LITMIR.BIZ

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many times and watched the shiny machinery make small cups of strong coffee and loaves of fresh, warm bread. Had I known I’d never see it again, I might have taken a closer look. As it was, I hardly glanced inside the place. I knew Ellington Feint wasn’t at Black Cat Coffee. The Officers Mitchum were putting her aboard the train. Soon she’d be in prison in the city, I thought, along with my sister. We walked a little farther, Theodora ahead and me following, until we were both where she wanted to be.

      Stain’d Station was the busiest place I’d ever seen in town. The enormous room was thronging with people, and the noise of the crowd echoed up to the ceiling, which was lined with curved iron bars, like a black rainbow hanging in the loud air. Someone had lit torches that lined the walls, and by the flickering light I could see the train, twenty or thirty cars in length, at rest on one of the station’s many tracks. Most of the train’s cars were cargo cars, with INK INC. stamped on the sides and the tops open, to hold the ink extracted from octopi by enormous mechanized needles. But Ink Inc. was no longer a thriving business, and the octopi were scarcer and scarcer, so the cargo cars sat empty, ready to rattle through the fading town on tracks hardly used anymore. Behind the cargo cars were some passenger cars, decorated with wooden curlicues over the windows and old-fashioned railings bolted below and brightly painted designs everywhere else, and up front was a huge, tired engine, where people in black aprons hurried about with shovels and wheelbarrows, loading coal into the train’s tender. Porters in bright blue jackets helped the passengers push their way through the crowd, and conductors in gray suits punched people’s tickets with silver punchers clipped to their belts. Something was pinned to the lapels of their suits and jackets. I couldn’t see what it was, but I could hear the echo of each puncher’s click as it bounced off the ceilings, over and over again. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry to leave town.

      Somewhere, I thought, is the car where they lock all of Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s prisoners on their journey into the city. Somewhere there is Dashiell Qwerty and somewhere there is Ellington Feint, but you don’t see them, do you, Snicket? You can’t even find S. Theodora Markson, and you were supposed to be following her. With the black aprons, the blue jackets, and the gray suits, you don’t even know what uniform to look for.

      I found a ticket booth where a woman sat behind a window, reading a book I didn’t like. I didn’t like the woman either. She was wearing an unfortunate smock with a little rip near the shoulder, right near a name tag printed with her name. I didn’t need it. I remembered her well enough.

      “Polly Partial,” I said, and the owner of Partial Foods looked up and frowned at me.

      “Total Stranger,” she greeted me in return.

      “We’ve met a number of times,” I said, remembering that Ms. Partial had never been a reliable witness. “Why are you working here, instead of at your grocery store?”

      “I have no more grocery store,” she said sourly. “The place was closed due to lack of interest. Some thieves took all my honeydew melons, which really affected employee spirit.”

      “Well, at least your new job gives you time to read,” I said, pointing at the book. “How are you enjoying that?”

      “Not so well,” she said.

      “I’ve never liked that book.”

      “Oh, I think the book is very good,” she said. “It’s just that I was interrupted while I was reading it by some boy who keeps asking me questions.”

      “I’m sorry,” I said, and I was a liar. “Is there room for one more passenger on that train?”

      “The Thistle of the Valley ?”

      “Is that what the train is called?”

      “Yes.”

      “When does it leave? Where does it stop?”

      Polly Partial handed me a piece of paper printed on all sides with confusing times and locations. It looked like a herd of numbers having a square dance. I would rather have reread her book than Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s confusing train schedule, but just barely. “I can’t make head nor tail of this,” I said.

      She pointed to one of the squares on one of the charts. “The Thistle of the Valley leaves in two minutes from Track One,” she said. “It winds through town, with brief stops at the post office, the museum, the library, and various downtown businesses, including Partial Foods and Ink Inc.”

      “Those places scarcely exist in this town anymore,” I said.

      “As you can see,” she said, pointing to different squares, “all those stops have been canceled indefinitely.”

      “So then why did you mention them?” I asked her.

      “It’s standard policy,” Polly Partial said, using a phrase which never means anything. “Unless there are special requests, The Thistle of the Valley makes no scheduled stops in town but travels across the sea and finally reaches the city before continuing on to various villages and tourist attractions.”

      “The sea doesn’t exist anymore either,” I reminded her. “There’s only Offshore Island, a few remaining inkwells, and the Clusterous Forest.”

      “Don’t tell me about the Clusterous Forest,” Polly Partial said. “That area used to provide my store with fresh fish, before it became empty and lawless.”

      “I’m sorry about your business,” I said.

      “So am I,” she replied, “but I’m not paid to listen to sympathetic comments. Do you want a ticket or not?”

      “Yes, please,” I said. “If possible I’d like to sit close to the prison car.”

      She blinked suspiciously at me. “We don’t tell passengers if there are prisoners on board a train,” she said. “That’s standard policy.”

      “You don’t have to tell me,” I said. “I already know there are prisoners on board. I just want to sit close to them.”

      “I can’t do that,” she said. “There are only two compartments per train car, and the rear compartments have all been reserved.”

      “So the prison car is at the back of the train,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

      Partial scowled and snatched back the schedule. “Do you want a ticket or not?”

      “I don’t have any money,” I admitted.

      “Then I suggest you scram and let me finish my book.”

      My hand was in my pocket, and I could feel the message Ornette had left for me, crinkly in my hand. “I need to get on that train,” I said.

      “No one gets aboard that train without a ticket identifying them as a passenger, or a thistle identifying them as an employee.”

      I pointed to the rip on her smock. “Where’s your thistle?”

      She quickly and badly tried to cover the rip with her hand. “A bird took it,” she said. “I mean, it fell off.”

      “You’re not a very good liar,” I said.

      “I never learned how,” she said. “The grocery business is mostly an honest one.”

      “It can’t be standard policy to give away thistles,” I said. “Perhaps I should report you to the railway company.”

      “They won’t believe a child, a pest, and a nuisance.”

      I pointed at the book. “Give me a ticket or I’ll give away the ending.”

      “You wouldn’t dare,” Polly Partial snarled. “Now scram. There’s no ticket for you here.”

      “They find him guilty,” I said. “The lawyer does his best at the trial, but the town finds Tom guilty just the same.”

      “You dirty rat,” she sputtered. “I only had a few chapters to go.”

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