For a moment, there was silence. Then Fibber snorted. ‘What a load of nonsense,’ he said.
‘And as for us sweeping in to save the planet,’ Fox added, ‘you can forget it. It’s not the Petty-Squabble way to start caring and helping and rescuing other people. What would be in it for us? No, it’s stamp or be stamped on – and we very much like to do the stamping.’
‘Exactly.’ Fibber dropped the marble back into Casper’s hand and glared at Fox. ‘So give me back my briefcase and maybe I won’t stamp on you.’
Casper tilted his head. ‘You mean the one under the piano?’
Fox stiffened as Fibber charged towards the piano and began rummaging beneath it. She looked from Casper to the marble, then back again at Casper. And in the old man’s eyes she saw something burning as brightly as the marble he held: hope.
He dipped his head at Fox. ‘Take the marble. Then run, girl, run headlong into this adventure. The Unmapped Kingdoms have chosen you and, when magic sets its sights on someone, it’s remarkably hard to wriggle free.’
Fox blinked. The old man was off his rocker – he had to be – but her plans lay in tatters, Fibber was on the brink of victory and there was something about this marble burning in the gloom. Something wild and hopeful. She grabbed it from Casper’s outstretched palm just as Fibber was raising his briefcase in triumph, then she turned and fled from the shop.
Fox tore back down the street. She couldn’t go back to the hotel because her parents had been very clear: come up with a plan or be posted to Antarctica. She had to get away from here. Immediately. And yet she had no idea where to go.
She hastened on down the street then the train station came into view once again, and Fox felt the marble tingle in her hand. Without thinking, she turned into the station, rushed past the empty ticket office and onto the echoing platform and there, like a gift – a glorious, hope-giving chance of a gift – was a train. And so strong was the pull of escape, of freedom, that Fox didn’t stop to consider that this train was a very old-fashioned steam train and that the steam pumping out of its chimney was, in fact, bright green.
She gripped the marble tightly, hurried along the platform and, though she didn’t know where the train was going to, leapt aboard. She turned to see Fibber dashing towards her. What was he doing? He had been desperate to find his briefcase and yet he wasn’t, it appeared, desperate to hurry back to their parents to reveal the business plan inside it. Had he been lying about the contents? What if his briefcase didn’t hold a genius business plan? Fox felt sure, though, that Fibber had something of value inside it, something he didn’t want to lose.
The train started chugging forward slowly and Fibber quickened his pace, throwing himself aboard just before the train gathered more speed. And Fox realised then that her world, which had seemed so ugly and unchanging before, now looked ever so slightly different. There were surprises and secrets bound up inside it: why on earth, for instance, had her brother followed her onto this train?
But it was only when the train doors snapped shut and Fox glanced down the carriage that she realised her world was filled to the brim with magic, too.
It was Fibber who spoke first and his voice, usually snide and smooth, came out as a strangled squeak. ‘I’m dreaming. I must be dreaming.’ He whirled round to Fox. ‘Tell me I’m dreaming!’
Fox stared, open-mouthed, at the extraordinary plants sprouting through the gaps in the floorboards of the carriage: red-and-white spotted ones the size of tractor wheels; blue ones the shape of pineapples; tiny yellow ones that grew like clusters of fallen stars; tall purple ones that looked suspiciously like broomsticks. Indeed, there were so many plants, it was almost impossible to see the floorboards. There were vines twisting up round velvet-curtained windows and criss-crossing between the lanterns hanging from the roof, and scuttling up one of the vines was a creature the size of a squirrel with pointed ears and green skin. It took one appalled look at the children and disappeared from sight.
In amongst this jungly mess, as if they had every right to be there, were what appeared to be the contents of a sitting room: two large armchairs with a coffee table between them, a velvet chaise longue, a bookcase full of leather-bound books, a chest (holding goodness knows what, but potentially more pointy-eared green creatures) and, at the far end of the carriage, a painting of a phoenix that was somehow moving about in its frame.
Fox gaped. ‘Is – is this what public transport looks like?’
Fibber clutched his briefcase to his chest. ‘I don’t like it. Where are all the other passengers?’
Fox peered into the carriage behind them. More strange plants and furniture, but no people.
Fibber nudged his sister towards the carriage in front. ‘Go and look for –’ he paused – ‘normal things. Like passengers. And buffet cars. And ticket inspectors.’
Fox studied her brother. His shoulders were bunched up round his neck and he was biting his lip. Fox realised it was the first time she had ever seen Fibber scared, and ever so slightly out of control, and she wondered whether she knew him quite as well as she thought she did.
Fox narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Why did you jump on the train after me, Fibber? If you’ve got a fortune-saving business plan inside that briefcase, why didn’t you take it back to the hotel to show Mum and Dad?’
Fibber flinched as a golden beetle landed on his shoulder, then
