Shadows on the Train (10 page)

“No.” I pulled my hand away. “She saw Bowl Cut and decided to warn me.”

“But why would this Bowl Cut person be on the train?”

“Ummm…” I didn't want to explain to Madge about having Dad's envelope.

Madge pushed back her auburn hair into a ponytail and let it drop again. “Sometimes Mother and I—and Jack too—notice that your imagination tends to be—well, vivid. It's, um, all part of your natural energy, I guess. Which tends to be—well, excessive,” she said.

All this hesitating was—well, grating on my nerves. “Do you want to chat when you've come up with a final draft?” I invited.

To my surprise, this rude remark made her grin. “You're a bright girl, Dinah. What you do with your singing is incredible. Like Pablo Casals with his cello. Or Venus Williams with her tennis game. Bright people, especially when they're young, can be overly sensitive. Do you,” she stopped, and then got it out all in a rush, “ever think that you see Dad?”

I goggled at her. Wow, these older siblings were frighten–ingly observant. I'd thought no one knew.

“I…um…”

To me, Dad's appearances were quite normal. I mean, it was simple. Either, A, he was there or, B, he was a figment of my imagination.

“It's just that…” Madge absently twisted the pinned-on strap of my rainbow purse. “If you're imagining Dad, then maybe you imagined Mrs. Chewbley.”

Chapter Thirteen

The Boy Who Wouldn't Talk

No one believed me, and now my sister thought I chatted with ghosts. Well, I did: one ghost, at any rate. And why
shouldn't
a girl have a variety of friends? At school they were always telling us to believe in diversity.

Feeling very sorry for myself, I did what any junior sleuth would do. I turned my attention to a loose end.

“A loose end,” Pantelli repeated as I rapped on Mrs. Zanatta's door. “Is that like a dangling modifier?”

“Don't be daft,” I said—unfortunately, just as Mrs. Zanatta swung her compartment door open.

She cut me off before I could explain that I didn't find
her
daft, just sinister. “Dinah, you've made it clear you want nothing to do with me. So I'm not going to try approaching you again. It was Ardle's idea. We met in the park, and I told him about Ryan and how we were taking the train to Toronto. Ardle said you would be on the Gold-and-Blue too, and he thought you might—well, never mind.” Mrs. Zanatta sighed. “I'm sorry to have troubled you.”

Behind her, cross-legged on the floor, Ryan was clamping Lego pieces together. Red, yellow and blue pieces swooped and blurred through the air as he blended them into a castle. Wow. I had never got beyond the single-square-room stage.

“The new Christopher Wren,” Talbot congratulated Ryan. “Christopher Wren, the great English architect who rebuilt London after the Great Fire of 1666, started out playing with blocks, just like Ryan. Actually, he played them with the future King Charles the Second,” he explained.

When Charles wasn't practicing climbing trees, I thought. Switching my gaze back from Ryan to his mom, I demanded, “Ardle suggested you approach me? And
not
about the king?”

“You must be quite the monarchist,” Mrs. Zanatta said, puzzled. “Always thinking about kings! In any case, Ardle was trying to help Ryan. You see, Ryan has a stutter. In kindergarten, kids made fun of him, and he stopped speaking. Even older kids like that horrible Liesl Dubuque give him a hard time.”

Mentally I handed a pink slip to my distrust of Mrs. Zanatta. Anyone who referred to Liesl as horrible couldn't be all bad.

Mrs. Zanatta stooped to hug her son. “You don't like it when I talk about you, do you, honey? I'm sorry.”

She smiled up at me. “
But Ryan can sing perfectly
. It's incredible. Ardle thought you might be willing to sing with him, you know, to bring him out of his shell a bit. He's so shy about his stutter.”

I was feeling about the size of one of Ryan's Lego pieces. No wonder Mrs. Zanatta thought I'd be unsympathetic. As well as hurling a butter tart at her, I'd accused her of co-kidnapping Mrs. Chewbley!

“Ryan and I have some singing to do,” I announced.

Mrs. Zanatta, Talbot and Pantelli left the two of us to belt out “On Top of Old Smoky,” “This Old Man,” and other kidlet faves to music from a CD. I also taught Ryan “Black Socks.” “If I'm stuck with it in my brain, so should you be,” I informed him.

Ryan's voice was pitch-divine and sweet, like a choirboy's. But he wouldn't say anything to me, even after I told him that, in my view, a lot of people who could speak without stuttering were the ones who should keep quiet. Even after I made him laugh with stories about the evil hair-cutting prank I'd played on Liesl, and her egg retaliation. (Weird—I was furious at Liesl, but when I talked about our feud, it was all quite funny.)

Ryan just wouldn't speak. One day, I vowed, I would figure out a way to encourage him to.

Later, while Talbot played ping-pong against Pantelli and Ryan, Mrs. Zanatta and I went for pizza in the dining car. Because I was curious—my normal state, in other words—Ryan's mom gave me the Cliff's Notes briefing about stuttering.

About one percent of the population, and four times as many males as females, stutter. There can be different reasons for stuttering, such as the brain processing language in a different way. Often stuttering runs in the family; Mrs. Zanatta's grandfather had stuttered.

“I'm taking Ryan to Toronto to see a world-famous speech specialist,” she finished, peeling her first piece of pizza from the box. Up to then, Mrs. Zanatta had been too busy talking to eat. She had a proud, shiny-eyed expression as she described how Ryan's creativity far outpaced his problem, if only he'd realize that.

“I'm hoping the specialist will teach Ryan some exercises to practice speaking—and to build up his confidence.” Mrs. Zanatta's eyes grew shinier, and I saw she had tears in them.

Chapter Fourteen

A Patient Is Smuggled Off

Ryan…Mrs. Chewbley…my thoughts spun like an out-of-control Ferris wheel, and I couldn't sleep.

I pulled the laptop toward me and logged on to Jack's e-mail. I'd intended to write Mother, but there, in front of me, like a malevolent toad, sat a new message from Veronica LaFlamme.

Jack,

You're my ideal man, but I can't wait forever. Isn't
it better to tell Madge now? Trust me, speaking as a gal
myself, it's better to be honest.

I'm just so glad you agreed to meet me at J.J. Bean's
café. That secluded nook you chose was perfect.

J.J. Bean's! That was
Madge
and Jack's favorite place. They met there for breakfast and had long, meaningful talks over steaming coffee and fat fruit muffins.

Some guys in your situation would've refused to have
anything to do with me. Thank goodness you're so open-
minded!

Vee

I made indignant exploding noises that half-woke Madge. “You having a nightmare, Di?” Her hand flailed sleepily to give me a reassuring pat.

It's
your
nightmare, I reflected grimly. Little do you know you're not a fiancée anymore, but an old Flamme.

So “Vee” was glad Jack was “open-minded” about meeting other women! I punched
Reply
. In a return message to Veronica LaFlamme, I bashed out,
Why “Vee,” by the way?
Get it—y…v…? Gosh, I'm a fun guy. And y'know the reason
I agreed to meet you? Huh?

I thought of yet another king and smiled evilly.
You remind
me of my favorite movie star. Yes—KING KONG!!! Oh, and
try not to forget the deodorant next time, okay?—Jack.

I pressed
Send
and felt extremely satisfied. Next time, a mega-insulting group-send message to Jack's entire contacts list.

“Fish!” I announced.

Talbot, Pantelli and I were playing cards in the games room. None of us could sleep.

“Poor Mrs. Chewbley,” Pantelli mourned. “Nicest piano teacher I ever had. With her gone, I guess it's back to mean Mrs. Grimsbottom.”

“Mrs. Chewbley isn't dead,” I scolded. “At least, I
hope
…” I couldn't finish the sentence.

“Maybe she's dotty and wandered off,” Talbot suggested. “My grandfather did that once. Gran phoned the police, who searched everywhere—and then Grandfather calmly strolled in the door. He'd spent the weekend in Vegas. ‘Didn't I tell you?' he asked Gran. Now he wears one of those tracking bracelets for his safety—and for
their
bank account, Gran says. She's still steamed because Grandfather gambled away five grand at the Seven Kings Hotel in Vegas.”

Pantelli laughed, but I was staring thoughtfully at Talbot. “Kings,” I repeated. “You're our resident history expert. Tell me about Charles the First.”

Talbot made a chopping motion with his hand. “Lost his head, Di. The Roundheads axed it off.”

“Cool,” breathed Pantelli—but I was hearing Ardle's feeble parting words as the stretcher attendants bore him off.

A king who lost his head
.

“The eighty-thousand-dollar king Dad was keeping for Ardle,” I breathed. “It's something to do with Charles the First!”

“Hail the junior sleuth,” Talbot said, grinning. “But, Sherlock, of what nature is this valuable? A painting? Naw, that wouldn't fit in an envelope. A coin or letter, maybe?”

“A stamp,” Pantelli suggested.

I produced the envelope, held it upside down and shook it. “Whatever it was, it's long gone,” I sighed.

Still, I couldn't get Charles the First out of my mind. “So who were the Roundheads, and why were they after him?” I asked Talbot.

Talbot got the solemn academic look he so often wore at school. “The Roundheads were people who believed in the power of parliament, of elected representation. As opposed to Charles and his supporters, the Cavaliers, who believed that the king should be all-powerful.

“The Roundheads were so-called because they cut their hair short to distinguish themselves from the Cavaliers, who had long curly manes. That part of it was pretty childish.”

I thought of my feud with Liesl, which, as Madge had pointed out, centered on hair. “Yeah,” I agreed sheepishly.

“Well, the Roundheads put Charles on trial and beheaded him in 1649. Two years later, there was this tremendous battle at Worcester,” Talbot's dark eyes were really sparkling now, “where the Roundheads totally trounced the Cavaliers. Here, I'll show you,” and Talbot began moving the playing cards around on the tablecloth.

Pantelli was studying the envelope under the booth lamp. “Hey, Tal, put the troop movements on hold for a minute.” He pointed to Dad's messy handwriting. “Look at this!”

I shrugged. “Welcome to a new concept, Pantelli. The return address.”

“No,
look
.”

I looked. “A postal code—wait, no, it isn't!” I exclaimed. “It's a phone number—
and not ours
.”

I was back in my compartment, trying once more to sleep. But the phone number from the envelope danced in my head. Two-five-five-nine-nine-five-five. Did it belong to someone Dad had given the king to? Or who at least knew something about what and where the king was?

Reluctantly, Talbot, Pantelli and I had nixed the idea of phoning the number. It was too late, even by Vancouver time. I'd have to wait—the activity I hated most—till the morning to call.

Taunting me, the numbers did cartwheels. I sat up, not bothering to try to sleep anymore. So much for the soothing lull of a moving train.

Just a minute. There was no lulling movement. The Gold-and-Blue was still.

Leaning over my sleeping sister, I pushed the curtain aside to peer out the window.

We were at a station. Weird—I thought our next stop was in the morning, in Winnipeg. It was 1:30 AM and inky black outside.

Except for that splash of lights over to the right. I grabbed my housecoat and padded out into the passageway in my fluffy white cat-face slippers (a gift from Wilfred last Christmas).

“Good evening, Miss Galloway.”

It was a conductor, but a nice freckle-faced one, not the rubbery, disapproving Beanstalk. “Freddy McClusky, at your service,” he said. “I enjoyed your performance in
The
Moonstone
last year. Man, what a set of pipes! With that and your red hair, you're a miniature Bette Midler.”

The Bette Midler part I was pleased about; the miniature, less so. “Why are we stopping? An emergency?”

“A routine.” Freddy grinned. “We always stop the Gold-and-Blue at Saskatoon, or just outside it, actually, at one thirty in the morning. Just for half an hour to drop off or pick up packages.” He wrinkled his nose good-naturedly. “Too bad. I have an aunt here who makes the best Saskatoon berry pie. But there's no time to visit her. That'd be the one advantage of being the new guy stuck on the nightshift, but no-o-o.”

He started describing his aunt's recipe, which called for cramming in as many of the juicy dark berries as possible.

But for once I wasn't in the mood to think about food. Nurse Ballantyne was shoving past us, her crisp white uniform crackling with static. “Make way. Patient leaving. Make way,” she ordered, sounding even more nasal than usual. Her bony hands shot out and—
wompf
!—flattened Freddy against one wall, me against the other.

Behind her, two ambulance attendants carried a body on a stretcher. The body was covered by a blanket, and the head was completely wrapped in bandages. The train stopped to drop off packages, Freddy had said.

And sometimes people, it seemed.

I stared hard at the patient, momentarily halted between the two stretcher bearers. Nurse Ballantyne was wrenching at the exit doors.