white whale.’”

I shook my head.

“Something to do with the Pequod?” she guessed.

I nodded.

“I agree. We better get ready to abandon ship,” she said, and removed her hands from my neck and scooted over to the edge of the bed. I felt like a criminal who had just received a last-second gallows pardon.

I staggered onto my feet and raised my arms up above my head and down again, and up again and down again. As the air was pumped back into my flattened lungs I made a loud rasping noise like a braying donkey.

“This is no time to sound like an ass,” she said crossly. “If you have something to say, then just say it.”

“Spizz and the second detective”—I gasped hoarsely—“they are on the train.”

“I know,” she replied. “Spizz slipped a note under my door when I was asleep.”

“That was me!” I cried out. “The second detective and Spizz followed me to the bathroom after you got drunk and announced that I was a murderer and…”

“I wasn’t drunk and you can tell me your news later. For now Spizz is going to make a run for it once we get to Washington.

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