Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver Page B

three or four cups a day, tops. His uniforms had seemed a bit tight recently. He could barely puff out, “Thought—might—find—here. Runaways—go—train—first.”
    “Last call! Laaaast call!” the conductor was hollering, and in that urgent, desperate moment Will imagined himself flying away from the station, soaring off forever in a train fitted with wings. There was a squealing and a screeching as the conductor released the train’s brakes, and the locomotive began grinding forward, out of the station.
    “Worried—you—getting—on—train—”
    Mo bent over and placed his hands on his knees to help him breathe more easily. In doing so, he let go of Will’s shoulder.
    Will did not hesitate for even a fraction of a second. Instantly he spun around and began to run, wildly, ducking and weaving through the crowd.
    “Hey!” he heard the guard shout. “Hey! Come back here!”
    Will no longer cared about going west, or north, or east, or south into the ocean. All he cared about was getting away . He collided with a woman carrying a small, dark poodle in her arms. The poodle let out a yelp, and the lady said, “Excuse you,” but Will didn’t stop. Ahead of him, the northbound train was gathering speed. If he could just make it . . . If he could pull himself up into the last car . . .
    “Hey! Hey! Stop it right there!”
    “That guard wants a word with you,” said a man with a stiff white mustache, stepping in front of Will. Panicked, Will spun around him, twisting his ankle in the process. Pain ripped through his leg every time he put weight on it, but still he kept running. He was gaining on the train now, gaining on it. . . . Just a few more steps . . .
    Sparks flew beneath the train’s grinding wheels. Will could feel heat roaring from its engines.
    “Somebody stop that boy!”
    If only, if only, if only . . .
    Will took two leaping steps forward and swung out wildly with his arm, and found his fingers closing around a door handle. He pulled, and his feet dragged, and then skimmed, and then lifted. And then he was on train 128, and looking back from the door in the very last car at the small, receding shape of the guard, who was standing on platform 22, frantically waving a small piece of fabric—which looked, from a distance, very much like a hat.

Chapter Fourteen

    IT WAS ALL FINE AND WELL TO PRETEND TO BE invisible for one minute, or two. But Liesl was not invisible, unlike her ghostly friends, and as soon as she sat down in a comfortable seat in one of the very first cars, resting the heavy wooden box beside her, people began to give her strange looks. She was young to be traveling on her own, they thought. It was unusual. It was Not Right.
    It did not help when Liesl began murmuring to herself (or so it seemed to them; for when they saw a flicker or flash or shimmer of light, they thought, Trick of the eyes instead of Ghost or Magic ). She said, “I know, I know,” when Po whispered, “People are staring.”
    She said, “Well, what do you want me to do about it?” when Po suggested she try being less conspicuous.
    The other people in the train car—older people with pinched faces and bad tempers—saw a young child all alone, who talked to herself and kept stroking a plain wooden box as though it contained a very powerful magic (which, of course, it did, though even Liesl didn’t know it).
    Finally an old woman carrying a cane leaned over and said to Liesl, “Where are your mommy and daddy, little one?”
    “They are both dead,” Liesl answered truthfully. “My father is here.” She tapped the wooden box. “I am taking him back to the willow tree, so he can rest.”

    This was an honest answer; unfortunately, it did not do anything but convince the old woman that the little girl was quite out of her mind. And if there was one thing the old woman with the cane disapproved of, it was people who were Not Right in the head.
    “Yes, yes,” the old woman murmured