Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver

Author:Lauren Oliver
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins US
Published: 2011-12-28T00:39:56+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

PO WOKE LIESL SOMETIME TOWARD DAWN. FOR A moment she didn’t know where she was. Then, as her eyes adjusted, she made out the looming shapes of the boxes and suitcases all around her, and recognized the musty smell and the lurching of the train car. Her hand went reflexively to the wooden box tucked behind her feet. Safe.

“Liesl, come look,” the ghost said, then skated to the window. The sky was still a velvet purple dark, with just a thin line of gray ringed around the horizon.

Liesl stood up unsteadily. Her legs were cramping, and she was very sore. She navigated the teetering piles of luggage with difficulty and joined Po. By standing on her tiptoes on top of a hatbox placed on a wooden trunk, she was able to see out the window. She saw all the many train cars ahead of hers shaking and clattering and shimmying past the flat, dark fields that surrounded them, looking like a long metal snake.

“A city made of smoke and fire,” Po said, with a note of excitement in its voice. It pointed with what would have been a finger, if it had had one.

Ahead, Liesl saw the rising spires of an approaching city. The buildings seemed to be built out of soot and blackness; a haze of smoke clung to them like a shroud, and everywhere high towers sent bright orange flames toward the dark sky, and belched terrible-smelling fumes.

“That is our stop,” Po said, although the ghost made it sound like a question.

Bundle went, Mwark.

At that moment the train began to slow; the lurching began to lessen. A sign flashed briefly in the darkness. It read CLOVERSTOWN, 2 MILES.

“Yes.” Liesl gripped the windowsill tightly, keeping her eyes on those leaping chimneys of flame and trying not to think of the safety and the closeness of the attic. “That is our stop.”

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