Orphan Train

words down in a notebook because she likes the way they sound: Harridan. Pusillanimous. Talisman. Dowager. Enervating. Sycophantic . . .
    As a newcomer Molly had liked the distance her persona created, the wariness and mistrust
     she saw in the eyes of her peers. But though she’s loath to admit it, lately that
     persona has begun to feel restrictive. It takes ages to get the look right every morning,
     and rituals once freighted with meaning—dyeing her hair jet-black accented with purple
     or white streaks, rimming her eyes with kohl, applying foundation several shades lighter
     than her skin tone, adjusting and fastening various pieces of uncomfortable clothing—now
     make her impatient. She feels like a circus clown who wakes up one morning and no
     longer wants to glue on the red rubber nose. Most people don’t have to exert so much
     effort to stay in character. Why should she? She fantasizes that the next place she
     goes—because there’s always a next place, another foster home, a new school—she’ll
     start over with a new, easier-to-maintain look. Grunge? Sex kitten?
    The probability that this will be sooner rather than later grows more likely with
     every passing minute. Dina has wanted to get rid of Molly for a while, and now she’s
     got a valid excuse. Ralph staked his credibility on Molly’s behavior; he worked hard
     to persuade Dina that a sweet kid was hiding under that fierce hair and makeup. Well,
     Ralph’s credibility is out the window now.
    Molly gets down on her hands and knees and lifts the eyelet bed skirt. She pulls out
     two brightly colored duffel bags, the ones Ralph bought for her on clearance at the
     L.L.Bean outlet in Ellsworth (the red one monogrammed “Braden” and the orange Hawaiian-flowered
     one “Ashley”—rejected for color, style, or just the dorkiness of those names in white
     thread, Molly doesn’t know). As she’s opening the top drawer of her dresser, a percussive
     thumping under her comforter turns into a tinny version of Daddy Yankee’s “Impacto.”
     “So you’ll know it’s me and answer the damn phone,” Jack said when he bought her the
     ringtone.
    “ Hola, mi amigo, ” she says when she finally finds it.
    “Hey, what’s up, chica ?”
    “Oh, you know. Dina’s not so happy right now.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah. It’s pretty bad.”
    “How bad?”
    “Well, I think I’m out of here.” She feels her breath catch in her throat. It surprises
     her, given how many times she’s been through a version of this.
    “Nah,” he says. “I don’t think so.”
    “Yeah,” she says, pulling out a wad of socks and underwear and dumping them in the
     Braden bag. “I can hear them out there talking about it.”
    “But you need to do those community service hours.”
    “It’s not going to happen.” She picks up her charm necklace, tangled in a heap on
     the top of the dresser, and rubs the gold chain between her fingers, trying to loosen
     the knot. “Dina says nobody will take me. I’m untrustworthy.” The tangle loosens under
     her thumb and she pulls the strands apart. “It’s okay. I hear juvie isn’t so bad.
     It’s only a few months anyway.”
    “But—you didn’t steal that book.”
    Cradling the flat phone to her ear, she puts on the necklace, fumbling with the clasp,
     and looks in the mirror above her dresser. Black makeup is smeared under her eyes
     like a football player.
    “Right, Molly?”
    The thing is—she did steal it. Or tried. It’s her favorite novel, Jane Eyre, and she wanted to own it, to have it in her possession. Sherman’s Bookstore in Bar
     Harbor didn’t have it in stock, and she was too shy to ask the clerk to order it.
     Dina wouldn’t give her a credit card number to buy it online. She had never wanted
     anything so badly. (Well . . . not for a while.) So there she was, in the library
     on her knees in the narrow fiction stacks, with three copies of the novel, two paperbacks
     and one hardcover, on the shelf in front of her. She’d already taken the hardcover
     out of the library twice, gone up to the front desk and signed it out with her library
     card. She pulled all three books off the shelf, weighed them in her hand. She put
     the hardcover back, slid it in beside The Da Vinci Code . The newer paperback, too, she returned to the shelf.
    The copy she slipped under the waistband of her jeans was old and dog-eared, the pages
     yellowed, with passages underlined in pencil. The cheap binding,