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‘Hello? Grandma, are you there? Pick up, it’s urgent!’ She waited a second, but no one picked up, so she kept talking. ‘You have to tell Kleo to get ready. The train cats are coming, right now!’
The machine beeped and cut her off. Jaide hung up and rang the number again.
‘It’s me again, on Tara’s phone. You have to get this message soon. You have to tell Kleo! If the train cats get to Portland and she’s not ready –’
Again the machine beeped.
‘Gah!’ Jaide gave up on the phone, but she wouldn’t give up on the situation.
‘Is everything all right?’ asked Tara, coming up behind her.
‘Yes, I mean no.’ Jaide gave her back the phone. ‘There’s a problem. We have to go back.’
‘What?’ Tara blinked, startled. ‘But you’ve only just arrived.’
‘I know. It’s Grandma. She’s . . . she’s not well.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just called her.’
‘But how did you know you had to call?’
‘Because she’s really old and . . . frail . . .’
‘And she always forgets to take her pills,’ said Jack, coming to her rescue.
‘Yes, that’s it. If she doesn’t take them, she’ll get sick.’
‘Really?’
Tara wasn’t buying it, and Jaide didn’t blame her. The excuse sounded weak even to her, but what else could they do? The train cats were coming to Portland, and someone had to stop them.
‘I’m sorry, Tara,’ Jaide said. ‘I really am sorry. We’ll come over next weekend – maybe even tomorrow night, if Grandma is feeling better again. We’ll call you, I promise.’
The train blew its whistle and let out a great cloud of white steam.
‘What if I come with you,’ Tara said, ‘and Dad brings us back later, when he’s finished whatever he’s doing?’
‘Here he is now,’ said Jack, pointing. The familiar van was nosing its way into the car park. He frowned. ‘How did he get here without us seeing him pass the train?’
Tara ignored his question, her face screwed up in frustration.
‘But the doughnuts, all the things we were going to do –’
‘I know. We can do it all next time.’
‘But –’
Tara’s dad honked his horn. The train hissed mightily again.
‘We have to go!’ said Jaide, pulling Jack to the train.
Tara stood on the platform, torn between her father and her friends.
With a squeal of metal, the heavy iron wheels of the train began to turn. Jack and Jaide jumped aboard and fell into a seat, dragging their bags behind them.
‘Change your mind?’ asked the conductor from the back of the carriage. ‘Or change of heart – what is that cat . . . those cats – ?’
His eyebrows shot high up on his domed forehead as a tide of cats swarmed from underneath the railway station, ran across the platform and leaped on to the moving train.
The conductor fell back as the cats swarmed through the windows of the carriage and landed on him, knocking him to the floor. Three crashed into Jack and two on Jaide, all of them with their sharp claws out, slicing through clothes and flesh as they slid to the floor. The sound of feline feet scratching the top of the train heralded dozens more leaping from the station roof.
The twins fell back from the cats, who simply ignored them and went to sit on the seats, as if they were legitimate passengers. The conductor slowly got to his feet and bent over, holding his nose.
‘Achoo!’
He sneezed very loudly, and then sneezed again, as he fumbled with a spotted handkerchief he had pulled from his pocket. ‘Achoo!’
The train whistled again, and slowly chugged out of the station. The driver obviously hadn’t noticed all the cats swarming aboard.
‘Allergic,’ wheezed the conductor. He slumped into a seat and waved his hand in front of his face as if he could somehow dismiss all the cats. But even more of them appeared, jumping down from the roof and entering the carriage at both ends. Again, they were silent, and they moved slowly but purposefully, which made them even creepier.
‘This is crazy!’ exclaimed Tara, suddenly appearing behind the twins.
Jaide looked round so quickly she hurt her neck. In all the rush and tumble of the cats’ arrival, she hadn’t seen Tara skip aboard the train just after them. Now their friend was caught up in the train cats’ invasion of Portland, and who knew what else.
‘Uh, yeah,’ said Jaide, who was frantically trying to think of what she could do with Jack’s Gift to get the cats off the train. More and more of them kept coming in, and even though they just sat down, there was something very threatening about their silence and the way they were all looking at the twins.
Jack didn’t try to think about what he could do with Jaide’s Gift. Instead he calmly reached up and pulled the old-fashioned emergency cord.
It came away in his hand, leaving Jack with a three-foot length of rubberised cable that wasn’t connected to anything.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Jack. The train kept right on rolling, steaming indefatigably for Portland. ‘That should have worked.’
‘They must have cut the cable,’ said Jaide.
‘Or bitten through it,’ Jack said.
‘Who? The cats!?’
The twins stared at Tara, and she stared back at them. Neither Jack nor Jaide knew what to say. If they said yes, it would sound mad. If they said no, they would have to come up with another explanation. And it would be a lie – a lie that would soon be revealed, if the troubletwisters were to use their Gifts to stop the invasion.
Jaide chose to ignore the question and went to the stricken conductor. His eyes were puffed up like marshmallows and his breath, when he wasn’t sneezing, was thick and raspy.
‘Are you going to be OK?’ she asked him.
He tried to talk, but couldn’t, and ended up simply nodding.
‘Can we talk to the driver? The emergency cord isn’t working.’
He pointed to his side. There was a leather holster for a phone or a walkie-talkie there, but it was empty. At the same time, Jack saw one of the larger cats drop something out of its mouth, through an open window.
‘It’s gone,’ said Jaide urgently. ‘But we have to talk to the driver!’
The conductor waved at the front of the carriage. There was a connecting door marked No Unauthorised Entry that had to lead to the coal tender and then the locomotive.
Jack ran to the door and tried the handle.
‘It’s locked!’ he called back.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Tara plaintively.
The cats stirred, and all of them turned their heads together, looking back along the carriage.
‘Have you got a key?’ asked Jaide.
The conductor didn’t answer. His head slumped to one side and his puffy eyes closed. He was still breathing, but with a horrible rasping noise, and his lips were slowly turning a pale blue.
‘Check his pockets!’ shouted Jack. He tried the handle again, putting all his weight into it. But the carriage was old and very solidly built, and the handle and lock were bronze, and completely resisted his efforts.
Jaide made a face and started searching the conductor’s pockets, starting with his waistcoat, and was immediately rewarded by pulling out a big old key on a chain, which was fastened to a button.
‘I’ve got it!’ she cried, fumbling with the button.
At that moment, something white streaked down the aisle, jumped to a seat and catapulted itself on to her shoulders.
Sharp claws dug into her skin. Even sharper teeth fastened on to her ear and a harsh feline voice whispered in her ear: ‘Hold it right there, little girl, or I’ll bite your ear off.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Off the Rails
