by D. A. Nelson
“Very well, if this is how you want to play it!” Shona sighed. Still holding on to Morag’s shoulder, she took a deep breath and …
“Wait a minute!” cried Henry. “I have a better idea!”
Shona breathed out, sending a dark cloud of smoke into the air. “Go on, then!” she growled. “Quickly.”
Morag looked down at the medallion hanging around her neck. She saw Henry screw up his tiny little face as if concentrating very hard and then his eyes opened again. “There!” he said.
Nothing happened. Not at first. Then slowly the guards dropped their weapons and stood back, creating a corridor through their ranks. Behind the friends, the crowd also began to move and soon cleared a pathway.
“Now, isn’t that a better way of getting what we want rather than frying everyone?” the medallion asked smugly.
“Show-off!” the dragon muttered, pushing Morag forward.
No one stopped them as they walked toward the Central Station. No one said a word. The square had fallen silent, and although Morag was relieved that there were no further shouts, the mood of the people unnerved her.
“What did you do to them?” she whispered to the medallion as she climbed the stairs leading up to the station.
“I stupefied them for a little while. It’s like sending them to sleep while their eyes are still open,” Henry whispered back. “It’s one of my more amusing spells. I’ll teach it to you someday. Now get a move on, because I can’t hold them all like this forever.”
7
The station was deserted. With no one to stop them, Bertie locked the doors behind them and they ran toward the platforms.
“Before she was killed, the Queen tried to tell me there was only one way out,” said Morag. “Something about a photo booth.” She looked around frantically but could not see one.
Marnoch Mor Central Station was enormous. It was the hub of the Secret Underground railway: every track that secretly ran under the human world led here. There were at least forty upper platforms and more downstairs, according to the signs that floated in midair. Although arrows pointed in various directions, none gave any indication of where there might be a photo booth. Morag scanned the platforms and the abandoned engines sitting there. None of the trains moved, no one got on or off and nothing stirred. The stillness gave her the shivers.
Beside the platforms, the ticket offices, where bored ticket officers usually sat, were silent and empty. Above them, as black as a chalkboard on the first day of school, were the train information screens, but with no trains leaving or arriving, they were blank. Morag peered up to see if she could spot the Battuns, the little batlike creatures who drew and redrew the board, but even they had scattered.
She glanced at the nearby market stalls, offering Wand and Magic Crystal Repairs and Human Costumes (consisting of a father, a mother and a child). Everyone must have fled with the first earth-tremor, tipping over one stall in their panic and scattering bottles of enchantments and rainbow ribbons across the floor. It was the only thing in the station affected by the chaos outside; the other stalls had remained upright and intact—and abandoned.
“Where are the photo booths?” Morag cried in exasperation. “Shouldn’t they be where everyone can see them?”
“They are here somewhere,” Shona assured her. “One of my volunteers used one only the other day.”
A low rumbling began outside and got steadily louder.
“Listen,” said Morag. “What’s that?”
“Do you think it’s another tremor?” asked Aldiss, watching the floor as if he expected it to split open.
“It sounds different this time,” said Bertie. “Like lots of people speaking at once.”
They heard a cry of “Murder!” and then one of “Vengeance!” and then “Let’s get her!”
“Oh dear,” said Henry. “I think my spell’s just worn off.”
Morag turned to Shona. “We can’t stay. They’ll get in here in no time. Can you remember where the Volunteer went?” she demanded. “Did he say?”
Shona frowned. “I … uh … hold on till I think about it. He said he came here and …”
“Excuse me!” squeaked Aldiss, tugging on Morag’s coat.
“In a minute, Aldiss. Shona’s trying to remember,” the girl said.
Aldiss sighed, but would not be put off. “I said, excuse me!”
“Not now!” snapped Morag, who was feeling very frightened. People were already rattling the station doors. The rat, face pursed in annoyance, got a better hold of Morag’s coat, hoisted himself up and scrambled up her arm. Before Morag could do anything about it, she found him sitting on her shoulder.
“It is over there!” he squeaked in her ear, tiny fingers pointing.
He climbed down and scampered in the direction of the toilets, wedged between the ticket booths and the entrance. His little paws skittered across the marble, echoing and distorting off the vaulted ceiling, so that instead of it sounding like one rodent, it became the noise of hundreds. Morag and the others watched as he slid to a halt at a white box that was almost invisible against the paleness of the station’s walls.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” he shouted as he threw back the curtain to reveal the inside of an ordinary-looking photo booth. Morag could see a blue plastic seat, a slot for money and even a camera.
“Well done, Aldiss,” she said, running to join him, “and sorry I was so snappy.”
“That’s okay,” replied the rat.
“When you’ve quite finished,” Henry groaned from around Morag’s neck, “perhaps we can get down to the business of rescuing Montgomery?”
Now the awakened mob was pounding on the doors.
“Come on, before they break them down,” said Bertie.
There seemed nothing strange or untoward about this photo booth. Morag walked around, looking it up and down, while Shona checked the roof.
“Why did Queen Flora send you to this thing?” Bertie asked.
“She started telling me there was an escape route out of Marnoch Mor when all the others had been closed,” Morag said. “Perhaps there’s a clue or a map inside.”
“I’ve already looked, but I couldn’t see anything,” Bertie replied.
“Let me try.”
Morag stepped behind the curtain and sat down on the seat. She knew human photo booths took pictures, but had learned that nothing in Marnoch Mor was necessarily what it seemed.
“Try pressing buttons,” the dragon suggested.
Morag quickly pressed every button she could see, but no instructions revealed themselves.
“This is hopeless,” she said, and stood up to leave. “I think the Queen must have made a mistake. There’s nothing here.”
“You didn’t put in any money,” Henry pointed out.
“We don’t need our picture taken,” she replied. “We don’t have time.”
“Trust me,” the medallion said.
Morag hurriedly sat back down. There was a coin slot just below the camera. Beside it was a sign saying Attention. She was sure it hadn’t been there before. As she stared at it, some black lettering appeared:
If you want your photo taken,
Three coins will make it waken.
If it’s something else you’re after,
Place a token in the rafter.
Morag screwed up her face, puzzled by this. She glanced up at the roof. There didn’t seem to be any rafters. Bertie pulled back the curtain and stuck his beak in.
“I’m not sure what this means,” said Morag.
“A token? Hmmm,” said the dodo. “What kind of token?”
Just then there came a violent crash. Morag, Bertie, Aldiss and Shona jumped in fright.
“What’s happening?” Morag gasped and pulled back the curtain to see Shona and Aldiss watching the front doors with widening eyes.
“Now, don’t panic, Morag …,” Shona started. “But—”
“They’re using a battering ram!” Aldiss squeaked.
Shona picked the rat up by his tail and tossed him in, then squeezed in herself as the girl and the dodo were pressed against the glass. Outside, the battering ram began smashing the doors, sending the sounds of breaking glass and splintering wood echoing through the empty station.
“Henry! Do you have any clue as to what this rhyme means?” Morag cried anxiously, her throat dry and tight. If medallions could shrug, then Henry would have raised his shoulders high. Instead, he just sighed and said that he didn’t.
“A token could be something else,” said Bertie. “A gift, for example.”
“What sort of gift would a photo booth want?” Morag asked, voice wavering.
They all thought for a moment before Aldiss squeaked: “What about some furniture polish for the stool or cleaning fluid for its lens?”
“It might work,” replied the dragon. “Bertie, this is where we need your magic bag.”
The dodo nodded, rummaged in his satchel and pulled out two long bottles. One filled with a fizzy violet liquid was marked: Wand Buff, the magical way to show your wand you love it. The other, filled with green slime, said: Lornish, the Magician’s Favorite! Two drops and your glass will sparkle like the Magic Eye. Morag placed them on a ledge near the ceiling.
“Tokens accepted,” a mechanical voice said from nowhere. “Please select an option. I can dispense advice on love, money and magical enchantment. If it’s an astrological query, I can calculate your birth chart and predict your coming week. Palms will not be read. Tea leaves and crystal balls are not accepted. I don’t commune with the dead or give horse racing tips. Please select an option.”
“No, no, it’s none of those things,” began Morag. Beyond the curtain the banging got louder and the yells more insistent. “Queen Flora sent us here,” she continued. “I’m not sure why when we needed an escape route to save Montgomery …”
Bang, bang, BANG!
“Only the Queen and Montgomery can authorize the Drop Function,” the voice stated.
“I don’t know what that means. Please help, we must get out of Marnoch Mor. Montgomery’s life is at stake.”
The voice of the booth paused as if it were weighing up what she had just said. Then a final loud bang echoed across the railway station and was followed by the sound of many feet clattering through the entrance. The crowd was charging toward them.
“Eek!” cried Aldiss as Bertie slapped a wing over his whiskery face.
“Please!” squeaked Morag.
“Engaging Drop Function. Please ensure you have all your hand luggage. Look directly into the camera. Smile. And enjoy your journey.”
Four pairs of eyes looked into the lens. There was a whirr and then SNAP! The brightest blinding light any of them had ever seen. Morag threw up her arms to shield her eyes. As she did, the sound of the angry mob disappeared and was replaced by silence. She slowly lowered her arms.
“Oh my!” she said as she looked around.
“I think we’ve found our way out …,” said Henry.
The walls of the photo booth had gone and they now stood in an earth tunnel dimly lit by flickering oil lamps. The air was warm and still and smelled musty, as if the tunnel had not been used for a long time. Morag looked round to see the startled faces of Shona, Bertie and Aldiss peering into the gloom.
“Well,” said the dragon, regaining her balance, “that was certainly an odd way to travel.”
“I liked it!” squeaked Aldiss enthusiastically. “When this is all over, I’m going back to do it all again.”
Even Henry, who was not normally sensitive to the thoughts of others, knew that at that moment Bertie was rolling his eyes in disapproval at the rat’s words.
“Come,” said the bird, ruffling his tail feathers and ignoring the rat’s high fives. “We have to find the nearest way out of here. You never know what could be hiding in a place like this.”
“I think there’s something over there,” Morag said, pointing to a large shape under a dark sheet nearby.
The dodo scrunched his eyes to try to make out what it was. “This is impossible,” he said, reaching into his bag. He pulled out four Moonstones and handed them round. “Here, these should help us see better.”
Bertie pulled off the cover, sending up a choking cloud of dust and revealing the dirty black engine of an old-fashioned steam train. “Speckled hens!” he squawked. “Do you know what this is? Oh my goodness! I can’t believe it! This is incredible!” He danced around the engine, examining it from every angle.
“Calm down, feather face,” snapped the medallion from Morag’s neck. “Anyone would think you’ve just found a pot of gold.”
“I have … I mean, we have!” replied the bird. His beady eyes shone. “Morag,” he said, whipping a chamois leather from his satchel, “be a dear and clean the nameplate for me. I can’t quite reach.”
Morag did as he asked.
“It is her!” the dodo said, his voice wavering. He turned to his friends and dreamily said: “We’ve found her!”
“What is he going on about?” Shona growled.
“I think he’s finally lost his marbles,” added Aldiss. “It’s all that seed he eats. I told him it wasn’t good for him.”
“What have we found, Bertie?” Morag asked.
“This, my dear friends,” the bird announced breathlessly, “is the long-lost Flying Horse.”
They all looked at him blankly.
“Marnoch Mor’s first steam train,” he prompted. They each shook their heads. They had never heard of it. “Built in 1853 by Jonathan Clayslaps, master engineer and Head Wizard at the Academy of Arts, Magic and Other Stuff. The engine ran for more than a century until it disappeared.”
The dodo waited for a reaction. He expected them all to be as excited about it as he was, but Morag, Shona and Aldiss said nothing. It was Henry who spoke. “Who cares?” he said grumpily.
“Does it work?” asked Aldiss. The bird shrugged his feathery shoulders.
“Will it get us out of here?” asked Morag.
Bertie began to stutter an answer, but was stopped by the medallion adding: “We’re on a rescue mission, in case you haven’t noticed! You’re too busy praising some old piece of tin when Montgomery’s probably being tortured as we speak.”
“It’s not a piece of tin …,” Bertie protested weakly, “it’s the Flying Horse.”
“Yes, well, all I want to know is will it fly us out of here?” Henry growled.
Morag and Bertie ran toward the cab and climbed onto the footplate. As Shona and Aldiss waited in the cavern, they examined the Horse. The dodo pressed the controls, his face a puzzled frown.
“What do you think? Can you start it?” Morag asked after shooing Aldiss off again.
“I’m not sure,” Bertie replied, holding a Moonstone up to illuminate a little book on trains he had fetched from his bag. The book was called How to Do Just About Anything: Train Driver’s Edition. He sighed loudly as he tried to read the instructions. After a few minutes, he shoved the book roughly into Morag’s hands and said grumpily: “I can’t understand this. You have a go.”
He stomped to the back of the cab and slumped down. Morag glanced between the instructions in the book and the controls. There must be some way to get this thing going, she thought. As she was doing this, she didn’t notice Bertie suddenly smile and scramble to his feet.
“I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before!” he squawked, causing her to jump. Frantically, he rummaged in his satchel.
“What do you mean?”
“This,” the bird said triumphantly. He pulled out a big jar of gray dust. A white label proclaimed: Instant Driver, just add water. Bertie unscrewed the cap and took a quick sniff inside. He sneezed and emptied the entire contents on the floor. He dipped his wing once again into the bag and pulled out a glass of water. Without pausing for breath, he tipped it over the dust and waited.
Morag h
eld her breath.
“This’ll never work,” said the medallion.
“Shhh,” scolded the girl.
They waited. And waited. By now, Shona and Aldiss were standing outside the driver’s cab, anxiously watching and willing the magic dust to do something.
“I told you this wouldn’t work,” Henry began just as the dust, which was now a soggy pile of mush, started to crackle and pop and then to flash with bright sparks. As they watched, it began to take the shape of a man, gray-skinned and wearing a gray boilersuit and driver’s hat. With a series of puffs he inflated to the size of an adult. The crackling and sparking and puffing came to a stop and the conductor snapped into life. He looked at the friends and smiled. “Afternoon,” he said politely. “Where may I drive you?”
He placed his big gray hands on the controls and gave them a wiggle. The train whinnied with delight.
“Did that train just whinny?” Henry asked.
“I think so …,” replied Morag.
But they didn’t dwell on it too long, for they could not take their eyes off the conductor. He had a look in the firebox. It was empty. Before Morag could even say “We need fuel,” coke suddenly appeared and with a flash, caught fire. The tender, where the fuel and water were kept, gurgled as it filled up. Morag knew from science lessons that the water was needed to create the steam that made the train go. The driver fiddled about with the controls, and the train, snorting and snuffling with excitement, chuffed into life. He turned to the friends.
“Tickets, please,” he said.
“Oh. We don’t have tickets,” Morag replied.
“Then I can’t take you anywhere,” he said.
“But …,” she began. And then she remembered. Morag felt in her pocket and pulled out her little red book. It looked almost black in the dull light. She opened it and fished out the ticket stub her parents had left inside the book. Trying not to think about what she was handing over, she passed it to the conductor.
“Will this do?” she asked.
“ ‘Marnoch Mor Railways,’ ” he read with a smile. “Perfect!” He took it from her and stuck it in a slot on the wall. “Where to?” he asked.