The Silver Arrow

by Lev Grossman

  Kate stood in front of the open door. A voice spoke close beside her.

  “This is me,” the mamba said.

  “It is? Where are we?”

  “Mozambique. This is the East African coastal forest. Lots of mambas here.”

  Kate squatted down to meet the snake’s dark, unblinking eyes. She remembered how frightened of him she’d been when they’d first met. Now when he reared up and slid himself around her neck, she didn’t mind at all.

  In fact, the cool, dry smoothness of the mamba felt lovely on her skin. He was as long as she was tall, but so slender that he barely weighed anything.

  “We mambas are really very shy, you know,” he said. “But I don’t feel shy with you.”

  “I don’t feel shy with you, either.”

  “Thank you for getting me here, Kate. I know it wasn’t easy.”

  “It was an honor. It was the least I could do. I mean after… you know. Everything else.”

  “Don’t feel too bad about what humans have done,” the mamba said with a gentleness in his voice that she’d never quite heard before. “Feeling guilty doesn’t help anything anyway. Humans are animals doing what all animals do: surviving. It’s just that you’ve done it too well, so well that now you have to become a new kind of animal, one who makes sure that all the others survive, too.”

  The mamba slid noiselessly out the door and across the platform, a vivid green squiggle, and vanished into the forest.

  The next stop was by a wide, shallow, milky-pale river that ran fast over rocks.

  “My turn,” the white-bellied heron said.

  She stepped out onto the platform on her twiggy legs. They still looked weird to Kate, even if her knees really did bend forward.

  “I don’t suppose you come to Bhutan very often,” the heron said.

  “Not really.” Kate hadn’t actually been aware until that moment that Bhutan was a country.

  “Not a lot of people do.”

  “I guess that makes it a good place to be a heron,” Kate said.

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll try my best to keep humans from destroying everything. I really will.”

  The heron nodded her beautiful crested head.

  “I know.” She brushed Kate’s hand with her wing. “It may be too late for us. The last white-bellied heron will probably die in your lifetime. We were beautiful, and we hurt no one, but that wasn’t enough.

  “Just promise me you won’t give up. The world has lost its old balance, but it’s not too late. It could still find a new one.”

  She spread her wide wings and flapped away, gliding to land on an old log in the river, where she began searching the water for fish.

  When the heron was gone, Kate walked back to the library car. Only the fishing cat and the porcupine were left. Even after Tom came in to join them, it felt very empty.

  Kate sat down on the couch, and for the first time ever the fishing cat came and sat in her lap. She was so big that she overflowed Kate’s legs on either side like a big dog.

  “Would you mind terribly much,” the cat said, “scritching me behind my ears?”

  “I was just going to ask if you’d mind if I scritched behind your ears.”

  Kate scratched gently.

  “Mmmmmm. That’s good. I can do it myself with my hind leg, but it’s so much better with fingers.”

  She started to purr—a deeper, louder, more rumbling purr than a house cat’s. Kate had never heard her purr before.

  “I didn’t know you could do that,” Kate said.

  “There are two kinds of cats in the world: roaring cats and purring cats. You can’t do both. Lions roar. Tigers roar. But fishing cats are purring cats.”

  Kate was glad fishing cats could purr.

  All too soon the train slowed down again. Kate had known these animals for only a few weeks, but somehow she felt closer to them than she did to anyone in the world except her family. Now she’d probably never see them again. Kate bent down and smooshed her face into the fishing cat’s furry neck, and a couple of tears leaked out.

  But it was so amazing that she’d gotten to meet them at all. She would always have that. When it was time, the fishing cat jumped lightly down from her lap, and together they walked forward to the passenger cars.

  The train pulled in at a station in a huge marsh full of curious-looking trees that stood up above the water on long, stiff roots like stilts. There were so many of them so close together that they were all woven into one another. The air smelled like the ocean.

  The station itself was all made of tropical wood, with a hairy-looking thatched roof.

  “Where are we?” she said.

  “We’re in a mangrove forest,” the fishing cat said.

  “How can trees grow like this? In the sea, I mean.”

  “Mangroves grow in salt water,” the cat said. “They’re the only trees in the world that can.”

  It started to rain, a light, warm rain, but that didn’t seem to bother the fishing cat.

  “I’ll probably never see you again,” Kate said.

  “I know.”

  “It makes me so sad, it feels like I can’t stand it! Don’t animals get sad?”

  “Of course we do,” the fishing cat said. “But we try not to brood about it. Animals never think about what might have been, or what should have been. We only ever think about what really is.”

  “I’ll try to remember that.” Kate leaned down and gave the cat a kiss on the top of her head. “And I’ll always remember you.”

  “I’ll remember you, too, Kate. And I want to tell you something, just to make sure you know it, just in case your parents are too busy to remind you as often as they should: You are special, Kate. You are strong and smart and good, and the world needs you.”

  Kate’s eyes were blurry and swimming with tears. It was the one thing she’d always wanted to hear, all her life. If anybody else had said it, she might have had trouble believing it, but she knew she could trust the fishing cat.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re welcome. Ooh—a frog!”

  And with that the cat took a running leap into the water and disappeared.

  After that, whenever Kate was feeling down—which would always happen, because you’re never too grown up to feel down sometimes—she would think about the fact that somewhere out there in the world, in a mangrove swamp, was a fishing cat who remembered her.

  And that was something. It was a lot, really.

  In all the excitement Kate had almost forgotten about the polar bear, but of course she was still with them, in her boxcar. They let her off late that night at a station deep in the Arctic, right out onto the pack ice. It was the coldest air Kate had ever felt. The wind whipped snow in through the open doors so hard that she had to scrunch her face up and look away. Before she did, she caught a glimpse of a sign that said simply NORTH POLE.

  The polar bear paused on her way out into the blizzard. Kate had never heard her speak before, but now she put her great black muzzle right up to Kate’s ear and said the first and last words that Kate would ever hear her say. Her voice was deep and rumbly.

  “If you humans let us die, you will never, ever forgive yourselves.”

  24

  The Journey Home

  KATE AND TOM AND THE PORCUPINE HUDDLED together around the firebox in the cab.

  “Right,” Kate said, raising her voice over the clackety-clack of the train. “Where to now?”

  Click-bing.

  HOME

  Oh.

  “But what about you?” Tom said. He meant the porcupine.

  “Oh, don’t worry about me.” He sounded almost civil for once. “I’ll get where I’m going.”

  Click-bing.

  LET’S STEP ON IT

  WE’RE CUTTING IT CLOSE AS IT IS

  When Kate read books about kids who got to go on magical journeys, she never really believed that they ever wanted to go home at the end. But now she realized how ba
dly she was missing her parents and how much she needed to be somewhere safe and familiar and stationary for a while, even if it was a little dull.

  As they steamed past glaciers and snowfields and crags, Kate felt proud and happy about everything they’d done. But on top of that feeling, weighing it down like a paperweight, was a heavy, heavy sadness. For the animals she’d never see again. For the baby pangolin who had no safe place to be. For the cat and the heron and the polar bear and all the animals out there who were just trying to survive in a world that had lost its balance.

  Tom sat next to her on the other side of the cab. His face was tired and blank, too. Uncle Herbert had been right: The world was more interesting than it looked, but it was so much harder and more complicated, too.

  The sky was gray, and a light, thin snow fell and melted into droplets on the windows. The tracks wound through a deep pine forest. It was getting dark, and the snow was going blue in the twilight. Kate had always loved snow—it made her think about sledding, and being cozy indoors, and hot chocolate, and days off from school. She ate dinner in the dining car by herself, reading a book, and went to bed in her lovely fold-down bunk with the window above it. She wondered if it was for the last time.

  Lying there in the darkness, she thought about what the Silver Arrow must look like from above, the way a bird would see it: puffing along through the snowy nighttime wilderness, small and determined, its headlight splitting the darkness. Its whistle sounded, and where before it had sounded huge and triumphant, now it sounded sad and a little lonely—the sound of something far from home that had come a long way and still had a long way to go.

  The next day it was snowing harder, and the wind started to howl. It was a real blizzard. The Silver Arrow pounded through the storm, cutting through the wind, its cowcatcher sending snow fountaining off the track on both sides. Kate and Tom lit the woodstove in the library and wrapped themselves in blankets, and the porcupine sat in his armchair—which by this time was quilled beyond repair—and told them stories about his hair-raising standoffs with mountain lions and fishers, which were the only animals with the gumption to seriously take on a porcupine.

  (A fisher was nothing like a fishing cat, the porcupine explained. Fishers were actually members of the weasel family, but much larger and more vicious than weasels. And they didn’t even eat fish! Another brilliant piece of naming by the humans.)

  Kate went up to the engine to check on the Silver Arrow. The sun was setting, and they were crossing a frozen lake. The tracks ran right across the ice.

  THIS MAKES ME NERVOUS

  “Me too.” Kate peered out into the snowy twilight. “How thick is this ice?”

  I DON’T KNOW

  IT WAS A WARM WINTER. AND IT’S VERY LATE IN THE SEASON

  “It had better be pretty thick.”

  WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING ABOUT MY WEIGHT

  SORRY

  I MAKE JOKES WHEN I’M NERVOUS

  Kate took their speed up as far as she dared. The sooner they got off this ice, the better. The wind made snaky sidewinders of snow that slid across the frozen lake.

  Crunch! Suddenly the whole train lurched and slowed for a second—then kept going.

  “What was that?!”

  I THINK THE ICE IS CRACKING

  Oh no.

  “That isn’t good.”

  She gave the train all the speed she could, but a minute later it lurched again, harder this time.

  I THINK WE JUST LOST THE CABOOSE!

  This ice wasn’t going to hold them much longer. Kate sprinted back toward the library car. She met Tom and the porcupine in the corridor, coming the other way.

  “The ice is cracking!” Kate said. “We’re losing cars!”

  “We know!” Tom said.

  Crunch! This time the train ground to a complete halt and everybody fell down in a heap. Kate banged her elbow on the floor hard enough to bruise. They could feel the engine struggling and straining to get moving again. The weight of the long train was dragging it back and down.

  “Come on!” Tom shouted.

  They raced each other forward to the engine.

  I’M STUCK!!!

  “Come on!” Tom yelled. “Come on!”

  “You have to try!” Kate said.

  “You can do it!” said the porcupine. “Probably!”

  There was a snap and a crash behind them, and with a grinding, groaning effort, the Silver Arrow surged forward again. Kate looked back: Maybe it was the snow and the darkness but all she could see behind them was the tender and the passenger cars.

  Were all the rest gone? The library? Her beloved sleeper car? The candy car? There were so many candies she hadn’t tried yet! There was a whole jar of something called Ultimate Malted Milk Balls, which were like regular malted milk balls but coated in all three kinds of chocolate—milk, dark, and white. Now she’d never get to try them!

  They’d been in some close scrapes before, but it suddenly occurred to her—as it had that very first night, when they’d plunged down the hill behind the house—that maybe this wasn’t going to turn out all right in the end. They’d come so far, but maybe they weren’t going to make it all the way. Maybe that was how this story ended.

  Then there was a crack like almighty thunder, and the ice gave way right under them. The Silver Arrow crashed down through it into the freezing black water. A massive geyser of steam exploded up all around the boiler.

  “No!” Kate shouted.

  “No!” shouted Tom.

  “No!” shouted the porcupine.

  Click-bing.

  BLAZE!

  25

  The Roundhouse

  THE SILVER ARROW WEIGHED 102.36 TONS. IT DID NOT float. It sank—fast. Lake water boiled all around it from the heat of the engine.

  As panicked as they were, Kate and Tom had the presence of mind to slam the windows shut as fast as they could and close the door at the back of the cab. That should delay our deaths by both freezing and drowning for a good two minutes, Kate thought.

  “Can you swim?” she said.

  “Yes,” said Tom.

  “I know you can, I meant the porcupine!”

  “I certainly can,” the porcupine said proudly. “My quills are hollow, so they double as natural flotation devices!”

  “Okay. Good to know.”

  I CAN’T SWIM

  IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING

  “No, I figured.”

  Kate stared at the dark water climbing up over the windows. There was a sickening sinking sensation as the snowy evening disappeared overhead and the train slid down into the black lake. How deep was it? There was some length of time people could survive in freezing cold water, and Kate couldn’t remember exactly what it was, but she knew it wasn’t very long. Even if they did get out, they’d be soaking wet in the middle of a frozen lake, probably miles from anywhere. They would freeze to death for sure.

  Maybe better to drown and get it over with. Thin jets of water sprayed in around the doors—the Silver Arrow wasn’t made to be watertight.

  “Tom,” Kate said, “is this one of those times when you secretly know what to do even though I don’t?”

  “No!”

  They were completely underwater now. She thought of the time they’d plunged into the ocean surf and down into the emerald tunnel of water, and how glorious and wonderful it was. This wasn’t like that. This was dark and cold and doomed.

  If they did die, at least Kate knew it was for a good cause. They’d done what they set out to do, and it mattered. She only wished it hadn’t cost them so much.

  The water pouring into the cab was so cold that her feet went numb as soon as it touched them. Kate shivered with her whole body. There was no sound as the engine touched bottom and settled on the floor of the lake. The water outside was pitch black. She wondered how far down they were. She wished—how she wished—that she’d just stayed a tree in the misty forest forever.

  For a second she actually wondered if maybe the steam engine
could run underwater. Maybe they could steam along the bottom of the lake and up onto land again. But it was too cold, you couldn’t build up enough steam pressure. And there were no tracks. She realized she would never see her parents again, and hot tears ran down her face. Kate took Tom’s hand with one hand and the porcupine’s spiny paw with the other.

  “Tom.” She was so cold and scared she could barely catch her breath. “I really am glad you came with me. Except for this part, obviously. In a s-s-second I’m going to open the d-d-door.” Her teeth were chattering. Tom’s face was pale, and his lips were blue. “We’re all going to t-take a deep breath and t-t-try to swim out. Swim s-straight up—we’ll want to climb out through the h-h-hole the train made in the ice.”

  Probably she should’ve said something more, but she was so cold and wet and terrified, it was all she could think about. Except for one more thing.

  “Goodbye, Silver Arrow. I love you.”

  Click-bing.

  GOODBYE

  I LOVE

  But at that moment the rising water in the cab reached the level of the firebox, and the fire hissed and went out.

  The lights went out, too, and in the bitter-cold darkness more tears flooded Kate’s eyes, not for herself but for the thought of the Silver Arrow spending the rest of its days here at the bottom of a cold, dark lake in the middle of nowhere, with only cold, silent fish to keep it company. That was one of the first things Uncle Herbert said: Never let the fire go out. It was what the Silver Arrow had been most afraid of. And now the firebox was as dead and dark as when she’d first seen it. She wondered what it felt like, cold water flooding into your brain and putting out your thoughts. Did it fall asleep and dream? Or was it just—nothing?