Read Online When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde - Free Book Online Page B

like everything else? Just another secret to be kept from him?
    His stomach felt empty and achy, but it seemed worth the sacrifice. No people. No school. No lies.
    He would find food. He would beg it, or steal it, or work for it, but he’d find a bite somehow before the sun went down. That is, if this train ever stopped.
    One way or another he would get by.

22 March 1973   
Over
    He woke in the pitch dark with a start. Still inside that freight wagon. Still unfed. Teeth chattering from the cold. His hip ached where it pressed against the cold metal floor. His mouth was dry, and he worked hard to wet his parched tongue with his own saliva.
    He could hear the doors of train wagons being banged open. That’s what woke him. And the noises were moving closer.
    He wondered if there was still time to slip out and get away.
    The huge cargo door slid open with a clang.
    Nat squinted into a light. A light was being shined on him, and he threw a hand up in front of his eyes.
    “OK, son,” a big male voice said. “Your vagabond days are over. Grab your things and come with me.”

23 March 1973   
Nothing
    “You scared the living daylights out of me!” The old woman shrieked the words too close to Nat’s ear, making him wince. Then she raised her hand and struck him. Hard. Right across the ear, causing the inside parts of his ear to ache. “And Jacob’s mother. She was responsible for you. Do you know how scared she was?”
    Another vicious smack, again on the same sore ear.
    He looked up at the cops. As though they might be some help to him.
    If Nat had smacked someone that hard, they would probably have arrested him all over again. Lectured him on how violence was wrong, and never solved anything.
    But apparently grandsons were fair game.
    The cops just raised their eyebrows at him and said nothing at all. But their looks seemed to say Nat deserved all that and more.
    “And why? Because I left without you? Because you thought you should be allowed to come along? That is the most selfish behavior I ever heard of!”
    Nat flinched. Guarded his ear with both hands. But she kept her hands at her sides this time.
    “Is that why you did it?”
    Nat said nothing.
    “Answer me!”
    Still Nat said nothing.
    “What do you have to say for yourself, young man?”
    “Nothing,” Nat said.
    •  •  •
     
    “You know, you’re going to have to talk to me sooner or later,” she said on the long drive home.
    She had estimated it would take her nineteen hours of driving to get back, and did Nat have any idea what all that gasoline would cost? Not to mention the wear and tear on the car?
    He did not. Nor did he care.
    “Sooner or later you’ll have to say something.” That’s what you think, he thought.
    “Why didn’t you give them your name? If you’d told them your name I would have gotten the call yesterday. But no, you said nothing, and I had to wait another day while they matched you up with missing-child reports from all over the country. And poor Jacob’s mother just about died a thousand deaths waiting. She felt so responsible for you. Why didn’t you just tell the police who you were?”
    Because, Nat thought, if I had wanted to get back to you, I wouldn’t have hopped a freight train to begin with.
    “And then poor Mick’s wife had to take two days off work to stay home with the kids because I had to come home and report you missing. And they can ill afford that cut in income. Especially now, with poor Mick in the hospital. You know, I’m beginning to think you’re one of those selfish children who just always has to be the center of attention. Poor Mick doesn’t even deserve my attention when his appendix bursts, because it always has to be all about Nat. Is that how it is, Nat? Because if that’s how it is, I will not tolerate that. I will not raise some spoiled little child who feels he’s the center of the entire solar system, and that we’re all supposed to revolve around him like he was the