Escape to the World's Fair

by Wendy McClure

  Then they walked to the end of the Pike to the exit gate, where Dutch, Finn, Chicks, and Owney bade them goodbye. There were train tracks that ran outside the gate, and the older boys said they were going to follow them on foot for a while.

  “Maybe we’ll find a freight car and ride the rails, like you did,” Finn said.

  “If you ever come across a couple of kids named Quentin and Lorenzo,” Jack told them, “say hello for us.” He didn’t know if they would ever possibly meet, but he hoped so.

  The older boys waved one last time through the gate, and then they were on their way.

  The group turned to head toward the grander plazas and palaces of the Exposition where they’d walked the day before. But in front of the great monument, Eli suddenly stopped.

  “Speaking of goodbyes . . .” he said.

  Jack had a heavy feeling in his chest all of a sudden.

  “I’ve been thinking about family a lot,” Eli said. “And then today when Madame Zee was talking about her son, I was thinking about family a lot more. And then . . .” He looked over at his cousin Willie. “I found my family! I think maybe it all means something, you know?”

  “What’s that?” Jack asked, though he was starting to understand what Eli meant.

  “Well, being in Wanderville with all of you has made me realize how much I needed to have kinfolk. I never really had that with my pop. But you became my kin.”

  There was a lump in Jack’s throat, but it was all right. Harold sniffled a little, but he smiled, too.

  “But now,” Eli continued, “I have a chance to be with my mama’s family. Willie says there’s room for me to live with my aunt and uncle, and they’re good people.” Eli’s cousin nodded. “Anyway. Whenever you head out for California, I just wanted to let you know I’m staying here.”

  Frances reached out and squeezed Eli’s hand. “I’m glad you have family.”

  Jack nodded. “Me, too.”

  Eli and Willie hung back by the lagoon bridge to talk about plans. Now it was just the four of them, walking along the plaza paths to get one last good look at the World’s Fair. They walked quietly for a while, watching the Ferris wheel turn in the distance and listening to the music that floated from some of the palaces. There was a song about the Fair that Jack realized they’d been hearing all along, with a refrain that went:

  Meet me in St. Louis, Louis,

  Meet me at the Fair

  Don’t tell me the lights are shining

  Anyplace but there . . .

  “‘Anyplace but there,’” Frances sang softly. “But you know what the marvelous thing is? We’re here.”

  “In Wanderville?” Harold asked, looking around at all the palaces. “Is this Wanderville right now?”

  Jack took everything in—the water cascades, the towers, the terraces. “I think so,” he said. “Not just because it all looks like a dream . . .”

  “But because we’re here together!” Alexander said. “Yes.” He turned all around, gazing up at the sky. Then he stopped turning when he faced Frances and leaned over and kissed her. Right on the mouth!

  Harold clapped his hands over his own mouth to muffle a giggle. Jack felt himself grinning, too.

  As for Frances, she stepped back and for a moment looked like she might punch Alexander. Then her face turned deep red.

  “Give me the map,” she said, grabbing it from Alexander’s hands. She pretended to study it, a crooked smile on her face. Jack really had to keep himself from laughing out loud then. After a few moments, Frances was sharing the map with Alexander, and her smile had grown bigger.

  “Say!” Frances said as she began to look over the map in earnest. “All the states in the union have exhibits here! There’s one for Oregon, and South Dakota . . . and one for California!” She put down the map. “What do you think, Jack? Should we go there?”

  Jack knew what Frances was really asking him.

  “And by ‘we,’” Alexander said, meeting Jack’s eyes, “that means you too, you know. Where do you want to go? Back to New York?”

  Jack knew what he wanted to tell them. He’d known, in fact, for a while, but he hadn’t been able to say why he felt that way. But now, as he looked up to see the afternoon clouds drift by the palaces—not like a dream at all, he realized, but like Frances said, just here—he knew why.

  “I want to go where my family is,” Jack said at last. “And by ‘family’ . . .” He took a deep breath. “I mean all of you.”

  It felt good to say it. All he’d ever wanted was to be there when someone truly needed him. Now he would be there for them.

  Harold grinned. “I know.”

  “Me, too,” said Alexander. He reached over and squeezed Frances’s hand, and then she kept their hands clasped.

  Frances’s eyes were bright. “So we’re going to California?” she asked. “The real California, I mean?”

  Jack laughed. “We’re going,” he said. “For real.”

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