Becoming Johanna Read online

set it up to help defray some of the costs of the little girl I brought you—after she was abandoned in the Library of Illumination. I wonder if I could see the child.”

  “No … no. That would be highly irregular. It would never do to single out one child. It causes a disruption among the others—petty jealousies and mean-spiritedness. I couldn’t possibly allow it.”

  “I was really hoping to check in on her, to make sure she’s okay.” He took a check out of his breast pocket and looked it over. “Of course, if she’s not here because she’s been adopted, then there’s no need.” He folded the check and placed it back in his pocket.

  “I’m … I’m sure there wouldn’t be any problem if you just look at her from a distance. That way the others won’t think she’s getting special treatment.”

  Malcolm Trees relented. “That will have to do.”

  The headmaster sent the receptionist to ascertain Josefina Charo’s whereabouts and inform the matron about their visitor. A short time later, they stood at the entrance to a cafeteria, where lines of children waited to get their dinner.

  “The children all look rather young to be the girl I’m inquiring about,” the visitor noted.

  “That’s because she’s not in the food line,” the matron said. “She’s behind the counter, serving peas and potatoes.”

  The visitor’s eyes flashed. “She’s hardly old enough to be working here. It looks more like indentured servitude to me.”

  “It most certainly is not,” the matron spit out. “She gets paid.”

  “Oh,” the visitor said, nonplussed. “What about her studies? This can’t be helping her.”

  “She has completed her studies,” the matron replied. “She’s a sharp one, but not so sharp as to outwit me.”

  “Has there been trouble?” Malcolm Trees asked.

  “No. And there won’t be if I have anything to say about it.”

  “You see,” the headmaster broke in, “Josefina is too young to send out on her own, and jobs like this allow her to build up her skills for when she ultimately leaves us.”

  “If she finished her studies two years early,” Malcolm Trees mused, “I can’t help but think she’s gifted. So you can understand why I’m concerned that you’re building her skills as a cafeteria worker rather than getting her advanced tutoring.”

  The headmaster reddened. “This is just one of the jobs she has here at the home. It’s not to teach her how to be a cafeteria worker. It’s to teach her responsibility and self-sufficiency.”

  “Yes, I see,” the visitor answered. I see only too well.

  A few weeks later, Cook brought Josefina to the market with her. The sights and sounds outside the home were not what the girl expected. Just one block away from the foundling home, a village square bustled with people going about their daily routine. Storefronts captured the girl’s attention with their treasures, but she was not allowed to linger and study the displays. Instead, Cook filled the cart Josefina pulled with whatever she needed to stock her kitchen. And when the amount of goods exceeded the room in the cart, she handed Josefina bags to carry as well.

  Months passed before Josefina felt she had saved enough money to run away. She’d thought about leaving two months earlier, after she had been sent to the basement to fetch a box of fabric scraps. In the dark confines of the cellar, she discovered a pile of old and broken items destined for the dumpster. A small suitcase—barely twelve by sixteen inches—sat at the top of the heap. It contained no name or identification and now lay abandoned under a thick layer of grime. Josefina hid it in a far corner where it would not be easily discovered and vowed to return for it before she made her get-away.

  Her excursions with Cook taught Josefina just how expensive food and sundry items could be, and she felt she might never save enough money to live on her own. But she knew it was time to leave when the headmaster—complaining about high costs—announced he would be cutting workers’ wages.

  This is it.

  That night, after all the children had gone to bed, Josefina snuck down to the main office and closed herself inside. She was lucky the lock to the headmaster’s door had been broken months before, when he threw a paperweight in a fit of anger, and it shattered against the doorknob, knocking something in the mechanism out of whack. Inside his office, she looked for her name as she searched the file drawers aided only by the full moon and a box of kitchen matches. She found the folder and hid it under her clothing.

  As she was about to open the door, she heard a floorboard squeak. Someone was outside the office. Her heart thumped. She could hear the blood rushing in her head. She knew if she got caught stealing a file from the headmaster’s office, she would be severely punished. Her internal cacophony must certainly be louder than the floorboard in the hallway! She felt sweat bead up on her forehead. She sank down into a low crouch, hoping a large credenza would shield her. She waited for what seemed like an eternity, but no one entered the office. When she finally felt safe, she crept upstairs to the girls’ lavatory where she locked herself in a stall to review the folder’s contents. It contained correspondence pertaining to her being left at Peakie’s, and a record of all her grades and infractions. There was only one, and it still hurt to think about the punishment she received for telling the headmaster he was wrong. The last item in the folder was a small card containing a social security number in the name Josefina Charo. She knew she would need the number to make her way in the world and hid the file in her jacket sleeve.

  The following morning, Josefina snuck away from the laundry while everyone was busy with work or classes and gathered all her possessions together in a small pile. She didn’t have much—a skirt and blouse, a pair of pants and a shirt, socks, underwear, a nightgown, toothbrush, hairbrush, and more importantly, Joan Alice Carr’s wallet. Josefina would wear the only pair of jeans she owned with a sweater and her jacket during her getaway. She snuck down the back stairs and crammed everything in the suitcase she had found.

  The rest of the day dragged on, especially dinner, and she could hardly wait for everyone to go to bed. She waited for their tossing and turning to stop and their breathing to regulate, before she clutched her jacket to her chest and crept down to the basement. She grabbed the suitcase and stealthily made her way toward the back door of the home. CRASH! She jumped when she heard a pot clatter against the kitchen floor followed by a string of expletives. She hid in a shadowy alcove and waited. Whoever had dropped the pot apparently made a mess and took their time cleaning it up. Every minute felt like an hour. Josefina might have fallen asleep if the wild beating of her heart hadn’t kept her awake. Finally, she saw Cook’s face for an instant, before the woman switched off the kitchen light and groped through the dark to the back staircase.

  Josefina tiptoed into the kitchen and felt her feet sticking to the floor. Smells like oatmeal. She looked at the empty stove. Cook dropped the breakfast pot. I guess everyone’s getting cold cereal tomorrow. Everyone except me.

  She unlocked the door and eased it open inch-by-inch to keep it from squealing on its hinges and alerting someone to her escape. The beam of a flashlight cut across the rear yard, and she managed to get inside with the door mostly closed just before being caught. She’d heard there was a night watchman but had never actually seen him outside, although she had noticed him once or twice sitting in the lobby by the front door when the weather was nasty.

  A few minutes later, she opened the door again. She checked the alley to make sure no one was nearby and moved more furtively. She tossed her suitcase over the fence and threw a towel she had taken from the laundry room over the barbed wire to cushion it. She quickly scaled the fence, glad she had used one of the matron’s plush towels—as opposed to the ones given to the children, which were practically threadbare—so she only suffered a small cut on her palm. She tried to pull the towel off the barbs, but it stayed snagged. She hated leaving an obvious sign of her escape, but they would figure it out anyway when she didn’t show up for laundry duty.<
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  Josefina headed for the lights and laughter at the end of the alley and then stopped suddenly. What if someone recognized her? She thought about it. It would have to be a teacher or student, and they were all snug in their beds because they had to be up early in the morning. Some local merchants might know her face, but they were also probably home at this hour. Anyone who would be out this late was no one she would know, and she proceeded up the alley. She recognized the grocery market from her excursions and knew the bus station was just two blocks away. She walked close to the storefronts, trying to seem inconspicuous.

  The bus station was almost deserted. She approached the window and asked how far twenty dollars would get her on the main line.

  “Bellingham.”

  “Okay.”

  “How many?”

  “How many what?”

  “How many tickets do you want?”

  “Just one.”

  “You’re not traveling with an adult?”

  “My aunt is going to meet me,” Josefina lied.

  “Does she know twenty dollars will get you to Bellingham?”

  “I’m calling her, to let her know.”

  The clerk stamped Josefina’s ticket and pushed it across the counter. She picked it up and started to walk away. “Hey,” he called out.

  “What?”

  “Twenty