The Silver Arrow: Chapters 18–26

She closed her eyes. If she had to die at the age of eleven, she supposed that crashing into a nameless ocean in a speeding steam train with her brother and a bunch of talking animals at least had some flair to it. She would have an outstandingly compelling obituary.

She closed her eyes. If she had to die at the age of eleven, she supposed that crashing into a nameless ocean in a speeding steam train with her brother and a bunch of talking animals at least had some flair to it. She would have an outstandingly compelling obituary.

Kate wished she could’ve watched it from a distance because it would’ve looked so cool: The massive black steam engine charged right into the rolling surf, butting and smashing through the waves, throwing spray everywhere, seawater hissing off its hot boiler—and then the water parted and formed a luminous emerald tunnel down into the ocean, and the Silver Arrow shot right down into it.

Then the water was as black as night, broken only by the starry lights of a few phosphorescent fish.

“You warm-blooded creatures can have no idea what this feels like,” he said. “Literally none. It’s what ice must feel like when it’s melting.”

The baby pangolin bumbled around, playing games in the sand. He’d gotten much more active lately, sniffing and exploring everything with his startlingly long tongue. He had four legs but toddled around mostly on two, stooped over like a tiny scaly old man.

Kate liked the sound of that. Though she still didn’t see where wisdom came into it. And she was skeptical, as ever, about anything free.

Kate ended up walking all the way back to where they’d first sat down, where the mamba was still sunning himself blissfully in the powdery sand.

Just then her fingers brushed something hard and smooth. It was so far down she could barely scrabble at it with her fingertips, but she stretched and stretched, and finally she managed to hook her fingers under it.

He was holding a small, tattered stuffed fox, orange with a brown tail.

“What about the animals?”
I GUESS THEY HAD TO FEND FOR THEMSELVES
IT WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN EASY.

“There was one invasive species we didn’t mention. An especially bad one, a kind of ape. They have weirdly enlarged heads and hardly any fur.”
“Oh, they’re the worst,” the porcupine said.

“Everything’s changing,” the heron said. “Animals are on the move all over the world. We’re refugees, just like people. Look at the poor polar bear!”

Immediately, powerful pneumatic mechanisms roared to life and shoved the cylinders outward in both directions, right out through the wooden sides of the boxcar, with a shuddering crash.

One of the wooden bars gave way, and Kate was pelted with a shelf's worth of books.

They kept going up and up, blasting up through the clouds, and then Kate could feel something even crazier happening: The track kept curving back past the vertical, back in the direction of upside-down—but the rockets were driving them so hard that centrifugal force kept them stuck to the track.

The track kept curving till it did a complete roller-coaster loop, and for one delirious, transcendent moment they were completely upside down, with Kate’s head pointed at the earth, and she went weightless, and in that moment all her fear suddenly evaporated into nothing and she laughed out loud with the awesomeness of it all.

The track kept curving till it did a complete roller-coaster loop, and for one delirious, transcendent moment they were completely upside down, with Kate’s head pointed at the earth, and she went weightless, and in that moment all her fear suddenly evaporated into nothing and she laughed out loud with the awesomeness of it all.

Ahead and behind, train tracks curved off through the sky into the distance, looking very thin and precarious.

She looked over at the baby pangolin, who had survived the rocket ride unscathed and apparently fast asleep, curled up safely in a scaly little ball.

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

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

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.

As they steamed past glaciers and snowfields and crags, Kate felt proud and happy about everything they’d done.

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.

WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING ABOUT MY WEIGHT
SORRY
I MAKE JOKES WHEN l'M NERVOUS

The makings of a great big bonfire had been laid in the Silver Arrow’s firebox: loose paper, then dry sticks for kindling, then thick branches on top of that.

When the train was all steamed up and white wisps of vapor were floating out of its smokestacks and pistons, the door to the cab opened and Uncle Herbert climbed in.

He looked around, and his face had a melancholy expression for a moment. Like he was remembering something.

The porcupine thought about that. “Yes, I suppose I am. I’m definitely picky about my friends.” He promised to visit soon, then ambled off into the night.