Morg fell still further into the dark while the Here and There Express carrying Fox and Fibber rushed still further into the Faraway.
The twins saw Mizzlegurg’s clock tower first, rising up above the village, and Fox noticed that it said 7 p.m. Not only was this the same day they had left but, as Tedious Niggle had said, only a couple of hours had passed while they’d been away!
The train pulled to a stop at the station, which was as empty as it had been when the twins left. The carriage doors swung open, Tedious Niggle shooed them off, and then Fox and Fibber were standing on the platform – their trainers planted in a large puddle – as the Here and There Express pulled away.
Beyond the platform, where the station led out onto the street, Fox could see a large crowd had gathered to celebrate the rains. And thundering through the middle of this crowd, barging with their elbows and ramming with their briefcases, were Mr and Mrs Petty-Squabble. Fox tensed at the sight of her parents and, as Bernard and Gertrude caught sight of their children and stormed across the platform, Fox felt a familiar fear scuttle through her.
‘We can do this, Fox,’ Fibber whispered beside her. ‘You and me – we’re a team.’
Bernard thumped his briefcase down in a puddle and raised himself up before his children. ‘We expressly told you to stay in the penthouse suite of the Neverwrinkle Hotel.’
Fox stared at her father. There was no mention of the rains returning, of the world having been saved from certain doom.
Gertrude straightened her tie. ‘Your father and I have always prided ourselves on raising predictable children. We tell you to stamp on other people – and you do it. We tell you to work on a business plan – and you do it. We tell you to stay in one place – and you do it.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Why, then, do we suddenly find you on the platform of an ancient train station dressed in shorts and T-shirts?’
Fox looked her parents up and down. She had always thought of them as people to be feared. But standing in front of them now, with her brother by her side and all that she’d learnt about love, self-belief and courage bubbling inside her, she thought they seemed smaller than they had done before. And she felt almost sorry for them because they would never see the world in the bright and wonderful way that she did now.
‘You lied to us,’ Fox found herself saying. ‘You pitted Fibber and me against each other in the hope of making money. And, though we may only be half your size and a quarter of your age, we matter. Just as everyone around us matters, too, whatever you may have led us to believe.’ She took a deep breath and channelled her firmest voice yet. ‘Bullies and liars often go from strength to strength until someone is brave enough to take them down. And, well, Fibber and I aren’t going to be bullied any more.’
Fox couldn’t believe the words had come from her. Indeed Gertrude was rubbing her ears so hard, and Bernard blinking so madly, that Fox realised her parents couldn’t believe the words had come from their daughter either.
‘And we won’t be stamping on other people’s feelings either,’ added Fibber.
Bernard stepped forward as if to say something, but Fibber merely held up his hand and carried on talking, which Fox thought was the slickest and most businesslike thing she’d ever seen him do.
‘We won’t be spending all of our time coming up with ways to save the family fortune. Or ignoring the fact that we could do more, every day, to save our planet and to care for the people in it. And we definitely won’t be allowing you to post either of us to Antarctica. Because –’ Fibber swallowed – ‘that’s just not what families do. They look out for each other. And we’re a family, even though up until now we’ve not done a very good job of being one. Fox is my sister, not my rival, and I think she’s brilliant. So from now on we’ll be treating each other with respect, whether you like it or not.’
Bernard and Gertrude seemed to grow smaller and smaller with every word Fibber said. Indeed they were so stunned by this change of character in their children that they were, for once, completely lost for words. And that was probably just as well. Because, when terrible parents run out of things to say, it creates a little room for sense.
‘Please go back to the penthouse suite and wait for us there,’ Fox instructed. She had seen someone in the crowd behind her parents, someone she knew she and her brother would very much like to talk to.
Fibber, too, had caught sight of the old man with dark, wrinkled skin who was peeling away from the crowd and hobbling towards them.
Fox eyed her parents who seemed to be locked in a state of shock at this turn of events. She knew that she and Fibber still had so much more to tell them, but she imagined the hardest things about tricky conversations were the beginnings and, now that she and Fibber had begun, perhaps the rest would be a little easier.
‘There’s rather a lot we need to say back at the hotel,’ Fox added, ‘so I suggest you put the kettle on. I think the truth might be less distressing if you’re both armed with a cup of tea.’
Bernard and Gertrude looked at their children with an expression that was an extraordinary mix of outrage, surprise and – for the briefest of moments – tenderness. As if the twins’ honesty and courage had awakened something inside the Petty-Squabble parents that they had assumed was long dead.
Then Fox and
