Adopted by Jennifer Lawrence

[4:] Trains

Maddie

I've realized that if you hop on a train, you can kill yourself trying, which is something I found out the hard way.

I'd been waiting the whole day for a train to come by because it's not like I had a train schedule or anything.

So when I finally heard a rumble in the distance, I'm like, Okay! Here comes the train!

I'd found a place I thought would be good for swinging on board. The train sounded like it should: chuga-chuga-chuga-chuga-chuga-chuga...

Once or twice I heard a whistle that blew: woo-wooooo!

I was stoked!

The closer and louder it got, the deadlier it seemed.

I still jumped out from my hiding place and ran toward the train as the locomotive blasted by. I couldn't run fast enough, I couldn't grab high enough. I tried over and over again. The train was so loud. So big. So fast. And then I tripped on one of the railroad ties and almost landed under the train.

It was the scariest thing I've ever done. I crawled away from the tracks, and when the train had thundered by, I just sat on the ground, shaking.

I probably sat there for a whole hour, shaking. I thought about going back into town, but I didn't want to push my luck.

So, I got up and started following the railroad tracks west.

Here's what I was thinking: To the west are hills. Hills means uphill. Uphill means the train will slow down. A slower train means I can get on board.

It seemed like a pretty good plan.

At the time.

I walked along the tracks until it was almost dark, eating and drinking as little as I could stand.

No train came by the whole rest of the day. The temperature dropped quick after the sun came down, since. I'd been walking and sweating. I got cold quick when I stopped to make camp.

I climbed up to an isolated ledge on a big rock formation. Then, I began to gather wood so I could start a fire.

I torn out and crumbled about twenty pages of a lousy novel and that made a great fire starter.

I didn't just use the fire to warm me up, I also used to try the sweat from my clothes, especially my socks. I also used it to burn a Vienna sausages can clean.

I thought about dumping the can away, but my mother and I always burned cans out. You can use them afterward for cups or scoops if you have to.

I really wanted to open the can of Spam I'd lifted because I was still hungry, but I ate the second half of a protein bar instead and washed it down with two sips of Gatorade. (Two sips is hard when you're dying of thirst and there's no one to stop you, but my Gatorade was more than half gone, so I forced myself to stop drinking.)

Then I put on every stitch of clothing I owned, and when the fire died out, I'm climbed up to my ledge and went to bed.

I didn't sleep very well at all. I kept waking up from animal noises: rustling, flapping wings, howling.

It was still dark when I gave up trying to get back to sleep. I was dying of thirst, my hips were sore, and I was freezing!

When the sky started getting light, I saw that my Hefty bag was dripping with dew. I licked it like crazy.

I probably got only three or four tablespoons total, but it made me feel great! Then, I packed up and started hiking west along to tracks again.

From sunrise to sunset I hiked along the tracks, sweating liquids I couldn't afford to lose, burning energy I didn't have enough food to replace.

How many trains have come by?

None.

I finally made camp again, went through the same routine again, woke up hungrier and thirstier than ever, then got up and started hiking again.

My whole body was sore. I felt hungry and tired and weak, but I kept walking.

Kept... on... walking.

Finally, finally, I heard a rumble. At first I was ecstatic, then I panicked. I was in a terrible place to try to hop on! I'd trip again!

The rumbling was getting louder, but I didn't see the train.

I was running along the tracks, trying to find a good spot where the ties weren't so uneven, strapping my backpack down tight, looking over my shoulder, telling myself I could do this, I could do this, I could, I could...

But where was the train?

Then it came blasting around the curve in front of me, barreling east.

Woo-woooo, the whistle blew. Woo-woooo.

I about shot out of my pants. As I scrambled away, the whistle blasted long and hard, which makes me think the engineer saw me.

It took me a little while to recover from that heart attack, then I got really depressed. If a train only came by every other day, and half those days it was going in the wrong direction, how was I going to catch it?

There was nothing to do but keep walking. And since the train was cutting through the hills now, and since the track was real tight between the cliffs, I had to climb up the side of the hill (which was more like a mountain). It took me most of the day, but when I reached the too, I had an amazing view of the north and the west.

Could I see cities? Towns? Villages?

Nope. Just trees and rocks and train tracks, going on forever and ever.

I stuck a piece of gum in my mouth and headed down the other side, that's where I am now.

A blackberry patch is by the creek. The blackberries are sour (they're more like redberries), but the water is so sweet. It's the best water I've ever, ever, ever tasted.

You want to know what the best thing of all is?

Right around the corner there's a ledge that has a tree growing on it, and that tree had a branch that hangs right over the tracks!

I'd say it's about twenty feet above the tracks, which looks like a long way down, but think about it this way: A train is about ten feet tall. (I think it's actually more than that. Wheels and all? Definitely more than that. But we'll just say ten.) And dangling by my arms from a branch, I'm almost six feet long (From head to toe? Yeah, that's probably about six.) That means that the drop to the top of a train will only be about four feet.

Anyone can do that, right?

Four little feet.

I'm not even going to think about missing. Or how fast the train'll be going and how hard I'm going to land. I'm going to stay here eating sour berries until the train comes by, and then I'm just going to do it.

Do it or die.