As an afterthought, she wondered who would win if they did all have a fight. She thought it would probably be the porcupine.
11
The Baby That Looked Like a Pine Cone
THE LANDSCAPE OUTSIDE WAS CHANGING. THEY’D LEFT the winter forest behind and entered what looked more like a tropical jungle. When Kate opened a door and looked out—which was kind of awesome all on its own, sticking your head out the open door of a moving train without getting yelled at by the conductor because the conductor was you—the air was warm and humid and smelled like an incredible wealth of green life.
The station platform was overgrown with vines and ferns and littered with giant leaves. Palm trees crowded around it, and green shoots pushed up between the railroad ties. Waiting on the platform were an iguana, two large snakes, a couple of amazing golden-haired monkeys that looked like they’d had their faces spray-painted pink, and something like a small hippo with a big nose that she thought might be a tapir. Plus some colorful glossy frogs that looked like pieces of candy.
The air was full of burbling, shrieking birdsong, and a gorgeous translucent-green light showered down through the trees. The sign on the platform read TUMUCUMAQUE, which much later Kate would figure out was in the Amazon.
Kate thought she’d better announce the name of the station, the way they did on regular trains, though she had no idea how to pronounce it. She said it several times in different ways just to be sure. She must’ve gotten it right at least once because a few animals quietly left their compartments and trotted and slithered and fluttered out into the heat of the jungle.
Kate grabbed a banana from the dining car before the next stop, which was in a bamboo grove. The station after that was giant redwoods, and after that was a dusty plain where a brutal sun beat down. It was so hot she had to take off her blazer.
Only two hardy wild dogs got on there, and one very small tortoise that took what seemed like half an hour to cross the platform. Kate felt like she was starting to get the hang of this, whatever this was, enough that she had some spare energy to start wondering about the big picture. As soon as she did, a million questions started asking themselves in her head. How could a giant steam train go to all these places? Why did nobody else know about this? Was the train invisible? And who put down all these tracks? Who sold all these animals their tickets? And so on. In a way she didn’t want to ask, because she was afraid that doing so might disturb some fragile enchantment, and it would all turn out to be a dream and evaporate as mysteriously as it had arrived.
She just wanted it to keep on going. But at the same time she knew that sooner or later those questions would need answering.
The next stop was another rain forest. When all the other animals had gotten on and off the train, there was one left on the platform all by itself.
At first Kate wasn’t completely sure it was an animal. It looked more like a pine cone. It was tiny and brown and round, with pointy overlapping scales. But when she looked closer, she saw that it had four legs and a tail and a little face. It was curled up tightly, its eyes shut, fast asleep.
Touching unidentified wild animals with her bare hands was not a thing Kate was completely comfortable with. But she could also see that, clutched tightly to the creature’s little belly, in its two clawed front paws, was a ticket.
And it looked so helpless. It was just a baby, and it was all alone.
She sighed. She even said the word out loud:
“Sigh.”
She picked up the little animal, cupping it gently in her two hands, praying it wouldn’t bite her or scratch her or go to the bathroom on her, and quickly carried it inside. Its scales were dry and scratchy. The train started up again.
Kate took it back to the library. She couldn’t think what else to do with it. The porcupine, the cat, the heron, and the snake were all still arguing, but they stopped when she came in.
“Okay,” she said. “Does anybody know what this is?”
The cat peered at it. “It looks like a pine cone.”
“That’s what I thought,” Kate said.
“Or an artichoke,” the cat said.
“It’s not. It’s some kind of animal.”
“That,” the heron said, “is a baby pangolin.”
“I don’t know everything,” Kate said, “but I think I know what a penguin looks like.”
“Not a penguin, a pangolin. It’s the only mammal in the world with scales. Pangolins are incredibly rare.”
“Awesome.” Kate placed it carefully on a cushion on the couch. “Congratulations on your new baby pangolin. Take good care of it.”
She left before anybody could object. Then she went forward to check on Tom and the engine.
Tom was alive and well, but extremely sweaty and almost completely covered in coal dust.
“Might be time to hit the swimming pool car,” Kate said.
“Click,” he said. “Bing.”
Click-bing !
IT’S GOING WELL THANK YOU
BUT I’M A LITTLE LOW ON FUEL
She’d almost forgotten that the train could talk. There’s a lot going on in your life when you have more urgent things to think about than a talking train.
“Low on fuel. Okay, that sounds important.” She seemed to remember Uncle Herbert saying something about that. “Can I help?”
NOT YET
WE’LL HAVE TO STOP FOR IT SOMEWHERE SOON THOUGH
One of the things Kate was learning on the train was what to do when you saw a problem, which was that you tried to solve it. At home her usual approach to a problem was to ignore it till her parents noticed it, at which point they would solve it for her—but here on the train there were no parents. She was in charge.
Not solving problems was way easier than solving them, obviously. But left to their own devices, problems usually only got worse. Better to get it over with.
In the meantime they had their next train lesson. The Silver Arrow talked Kate and Tom through the process of getting the engine going from a standing start. The train was right about one thing: It was a good teacher. It taught them how to read the steam pressure gauge and the little glass tube that showed the water level in the boiler. They went over the brakes and the throttle again, and it introduced them to a mysterious but important device called a reversing lever, which controlled how much steam power went to the pistons.
Or something like that.
“I thought that’s what the throttle did,” Kate said.
IT’S—WELL—THINK OF IT LIKE THE GEARBOX ON A CAR
“I don’t know how that works either.”
OKAY, THE GEARS ON A BICYCLE—WAIT
HMMM
“Hmmm?” Tom said. “What’s ‘hmmm’?”
THERE’S A STATION COMING UP
“Okay…”
BUT IT’S NOT ON THE SCHEDULE
“Can I actually see the schedule?” Kate said.
NO
“Well, what should we do?”