Something was happening out there. The track they were on split into two tracks. Then it split again, and again, and those tracks split, too, so that in a minute one track had become dozens of tracks curving away on either side, and soon they were in a huge open clearing completely filled with darkly gleaming rails like a giant plate of steel spaghetti.
Kate and Tom carefully reduced the throttle and applied the brakes, and the Silver Arrow chuffed and chuffed slower and slower till it gave out a huge steamy sigh and stopped.
All around them on the tracks were parked dozens and dozens of train cars, maybe hundreds, all different colors and shapes. Some were short and stubby; others were long and lean. Some looked old and dusty and rusty, while others were shiny and new.
It was late, but Kate felt more awake than she ever had in her life.
“This must be the rail yard,” Kate said. “That thing the fox was talking about.”
“He reminded me of Foxy Jones,” Tom said. “What do you think we should do now?”
They looked at the paper where the train posted its messages, but it was blank and silent. Outside nothing moved. Lamps cast a soft, eerie light over everything and lit up the falling snow in a great white dome. Kate suddenly felt nervous being out in the middle of nowhere like this, with no adults around.
But then someone came walking briskly toward them across the snowy tracks. It was Uncle Herbert.
Uncle Herbert! It was so good to see him! They’d only just met him today, but it felt like seeing an old friend. He was carrying a clipboard and wearing a dorky conductor’s hat and a bright yellow parka to match his yellow suit.
He stopped and looked up at them.
“Kate. Tom. Good to see you. You made it this far.”
“Uncle Herbert!”
“Uncle Herbert!” Tom said. “We went through the woods and didn’t crash and then we saw a station and it was full of animals and they talked and then the train talked!”
Tom said this as one long continuous word. Uncle Herbert didn’t look particularly surprised at any of it.
“How did you get here ahead of us?” Kate said.
“More magic,” Uncle Herbert said. “Listen, this is all a huge mistake. None of it was supposed to happen, or not yet at least. The train left much too soon. Maybe it had to, maybe it couldn’t wait, I don’t know, but I don’t like it. We’ll be lucky if we don’t all end up in the Roundhouse.
“But it’s too late, you can’t go back, so you’ll just have to go forward and do your best. You’ve got a schedule to keep to now.”
“Wait—we do?” Kate said.
“We need to put together a train for you right away. Fortunately, no one’s come through here for years, so they’ve got just about everything in stock. What cars do you want?”
“Cars? You mean like train cars?”
“Yes.”
“You’re really going to just give us a bunch of train cars.”
As with overly round numbers, experience had taught Kate to be suspicious of people offering her free stuff.
“I gave you a steam engine, didn’t I?”
“Um. Okay, what are the choices?”
“It doesn’t work like that. This isn’t a restaurant, you’re not ordering off a menu. It’s your train—you have to make it up.”
Kate and Tom glanced at each other.
“May I suggest,” Uncle Herbert said delicately, “that you begin with some passenger cars?”
He did actually sound kind of like a waiter at a fancy restaurant.
“Sure,” Kate said. “Sounds good.”
“Yeah,” said Tom.
“Two passenger cars?”
“Great,” Kate said. “Two passenger cars.”
“Excellent. What else?”
What other kinds of train cars were there? Her mind went completely blank. She really was not one of those kids who was super into trains.
“A… dining car?”
“Dining car. Good.” Uncle Herbert wrote it down on his clipboard.
Kate couldn’t think of anything else. “Tom, you pick something.”
“Uh. We could have two dining cars?”
“What’s the point of that?”
“Like two different restaurants. If we got bored of one, we could go to the other.”
Kate thought that was ridiculous, but Uncle Herbert wrote it down, too.
“Second… dining… car. Good. Need a kitchen car to go with it.”
“Two kitchen cars!” Tom was getting into it.
“Okay. What else?”
There was a long silence.
“A sleeper car,” Kate said. “That’s a thing, right?”
“Sleeper car.”
“I can’t think of anything else.”
“Yes,” Uncle Herbert said, “you can.”
Kate thought of something. It was silly, but she couldn’t come up with anything else.
“I would like a library car,” she said. “Like a car that’s all full of books, with big leather chairs and things where you can go and just read.”
She was a little embarrassed, but Uncle Herbert didn’t turn a hair.
“Library car.” He wrote it down. “What else?”
“Movie car,” Tom said.
“No movie car.”
“What?”
“You can watch movies at home.”
“But she got a library car!”
“And I’m sure she’ll let you use it.”
“This is such a rip-off!”
“Fine, I’ll give you your money back. Or wait, that’s right, you didn’t give me any money! You’re getting a completely free train!”
“I want a weapons car, then. Two weapons cars. One for swords, one for guns.”
“No.”
“Video—”
“Nope.”
“Inter—”
“Nope.”
“Fine.” Tom folded his arms. “I would like a candy car. That is my final offer.”
“A candy car!” Uncle Herbert looked so shocked that Kate laughed. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”
“Oh, come on!” Tom said. “It’d be awesome!”
“I’m kidding,” Uncle Herbert said. “You can totally have a candy car. What else?”
“A swimming pool car!” Kate said. It was worth a try. Especially if candy cars were a thing.
“Why not.”
“All right,” she said. “Read that back.”
“Two passenger cars,” Uncle Herbert read. “Two dining cars, two kitchen cars, sleeper car, library car, candy car, swimming pool car.”
Two, four… ten cars. That seemed about right. Maybe a tiny bit short.
“Let’s have a flat car,” Tom said. “Like just plain. We can stand on it and pretend we’re surfing. And we should have boxcars, too. Trains always have boxcars.”
Uncle Herbert wrote on his clipboard.
“I think,” Kate said, “we should have a mystery car. Like we don’t know what’s in it, but it’s something cool.”
She thought she was pushing her luck with that one, but he wrote it down with the rest.