On the Blue Comet by Rosemary Wells; illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline

Author:Rosemary Wells; illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780763637224
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Published: 2010-02-14T10:00:00+00:00

The sun had set by the time we finished our ice cream and the men had drunk their coffee. “Joan’s away, so Alma will let us in,” Dutch had said mischievously when he returned to the table. “We can get in to see the Crawford layout. It’s famous all over Hollywood. I should have thought of it before!”

“The Crawford layout?” my dad asked.

Dutch grinned with the pleasure of his discovery. “It’s a model train layout as big as a small town, built right into the rock of the house’s foundation. It even runs through a little tunnel into the garden outside. The layout belongs to Joan Crawford’s little boy. He’s only a baby, of course, so it’s just for show. Joan’s one of Hollywood’s most glamorous dragon ladies. She has a temper like a faulty blast furnace. Lucky for us, she’s away, and the house is rented to a nice director and his wife. We wouldn’t want Joan to give us a guided tour!”

I did not want to ask who Joan Crawford was. My dad seemed to know. I knew no one in this ten-year-later world, not even the president or the biggest hitter in baseball.

Dutch’s car, a brand-new Chrysler Thunderbolt, moved almost silently through the middle of town, its motor purring softly. We drove up into the hills northeast of Los Angeles, above the curve of the Pacific Ocean, sparkling in the night. Dad sat behind me in the backseat and hunched forward. His hand never strayed from my shoulder, as if he could physically hold me back from the army, back from an unknown where he might never hear from me again.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Leaving Santa Monica. Heading for Beverly Hills!” said Dutch. Beside us, front windows flashed by too quickly to take in very much. Each house contained a family that I glimpsed for a few seconds. In some windows I could see people having cocktails in their living rooms or dressing in their bedrooms. The lives inside the huge houses zipped by like pages of books I had not yet read.

Beverly Hills mansions came in every fancy building style a person could ever imagine. Dutch pointed out which house belonged to which famous actor. “Judy Garland lives there!” he said. “And Clark Gable over in that one.”

Whoever they were, they all seemed to live in palm-ringed mansions with circular drives that looked as though they were groomed with a toothbrush every morning.

“Who are these people?” I asked, but Dad told me to shush. He knew who they were, every single one of them. “I live a lonely life, Oscar,” he said. “So I go to the movies all the time.”

Dutch spun the wheel, and we turned up another amazing street lined with even bigger mansions. I peeked around the backs of them as we whizzed and zoomed past, catching glimpses of a jewel-like swimming pool, an arbor, a guesthouse. Many were set way back behind an alley of trees the way the houses of River Heights, Illinois, were hidden.

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