“Had to take the express,” Mo continued, unaware that beneath his hand, Will had started to tremble violently. “Made it just by the skin of my coattails. I was just about to pop onboard when I looked around and saw you. Funny, isn’t it?” Mo chuckled to himself.
“Excuse me,” the old woman said witheringly. “I was having a conversation with this boy, and you have barged right into it.”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am.” Mo swept off his hat and performed a little bow, all the time keeping his hand on Will’s shoulder. “My name is Mo, and I am at your service.” As he tipped forward, Lefty peeked his head out of the sling strapped around Mo’s chest and let out a small meow.
The old woman shrieked. “What is that filthy animal doing on your—on your—” The rest of her words were swallowed by an enormous “ACHOO!”
“Lefty’s not filthy,” Mo said reproachfully. As he spoke, he tugged Will closer to him. “Might have a bit of sardine breath, of course, but other than that she’s clean as a whistle.”
“All cats are—ACHOO!—filthy.” The old woman tugged Will back toward her side. “And I am deeply—ACHOO!—allergic, and demand that you—ACHOO!—get rid of that animal at once.”
Tug. Will went back to Mo’s side.
“With no disrespect, ma’am, I’d ask you whether you’ve had your bath today. Lefty has already had two.”
Tug. Back to the old woman.
“If my ‘bath’ consisted of—ACHOO!—licking myself from head to toe to—to—to—ACHOO!—tail, we might be glad that I had not—ACHOO!—taken it!”
Lefty seemed to be quite enjoying the argument about her cleanliness. Her tail, which protruded from the sling, was whipping merrily back and forth.
Will, sensing his opportunity to escape, sent a quick, silent apology the cat’s way—Sorry, girl, this might pinch for a minute—reached out, grabbed the cat’s tail, and squeezed as hard as he could.
Lefty let out a mighty yelp and jumped clear out of the sling on Mo’s chest.
For a second she hung, suspended, in the air.
Then the cat landed, right on the middle of the old woman’s sizable and sloping chest, and began scrabbling desperately to hang on.
Both the old woman and Mo released Will immediately.
The old woman let out a shriek that even Liesl, who had already left the train station and was winding her way through the dark and littered streets of Cloverstown, could hear.
“Get this beast—ACHOO!—off me!” she was screaming, as she danced around frantically, trying to use her cane to pry the cat from her chest. The harder she writhed and the more she twisted and turned, the harder Lefty clung to her chest. “Get the little monster—ACHOO!—off! It’s clawing me!”
“Just stay still, won’t you! I can’t get ’er if you aren’t still!” Mo was saying. “If you’d only stop moving for a second.”
The policeman stood there dumbly, scratching his head.
And once again, Will ran.
“Hey,” the policeman said glumly, watching the small boy dart into the crowd. “Hey. The boy is getting away.”
But neither Mo nor the old woman paid him any attention. She was shrieking and dancing; Mo was trying to reason with her; Lefty had just started to bite at one of her earrings.
So the policeman shrugged, yawned, and went off in search of a nice potato doughnut. It had, after all, been a very long night.
Chapter Eighteen
FOR SEVERAL HOURS, WILL WANDERED THE winding streets of Cloverstown aimlessly. He did not know whether he should be looking for the girl in the attic or not. It was possible that the old woman was correct: Perhaps she was off her rocker. But the idea was distressing to him, and Will did not want to believe it. Still, she had run from him. And the look on her face! The horror and fear! It made Will sick to think of it.
Then there was the fact of her appearance in Cloverstown at all. What, Will wondered, could she possibly be doing here? He hoped she had not been sent away to be a factory girl. Even more terrible than the memory of the horror on her face when she had seen him was the idea of that sweet, pale face bent over a sewing machine or a whirling cauldron of chemicals, those long, elegant fingers picked to bits by needles or scalded with hot liquids. He felt if she had been sent away to work, he must rescue her.
And so he walked, both looking and not looking, hopeful and fearful, and slowly moved farther and farther away from the train station, into the heart of the city, and then even farther, into its outskirts.
Eventually he came to an area that was very bad. All the buildings were rammed so close together it looked as though they were hugging for warmth, and the trash was piled in great heaps on either side of the narrow streets, which were full of beggars of all ages—old beggars, young beggars, blind beggars, lame beggars. The smells of people and waste were overwhelming. Will felt as though he would choke.