“Sure, Henry,” Tom says. “I’d love to.”

TWENTY-THREE

Tom isn’t used to the motion of the train yet, and he can’t imagine he ever will be. This is his first time in the big world and, here, now, his first time sitting with a stranger without Malorie perched on his shoulder.

Screw Malorie.

Henry looks like a big child to him, the way he’s sitting just barely on the edge of the mattress on the lower bunk. The way his big hands lay flat on his knees. The sparkle in his eyes, too. It’s the first time Tom has ever thought this way about an adult before.

“Welcome,” Henry says.

Tom sits on the bench. Between them is a small table. And on that table is a notebook.

“Where’s your friend Nathan?” Tom asks.

“Nate? He got off.”

“Got off…the train?”

Henry smiles. “We can do that any time we want. Even you.”

Tom looks to the notebook just as Henry points at it.

“It’s just my thoughts, really,” Henry says. He acts bashful, but Tom can see the man is proud of what he has written down. “Who am I to think anybody else would give a hoot about what I have to say…Yet, after seventeen years of observations, one begins to find their own important. Especially in a world where one is told not to look.”

Observations.

Tom likes the word. He thinks of himself between cars, looking at the world through glasses he fashioned himself out of material from the office at Camp Yadin.

“I’d like to read it,” Tom says.

Truth be told, he was hoping for something a little more interesting than a notebook. Olympia would probably like this more than he would. But the pages left by the census man have done something to change Tom’s tune about the written word. And the power therein.

“Really?” Henry says. Again, a big kid. A genuine smile. Wide eyes. And those big hands that now reach for the book and slide it Tom’s way. “Feel free.”

Tom didn’t necessarily expect the man wanted him to read it right now, but where else does he have to be? Mom doesn’t know he’s in here, and that’s good enough for now. If Henry wants Tom to know his thoughts on the creatures, on the world, why not? He can tell Henry doesn’t think like Malorie does. Not at all. For starters, he’s not wearing a fold and hasn’t asked Tom about one yet. Then there’s the lack of anxiety, ever present in Malorie. That stiff sense of rules.

Tom flips the notebook open. As he does, he hears Malorie standbys.

Even a drawing might drive you insane.

Are there photos in this book? Should Tom wear his glasses?

“Don’t worry,” Henry says, as if he’s completely read Tom’s mind. “No pictures in there. Only words.”