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 all 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.