by Lev Grossman
“What?”
“Come on. Every train has one.”
“Oh—a caboose!”
“Now you’re done.” He turned to go.
“Uncle Herbert?” Tom looked like he had a thought that he was trying hard to formulate into a question. “Why are we here?”
“You mean here in the rail yard?”
“No, I mean—like why are we on a train in the middle of nowhere? Where are we going?”
It was a fair question. Kate wondered why she hadn’t thought to ask it herself. She had the dizzy feeling of being caught up in something much larger than she’d realized—like she was a player in an enormous game that she didn’t know the rules of yet, or like she’d happened to glance out the window of a building and discovered that she was much, much higher up than she’d realized.
“You’re going on an adventure,” Uncle Herbert said. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“Yeah…”
Tom didn’t look completely satisfied with that, but Uncle Herbert just waved the clipboard.
“I’ll get this up to the dispatcher. Just remember: Keep the water tank full, and never let the fire go out. And keep an eye out for the twilight star.”
He turned to go and then stopped again, peering up at them in the darkness. “Wait a second. Something’s wrong. You look… floppy. Droopy.”
His lack of experience with children was showing again.
“We’re tired, Uncle Herbert,” Kate said. “It’s really late.”
As soon as she’d said it, she yawned.
“Oh.” He rubbed his chin. “That’s right, probably it’s past your bedtime. Why don’t we hitch up the passenger cars and the sleeper car and you can go to bed.”
“Like sleep here? On the train? What about Mom and Dad?”
“I’ll explain it to them.”
“They’re going to go mental,” Tom said. “You realize that. Like, they will literally take leave of their actual senses.”
“Might be good for them,” Uncle Herbert said. “They’re much too sane, those two. Night-night.”
With that he walked away, presumably to go find the dispatcher, whoever that was.
Suddenly Kate could barely keep her eyes open. She had no idea she was so exhausted. It was late, and about two months’ worth of stuff had happened to her in one day, and it was all catching up with her at once. She sat on her little fold-down seat and leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.
She wondered what Uncle Herbert had meant when he’d said that about magic. It was impossible. There was no such thing. But at the same time it didn’t seem like the kind of thing you just said. And evidence to the contrary was mounting up like snow in a blizzard.
More wisdom from Grace Hopper floated through her mind: “If they put you down somewhere with nothing to do, go to sleep. You don’t know when you’ll get any more.”
Kate couldn’t have said how much time passed before she felt a gentle bump. That must be the first passenger car being hitched up, she thought, without opening her eyes. And then bump: passenger car number two.
I hope the animals will like them, she thought.
And then bump: That must be the sleeper car.
As if in a dream, she and Tom climbed down out of the cab. They barely even noticed the click-bing of the train saying
GOOD NIGHT
It was beyond strange, being out in the middle of the night in a rail yard that shouldn’t have existed, in a winter that should’ve been summer, but Kate was too tired to care. The night air was freezing, and the ground was covered with a mix of snow and gravel that was extremely painful to walk on in bare feet. Train cars loomed over them, big as houses, casting sharp black shadows in the artificial light. Past the passenger cars they found the sleeper car.
It was painted a comforting cream color, like ivory or very fancy paper, and it had two doors, one at each end. The first door had TOM neatly lettered on it. The second said KATE. When Kate got to her door it opened automatically and clever little metal steps folded down. Much easier than getting into the engine.
Inside it was warm, and the lights were dim. On one wall was a little sink with a mirror over it. Next to that was a hook with a soft white towel hanging on it and a holder for an enamel cup with a toothbrush and toothpaste in it. Everything was ever-so-slightly miniaturized to fit in a train compartment. It was like being a doll in a very expensive dollhouse.
There was a closet, with a soft Kate-sized robe and slippers already in it and a little drawer for a pair of neatly folded blue-and-white-striped flannel pajamas. Whoever had put all this together was extremely well organized, Kate thought.
She was so tired she just splashed some water on her face and dried it with the towel. The pajamas felt cool and soft and clean. She didn’t brush her teeth, because what was even the point of getting to sleep on a magic train if you had to brush your teeth?
There was a little bed that folded down from the wall, with a little bookshelf next to it in case you wanted to read before you went to sleep. Which ordinarily she might have done, but not tonight. She was too tired even to read. She turned out the light, snugged the blanket up over her, and took a deep contented breath. The sleeper car smelled like clean linen and scented wood. There was a window over the bed so you could look up and see the stars.
A tiny door opened in one wall. Tom’s face peered through it from the other half of the sleeper.
“Hey,” he said.
“Pretty nice, right?”
“So awesome.” Tom paused for a second. “Hey—is it okay if I leave this open?”
Sometimes she forgot that Tom was two years younger than she was. He’d never even been on a sleepover, except with their grandparents, and now he was going to sleep on a talking train in the middle of a mysterious rail yard.
It might even make her feel better too.
“Definitely okay. Good night, Tom.”
“Good night.”
Kate closed her eyes and slept.
8
Tickets, Please
KATE WOKE UP TO THE SOFT CLICKETY RHYTHM OF A moving train. Morning sunlight streamed in through the little window of the sleeper car. She sat up. For a second she had no idea where she was.
Then it all came rushing back—her birthday, the train, Uncle Herbert, the animals, everything—so fast it made her head spin. She peered through the peephole into Tom’s room. It was a mirror image of hers, except that it had Tom in it. He was still asleep.
Kate opened the window. The morning was cold and clear and smelled like snowy woods. Ahead the Silver Arrow was puffing out gray smoke and white steam, and behind them a proper train stretched out now. The cars were all different colors: black and white and pine green and sky blue and brick red and bulldozer yellow. One of them, painted a deep indigo blue, was a yard taller than all the others.
She counted them: fifteen cars. Wherever they were going, they were going there in a real train.
There were clothes in the closet, which was good, because her old clothes were way too light for winter, which it now apparently was, and they weren’t especially clean either. Though the new clothes were a little odd: a white blouse, thick gray cotton overalls, and a matching blazer. There was also an old-fashioned-looking black winter coat made of waxed canvas, with interesting brass buttons, and a pair of excitingly grown-up-looking black steel-capped boots that would be exceptionally good for kicking people with, if for some reason that ever became necessary.
She put on the clothes, all except for the coat, and made her way back to the dining car. Or one of them, assuming there really were two.
A buffet was laid out for breakfast. She took scrambled eggs, granola and yogurt and some berries, bacon, toast with butter and peach jam—both bacon and toast were slightly charred, which happened to be how she liked them—plus a big glass of fresh orange juice. She felt kind of greedy taking all that, but it was made already, so she figured she might as well eat it.
She laid it al
l out on a table by a window, then she went back to the sleeper car and got a book from the little shelf over the bed. For a certain kind of person there is literally nothing nicer than eating breakfast by yourself on a moving train with a good book. Kate was one of those people.
She was feeling something—a new feeling. Not even a feeling exactly, more like she wasn’t feeling a lot of things that she was used to feeling. She wasn’t tired, or bored, or frustrated, or wishing she was somewhere else doing something else. All that was cleared away. She still had basically no idea what was going on, but she knew she was free to be herself, right here, right now, in the moment. She couldn’t wait to find out what she was going to feel next.
The train slowed down. They were almost back at the station from last night. Tom came in, yawning, still in his pajamas, chewing on a piece of bacon.
“You think we’re supposed to be doing something?” he said.
“Probably. Don’t know what, though.”
Click-bing !
There was another one of those scrolling pieces of paper in the dining car, right by the door. Kate hadn’t noticed it before.
YES, YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING SOMETHING
“Well?” Tom said. “Do you want us to guess?”
THAT WOULD BE NICE BUT YOU’D ONLY GUESS WRONG
WE’RE COMING TO THE STATION
GO TO THE PASSENGER CARS AND TAKE THE PASSENGERS’ TICKETS
“Oh.”
That did make a certain kind of sense. And it didn’t sound that hard. At least in theory.
In an alcove by the door to the passenger cars they found two conductor’s hats, which somehow looked a lot less dorky now, and two of those mysterious metal hole-punchers that train conductors always have. Both hats had the words The Silver Arrow stitched on them in little letters.
Silently they placed the hats on their heads. Then they frowned and swapped hats. Better.
“Hey, how come you get a uniform?” Tom said.
If there was one thing Tom hated, it was when Kate got something and he didn’t. It was childish and selfish, and Kate felt exactly the same way.
“It was in the closet in the sleeper car. Didn’t you look?”
“No!”
Brakes squealed and the train stopped.
“Well, too late,” she said. “You’ll have to do it in your pajamas.”
“Ugh!”
The doors opened. The platform was still full of animals, patiently waiting. She wondered if they’d been there all night. Maybe animals didn’t get bored.
They began to file into the train.
Even by human standards they were incredibly polite. There was no pushing or shoving. No one barked or growled or squawked or tried to eat any of their fellow travelers, though Kate did notice that the larger and more predatory animals—a wolf, a bear, a couple of large owls—tended to sit in the forward carriage, and the smaller, fluffier, more vulnerable animals kept to the rear. They all had a light dusting of snow on their fur or feathers.
These weren’t pets, or farm animals, or animals in a zoo, which always looked so dull and downcast and desperate. These were wild animals, and there was nothing between her and them—no fence, no glass, nothing. She could’ve reached out and touched them if she dared. It was almost like she was one of them.
As before, each animal held a single paper ticket in its mouth.
The cars were divided into old-fashioned train compartments, and one by one the animals settled into them. The foxes curled up neatly on the seats with their tails under their chins. The birds perched on the luggage racks and seat backs. The bigger animals had to sort of squash themselves in. Some of the very small, shy animals, like possums and rabbits, hid under the seats. Everybody kept well clear of a large, slow-moving porcupine.
A lot of cold air came in with them, and Kate shivered in her conductor’s blazer—should’ve gone back for the winter coat, but too late now. She waited till the train was moving again, then opened the door to the first compartment. It was occupied by a family of deer—a doe and a stag and a fawn—plus a somber, tattered-looking gray hawk. A crowd of mice huddled under the seat.
They all looked at her. Kate cleared her throat. She wished somebody had explained exactly what she was supposed to do and how to do it.
But what’s the worst that could happen? They had tickets. She was going to take them.
“Tickets, please,” Kate said.
The doe stretched her neck elegantly forward with all three of her family’s tickets in her mouth. They had deer tooth marks on them, and the words HOWLAND FOREST were printed on them. She fumbled with the hole-puncher before she figured out how to work it, then she punched the tickets and handed them back.
It was actually very satisfying. She guessed the train must be going to Howland Forest. Wherever that was. She hoped the Silver Arrow knew.
9
Porcupine vs. Bird: Fight!
THE NEXT COMPARTMENT HELD MORE BIRDS, TWO TURTLES and something long and slinky and furry that she supposed was probably a weasel or something. A gigantic black bear had the compartment after that all to itself. The next one held a fat black-striped badger—the one she’d met earlier—and a family of spotted skunks, which were small but looked like they were afraid of literally nothing in the universe. Also a whole row of sleepy bats.
The tickets had all kinds of destinations printed on them: ISLE OF WIGHT, LOWER SILESIAN WILDERNESS, SAGANO BAMBOO FOREST.… They sounded like they were from all over the world. Kate wondered why they could possibly be going to all those different places, and how they expected to get there on a steam train, but she didn’t feel like she could ask. Her job was to punch the tickets, and she punched them. She accepted a ticket from a largish feline—not a house cat or quite a big cat, but something in between. Its fur was partly spotted and partly striped, and it was a funny color, gray with a hint of olive green.
“Thanks,” it said.
“You’re welcome.”
Was it a bobcat? A lynx? Kate hadn’t studied for this.
“It was brave of you to come,” the something-cat said. “After what happened last time.”
Kate gave it a funny look. Or she? She sounded like a she. And if animals were going to talk to her, she supposed she shouldn’t think of them as its. Kate wanted to say that it wasn’t really that brave, since she didn’t know what had happened last time, and wait-a-minute what are you even talking about?! But she had a lot of tickets to take.
The last compartment contained more weasels—or were they minks? stoats?—that wouldn’t or couldn’t stop chasing each other in circles. There was also a big wild turkey and more bats and a wolf who looked like a demon in wolf form but was probably perfectly nice when you got to know her.
Then Kate was done. She took a deep breath and leaned back against the wall in the corridor. Whew. That went well.
At that exact moment a loud, excited chittering and squawking came from a compartment down the hall. Kate hurried over, straightening her conductor’s hat. A striking white bird with a black cap and an orange beak was perched on the luggage rack, glaring down at the compartment’s other occupant, which was the big porcupine.
“Get down from there!” the porcupine said. “Right now!”
“No.”
“This is my compartment, you unbelievably unpleasant bird!”
“I don’t see how my being here could inconvenience you even slightly!”
“If you don’t get down right now, I will stand up on my hind legs and—”
“Porcupines can’t stand on their hind legs,” the bird said.
“We can! For brief periods!”
Though he didn’t demonstrate.
“Look,” the bird said, “if we just agree that the luggage rack and the upper edge of the seat backs are my domain, and—”
“Why don’t we agree that you’ll get out of my compartment right now or I’ll quill you into next week!”
“I’m not even sure what that means,” Ka
te said. “What’s going on here?”
She had only just found out that animals could talk, and already she was wishing these two would shut up for a minute.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” the porcupine said. “I have a special ticket for my own private compartment, and now this trash-eating seagull won’t get out of it!”
The porcupine proudly displayed his ticket, which was stuck on the point of one of his spines.
“You are betraying your ignorance,” said the bird. “I’m not a seagull. I’m a roseate tern.”
“Well, good for you.”
“It is good, thank you very much. And we don’t eat trash, we eat fish.” He drew himself up with as much dignity as a roseate tern can muster. “We are plunge divers.”
Kate examined the porcupine’s ticket more closely.
“It says where available,” she said. “That means you get your own compartment if we have one. But I’m not sure there are any empty compartments right now.”
“This compartment would be empty,” the porcupine pointed out, “if you’d just get that bird out of it!”
“I don’t have anywhere to put him,” Kate said firmly.
“Put him in with the hawks.”
“Hawks prey on terns,” said the bird.
The porcupine shrugged. “Circle of life.”
“It’s not! It’s the circle of death!”
Both animals looked at Kate. Incredibly, it seemed like they were waiting for her to settle the argument.
It was the kind of thing nobody ever asked her to do at home. At home there was always somebody else—a teacher, a parent, somebody. But here there was only her. She was going to have to think of something.
But what?
“Maybe,” she said finally, to the porcupine, “you’d be more comfortable in our library car.”
10
The Library Car
IT WAS A CALCULATED RISK. KATE HADN’T ACTUALLY seen the library car yet, and she didn’t know exactly where it was. She wasn’t even 100 percent sure it existed. But it was the only thing she could think of.