Shadows on the Train

by Melanie Jackson

  Whom all at once I felt very protective of. Jack was keeping Peanut-Butter Voice, whoever she was, a secret from Madge. Fine behavior for a fiancé. Poor Madge!

  Chapter Eight

  Jack and the Beanstalk

  I did a mini tap dance on the white marble floor of Pacific Central Station. Above me the spindly hands of the brass and glass clock tucked themselves together over the six. Almost time to go! I pictured the vast spaces of Canada we’d be traveling through—dramatic Rockies, prairies with their endless skies—and picked up the pace of my tap dance.

  Uh-oh. Mother, having tearfully hugged Madge good-bye for the ninetieth time, was turning amid sobs to me again. Enough was enough. I dodged behind the clock.

  Passengers filed past, toward the departures sign and the platform beyond. Some of them hurried, brushing against me crossly for being in their way. The sleek, stainless steel Gold-and-Blue would be carrying three hundred passengers in all.

  Including one rough one. My left arm was yanked backward. “Ow,” I protested and glared round, massaging my shoulder.

  The colored rope of my knitted rainbow purse, made by Madge for me last Christmas, flopped to the ground. The purse itself was gone. Snatched!

  “Pickpockets everywhere,” sniffed a beanstalk-tall conductor, whom an indignant Jack more or less tackled about my missing purse. The conductor wrinkled his long nose and flapped his rubbery lips. “One has to be careful,” he admonished, looking way down at me as if it were my fault.

  “What did you have in the purse, Dinah?” questioned Madge, clutching her own tan bag covered with black C’s—for Chanel, her favorite designer—closer to her.

  “Travel essentials,” I mourned. “A Deathstalkers comic. And the Block Watch for Dummies book I’m writing.”

  “I’ll check the Lost and Found,” Mother suggested.

  “Once the thief realizes there’s nothing valuable inside, he or she will toss the purse away,” Madge said witheringly.

  I almost retorted. But then, remembering Peanut-Butter Voice, I laid a soothing hand on her arm. “I’m sorry our departure has to be like this, so upsetting for everyone. I’m sure you’ll find the trip itself relaxing.”

  Jack, busy berating the conductor, stopped to gape at me.

  “It’s—it’s okay,” Madge said weakly. At the train, Beanstalk forbade Jack’s accompanying us on board to say good-bye. “Rules,” Beanstalk informed us haughtily.

  “No!” Madge exclaimed in dismay. Deprived of a whole extra minute together, she and Jack clutched each other. Gad, you’d have thought they were parting for three decades, not three days.

  Then, to my own dismay, they began smooching.

  “Jack, how will I bear it—”

  “Madge, I’ll miss you madly—”

  Thinking of Peanut-Butter Voice, I snorted.

  Jack tore his gaze away from Madge and looked at me, puzzlement glinting in his gray eyes.

  “Dinah!” Mother called loudly. I hate when she does that: everyone looks and realizes it’s my maternal unit being so embarrassing. She panted up to us and thrust my now-strapless rainbow purse at me. “Found it on the floor!”

  I checked inside. Nothing missing. Since I rarely carried a purse, I was in the habit of storing really valuable stuff, like money and my school cafeteria card, and now Dad’s envelope, in pockets. I slipped my hand in a sweater pocket and clasped the envelope. Yup, still safely there. Whatever was there that a thief would want.

  An enormous twittering arose ahead of us. “Dear me…gracious…”

  Mrs. Chewbley, who’d agreed at the last moment to be our substitute chaperone, was wedged in a train door with Beanstalk. Her large, flowered-print bag was jammed between them.

  “Madam, please!’ Beanstalk snapped, trying to wiggle free.

  Madge, trim and pretty in a navy jacket and skirt, mas–saged her forehead as if a headache were developing. “Of all the people to replace Mr. Wellman as my co-chaperone,” she sighed. “A woman as disorganized as that.” Madge waved her left hand at the piano teacher. She waved it for quite a while, earning odd looks from passersby—but I knew it was because she liked admiring the twinkles of her diamond engagement ring.

  “Shhh, Madge,” Mother admonished. “Edwina’s doing us a favor. Besides, being able to use Mr. Wellman’s ticket gives Edwina a chance to travel. I don’t think she could afford this on her own.”

  Mrs. Chewbley was now chirping advice to Beanstalk on how best to unstick themselves. “It might be best if you relaxed, young man. So long as you remain tense, we’re likely to stay stuck in this doorway for hours.”

  Pantelli and Talbot, who’d arrived just after us, staggered up. As well as their suitcases, they were weighted down with a Softie Toilet Paper carton (Pantelli) and a guitar case (Talbot). People paused during boarding to laugh loudly at the toilet paper carton. “I have leaf samples in here,” Pantelli informed them coldly. “I’m a dendrologist.”

  “A denture-ologist? Excellent,” exclaimed a plump, salt-and-pepper-haired, pink-cheeked woman fanning herself with a Welcome to the Gold-and-Blue Train Company! brochure. Drawing back her lips, she displayed askew upper dentures to Pantelli. “I could use your help with these, sonny. I made the mistake of knocking back a pound of saltwater taffy yesterday and warped ’em.” With the tip of her tongue, she shoved the dentures more firmly into place—click!

  Pantelli ignored her. “Try a crowbar,” he suggested to Mrs. Chewbley and Beanstalk. Along with his interest in trees, Pantelli fancied himself a logical, problem-solving scientist. “What we need here is some leverage.”

  “What we need here is some dieting,” complained Beanstalk, with an unkind glance at Mrs. Chewbley’s stomach. He then glared angrily at Jack, who was shaking with laughter.

  “I’ve worked out a plan,” Talbot announced. Grasping the flowered-print bag’s handle, he leaned back. “Heave!” he shouted and began to pull. “HEAVE!”

  The flowered-print bag came away in his hands, the zipper breaking open to disgorge the contents, including a red flannel nightgown, at least a dozen romance novels with shapely fainting women on the covers, and boxes and boxes of chocolate creams.

  Inside the train, Beanstalk got a proper look at Madge for the first time. His long face softened into a silly smirk. “Ooo, a young lass like you shouldn’t have to carry heavy items,” he cooed—and removed the small black and beige Chanel case from her hand.

  Talbot and Pantelli, huffing and puffing with their suit–cases, glared at Beanstalk. “How about helping us young lads?” Talbot inquired.

  The conductor curved his rubbery back forward and down until he was eyeball to eyeball with Talbot. “As assistant head conductor, I am authorized to eject from the Gold-and-Blue any juveniles who create trouble.”

  “Talbot doesn’t create trouble,” I objected as Talbot’s face burned. “You aren’t a very good judge of character, mister.”

  Beanstalk swung toward me, so I bolted down the cor–ridor to Madge’s and my compartment. And goggled. Gold armchairs, tucked against a midnight blue wall edged with gold trim, faced a huge picture window.

  “Hi, Di,” Pantelli called from his and Talbot’s compart–ment across the passageway. They’d pulled out their mattress from the wall and were testing it for use as a trampoline.

  “Ow!” Talbot banged his head on the ceiling. “Now I understand why gymnasts are short,” he said ruefully. “Hey, guys, want to play Monopoly?”

  “Never mind Monopoly,” Pantelli replied and pulled a forest-patterned box from his duffel bag. Beaming, he held it up. “How ’bout a game of Treevial Pursuit?”

  “Um…I think I’ll check on Mrs. Chewbley,” I said. Humming “Black Socks,” I trotted down the passageway. Their voices floated after me.

  “Thanks, Pantelli, but I’d rather sit and admire the scenery.”

  “Talbot, we’re still in the station.”

  Clackety-clack! Mrs. Chewbley’s knitting needles swooped and dove.

>   “Knitting soothes me,” she explained cheerily as I shoved aside the chocolate creams and romance novels she’d dumped harum-scarum on the other armchair. “Goodness, that assistant head conductor was so very bad tempered. My, my!” The piano teacher wagged her head, dropping at least one hairpin onto her shoulder.

  I surveyed Mrs. Chewbley’s clothes, including the red flannel nightgown, which a good percentage of the train passengers had viewed earlier on the platform. Privately I agreed with Madge. Mrs. Chewbley was far too disorganized to be a chaperone. She sure was fun, though.

  I was about to hint that a chocolate cream would be nice about now when a piercing whistle shrilled, followed by a snappish “All aboard, if it’s not asking too much!” in Beanstalk’s aggrieved tones. Suddenly the Gold-and-Blue was gliding from the station.

  Now that we were actually leaving, I had an achy yearning for one of Mother’s tearful hugs. Soon there’d be miles between us! I couldn’t even do math that high.

  I shoved open Mrs. Chewbley’s window and peered up and down the platform. The Gold-and-Blue’s gleaming cars stretched on either side of me: three locomotives, one baggage car, three coaches, two observation cars with panoramic glass domes, eleven sleeper cars like this one, and the rounded, mostly window, lounge car at the rear, for relaxing in and watching the miles slide away.

  “Mother!” I yelled. An ocean of people waved back. I got dizzy peering among them. Where was Mother? It was like a Where’s Waldo? scene. Only I’d never single her out. I didn’t have time.

  I did, however, have volume. “Mother!” I belted out. “MOTHER!”

  “Dinah!” She pushed out of the crowd and blew kisses at me. Jack grinned and gave me the thumbs-up.

  I waved vigorously at both of them. Heck, I’d miss Jack so much I wasn’t even suspicious of him.

  Well, not for now, anyway.

  The train slid farther out of the station. Mother’s red-and-white-checked dress shrank to a pinkish blot. I started to withdraw from the window.

  Started to—and then I saw him.

  Bowl Cut.

  He was pelting alongside the train, hands fisted, cheeks fiercely puffing in and out, straight bowl-cut locks flapping around his head.

  He stretched out a hand, grabbed a door handle and swung himself splat! against the train. Forcing the door open, he jammed himself and a plaid knapsack through.

  Chapter Nine

  The Elusive King: Elvis? An Elk?

  The next morning, the Gold-and-Blue wound through the icy slopes of the Rockies. In the bright sun, their peaks burned a blinding white against the pure blue sky. We craned our necks to see the view out the dining car window.

  “To the artist Yves Klein, blue was the color of infinity,” Madge mused dreamily.

  Just then a waiter presented us with breakfast, and Mrs. Chewbley, Pantelli, Talbot and I were more interested in tucking back fluffy scones, swirled butter and raspberry jam than hearing about art.

  Madge dipped a fork into her own breakfast, if you could call it that: grapefruit and melon wedges. “I might do a whole canvas in blue someday,” she said. “I’ve never done abstracts before, never wanted to, till now, seeing the Rocky Mountain sky…”

  “There’s a song in that somewhere,” Talbot said. With the prongs of his fork, he carved a treble clef and bars into the crisp, thick navy of the tablecloth. And then some quarter notes. “Under a Rocky Mountain sky, I bid my darlin’ good-bye,” he sang softly.

  Pantelli smothered a scone in jam. “But why would you bid your darlin’ good-bye?” he asked, ever the analytical scientist, before cramming the scone in his mouth all at once.

  “Yeah,” Talbot conceded. “It’s a sappy lyric. Besides, if I liked someone that much, I wouldn’t bid her good-bye.”

  He glanced at me. Madge noticed and gave me yet another of her knowing, older-sisterly smiles. So annoying. I changed the subject.

  “I questioned Beanstalk and the other conductors this morning,” I announced. “They swear up and down that they haven’t seen a bowl-cut passenger aboard.”

  Madge shook her head at me. “I’m relieved to hear that, Dinah. But I wish you wouldn’t go around grilling train staff. It’s so uncouth.”

  Talbot and Pantelli traded grimaces. Translation: Brace yourself for another Galloway sister spat.

  The know-it-alls.

  “Sorry to have embarrassed you by grilling the staff,” I told Madge, who set down her grapefruit spoon and viewed me with astonishment.

  Stunned silence all round. “Maybe this is an alien disguised as Dinah,” Pantelli choked.

  “Yeah, like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” nodded Talbot. He sounded genuinely frightened.

  I took advantage of Talbot and Pantelli’s statue-like stares to steal extra scones from their plates. Madge was being statue-like as well, but needless to say I left her plate alone.

  Out the window, I watched a doe and her white-speckled fawn snack on bluebells sprouting out of the snow. Had I just imagined that Bowl Cut actually made it through the train doors?

  After breakfast we headed along to the games and library car. It had rows of booths whose tabletops were imprinted with chessboards. There was also a rack of books you could borrow.

  Madge settled into a plush gold seat to sketch the mountains that were flowing past like endless vanilla sundaes. Pantelli produced Treevial Pursuit, at which Talbot and I quickly suggested climbing the stairs to the observation dome.

  The domed ceiling and windows curved round us, giving us a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the mountains. Also giving us the impression we were hurtling through the air, with no train around us. Pantelli made four pre-barfing noises. A four-barfer: wow. That proved it. The dome was better than the Sears Tower in Vancouver.

  It occurred to me that I should suggest Pantelli exit the observation dome, but then the train angled down a steep hill and I forgot. Squashing my face against the front bubble window, I felt like an eagle, soaring past the snowy peaks, over the scarlet wildflowery slopes.

  We plunged down an even steeper slope. “Way cool,” Talbot exclaimed. He was doing the same squashed-face routine against the glass. He stretched out his arms and made vroom! noises followed by spluttering ones. “We’re planes with engine trouble. Whoa, we’re falling straight down the mountaaaiiiinnn…!”

  “Ker-ash!” I shouted. I removed my sweater and tossed it on a nearby seat, the better to free up my arms for enjoying the plane-in-peril experience.

  “BLEECCHH.”

  Pantelli was barfing into the lid of his Treevial Pursuit box. “I knew coming up to the observation dome was a mistake,” he said glumly.

  A rubbery, stem-like forefinger zoomed toward Pantelli’s face. “You are a mistake,” Beanstalk informed him, in a tone dripping with icicles.

  All three of us jumped. Beanstalk sure moved stealthily, like some sort of mobile elastic band.

  Sniffing, the conductor surveyed Talbot and me with equal scorn. “Plane trouble, indeed. More like brain trouble.”

  Beanstalk ordered everyone out of the observation dome. “Evacuate!” he commanded pompously. “Cleaning crew!” he called down the stairs.

  “But I aimed and shot squarely in here,” Pantelli objected, showing Beanstalk the box lid and its, er, contents.

  Back in the games car, we jammed into the booth with Madge and jabbered about Beanstalk’s unreasonableness. “A tiny barfing incident,” I complained.

  Talbot, grimacing down at the lid Pantelli was holding out, said, “Maybe it’s time to get rid of that. I’m not sure we need forensic evidence.”

  Madge was occupied in staring at her laptop, which she’d plugged into an Internet outlet. “No messages from Jack,” she said mournfully, as Pantelli trotted off to drop the box lid in a garbage can. “I can’t understand it. I mean, we’ve now been apart for seventeen hours and twenty-three minutes. This isn’t like Jack.”

  Talbot, Pantelli and I shrugged at each other. These lovebirds were a
whole different breed. “Repeatedly clicking Get Mail won’t help,” I advised Madge.

  “Tons of messages from Mother and Geneva Rinaldi, though.” Madge clicked on one. “They’ve appointed eight new bridesmaids. Here’s what Geneva says: ‘Matilda French of Charlottetown insists on lime green bridesmaids’ dresses, the better to show off her new, Emerald City-themed arm tattoos.’”

  With a sigh, my sister took up her sketchpad again. I slid her laptop in front of me to check my own e-mail. Specifically for an update from Mother about Ardle.

  He’s too weak to do more than mumble, but his color’s improved, she’d written. The doctors are hopeful.

  I bashed out a message to Mother with questions to ask Ardle. Make him tell you who the king is, I wrote. And no, I don’t want to explain what I’m talking about.

  Talbot and Pantelli had got chess pieces from a steward and were already jockeying pawns and knights on the chessboard tabletop. “Wanna play?” Talbot invited. “You and I could take on Pantelli, master chess player of Lord Bithersby elementary.”

  “No, that’s okay,” I said. Chess, I thought. That involves a type of king. But Ardle could have been referring to almost anything. Chess king, card king—even Alaska king crab. Maybe Ardle was chasing a valuable recipe!

  But there was no chess piece, card or recipe in the envelope, I reminded myself. Which brought us back to the elk stamp. Was the elk possibly considered the king of the Canadian north?

  Right, Dinah. The elk.

  Still, you never could be sure. I Googled “elk” and “stamp.”

  Did you mean the Elvis Presley Commemorative Stamp? Google asked helpfully.

  “I have no idea,” I replied out loud in a cross voice. Elvis: another king I hadn’t thought of.

  Talbot and Pantelli, engrossed in their game, didn’t hear. Madge, doodling wildflowers in her sketchbook, cast me a brief sad-eyed glance. She had the Jack blues. Noticing that I’d typed “elk,” she began drawing one. A sad-eyed one. Obviously if Madge had to feel lovelorn, so did the animal kingdom.

  Thoughtfully, I drummed the sides of the laptop to the beat of “Black Socks.” Couldn’t figure out who or what the eighty-thousand-dollar king was, but a blazingly bright idea was occurring to me about what I could do for Madge. A Good Samaritan act, you might say.