7

Hilly Vale

Late that evening they reached a town called Springville, and Del said, 'It's the next stop.' He stood and pulled their suitcases off the luggage rack and arranged them in the aisle - he was being very businesslike and concentrated. Del sat up straight in his seat for fifteen minutes, not speaking, and for the last ten minutes stood by the door, looking straight ahead. 'Hey, what… ' Tom said, but Del did not even blink.

'Hilly Vale,' the metallic voice said. 'Hilly Vale. Please watch your step while leaving the train.'

Del shot him a glance, but Tom was already hauling his suitcase toward him.

They went down into hot, humid night. For a second Tom heard insect noises, a drumming and creaking and scratching and singing as loud as if they stood in the midst of jungle, and then the train started up and the insect noises disappeared. The station was so small it looked like a cartoon; yolky yellow light from overhead bulbs hugged it close. The train sailed into blackness and became a red dot vanishing around an invisible bend. Insects scratched and banged and whistled.

'Well?' Tom said. He felt as if he had been put down by the side of the road in Alaska or Peru.

Then the cacophony of insect sounds increased: drills, hammers, wrenches on pipes, musical saws, penny whistles, piano strings, whole boxes of tools dropped from a great height, doorbells, breaking bottles, miniature kamikaze aircraft, blows against flesh.

Del shushed him. For a second the two boys stood embraced by the yellow light in what should have been silence.

Mr. Thorpe stepped out of the blackness.