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another orphan train. But not just to take the farmhand kids away—she’s also gonna get the sheriff to catch the rest of the ones who escaped.”
    Alexander looked stricken. “That’s us.”
    Jack swallowed. “Did they talk about what Miss DeHaven would do with the kids they caught? Where she’d take them?”
    â€œThey didn’t mention where ’zactly, but Mr. Pratcherd said . . .”
    Quentin stopped for a moment. Jack looked around and saw that all the kids were listening now, along with Ned and two other hoboes who were awake. Quentin took a deep breath. “He said,
‘Make sure they get worse than what they got here.’
And Mrs. Pratcherd said, ‘Of course.’”
    There was a terrible silence.
    â€œWhat could be worse than the Pratcherds’?” Frances said. She put an arm around Harold.
    â€œI don’t know,” Quentin murmured. “But then I got your note with the map, and I wanted to warn you. Because what if the sheriff caught you first? Then there wouldn’t be anyplace the ranch kids could escape to. I didn’t know what to do. . . .”
    â€œSo you just ran,” Jack finished the thought for him. “I suppose I would have done the same thing.”
    â€œNot me,” Alexander broke in. “I would’ve figured out a plan.”
    Quentin looked like he’d gotten a slap in the face.
    â€œWell, like you said, Alexander”—Jack looked the older boy in the eye—“we can’t change what happened.” (Though truthfully, he still wished he could.) “We ought to talk instead about what we’re going to do when we get to California.”
    Ned Handsome spoke up just then. “
California?
How do you folks figure on getting there?”
    â€œOn this train, of course,” Alexander said. “Our plan started with getting out of Kansas on a westbound train and . . .” Alexander’s voice trailed off as he sat up straight and looked around the car.
    Jack glanced around, too, and suddenly understood what the other boy was seeing: the sunlight that streamed between the wooden planks of the freight car’s sides and roof. The light fell through the dusty air in slanted beams that were growing longer with the afternoon sun.
    If they’d been heading west, Jack realized, they’d be traveling toward the afternoon sun. Not away.
    â€œCripes!” Jack blurted out. “We’re going
east
!”

    â€œAre we going back to New York?” Harold asked Frances, his eyes big.
    â€œNot if we can help it,” Frances told him.
    She stomped across the car to where Jim was idly polishing his harmonica with a grimy handkerchief. “You heard my little brother say we were going to California when we first got on the train!” she said. “Why didn’t you tell us this train was heading east?”
    Jim just shrugged and kept polishing. “Figured you was planning t’ get to California in a more interestin’ fashion,” he said.
    Frances sighed and looked around. The other kids were all chattering in excitement and confusion. How could they have gotten on the wrong train? Anka pointed out they hadn’t seen which direction the train came in from, since they’d all been hiding.
    â€œWe sure weren’t thinking about which way it was facing when we were making a run for it,” Lorenzo recalled.
    â€œIt’s not like we could’ve waited all day for the
right
train to come along,” Sarah added.
    â€œBut I had a plan,” Alexander said dejectedly.
    â€œHogwash. Hoboes don’t plan.”
    Dead John had woken up, and he was glowering at them all from his corner of the car. “So stop talking your nonsense ’bout
plans
and such,” he muttered. Then he turned and lay back down again, facing the wall.
    â€œEr . . . what he means is that we ’boes just ride the rails