Trout and Me by Susan Shreve

Trout and I were lucky. All strangers on the train, as far as I could tell.
    We went into the first car, sat down in one of those double seats so Trout was across from me, and we were feeling pretty great until the conductor stopped to collect our tickets and gave Trout a long once-over look and asked him why he had drawn a red question mark on his chin.
    I had pretty much forgotten about Trout’s question mark. We were always together, and now when I looked at him, I didn’t even see the question mark. Or if I saw it, I wasn’t aware. At school, for some reason, the teachers decided to ignore it, even the librarian. Sometimes one of the kids would say something or make a joke but not very often. So I was surprised when the conductor noticed.
    “It’s a tattoo,” Trout said, and he looked startled.
    “A tattoo. How old are you?”
    “Eleven,” Trout said. “Him too.” He indicated me.
    “And why aren’t you in school on a Wednesday?”
    “We go to private school and we have a field trip today to the Bronx Zoo and we’re meeting our class there.”
    “Just the two of you eleven-year-olds going to the Bronx Zoo alone?”
    “Our school is in a different town and we live in Stockton, which is why we’re going by train.”
    This seemed to satisfy the conductor. He took our tickets and gave us a receipt and moved on to the next passengers, but not without telling Trout he ought to get the tattoo removed, young as he was and with such a nice-looking face.
    “Weird,” I said.
    Trout didn’t say anything. He just sat in the train looking out the window as the New Jersey towns whipped by, his arms folded across his chest. I couldn’t tell if he was having a good time or not. He was too quiet.
    But just after Newark, when we could see the New York skyline with all the skyscrapers like building blocks in the distance, he sat on the edge of his chair and pressed his face against the window.
    “So what do you want to do first?” I asked.
    “Go to the Bronx Zoo,” he said.
    Even I was a little scared when we got to Penn Station in New York. It’s so big and I had to ask how to get out of the place where the trains stopped and into the station. Then once we came up the stairs into the station, it seemed so much bigger and stranger than it ever had when I came inwith my parents. There was a lot of construction and I couldn’t tell which way the signs were pointing and I suddenly realized that I didn’t know New York at all. I didn’t know where I’d be if I followed the signs for Seventh Avenue or Madison Square Garden or the subways. So we went to a desk marked INFORMATION and asked how to get to the Bronx Zoo.
    The man told us to take the number 2 express and get off at Pelham Parkway and walk. He pointed us in the direction of the number 2, which meant that we walked underground, which I’d never done before, or if I had, I didn’t remember how terrible it was. Homeless people along the walls sleeping, sometimes on green garbage bags with all of their possessions beside them, and musicians playing their guitars or flutes or clarinets, and all the people rushing. There were kids, but none of them seemed to be alone as we were, except one group, and they were traveling with their teacher.
    “Are you worried about being murdered?” Trout asked.
    “Nope,” I replied. I hadn’t even thought of being murdered. The only thing on my mind was finding my way to the zoo, but now that Trout had mentioned it, I started to think how easy it would be for someone in the crowd to grab one of us or both of us—no one would notice—and take us someplace and we’d be gone. My parents might never know what happened to us. Just disappeared.
    “We’re not going to be murdered,” I said, but I didn’t like the subway, not the smell of it or the crowds of people.
    “So you know where we’re going?” he asked.
    “I do,” I said, and I had been following the signs for the number 2, but once we got there I didn’t