Full Speed Ahead: My Journey with Kit

I ask Kit if maybe we could give the money we earned to the hungry boy. He’s even worse off than we are. Maybe we can call somebody to come get us instead of taking the train. And then I remember that Kit’s family doesn’t have a car or a phone. Kit makes a face. She says that we could call her Uncle Hendrick. She pronounces his name as if she said Count Dracula. He has a phone and a car. It’d be a collect call, and he’ll be really grouchy about it, but he would come. I tell Kit that I think that’s what we should do. Kit nods and agrees with me.

We find the little boy sitting behind the back door, looking forelorn. His dirty face breaks into a gigantic smile when we give him our four nickels. He looks at us as if we’re magicians or fairies. I’ll never forget the look on his face. As we start to walk away, Mrs. Finch calls out to us. She says that she saw what we did. We gave all the pot-scrubbing money to the poor sad-sack boy. She says she knows how hard earned that money was. She asks us how we’re going to get home now.

Kit explains that we’re going to call her uncle and beg him to come get us and bring us home to Cincinnati. Mrs. Finch bossily says that we will not do that. Her husband is planning on driving to Cincinnati tomorrow. He might as well drive this afternoon and give us a ride as well.

And that is exactly what happens. Mrs. Finch is the kind of person who gets her own way. So Kit and I hug her goodbye and climb in the back of an old pick-up truck with Buddy. It’s a bone-jouncing ride, but we love every minute of it with Mr. Finch. He drops us off at Union Station and we walk home to the Kittredges’ house from there, feeling very happy and very tired.