Read Online The Girl Who Could Silence the Wind by Meg Medina - Free Book Online Page B

crackers she’d bought at the last station.
    Sonia reached politely for a morsel. “Thank you.”
    She was already fond of Eva, who had pointed out sights on the trip all afternoon and made the time go by with explanations of what girls were wearing in the capital, what colors most favored her skin, whose boyfriend was running around with whom. She was a fount of personal information about others, but she seemed without malice. Best of all, she treated Sonia as if they’d been friends for years.
    “The first time in the city is always exciting, isn’t it, amor ?”
    Sonia nodded. “Don’t tell me it ever gets boring!”
    “ ¡Ay, no! Just being rid of that dull beast Irina Gomez makes it exciting. Do you know she had the nerve to tell my mother that nail enamel is for harlots?” She held up her newly manicured hands as proof of the impossible. “Such a killjoy!”
    Sonia shook her head and turned back to the window, thinking of Pancho once again. “Irina Gomez knows nothing,” she agreed.
    “What are you reading?” Eva asked, peering at the story.
    Sonia folded it quickly.
    “Nothing important,” she said, stuffing Pancho’s gift in her bag.
    “A private person, I see,” Eva observed coyly. “I like a girl with secrets. Anyway, corazón, the important thing is we’re free. We’re practically women now, off to work — and not the kind of jobs that pay pennies, the way they do at home. We’re going to earn real money — more than a country schoolmistress, for certain. That’s probably why Irina Gomez hates us.”
    Suddenly the train whistle blew, and the wheels screeched to a halt. Eva was thrown against the seat ahead of her. Sonia’s satchel of milagros clattered as it fell to the floor and rolled away.
    “Why are we stopping?” Sonia tried to sound calm. She thought of train robbers and bandits. There were no station lampposts in sight. Outside, only blackness.
    “God deliver us if it’s a boulder from a landslide.” Eva rubbed the bump on her head and sucked her teeth irritably. “Last year we were stuck in this valley for five hours.”
    Ramona, deep in sleep, did not stir. Eva peered out into the night and then called to someone farther back in the train car.
    “Mi amor,” she whispered. “Go sweet-talk Marco. Find out what’s going on.”
    Dalia made her way up the aisle. Her curly brown hair wasn’t bouncing loose around her face, as it had been at the party. Instead, it was tucked behind her ears demurely. Unlike Eva, she hadn’t spoken a word to Sonia. In fact, she showed no interest in her — or in anyone else, for that matter.
    “That fool probably fell asleep at the switch,” Dalia said. She ignored the NO ADMITTANCE sign and slid back the door to the locomotive. In a moment their voices were murmurs. Laughter floated through the cars.
    Sonia watched with fascination, thinking of something her mother often said. “In the arms of a beautiful woman, a man’s mouth runs like a river.”
    What might her besotted brother confess to a pretty girlfriend? Maybe he had shared the specifics of his plans.
    “Stupid cows on the tracks,” Dalia announced when she returned a little while later.
    “Oh, well, that’s not too bad,” Eva said, turning to Sonia.
    But Sonia wasn’t thinking about cows as she watched Dalia recede into the darkness. She started down the aisle.
    “Where are you going?” Eva asked.
    “The facilities.” She held her stomach as if it were cramped.
    “The toilet hasn’t worked for the last three hours,” Eva said. “Prepare yourself, corazón. It’s a horror.”
    Sonia hurried off, searching the dark seats for Dalia’s shape. She found her at last, sitting alone at the back and staring out at the sky. For a moment neither girl spoke.
    “You look like him.” Dalia was studying her in the reflection of the darkened window. “The eyes, I think.”
    “Thank you.”
    Sonia crouched low in the aisle and whispered, “Dalia, do you know where Rafael