Wonder at the Edge of the World by Nicole Helget

Author:Nicole Helget
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Juvenile Fiction / Historical / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877), Juvenile Fiction / Action & Adventure / Survival Stories, Juvenile Fiction / Fantasy & Magic, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / Friendship, Juvenile Fiction / Girls & Women, Juvenile Fiction / Family / Parents
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2015-04-14T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

As the day wears on, the temperature rises. There’s not much to do besides be hot and be sleepy in this dark place. I doze off once in a while, and my dreams are filled with wild images, some of my father’s dead face, some of Captain Greeney slipping a rope around my neck. When I wake, my throat hurts, as though I’ve been strangled in my sleep. All the while, the Medicine Head’s crate sits on my lap, or right beside me.

I’m more worried than ever that someone, anyone, is going to try to take it from me. I loosen the ropes on top of the crate and dismantle the knot, then retie it, making a sheet bend. I loosen them again and make a double sheet bend, loosen, then a water knot, loosen, then a square knot, loosen, and a double fisherman’s knot. Finally, I stop and let the rope hang loose on my lap.

This train car smells like damp straw, unwashed feet, and wet coats. Hardly any light gets in. Even though we’ve been at a standstill for nearly a day, my stomach hasn’t settled. It wants to empty whatever’s in it, which isn’t much.

I never felt stomach-sick while walking around on the flat, stay-steady ground.

I think for a while that we should go back. Is Captain Greeney too powerful for us to outwit? He’s got the authority of the whole United States Navy behind him, for goodness’ sake, and all I’ve got is a smart Negro friend who is breaking just about all the laws in the nation even if the laws are not right, a crooked dog with a fearful nature, and a porter who can’t even speak English.

Eustace and Fob fall asleep in a heap. I can’t sleep because the Medicine Head won’t quit. It moans and whines and whispers to me relentlessly. The noise of it, along with the heat, makes me want to bust open the door and jump off the train. But I can’t do that. I can only wish it would be quiet. I touch the rough wood of the crate, and I don’t even care when I get a splinter in my finger.

Do you know what sirens are? Well, they’re not real, so don’t worry if you’ve never heard of one. Sometimes the sailors aboard ships would think they heard women singing off in the far distances of the ocean. Sailors can be on ships a long time, even years away from their wives and mothers, and they get lonely for womenfolk. So the lonely ones who don’t know any better steer the ships right toward the music. Then they crash directly into rocks and wreck the vessels. The music they heard was only the wind whistling through those rocks and not women singing them lovely songs. Like I already said when I told you that story about the woman and her chicken, people do some illogical things when they’re lonely. They forget all about science and let their imaginations run wild.

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