CHAPTER SEVENBUTCHERS AND BITTERSWEET BONBONS
Nine days had passed since Adam went on his trip and met Francine.
It was after midnight. He could hear his uncle snoring in the living room. But Adam couldn’t fall asleep—he was especially jittery that night, his mind a frenzy of thoughts bouncing off one another like rubber balls. After another hour of insomnia, he quietly shut his bedroom door and turned on the lights.
The snow globe sat on his dresser. The inside of the ball remained empty, just as it had been for the past week. He tapped on the glass. Nothing.
Francine’s wooly blanket still lay under Adam’s bed. The blanket served as a token of Adam’s sanity. As long as it was there, it meant he hadn’t been dreaming.
Maybe if he wished hard enough, the scene in the glass would change again. He closed his eyes, then opened them.
Suddenly, he sat upright.
The same snowy cityscape from before had appeared inside the snow globe, the layer of snow confetti lying on the bottom of the glass. It was as if the snow globe was just yearning for a shake so that the confetti could dance and cascade like a real snowfall.
After thinking for several moments, Adam made his decision. He quietly rummaged in his closet and put on his fraying winter jacket and scarf. He also wrapped the wooly blanket around his shoulders for good measure.
Then he shook the snow globe.
This time, Adam ended up on a quiet street corner in daytime. There was snow on the ground, but it wasn’t the same soft, fluffy sort that comes from a new snowfall. Instead, the snow was icy and hard, the kind that comes after being trampled a few days. It crunched under his shoes like frosted sugar.
A street sign pinpointed Adam in the Upper West Side. It was the kind of neighborhood he had only seen in passing, one with carefully trimmed hedges, shoveled sidewalks, and magnificent townhouses. Uniformed doormen stood at the polished gates that lined the tidy blocks. The glitzy, wagon-like cars parked outside and the unusual number of people wearing top hats indicated that he was no longer in 1999.
A yell from an alleyway across the street caught Adam’s attention. Next to the alley was a store with a fancy green awning above that read in fine cursive letters, BRICK’S BUTCHER HOUSE. Hanging in the store window was an array of plump sausages, Italian-style deli meats, and enormous roast chickens big enough to feed a family of two for a whole week.
A small girl sped out from the alley. With a jolt, Adam recognized her as Francine. Two seconds later, a large man in a bloodstained apron who Adam guessed was the butcher ran out after Francine, yelling at the top of his lungs.
“Come back or I’ll have you dead, you dirty child!”
Several passersby in fur coats stopped to stare. Francine kept running, her gray cloak billowing behind her, but the butcher gained on her with lightning speed. He caught up to her and yanked on her hair, pulling her to a stop.
“Hey!” shouted Adam, running over. “Let her go!”
Francine was wincing in pain as the butcher held her in a headlock, but she managed to glance at the boy who had joined them.
“Adam?” she gasped.
The butcher’s teeth were stained yellow, and his breath smelled of spoiled meat. He threw an angry scowl at Adam and snarled, “Of course. I remember you worked in pairs.”
With one of his meaty hands, the butcher clamped Adam’s arm. Adam dropped his snow globe on the sidewalk. Thankfully, the thick glass survived the fall.
Adam struggled to break free, but the butcher’s grip was like steel.
“Let him go!” snapped Francine. “He has nothing to do with this.”
“I’ve had enough of you thieving kids stealing from my shop. Rotten orphans—I know that’s what you both are.” Here the butcher leaned in and gave them a smirk. “That means nobody’ll miss you.”
He forced them back down the street. Francine shouted at the butcher, “You idiot, he’s not the boy you’re thinking of! Tito’s sick with polio!”
But the butcher didn’t seem to hear. He was laughing maniacally to himself, between muttered phrases of “Boil ’em brats in hot water” and “Hang ’em out to dry like salami.”
Although Adam was small for his age, he knew how to use his size to his advantage. At school he often slipped away from bullies’ grasps like a block of butter. Here, he took a deep breath, then threw himself flat on the sidewalk. The sudden force of his weight yanked the butcher to a stop. Adam seized the opportunity and gave a mighty kick to the butcher’s shin.
The butcher howled in pain and released both kids.
“Run!” shouted Francine.
The butcher swiped at them. Adam rolled out of the way just in time. That was one good thing about being small: you could swerve and dodge your opponents easily. He hastily picked up the snow globe. The tiny cityscape was still inside. He tucked it under his arm.
Francine also aimed a kick at the butcher, releasing another howl from the large man, before she and Adam hurried down the street. They bolted around the corner and didn’t stop running until they were several blocks away. Francine found a shortcut, and they streaked through the narrow alleyway. They finally stopped next to a crowded playground, thinking the butcher likely wouldn’t go after them in front of all the watchful parents. There the two caught their breath.
The first thing Francine panted was, “Where’d you even come from?”
“No idea,” Adam said truthfully. He rubbed his arm, where the butcher’s grip had left a painful mark. He realized he had left the wooly blanket back at the scene. At least his snow globe was safe. “Why’d you steal from him?”
“I didn’t steal. I was looking through his trash for scraps.” Francine revealed
