“Now I get why train drivers are always leaning out the window,” Tom said. “It’s the only way you can see where you’re going.”

“Yeah. Too bad we’re not going anywhere.”

Kate leaned out the window.

“Hey, Uncle Herbert, it’s weird in here!”

“We don’t know what to do!” Tom said. “There isn’t even a steering wheel!”

“You don’t steer a train,” Uncle Herbert said, squinting up at them. “You just go where the tracks go.”

“Oh. Right.”

There was no brake or gas pedal either, or not that Kate could see.

“Is there a whistle?” Kate asked.

“Yes,” Uncle Herbert said. “It’s a steam whistle, though. Doesn’t work without steam.”

“Oh.”

Kate and Tom wandered around spinning wheels and pulling levers and moving anything else that moved. None of it did anything. It looked cool, but they were kind of at a loss how to play with it. They opened a kind of stove thing set into the wall. It was full of cold ashes and soot.

Tom pretended it was a tank and stood on his seat and machine-gunned an army of invisible Nazis out the window, but you could tell his heart wasn’t a hundred percent in it.

Then they climbed down again. It was all a little anticlimactic.

“You know what we should do?” Kate said when they were back on the ground. “We should connect these tracks with the old ones in the woods.”

There were some rusty old tracks out there, buried in leaves and sunk in the mud—she and Tom found them one day when they were out exploring.

“Those old things?” their father said. “Been a long time since a train ran on those tracks.”

“All right, everybody!” Their mom clapped her hands for attention. “It’s Kate’s birthday today! Who remembers when my birthday is?”

“Next week,” Kate said.

“That’s right. One week from now. That’s how long you can keep the train. Then, as your birthday present to me, Herbert, you’re going to get rid of it.”

“What?!” Kate said.

“But what if I already got you something else?” Uncle Herbert said in a small voice.

“Did you get me a flatbed truck hauling away a gigantic blazing steam train?” Kate’s mom put her hands on her hips. “Is that my birthday present?”

“No.”

“Then whatever it is, send it back. For my birthday you’re going to get this thing out of here.”

“No!” Kate shouted before she even knew what she was doing. “You can’t! It’s mine!”

3

Kate Said a Lot of Other Things, Too

KATE TOLD HER PARENTS THAT SHE HATED THEM AND that they were the meanest and worst people in the world. She said she never got anything special or good, and even when she did they always ruined it. She said they didn’t love her and all they cared about was their stupid phones.