“It’s not a bad plan. You’ll probably end up being a hero all over again,” said Gus.
“Oh, I hope not!” said Edie. “I’ll slip away as soon as I see that Karl is safely in the care of Colonel Crowther. I don’t want any more fuss.”
There had been talk of them getting some sort of medal for saving the train. It made Edie feel guilty because she knew there’d be all sorts of talk about how marvellous and patriotic and British they had been and, of course, that wasn’t true at all. The day they’d saved the train was the same day they’d first let Karl escape. It was also the day that he had saved her life, and the lives of all those people on the train.
“If anyone’s a hero, it’s Karl,” she said out loud. “He could just have run away from that crash site and we would never even have known he was there. We owe it to him now to keep him safe.”
“I agree,” said Gus. They had reached the old dining car and Greta scampered across the log drawbridge to the door.
“Knock, knock! It is Snow White,” she said, in the coded greeting the older two had reluctantly let her invent.
“And I am Doopey,” came a sleepy voice, in a strong German accent, from inside.
“Not Doopey, Dopey, silly!” said Greta, flinging open the door.
It looked as if Karl had only just woken up. He stretched and raised his head, banging it on the table above him.
“Ow!” He let out a howl and the same German swear word he had used the day before. He blushed bright red and began to apologize. “Es tut mir so leid… ”
“We have breakfast for you.” Edie crouched down as he crawled out from under the table. She had brought along a tablecloth and a real china plate. She laid out the ham and cheese with a little bread. She had always known it would be fun to play house in the dining carriage. “And beer too,” she said, producing a pint glass and waving the precious bottle of Uncle Peter’s pale ale under his nose.
“Wunderbar!”
She had expected Karl to be rather stern and serious. She thought all Germans were a little serious. But he had big twinkly eyes and a wide toothy smile. If anything, he looked a little goofy – like the funny blond paperboy they’d had in London, who lost his job for posting a frog through snooty Mrs Hampton’s letter box.
Edie smiled as he wolfed down the breakfast. Then Greta led him to the table and demanded that he draw her some pictures.
“Excuse me! Did I say you could borrow those, Greta?” Edie saw the little girl had brought along her new birthday pencils without even asking.
“Oops!” Greta just giggled. “Karl is going to draw me a fox,” she explained. “And I don’t have an orange crayon – only a sort-of-funny brown one which is too thick and a bit broken.”
Edie raised her eyebrows. There was no point in arguing. She supposed this is what having a real little sister would be like and the thought made her smile.
Karl drew Greta a picture of a mother fox with four cubs all tumbling over each other at the edge of a wood.
“It’s wonderful,” said Edie. She could almost sense their whiskers twitching.
“He says the picture is like the forest where he lives,” Gus explained, translating for Edie. “He has two brothers and a little sister called Brigitte. I think they are supposed to be the cubs.”
“He must miss them a lot,” said Edie. “Ask him how old they are.”
But Gus was much more interested in quizzing Karl about the Junkers 88. He had brought along his book of aeroplanes and before long they both had their heads bent over it, chattering away in German.
Greta wanted to play a game where she and Edie had to be foxes. “You can be Mama Fox and I’m the baby,” she said. “Pretend this railway carriage is our burrow… ”
“All right!” Edie loved make-believe and imagining. She knew lots of girls her age would say they were too old for such silly games, but she was delighted to have an excuse to play. “If only we had a nice plump duck for our dinner,” she said, wrinkling her nose as if she had her very own set of splendid whiskers. She agreed with Greta, the railway carriage made a perfect foxes’ den.
About half an hour later, Edie – or Mama Fox, as she was being – looked out of the window to check that there weren’t any huntsmen riding by.
“Oh, no!” she gasped. A shock of horror ran through her. “It’s the Snigsons.” She caught a glimpse of the tall, thin figures of Donny and Len beyond the line of trees outside the carriage.
“Dear me,” said Greta, in her Baby Fox voice. “I stole three chickens from their farm yesterday.”
“No,” said Edie, grabbing the little girl and pulling her to the floor. “I’m serious. It really is the Snigsons. Look!” She ducked under the windowsill and Gus came and crouched beside her. They lifted their heads a little and peered out.
The Snigsons were walking up and down the edge of the field, just a few yards away from the siding where the carriage was parked.
“What are they doing?” hissed Gus. The brothers seemed to be pacing about, just like they had done at the edge of the railway track before.
“Perhaps they’re still looking for whatever it is they lost,” said Edie, her heart thundering.
“Sie messen etwas,” said Karl, peeping out of the other window beside them.
“What’s he saying?” asked
