The Silver Arrow

by Lev Grossman

  “I don’t know!”

  She felt paralyzed. Panicked. She was the older one, she was supposed to know! For the first time it occurred to her that maybe this wasn’t going to come out okay. She wondered how deep the swamp was. If the train hit that water and sank, they’d be trapped. They could drown.

  But it was too late, because even as she thought it she felt the Silver Arrow punch through the chain-link fence as easily as a brick through a plate glass window, hesitate for a moment like a roller coaster right before a big drop, and then tilt forward as the whole massive engine began its horrifying dive down the hill.

  The clackety-clack of the wheels went faster and faster and faster. Kate closed her eyes and felt a sick, weightless lifting in her stomach. She clenched her jaw tight and gripped the seat till her knuckles went white.…

  But the end didn’t come. When they got to the bottom of the hill they just kept rolling smoothly along, faster now but quieter, with no more breaking branches. Slowly she unclenched her jaw and ungripped the seat. The engine chuffed happily. Cautiously Kate opened her eyes.

  They should have been sinking into the swamp by now, with the snapping turtle waiting impatiently to snap the feet off their drowned corpses, but instead they were cruising along easily through dark, still woods.

  Kate knew perfectly well that there were no woods here, there was only swamp, and after that an office park, and beyond that the highway. It was impossible.

  But the woods didn’t seem to care about that. They just went on getting deeper and darker.

  “Where are we?” Tom whispered.

  “I don’t know!”

  “I can’t believe we’re in a real train!”

  “I know, right?”

  “I mean what is even happening right now!”

  Over the next few minutes Kate and Tom had three separate versions of this conversation, different but all basically the same. They raised the possibility that they were going to Hogwarts and decided they probably weren’t, though that would’ve been cool, too. And it was Kate’s eleventh birthday.

  Kate stuck her head out her side of the cab, and Tom stuck his head out his side. She wondered where they were going, and whether it was a good idea to go there, and whether, if they absolutely had to, they could jump out of the train without getting badly injured, and how long it would take them to walk home after that, and how exactly their parents would punish the bejeezus out of them when they got there. They were definitely putting Grace Hopper’s whole permission-versus-forgiveness theory to a serious test.

  But at the same time all the excitement, all the energy, all the joy she’d been waiting her whole life to feel were finally thrilling through her whole body. Anything was worth that.

  The air outside was getting pretty cold, even though it was June, and Kate shivered in her T-shirt. She was grateful for the warmth of the fire. After a few minutes she saw a pale light through the trees up ahead.

  It was dim and distant at first and blinked in and out among the branches, but it got stronger and stronger till at last it came fully into view. It was a train station.

  Not a fancy one, just a small country train station, a long lit platform in a clearing among the trees. There were people waiting on it.

  Except they weren’t people, they were animals. A few deer, a wolf, several foxes, a big brown bear, some rabbits or hares—or were they the same thing?—and a stripy-faced badger. Perched along a railing at the back of the platform was an assortment of birds, large and small.

  They just stood there, as still as commuters waiting for their morning train. Each one had a ticket in its mouth.

  6

  Click-bing!

  THE SILVER ARROW SLOWED, PULLED SMOOTHLY INTO the station, puffed out a huge cloud of white steam, and stopped with a loud hiss. There was an old-fashioned train clock on the platform, the round kind with a light inside that sits on top of a lamppost. It was late, almost ten o’clock at night.

  Tom came over to Kate’s side to look at the animals. The animals looked back at them. They didn’t run away the way wild animals usually did. They just stood there.

  It was like a dream. The air was so cold now they could see their breath in the lights of the station.

  Finally Tom said:

  “Hi.”

  Kate wasn’t always grateful for Tom’s presence—in fact a lot of the time she preferred his absence—but at that moment she was. She knew she tended to hesitate and overthink things. Tom didn’t have that problem, he would just blurt out anything that came into his head.

  A small gray fox bent down and placed its ticket carefully on the platform.

  “Hi,” it said.

  “Hi,” Kate said.

  “Been a long time since a train came through here,” the fox said.

  “Very long,” said the badger, transferring its ticket to its paws.

  Kate thought of saying Is that so? or How about that! but rejected both ideas as fatally uncool.

  “How long?” Tom said.

  “About thirty years,” the badger said. “Where have you been? You’re very late.”

  “Wait—just—how can you be talking?!” Kate said.

  “Oh, I know,” the fox said. “We do talk sometimes, just not around humans. Frankly, we don’t meet a lot of humans who are worth talking to. No offense.”

  Kate supposed that was fair.

  “But you haven’t been standing here waiting this whole time, have you?” she said. “Like, the whole thirty years?”

  “Oh, no. Of course not. We just look in here once in a while to check. I mean, we’re animals, it’s not like we have jobs.”

  “I guess not.”

  “You need to get over to the rail yard to pick up some cars, and fast,” a hare said. “It’s almost too late.”

  “The rail yard,” Kate said. “Okay. Thank you. We’ll do that.”

  It sounded like good advice.

  “See you soon then.”

  The animals all picked up their tickets and went back to waiting. With a jerk and a loud hiss, the Silver Arrow moved off down the track again. Tom pulled the whistle, two quick blasts:

  FOOOM! FOOOM!

  Kate clanged the bell for good measure. They quickly left the lights of the station behind.

  “Did you see that?” Kate said.

  “I totally saw that!” Tom said.

  “Those animals talked! To us!”

  Not only that—and that was incredible enough—but what they’d said had made Kate’s ears prick up. This wasn’t just a joyride, Kate and Tom were going somewhere specific—namely to the rail yard, wherever that was—and for a reason—namely to pick up some cars. A joyride would’ve been fine, obviously, but this was even better. It wasn’t just fun and games. They were on a mission. They had a job to do.

  The glow of the firelight was nice, and it was starting to feel cozy in the cab. The air smelled like hot engine oil: a savory, interesting smell. Everything was made of brass and leather and wood and glass and felt very old, like the kind of place that would usually be behind a velvet rope at a museum.

  “I wonder who’s driving this thing,” Tom said. “I mean, we’re not.”

  “Who knows?”

  Suddenly there was a click and the bing of a bell behind them, kind of like the click-bing of an old-fashioned typewriter.

  Kate hadn’t noticed it before, but on the wall of the cab, in among the pipes and dials and levers, was a little loop of paper. It unrolled out of the innards of the train at one end and then scrolled back into them at the other. A message had just been printed on it:

  I KNOW

  As soon as they’d read the words the message scrolled out of sight and more paper scrolled out with another click-bing. It really was like a typewriter, or a very low-tech printer.

  More words appeared, neatly typed:

  THE FOLLOWING ARE INSTRUCTIONS FOR OPERATING THIS STEAM ENGINE

  Uh-oh, Kate thought. Here we go.

  Click-bing. More w
ords.

  OPERATING A STEAM ENGINE IS REALLY COMPLICATED

  BUT DON’T WORRY, I’M GOING TO TEACH YOU HOW TO DO IT

  “Great.” Tom rolled his eyes. “Train school.”

  Click-bing.

  IT’S NOT “TRAIN SCHOOL”

  THIS IS CALLED LEARNING

  WHEN DONE PROPERLY IT CAN ACTUALLY BE QUITE ENJOYABLE

  THOUGH ADMITTEDLY IT’S HARDLY EVER DONE PROPERLY

  Tom folded his arms. He looked unconvinced.

  LOOK, LEARNING THINGS IS INCREDIBLY HARD AND UNPLEASANT

  IF IT WASN’T THEN EVERYBODY WOULD DO IT ALL THE TIME

  AND THEN EVERYBODY WOULD KNOW EVERYTHING

  WOULDN’T THEY

  Kate shrugged. “I guess.”

  YOU GUESS RIGHT

  WHAT YOU NEED IS A GOOD TEACHER

  FORTUNATELY I AM ONE

  “Right,” Tom said under his breath.

  I AM RIGHT

  “How can you even be talking?” Kate asked, keenly aware that she’d also just asked a fox that exact same question.

  I DON’T KNOW, I JUST AM

  “Are you like a giant metal robot or something?”

  I DON’T KNOW

  I MEAN AREN’T YOU JUST A ROBOT MADE OF FLESH AND BONES

  IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT

  Kate thought about it. The train did kind of have a point.

  FOR NOW YOUR ONLY JOB IS GIVING ME MORE COAL

  THE COAL IS IN THE TENDER. JUST SHOVEL IT INTO THE FIREBOX

  THE FIREBOX IS THE BOX WITH THE FIRE IN IT

  “I figured that,” said Tom.

  LESS TALKING, MORE SHOVELING

  There were two short shovels and two pairs of work gloves hanging on pegs in the tender. They put on the gloves and shoveled chunky pieces of black coal into the firebox. It took only a few shovelfuls before the fire started to get hot and glowing again.

  Job well done. It was surprisingly satisfying.

  “So,” Kate said, “I guess it’s a talking train.”

  “I guess so.”

  Click-bing.

  I GUESS SO

  7

  The Rail Yard

  THE TRAIN CHUFFED ALONG; KATE THOUGHT IT chuffed a little faster and more vigorously now that they’d given it more coal. She’d never had a pet, because between them her parents were allergic to every single animal under the sun, but it felt like she imagined feeding a pet would feel. Except that it was a giant metal pet that you rode inside.

  Snow drifted down through the trees outside, which was very odd considering that it was supposed to be summer, but not odder than anything else that was going on. The train kept talking to them. It explained how the throttle worked, and it showed them where the brakes were. Then it told them to look out the window.

  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.

  “That’s all I got,” Kate said.

  “Me too.”

  “Needs one more thing,” Uncle Herbert said.