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"Nah." Tam rubbed at his nose. "The professor's a good honest Shandorian,
right, like us. We've no use for gilt carriages."
"I think we
should get out and have a look round. I want a paper. I bet they have papers
here. New ones, from today even." Jon peered about, looking for shops, or the
boys who had gone around waving papers at the last stop.
Tam, sandy haired
and big framed, leaned back in his seat and frowned. "That's nonsense. It's
best we stay right here where the Professor can find us. I won't be losing you
in that crowd." Tam caught his brother's disappointed look. "And who's to say
you could read the papers here? They might be foreign."
"We're in Vellinos. They're bound to speak trade common here. We're just south of Arien. They
might get the Arienish National Times."
"You've got one
of those in your case already," Tam pointed out.
Jon sighed.
"But
Tam, it isn't new. They make a new one every week."
Tam shrugged.
Tam could read, he just didn't care to, not like Jon did. A puff of steam
outside obscured the view from the window and showed Jon his own reflection
briefly in the glass. A thin boy with large blue eyes looked back at him, his
blond hair cut neatly short, his best clothes rumpled from several days'
travel. He was not wearing the cravat his mother had carefully tied onto him.
Jon looked about for the thing. Should he be wearing it to meet the Professor?
The Professor was famous, after all, and Mother had wanted Jon to make a good
impression. His essay had certainly made enough of an impression to win him
this great opportunity: a summer working with Professor Eabrey Sheridan at the
archeological dig site in Alarna, along with the equally famous and even more
mysterious Doctor Corin Blackfeather. Jon found the cravat wedged between two
seat cushions and pulled it free to find it was a wrinkled mess.
The window was
clear again and Tam was looking outside now, with the familiar dubious
expression that said he wasn't comfortable in strange and foreign parts. Tam
was here to look after Jon, and for no other reason. At nine, even a very
mature and intelligent nine, Jon Gardner was not permitted to travel alone, but
with thirteen-year-old Tam along, big for his age and steady, Mother trusted
they would get safely to the Professor's watchful eye. She had left Tam with
all kinds of instructions, and he was taking them quite seriously.
"I don’t like the
look of that fellow," Tam muttered, frowning at the crowd of folk now boarding
the train. Jon looked, but saw no one especially suspicious.
"Too pale," Tam
explained. "Like he's never seen the sun or plowed a field. The man behind him
is as dark as honest dirt. He seems all right. He didn't object when
the rude, pale fellow butted in line."
"The pale fellow
is Arienish, I think." Jon said. "Nobility maybe."
"Don't see
nothing noble about him," Tam said. "He needs some sun. And he's
wearing gloves. What kind of man wears little white gloves?"
"It must be a
fashion," Jon said. The Shandorian fashion for men consisted of a sturdy work
shirt, breeches, suspenders, and a vest and jacket. Jon's jacket, folded in the
corner for a pillow, was grayish blue. Tam's, slung over an open valise, was
brown. Mother had let Tam's coat out recently to make more space in the
shoulders. The new cloth was a little darker than the old.
"Is that the
Professor, do you think?" Tam pointed out an elderly fellow with enormous
whiskers in a trim dark coat. Jon looked him over, but wasn't sure.
"Maybe that
fellow." The next man was dark skinned, in a big coat, and carrying a large
valise. "Him, maybe?" Tam pointed out another man with a beard, but he moved a
step to reveal a family in company with him, noisily boarding the train.
"Pardon me," a soft adult voice spoke from the door behind them. "But am I
correct in assuming that you are Tam and Jon Gardner?"
© 2007 Ruth Lampi |
