"Well, they'll soon catch on that you don't belong if they find you trying to hide. Get up here. Now. Before everyone settles down."
He slipped out from underneath and slumped into the seat beside her. He seemed to be trying to press his body into the corner. The train was well under way now, and the noise of the engine and the wheels made her lean close so he could hear her.
"Sit up like you belong." He straightened, but only a little. "If anyone asks, you're my brother. Your name is..." she thought a moment. She couldn't call him Ricci, surely. "Your name is Salvatore, okay? Salvatore Serutti."
"I can't hardly say it."
"Oh, don't be such a grump. We'll call you Sal, for short. You can say Sal, can't you?"
He answered with a grunt. Something was wrong, she could sense it. He wouldn't meet her eye, and all his smart-aleck behavior had disappeared.
"What's the matter?" He shook his head. "Come on, I know something's wrong. You can tell me. Nobody will hear over the train." He shook his head again, still not looking at her. They rode on in silence for a while, listening to the clack, clack, clack of the wheels against the rails. She'd never ridden a train before, and oddly enough, she liked it. They chugged past buildings and houses and then, gathering speed, seemed to whiz by the fields beyond the town. The snow out there in the open country was so different from the gray slush in the city, like a pure white wool blanket tucked cozily about the farms.
"Isn't it beautiful?"
He seemed to shake himself out of a stupor. "What you say?"
"The snow out here, the fields, the little houses and barns..."
He glanced out the window and then away. "I's'pose."
"Come on, Sal, what's the matter?"
"My name ain't Sal. That's a girl's name."
She smiled inwardly. She didn't dare let him know how relieved she was to see a bit of his old spirit. "Not in Italian. It's a very good boy's name. Besides, I don't even know your real name. You never told me."
"Don't matter now. I reckon I'm Sal—least till I get to New York."
She felt a pang for the disappointment she was about to deliver. "Sal ... we aren't—we aren't going to New York."
He sat straight up and looked right into her face. "Where the hell are we going?"
"To—to Vermont."
"Hell's bells!" He sagged so low, his spine went almost off the edge of the seat. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I told you to get off the train. Remember? And you wouldn't."
"I thought it was because I didn't have no stinking card."
That had been the reason, but, all the same..."You didn't ask me where the train was going. You were already here when I got on, remember?"
"I seed you, and I seed you was going to get on this train. I know there was two groups, but you said you was going to New York."
Of course, he hadn't been able to read the signs. "That was yesterday. Mamma changed the card last night. She thought a small place would be better for me. Not so scary."
"I don't have no luck, do I? Nothing but stinking bad luck all my stinking life."
"Maybe you'll like it in Vermont."
He gave her a withering look. "I'd sooner go to hell."
"You don't mean that!"
"You don't know me so good. Cor! What am I gonna do?" He was muttering to himself now, the gloom once again enveloping him like a thick fog.
The woman escort was coming down the aisle with slabs of bread and cheese that she was handing out to each child.