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.

“Library car.” The porcupine considered it. Then he sighed, as if library cars were an indignity that he suffered on a daily basis. “Oh, all right. If we must!”

The porcupine’s white-tipped quills swayed stiffly from side to side as he waddled past Kate and out into the corridor. She followed him. Though not too closely. On their way they passed Tom, still in his pajamas.

“Why don’t you head on up to the engine,” she said. “See if the train needs more coal.”

She had no idea if Tom was going to do what she said. Most of the time when she told Tom to do something, he either did nothing or the exact opposite. But now he just nodded and headed forward.

Look at that. She could get used to this conducting business.