I glanced up at the series of second-story windows, each mottled from the overcast sky. While uncertain which was mine, I was gripped by the reversal of view—and a desire not to go back.

My chance to flee was waning.

Still clutching my train, I jumped down and took off in a mad dash toward the street. I steered around the corner, down one block, then the next, making turns here and there. I was a mouse in a maze, frantic for an exit.

Though the city was waking, I focused only on my boots slapping pavement, my rhythmic huffing and pounding temples.

I couldn’t say how long I kept up that way, just that I didn’t stop until reaching a depot of purring buses that emitted pungent fumes. Inside, hatted men perused newspapers and several mothers fussed with their toddlers. An old woman on a bench tsked at the couple seated beside her entwined in a kiss.

In line for the clerk, I eyed the depot entrance, dreading a far more consequential judge: Mrs. Atwood on a rampage. Anxiously I went to retrieve money from my coat and noticed something missing.

My valise…I’d left it in the laundry cart.

I had no clothes but the ones I was wearing, almost all outgrown. Barely any of the possessions I had left, not even—oh no. My photo with Papa. The portrait! I’d packed it in my travel bag.

My heart insisted I dash back to recover it, but my brain quickly countered: Back to where? The truck would be long gone. I wanted to sob. But I couldn’t. It would only draw unwanted attention. I needed to be strong.

The doors swung open.

A brutish policeman strode in with a billy club. My spine bristled and breath caught. He scanned the room, starting with the far wall. The early-morning crowd wasn’t large enough to hide me. I cowered into my shoulders, a turtle without a shell.

The officer angled my way and marched forward, surely to return me to the orphanage. Or would I be put in a home for delinquents?

My thoughts thrashed with notions of running. There had to be another set of doors. Hadn’t I learned to find the exits in any room straightaway?

Then the policeman paused. At a bench, he used his stick to nudge a sleeping hobo. The grizzled man woke with a snort and staggered to his feet. When the two lumbered out together, I swallowed past the wedge of fear in my throat.

“Help you there, little miss?” The grandfatherly clerk regarded me from the counter.