Orphan Train

evinced a chorus of agreement, but Molly was silent. And Mrs. Tate—on
     alert, no doubt, for the slightest spark in the damp woodpile of her class—noticed.
    “So what do you think, Molly?”
    Molly shrugged, not wanting to appear overeager. “I like the book.”
    “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,