by P. G. Bell
34
FINAL DESTINATIONS
Having assigned her guards to their duties, Neoma accompanied Suzy, Ursel, and the trolls back to Center Point Station, where she set about haranguing the staff into commissioning a train to take them home. This gave Suzy ample time to sit down with the others on the terrace of a ruined sandwich stall, in the furrow of destruction plowed by the Belle, and tell them everything that had happened since her first encounter with Frederick at the Obsidian Tower.
Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as she revealed just how much she had lied and hidden from them, but they seemed too fascinated to be angry, and when she finally finished, Stonker slapped his knee and said, “Remarkable! I doubt the Old Guard have got a story half as good among them. Eh, Postmaster?”
Only then did they realize that Wilmot’s seat was empty. At some point during her story, he had slipped away.
* * *
She found him kicking a paper cup along the concourse, his head bowed in thought.
“Hey,” she said, falling into step beside him. He didn’t look up, and her insides stung with shame. They had to walk a little farther before she finally gathered the courage to speak again. “I’m really sorry, Wilmot,” she said. “If I hadn’t broken my promise, none of this would have happened. You wouldn’t have been swallowed by the shadow, the Express would still be in one piece…” With awkward fingers, she unpinned the badge from her bathrobe and handed it to him. “I wasn’t a very good postie.”
He took the badge and ran his thumbs across its raised surface. “Maybe not,” he said, “but that’s not your fault. It’s mine.”
She looked at him in surprise. “What?”
“I was too eager to have a postie on the staff. I just handed you the badge and a parcel and pushed you out the door to fend for yourself. It was irresponsible of me. I’m sorry.”
The idea of him needing to apologize was so ludicrous she almost laughed. “I volunteered, remember?”
“I know,” he said. “But as Postmaster, I should have refused your offer and delivered the package myself. I was a bit of a coward.”
With a shock, she realized he was angrier with himself than with her. She threw an arm around his shoulder and pulled him into a sideways hug. “You stood up for me in the post office vault. It was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
He blushed. “Not really. I was just doing my job at last.”
“And doing it brilliantly,” she said. “You’re the best Postmaster in the business.”
“Thank you.” His lips flickered into a nervous smile. “And you’d probably be a very good postie, with a bit of practice. After all, most people never get to see inside the Ivory Tower, and you helped overthrow its curator. That’s quite an accomplishment. I think.”
It was her turn to blush now. “I’m just glad we’re all safe.”
“Me too.”
They grinned at each other until Neoma’s voice cut through the station’s PA system. “Train for Trollville departing from Platform 3 in five minutes,” she barked. “I want every troublemaker on it, and out of my moon.”
* * *
They arrived in Trollville to a heroes’ welcome; it seemed that every troll in the city, young and old, had assembled to greet the passenger train that dropped them off. The crew of the Impossible Postal Express stepped down onto the platform, and the crowd surged forward.
And ran right past them.
“What’s going on?” said Suzy. Everyone in the crowd had their hands full: oilcans, hammers, drills, sheets of scrap metal, a large brass door knocker … It looked like they had raided a scrap yard on their way to the station.
Then she saw where they were heading and let out a gasp of sorrow.
Six of Crepuscula’s statues were advancing up the tracks behind their train like pallbearers, carrying something huge on their shoulders. It was the wreck of the Belle de Loin, and as they set it down, the crowd swarmed over it and the sound of heavy work began immediately.
“What are they doing?” Suzy shouted over the cacophony of hammering and welding.
“What trolls always do,” said Stonker, puffing his chest out. “Taking what they have and making something with it.”
“Do you really think they can fix the Belle?” she asked.
“Certainly,” he said. “She won’t be quite the same Belle de Loin, of course. She’ll be something new, but she’ll have the same heart. And she’ll have something of every troll in Trollville in her.” His eyes sparkled. “The rest of the Express will need rebuilding as well. The sorting car may have survived, but we’ll need a new tender and a new H. E. C. I’m rather looking forward to it.”
Suzy watched the work progress and felt her tired spirits lift a little.
Just then, a fresh chorus of voices sounded from the far end of the platform. It was the Old Guard, with Gertrude and Dorothy in the lead, and they bore down on the crew like a tidal wave. Gertrude gave Suzy a hard stare as she swept past, before snatching up Wilmot and pulling him to her bosom in a viselike grip.
“Oh, my boy, I thought you were gone forever!” she sobbed. Dorothy had locked her arms around the pair of them and was wailing freely, while the members of the Old Guard pressed in on all sides, clapping them all on the shoulders, offering handkerchiefs, and congratulating Wilmot on what they had clearly already agreed was a miraculous resurrection.
Mr. Trellis, meanwhile, skipped over to Suzy and prodded her square in the chest. “Well?” he said. “Did my Fact of Entry come in handy?”
Suzy laughed and hugged him. “It got me exactly what I needed to know,” she said.
“Good.” He winked. “You’ve been places I haven’t, and you’ll see plenty more, I’ll wager.”
“I’d like that,” she said. Before she could expand on the thought, a hand rested on her shoulder, and she turned to find herself face-to-face with Fletch.
“Time to go, my girl,” said Fletch. “Time’s a-wastin’.”
“Already?” she said.
But of course it was. All the peril and excitement had almost driven the problem of getting home clean out of her mind, but now she remembered that her parents would almost certainly be awake, and frantic with worry. The police might even be waiting for her.
Ursel leaned down and wrapped both her and Stonker up in a crushing hug. Wilmot finally managed to free himself from Gertrude’s embrace and squeezed in beside them.
“Thank you,” Suzy said as she pressed her cheek into the bear’s warm fur for the last time. “All of you. For everything. I think you’re the best train crew in the Impossible Places.”
“Very kind of you to say so, m’dear,” said Stonker. “It’s been an experience having you aboard.”
“I’m sorry for all the trouble.”
“Nonsense,” said Stonker. “We’ll be back on the rails in no time. Isn’t that right, Postmaster?”
“Indeed,” said Wilmot. “Although this might be my opportunity to finally reorganize the indexing system in the sorting car.”
Ursel made a guttural noise that sounded a lot like laughter before she finally released her hold on them.
Suzy took a last look at her friends. What would her old life be like now that she knew all this was possible? She tried to picture herself going to school every day, doing her homework, watching TV … but couldn’t even imagine it.
“All right,” she said, fighting back a stray tear as she turned to Fletch. “Let’s go.”
* * *
The train emerged in Suzy’s hallway and eased to a whistling halt. The room was still abnormally huge, and to her alarm, daylight streamed in through the windows.
“What time is it?” she said, climbing down from the carriage.
Fletch sprang down after her and consulted his pocket watch. “Half past five,” he said.
Suzy almost sat down, the shock was so great. “I’ve missed the whole day!” she said. “Mom and Dad’ll be frantic!”
“They don’t look bothere
d.” He hooked a thumb in the direction of the living room door, which still stood ajar. Suzy got that queasy feeling of vertigo again as she looked through it, but Fletch was right—her parents were exactly where she had left them, sprawled on the sofa, snoring steadily. “The spell doesn’t just wear off,” said Fletch. “You’ve got to remove it. Like that princess in that castle, slept for a hundred years before some prince woke ’er up. Poor bloke. He didn’t stand a chance against ’er morning breath.” He looked around again and smacked his lips. “I can have this done in five minutes, and then I’ll break the spell. Sound good?”
“I think so,” she said. “It’s Saturday, so they haven’t missed work or anything, and I’ll just tell them I had a pajama day. But what happens after that? Are you still planning to scramble my brain?”
He squinted down his nose at her. “The way I see it, people on much better pay grades than me haven’t bothered, so I don’t see why I should.”
He cried out in shock as she threw her arms around him. “Thank you, Fletch,” she said, the bristly hair of his ears catching her tears. “I don’t want to forget any of it.”
“Gerroff,” he grumbled, but he didn’t actually make any move to dislodge her. “Besides, I can’t do much of anything without my wand, can I?”
“Oh yes, of course.” She released him and reached into her pocket. “Here.”
The old troll’s face brightened as she handed it over. “That’s more like it,” he said. He ran his fingers along its length and gave it a little twirl.
“I’m sorry I took it,” she said.
“At least you got some use out of it. Now stand aside. There’s work to be done.”
It took him barely two minutes, in the end. With a final tap on the kitchen door, he returned the wand to his tool belt and strolled back to the waiting train.
“All done,” he said with obvious pleasure. “The room’ll snap back into shape once the train’s out of the way, and the tunnels will seal behind it. Are you ready for me to wake those two up?”
She nodded. He pulled a small pouch from one of his pockets and reached into it with his finger and thumb, withdrawing a pinch of what looked like sand. But when he raised it to his lips and blew it in the direction of the living room, it seemed to dissolve into the air itself. “That should do it.” Fletch returned the pouch to his pocket, signaled to the engine driver, and jogged to the waiting carriage, scrambling aboard.
“Take care, Fletch,” she called after him. “Give my love to the others. And if you ever need another shortcut…”
He made some reply, but the engine’s whistle drowned him out. She just had time to see him wave before the train disappeared into the tunnel mouth. Then, in an instant, both train and tunnel were gone, the kitchen door was just a door, and the hall was back to normal. It was over.
Suzy shut her eyes and let the comforting mundanity of home wash over her. She was truly, deeply happy to be back, safe and secure in a place she understood, and yet the feeling was tinged with a vague sadness—for the first time, she realized she hadn’t wanted her adventure to end.
Her parents woke feeling groggy and more than a little alarmed at having missed almost an entire day.
“We must have been overdoing it,” said her mother, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. You should have woken us.”
“I’ve kept busy,” she said, and then surprised them both by throwing her arms around them and hugging them close. “I missed you, though.”
“It’s all right, Suzy,” said her dad, returning the hug. Then, after a little thought, “Have you dyed your hair?”
* * *
The next day dragged by. Then the next week. Suzy ate her breakfasts, went to school, did her homework, brushed her teeth, went to bed, and did all the dozens of little things she knew she was supposed to, day in, day out. Even the blond in her hair faded away. She barely noticed any of it.
She found herself looking at the moon a lot each night and wondering …
And then, on a Sunday morning, as she was lying awake in bed and trying to understand how she could possibly hope to fill another day of empty hours, she heard her dad call from downstairs.
“Suzy? There’s a parcel for you.”
He sounded confused, and she wasn’t sure why until she remembered that the mailman didn’t deliver on Sundays.
She came down to find him holding a brown paper parcel. “I don’t recognize the stamp,” he said. “It must be from abroad.” He handed it over.
It didn’t have her address on it, just the words SUZY SMITH in large, blocky handwriting on the front. And the stamp … It was printed on blue paper instead of gold leaf, but there was no mistaking the profile of Queen Borax the First.
Suzy gasped. “Thanks, Dad!” She turned and ran upstairs, where she threw herself down on her bed and tore the parcel open. A bundle of red-and-gold cloth fell out—a Troll Post uniform. She held it up to herself in the mirror. It was a good fit and looked brand-new. Her deputy’s badge was pinned to the lapel and had been polished to a shine.
She returned to the parcel, where she found a single sheet of note paper. The heading read, FROM THE OFFICES OF THE IMPOSSIBLE POSTAL SERVICE. Beneath that, in the same square handwriting as the envelope, were the words Practice makes perfect. See you soon.
It was signed, simply, Wilmot.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Just as no train can run without its crew, so this book would never have got under way without the help and influence of a great many people.
First and foremost, Claire Fayers, who for years has patiently read my unpublished (and unpublishable) manuscripts, and always offered me keen insight and encouragement. Without your friendship, enthusiasm, and coffee, this story might never have made it farther than my laptop.
Gemma Cooper, the greatest agent a writer could possibly wish for. Not only did you help me turn my truncated first draft into a fully functional story, you worked minor miracles to find it the best possible homes. It’s a tremendous comfort to know you’ve got my back.
My fantastic editors: Anna Poon and Holly West at Feiwel and Friends, Rebecca Hill and Becky Walker at Usborne, and the wonderful teams at both houses. Thanks, all of you, for making me, Suzy, and the crew feel so welcome. I knew from the start that we were in the right hands, and your passion and insight have made this an unforgettable ride. I can’t thank you enough.
All the many people who have supported and encouraged my reading and writing over the years. You are legion, but special mention goes to Miss Joyce of Newport Libraries, who always knew which books I’d like (and who lent me her VHS recording of the final episode of classic Doctor Who when I missed the original broadcast); Patrick Jones and Lloyd Robson, for having faith that a handful of teenagers could take on the world; Tim Lebbon and Gary Greenwood, who didn’t laugh at my very first handwritten attempt at a novel, but took me to the pub and told me to keep at it; Aurélien Lainé, Caleb Woodbridge, David Williamson, and Kieran Mathers for their unwavering friendship and feedback; the Team Cooper brain trust, but especially Paul Gamble, who gave this book its subtitle.
My family. Mum, Dad, Chris, and Grandma: You always made sure there were good books at hand, and encouraged me to read them. I would never have wanted to write this story if I hadn’t learned to love all those others first.
Aurelien and Théo: for keeping me busier, happier and prouder than I would ever have imagined possible. Please keep at it.
And finally, for Anna: You’ve always been far more patient with me than I deserve, and none of this would have been possible without your love, advice, and support. Thank you, and I love you.
Thank you for reading this Feiwel and Friends book. The friends who made
possible are:
JEAN FEIWEL, PUBLISHER
LIZ SZABLA, ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER
RICH DEAS, SENIOR CREATIVE DIRECTOR
HOLLY WEST, EDITOR
ANNA ROBERTO, EDITOR
VAL OTAROD, ASS
OCIATE EDITOR
KAT BRZOZOWSKI, EDITOR
ALEXEI ESIKOFF, SENIOR MANAGING EDITOR
KIM WAYMER, SENIOR PRODUCTION MANAGER
ANNA POON, ASSISTANT EDITOR
EMILY SETTLE, ASSISTANT EDITOR
KATIE KLIMOWICZ, SENIOR DESIGNER
ILANA WORRELL, PRODUCTION EDITOR
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
P. G. Bell is a native of south Wales, where he was raised on a diet of Greek mythology, ghost stories, and Doctor Who. He’s had all sorts of jobs over the years, from lifeguard to roller coaster operator, but has always wanted to write stories for a living. He currently works as a library assistant for Cardiff University and lives in Wales with his wife, Anna, and their two children. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
1. Lightning in the Living Room
2. An Unexpected Visitor
3. The Impossible Postal Express
4. The Interdimensional Post Office
5. Encounter at the Tower
6. A First-Class Escape
7. Late Arrival