Orphan Train(33)

“What do you like about it?”

“I don’t know. I just like it.”

“What’s your favorite part?”

Feeling the eyes of the class on her, Molly shrank a little in her chair. “I don’t know.”

“It’s just a boring romance novel,” Tyler said.

“No, it isn’t,” she blurted.

“Why not?” Mrs. Tate pressed.

“Because . . .” She thought for a moment. “Jane’s kind of an outlaw. She’s passionate and determined and says exactly what she thinks.”

“Where do you get that? Because I’m definitely not feeling it,” Tyler said.

“Okay, well—like this line,” Molly said. Riffling through the book, she found the scene she was thinking of. “‘I assured him I was naturally hard—very flinty, and that he would often find me so; and that, moreover, I was determined to show him divers rugged points in my character . . . he should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made, while there was yet time to rescind it.’”

Mrs. Tate raised her eyebrows and smiled. “Sounds like someone I know.”

Now, sitting alone in a red wingback chair, waiting for Vivian to come down, Molly takes out Anne of Green Gables.

She opens to the first page:

Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place . . .



It’s clearly a book intended for young girls, and at first Molly isn’t sure she can relate. But as she reads she finds herself caught up in the story. The sun moves higher in the sky; she has to tilt the book out of the glare and then, after several minutes, switch to the other wingback so she doesn’t have to squint.

After an hour or so, she hears the door to the hall open, and she looks up. Vivian comes into the room, glances around, focuses on Molly, and smiles, seemingly unsurprised to see her.

“Bright and early!” she says. “I like your enthusiasm. Maybe I’ll let you empty out a box today. Or two, if you’re lucky.”





Albans, Minnesota, 1929


On Monday morning I get up early and wash my face in the kitchen sink before Mr. and Mrs. Byrne are up, then braid my hair carefully and attach two ribbons I found in the scrap pile in the sewing room. I put on my cleanest dress and the pinafore, which I hung on a branch by the side of the house to dry after we did the washing on Sunday.

At breakfast—lumpy oats with no sugar—when I ask how to get to school and what time I’m expected to be there, Mrs. Byrne looks at her husband and then back at me. She pulls her dark paisley scarf tight around her shoulders. “Dorothy, Mr. Byrne and I feel that you are not ready for school.”

The oats taste like congealed animal fat in my mouth. I look at Mr. Byrne, who is bending to tie his shoelaces. His frizzy curls flop over his forehead, hiding his face.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “The Children’s Aid—”

Mrs. Byrne clasps her hands together and gives me a tight-lipped smile. “You are no longer a ward of the Children’s Aid Society, are you? We are the ones to determine what’s best for you now.”

My heart skips. “But I’m supposed to go.”

“We’ll see how you progress over the next few weeks, but for now we think it best for you to take some time to adjust to your new home.”

“I am—adjusted,” I say, warmth rising to my cheeks. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. If you’re concerned I won’t have time to do the sewing . . .”

Mrs. Byrne fixes me with a steady eye, and my voice falters. “School has been in session for more than a month,” she says. “You are impossibly behind, with no chance of catching up this year. And Lord knows what your schooling was like in the slum.”

My skin prickles. Even Mr. Byrne is startled by this. “Now, now, Lois,” he says under his breath.

“I wasn’t in a—slum.” I choke out the word. And then, because she hasn’t asked, because neither of them has asked, I add, “I was in the fourth grade. My teacher was Miss Uhrig. I was in the Chorus, and we performed an operetta, ‘Polished Pebbles.’”

They both look at me.

“I like school,” I say.

Mrs. Byrne gets up and starts to stack our dishes. She takes my plate even though I haven’t finished my toast. Her actions are jerky, and the silverware clanks against the china. She runs water in the sink and dumps the plates and utensils into it with a loud clatter. Then she turns around, wiping her hands on her apron. “You insolent girl. I don’t want to hear another word. We are the ones who decide what’s best for you. Is that clear?”