by Peter Bunzl
Lily dried the sweat and meltwater from her face with the end of her scarf, though the wind blew more snow at her ceaselessly. By now Papa and Selena would be really concerned. They had probably reported them missing to one of the many police officers in the Grand Central Depot. Lily felt sick that she had made her father worry again, especially after all he had been through – all they’d both been through – in the last year.
“I can’t believe that Miss Buckle got away,” Caddy said, putting Spook in her pocket.
“She’s almost a super-mech,” Robert said. “Regular mechanicals aren’t usually that strong.”
“We’ll get more from that note and find out where she’s going when we see it under a proper light,” Lily said. “I’m sure of it.”
“I have a more pressing concern,” Caddy said in a worried tone, looking around at the dimly lit track. “I think we might be lost.”
“How is that possible?” Malkin asked. “It’s a straight track that goes north and south.”
“No,” Robert said, taking his compass out of his pocket and looking at it. “I think she’s right. We’re travelling west to east.”
They had reached a siding. Robert motioned to the others and they stepped onto it to take a moment to get their bearings.
Lily wondered how on earth they were going to get back. The cold was encroaching into her shoes and her thoughts. Her toes were so frozen it felt like they might fall off. How could they have been so stupid? Getting involved in Dane’s problems had only left them here, lost in the dark in a foreign city in the snow. Lily wished she had never heard of the boy. If he had never contacted them with his note, they would be safe in the hotel now, not going through this. She shook that thought away. No, he was their friend, and they’d promised to help him no matter what. They couldn’t break a promise like that. It was just the cold and searing tiredness making her think such things.
“We could be on any line by now,” Robert said. “Who knows in this blizzard?”
“Perhaps it’s better to keep going forward rather than turn back?” Caddy suggested, when suddenly, on the far side of the track, a figure appeared through the fog. With a shiver, Lily understood the person must have been following and listening to them for some time.
Could it be Miss Buckle, come back for her note? But if so, she no longer had the case or Dane with her. Lily wondered in horror what she had done with them. She felt another rush of guilt for her previous anger at Dane – he needed their help.
The figure vaulted the tracks and came closer. It was a lot shorter than Lily had first thought – barely taller than them, in fact.
As the snow eased a little, Lily saw it was a girl who looked to be around their own age, all wrapped up in layers of torn clothing. She wore a large men’s herringbone jacket over the top and a scarf wrapped around her neck with more holes than wool. Instead of gloves she wore socks on her hands like mittens, and she had wound an old piece of material around her head like a hat to ward off the pinch of the cold.
The girl took something from her pocket – a box – and flipped its lid. There was a crackle and a flame appeared from the box, lighting up her face. Beneath her shadowy makeshift hat, an eyepatch hid one eye and a familiar cherubic grin dimpled her cheeks. Kid Wink!
“What in tarnation are you guys doing here?” she asked.
“It’s a long story,” Lily said, joyfully. She hadn’t imagined she’d find anyone else wandering this snowy railway siding, let alone Kid Wink.
“Tell me on the way.” Kid Wink snapped her Wonderlite shut and plunged them all into darkness…but not despair, for now they had found her, they knew they were going to be all right.
Robert was just as pleased as Lily to bump into Kid Wink – it was such a relief to have someone leading them who knew the way.
Only, what was the way? Where were they going…? Apart from the note, they had no clues left and their plan to help Dane was coming apart at the seams.
“Where are you taking us?” he asked.
“Where were you trying to get to?” she replied.
“We don’t know! We’re lost,” Caddy admitted.
“We were following Miss Buckle,” Lily explained. “That’s Dane’s nursemaid, who stole the Ouroboros Diamond and kidnapped him. She’s got the professor’s wooden case too. It has a dangerous machine in it. We need to get back to the hotel and tell the police where we lost her and show them the note we found, so they can track her down.”
“You won’t get back there tonight,” Kid Wink said. “Not in this clanking snow. Blizzard’s closing in. The city’ll be on lockdown. Best you come with me.”
“Where?” Lily asked incredulously. Kid Wink still hadn’t explained why she was on the rails.
“Home,” the girl said. “This is the quickest way. Trains are stopped because of the snow now. You can spend the night with us there, if you like?”
“How far is it?” Caddy asked with a shiver.
“Only a step or two up the track.” Kid Wink pointed away into the fog and darkness. “It’s warm and cosy, and there’s food. Then I can get you back to the hotel at first light tomorrow.” She ducked under a red-and-white striped wooden barricade that was blocking her path and beckoned Robert and the others to follow. The snowy track beyond was mangled and patched with rusty rivets.
As they walked, Lily, Robert and Caddy told Kid Wink all they had discovered in the past few days about Dane and his parents and what had happened to them on the Shadowsea Base. Then they told her about Professor Milksop, and finally about Miss Buckle and the diamond robbery and kidnap. It was quite the tale, Lily observed, telling it out loud for the first time since they’d spoken about it to the police inspector.
Kid Wink listened, but her focus was mostly on navigating the slippery, elevated terrain of the rail track.
They had just got to telling her what had happened that morning – how they’d read the ransom note, uncovered the phone message from the kidnappers and contrived to follow Professor Milksop and the police to the ransom swap – when an abandoned rail car appeared up ahead. It had a single smoking chimney, and snow was melting off its roof, falling in mushy lumps onto the track.
“All right,” Kid Wink said, interrupting their story, “here we are… This is my place.”
“Wow!” Caddy said.
“Bow-wow-WOW!” Malkin added.
“You really live in there?” Robert asked incredulously.
The railway carriage must’ve been standing on the siding for a long time, for there were wooden sleepers wedged against it and, beneath its hat of snow, its sides were scribbled with graffiti. The ivy growing round the car’s wheels was starting to engulf the undercarriage.
“Of course!” Kid Wink said. “Don’t you recall nothin’? I told you the first time we met.”
“I thought you were joking,” Robert replied. “I didn’t think you actually…” He trailed off.
“He means he didn’t think you lived in an actual railway carriage,” Lily finished for him.
“Well, I do.” Kid Wink stepped up onto the rear platform and knocked on the car’s door.
After a moment, a voice inside called out: “Password?”
“Cloudscraper Express!” Kid Wink said and, as an aside to everyone, she added, “That’s what we named our train, because we’re the Cloudscrapers.”
A dusty window in the carriage door slid down, and a boy peered out. Lily recognized him too. “You’re the elevator boy from the hotel!”
“Hey, Kid,” the elevator boy said, ignoring her. “You’re back!”
“Hey, Rails,” Kid Wink said. “Course I’m back! Got some pals with me. You wanna meet them?”
Rails gave a broken grin. “Met ’em already.”
“This guy’s Rails,” Kid said. “Also known as Will.”
“Railroad Will,” Rails added. “Named for Railroad Bill. I love that guy. He’s my hero. The Cloudscrapers call me Rails for short.”
“We don’t need you
r life story,” Kid griped. “Just let us in before we freeze to death! It’s colder than an arctic icebox out here.”
Rails pulled the door open. “You’re late, Kid,” he said, standing aside for her. “We was wondering what’d happened to you.”
“Never thought to come looking though, did ya?” Kid said, barging past him.
Rails shook his head. “Nuh-uh. No way. Not in this blizzard.”
Kid Wink shook her head, then beckoned to Robert, Lily, Caddy and Malkin. “Come on in!” she said. “Or are you waiting for a formal invitation?”
Lily flicked a glance at the others, who stood shivering and wet beside her in the doorway. She clasped her damp scarf and coat around her, and one by one they stepped through the door.
The warm scent of fresh baking bread hit Robert as he, Lily, Caddy and Malkin gathered beside Kid Wink and Rails in the train carriage’s rear section. It smelled delicious and Robert felt relieved to have finally come in from the cold.
Malkin did too. “Thank clank for that!” the fox said. “If we’d stayed out there a moment longer, my cogs would have frozen stiff. This coat Mrs Rust knitted does nothing to keep out the tocking frost and neither does my own fur.”
Kid Wink chuckled. “You really need bear-thick fur to brave December in New York! Come this way…” She led them past a pair of closed side doors, which must’ve once been used to get on and off at stations. A coat rack stuffed with thick winter coats was fixed to the wooden wall in front of them. Kid Wink took off her coat and hung it on one of the free hooks. Robert did the same and the others followed suit.
A corridor ran down the right-hand side of the carriage, with a row of sliding doors suggesting several separate modest compartments. Robert guessed that the car must have once been used for long-distance travel. “Do you two live here alone?” he asked Rails and Kid Wink.
“No,” Rails said. “There’s six of us kids all together.”
“But no grown-ups?” Caddy asked.
Kid Wink shook her head. “We do fine without ’em.”
“We don’t.” Robert thought of how worried his ma and John must be about them. “We need to get back to our folks,” he said, clutching the Moonlocket around his neck.
“Tomorrow, like I told you,” Kid said.
“One of us might try to get a message through tonight?” Rails suggested. “We could get across town a heck of a lot faster than the fox or these kids.”
Kid Wink shook her head. “It’s too dangerous in this weather.” She smiled at Robert and the others. “We’ll have to save any special messages for when I take you back in the morning.”
“The morning…” Caddy said, her voice quavering.
“Everything’ll be fine, I promise,” Kid Wink soothed. “Now, come sit by the stove and melt the ice off yourselves.” She pulled open a door to a compact and comfy compartment, where a proper iron pot-bellied stove crackled with warmth, its chimney sticking out through the train roof. More railway children sat on the padded seats all around it, chatting in their strange New York accents.
“Lily, Robert, Caddy. This is…Parsons, Maze, Spoons and Curly.” Kid Wink waved at each of the Cloudscrapers in turn. Robert had trouble keeping track of who was who.
“Hey!” Each Cloudscraper gave a little nod of greeting. They didn’t seem much interested in the new arrivals and quickly returned to their conversation.
“And this is Malkin,” Kid Wink said, as, lastly, the fox stepped into the cabin.
At that the Cloudscrapers’ eyes all lit up. They hopped from their seats and gathered round the mechanimal, cooing and stroking his head and ears and ruff.
“Is this the mech-fox you told us about, who’s staying at the hotel?” one of the Cloudscrapers asked. He was a short boy with glasses, who Robert thought might be Parsons.
“The very one,” Malkin told the Cloudscrapers.
“He speaks!” the Cloudscrapers cried in delighted unison.
“I told you he spoke, you bunch of dopes,” Kid Wink said. “You knew that.”
“I didn’t,” the one who might be Maze said.
“I guess I never expected a fox to speak to me,” added a Cloudscraper who was definitely Curly, for his hair was curlier than Robert’s.
Maze giggled. “You never expected to meet a mechanimal full stop! Not in your lifetime.”
“That’s what you told me too, Curly!” a girl Cloudscraper, who Robert thought was Spoons, shouted, butting in.
Malkin was delighted with their attention and introduced himself personally to each and every one of them by licking their palms and fingers. When all the Cloudscrapers had finished stroking him, he settled down in the warmest spot in the room, on the floor beside the stove.
“So these guys are staying with us?” Parsons asked when the introductions were over.
“Only till the blizzard stops,” Kid Wink said. “Then they’ll be on their way back to the hotel.” She turned to Robert and the others. “You never finished telling me your story,” she said. “How did you end up on the track?”
“The track!” Spoons said. “Never walk the track! It’s dangerous. Could kill ya.”
“It’s true,” Maze said. “I seen plenty of folks walk that line and get themselves smashed like broken eggs. What were you doing on the track, anyways?”
“Looking for someone,” Lily said.
“Who?” Parsons asked.
“Dane – a boy who was kidnapped from the hotel by a mechanical called Miss Buckle,” Lily said.
“We made a promise to help him,” Malkin explained.
“Yeah, well, like I said,” Kid Wink replied, “best leave it till morning. Neither you nor the police could do anything more for him tonight. Besides, we heard the police earlier outside Murray Hill Hotel. Even with what you have to tell ’em, they ain’t got no new clues to go on.”
It was then that Robert remembered Miss Buckle’s note. “But we do,” he said. “Read the note out to everyone, Lil.”
“It’s a list,” Lily told them as she took the note from her pocket and read it aloud to the Cloudscrapers. “Number one is: ‘Ouroboros Diamond’ – that’s the diamond Miss Buckle stole from the hotel,” she explained. “Two is ‘Dane’ – that’s our friend, who she kidnapped. Three is: ‘Ouroboros Engine’ – that’s the machine in the suitcase Miss Buckle stole. Four is: ‘Warehouse’ – but we don’t know what that means. Five: ‘Diving Belle’ – we don’t know what that means either, but maybe one of you does? There are two more points at the end, but they’re smudged and unreadable so of no use.”
“Do any of you know what Diving Belle might mean?” Caddy asked the Cloudscrapers.
They shrugged and shook their heads. None of them did.
“Sounds like some kinda thing you might find down the docks?” Kid Wink suggested.
“It does…” Robert said. He thought for a moment. “I could swear I’ve heard the name somewhere before.”
“Me too,” Lily said.
And then she remembered. It was in the yellowed newspaper article they’d found about the Shadowsea Submarine Base. She’d kept it in her other pocket just in case they needed it. She quickly pulled it out. The paper was soggy – wet from the snow that had seeped through to the lining of her coat. But, luckily, the article was still in one piece.
She smoothed it out carefully and held it close to the stove to dry before reading it out to everyone:
“‘Mr Nathaniel Shadowsea, Professor Matilda Milksop and guests…on the dockside of the Shadowsea Warehouse near Battery Park… A submersible named the Diving Belle will be used to take down supplies needed for the work…’ That’s it. The Diving Belle. It’s at the Shadowsea Warehouse, in Battery Park.”
“We think Miss Buckle is working for other people,” Robert said. “This must be where she’s going to meet them.”
“Well, that ain’t so far,” Maze said.
“At the bottom of Broadway,” Rails added.
“Which is about twelve block
s west from here,” Parsons said.
“Be quicker to take East Broadway,” Spoons corrected. “That way’s maybe an hour’s walk.”
“On a good day!” Curly added, glancing at the snow on the window.
“We’ll have to tell the police all this tomorrow when we hand the note over to them,” Robert said.
“There isn’t time for that!” Caddy said suddenly. “We have to go there ourselves as soon as possible.”
“What do you mean?” Robert asked.
“Don’t you remember? Because Dane’s going to wake the dead at twelve o’clock tomorrow. That could mean midday or midnight. We need to find him and get him back before then to make sure the prophecy won’t come true.”
“What do you mean, wake the dead?” Kid Wink asked in shock.
And Robert realized that, although they’d told the Cloudscrapers everything else, they’d forgotten to tell them about Caddy’s prophecy. So he and Lily and Caddy took it in turns to tell the kids the story of Dane’s past and what Caddy had seen of his future…
How Matilda Milksop had invented a life and death machine. How the machine accidentally electrocuted everyone on the Shadowsea Base, including Dane and his parents, when she and her mechanical assistant, Miss Buckle, were trying to reanimate a mouse. How the pair had used the machine to reanimate Dane, but in doing so had broken the Ouroboros Diamond at its centre, and how the professor had come to New York to get another one to make it work again, not knowing that kidnappers were planning to take the diamond, Dane and the machine to use for their own purposes.
They explained how they had received a note from Dane and how that had ended up getting them and then Caddy involved. And they finished up with the diamond robbery and kidnap, and then all that had happened today – the failed ransom swap that they’d been witness to, and the chase that happened barely an hour ago. Finally they got to where they’d met Kid Wink on the branch line.
The Cloudscrapers listened to everything with interest, for though they’d heard bits and pieces about the robbery of the Ouroboros Diamond and Matilda Milksop and her nephew from those of their group that worked at the Murray Hill Hotel, the rest of the details of the story were entirely new to them.
