Escape to the World's Fair by Wendy McClure Page B

medallion, I tell you.” He pulled it out of his pocket and held it up in the light. “I didn’t have a chance to tell anyone yet, but when we were over by the orange crates I saw something carved into the wood on a trunk over there.”
    He found the symbols on the medallion—the one that looked like a loop with loose ends, and the one like a letter
M
with an arrow—and pointed them out to Frances. “See these? Somebody scratched those into the wood! I don’t know what it means but it can’t be coincidence, you know?”
    Frances just squinted at him.
    Jack sighed—of course she wouldn’t understand.
He
didn’t understand what the symbols meant either. He simply had a feeling that the medallion had come their way for a reason, and the feeling had gotten stronger once he’d seen the symbols scratched into the trunk. But he couldn’t tell Frances any of this. She’d only laugh and say it was all “hocus-pocus stuff.”
    So instead he said, “Look. I don’t care what you think. Going after the reward for the medallion is the only choice we have! It’s the only way we can keep Wanderville going and get us money for California.”
    â€œOh, what do
you
care?” Frances sputtered back. “
You’re
the one who’s planning on going back to New York!”
    â€œI’m
not
planning! That was just an idea!” Jack protested. That wasn’t quite true—he really had been thinking a lot lately about going back to New York—but he hadn’t decided anything. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to do. All I know is that we have to escape
this
place first!”
    â€œYeah, that’s for sure,” Frances muttered. She closed her book and crawled over to sleep near Harold. “Maybe that magic medallion of yours will tell you how. Good-night, Jack.”
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    Frances woke to the sound of the
Addie Dauphin
’s bells clanging. She could glimpse a bit of blue sky and morning daylight over the stacks of cargo that surrounded the pen.
    Everyone else was awake by now—though Frances wondered if Alexander and the older boys had even slept, since they were still yammering on, only now Jack and Eli had joined them and they were talking about escape plans.
    â€œWhat if we jammed something in that big paddle wheel?” Chicks was saying. “Would that stop the boat?”
    Oh, brother,
Frances thought. She was glad the older boys were going to escape with them, but she wondered if any of them were really smart enough to figure out how. She listened until Harold tugged her sleeve.
    â€œFrannie, my nose isn’t leaking anymore!”
    Frances smiled and began to pick bits of straw out of her little brother’s hair. “The oranges must have helped cure your cold.”
    â€œI wish we could have more,” Harold whispered. “I’m hungry.”
    But they hardly needed to wonder about food, because a few minutes later they heard the sound of boots in the corridor outside the pen, and one of the deckhands appeared with a big pot and two wooden spoons.
    â€œThe cook saved some mush for you brats,” he muttered. He tried to shove the pot between the bars of the pen, but it was too wide. Grumbling complaints under his breath, he unlocked the tall gate, stepped inside, and set the pot down with a
thunk.
    Everyone was silent for a moment.
    â€œEr . . . thank you,” Alexander said.
    â€œTwo hours ’til we dock in St. Louis,” the deckhand told them. “Then we’ll come back down and take you to the factory.” He tossed out a rag from his pocket. “Make sure you clean that pot real good when you’re done with it.”
    Dutch nodded. “Got it.”
    â€œAnd you’re not getting out of this pen until we come get you, you hear? Especially
you
.” The deckhand turned to Eli, who was now standing right by