𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕤𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕠𝕟 || 𝘢 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘭𝘺𝘧𝘪𝘤

⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕗𝕚𝕧𝕖‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ˚₊⋆

The girls nodded. the train conductor seemed to relax slightly and turned on his heel to make his way to the top of the engine, where the girls sat with him as he opened the top of the engine car.

"What in the blazes happened?" He asked the two engineers. "I told you the tracks were covered."

"Weren't looking." The fat man answered with a shrug. "Was talking bout who this belonged to."

The man helped up a golden ticket with the letters I and T.

"My ticket!" Loud Mouth exclaimed. "I left it there so it didn't fly off in the wind."

"Young lady, please keep track of your ticket." The train conductor sounded exasperated. He turned back to the engineers and said something that was drowned by a loud creak and crack behind them. All three turned to see the ice cracking behind them. "Of course, that would happen. Get us out of here!"

The engineers scurried to take their places as the conductor began to call out, "Tracks! Dead ahead!"

Loud Mouth and Agnes held on tightly as the train began to sway this way and that as the train tried to find purchase on the ice when it had to turn.

"Right!"

Agnes noticed Loud Mouth's reindeer earmuffs were missing. They must've flown off at Glacier Gulch.

"Left!"

She really should stop calling her Loud Mouth, the girl likely has a name.

"Right!"

"What's your name?" Agnes called out over the squeal of metal wheels on ice.

"Turn hard to port!"

"Clove Junips!" Loud Mouth– Clove– responded.

"Eastern side!"

"What's your name?" Clove asked.

"Left!"

"Agnes!" Agnes shouted. "Agnes Gaines!"

"Almost there!"

"Nice to meet you, Agnes!"

"Right!"

Agnes could only smile, her throat simply too raw and tired to keep yelling.

"Left!"

Agnes grabbed Clove's hand tightly as the wall of icy mountains came closer.

"Brace yourselves!" The train conductor paused his yelling to tell them. "Right! Left! Dead ahead, just a couple more seconds!"

The ice was still cracking behind them, it seemed like, at the last possible second, the train lurched onto the tracks between the two walls of mountainous rock.

The group seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief.

"Much better." The train conductor said.

.｡❅*⋆⍋*∞*｡*∞*⍋⋆*❅｡.

The trip back to the passenger car was a much warmer trip than the one Agnes had taken to get to the engine. This time, they got to go through the train cars, instead of skiing across the top of the train. They made it safely to the door of the passenger train car but before the train conductor opened the door, he looked at the girls. He seemed to tower over them as he looked down to speak.

"I think you've proven yourselves capable of passing train cars by yourself," He began. "So, I am going to leave with the information that you may be interested in the car three cars back."

Before either Clove or Agnes could ask any questions, the door opened and they were nudged into the train car as the door schhed behind them.

"You think we should go?" Clove asked Agnes in a whisper as they approached their seat where Quiet Boy was still sitting.

"Yes, but let's ask him to come with us," Agnes said and approached the blonde boy. "Hi, again. It occurred to us that we didn't know your name. I'm Agnes, and this is Clove."

"Felix." The boy smiled. "I'm glad you're OK, Clove."

"I got to drive the train!" Clove exclaimed excitedly. "And then the train was on the ice and the iec started to crack and the train conductor was yelling at the engineers AND THEN—"

Agnes couldn't help but smile as Clove explained what had happened in the engine. She patiently waited for Clove to finish her story before she turned to Felix. "The train conductor says we should go to the car a few cars down. Do you want to come with us?"

"What's in it?" Felix asked, toying with the hem of his green t-shirt.

"Not sure." Agnes shrugged. "It'll be an adventure. Adventures are fun."

"Adventures are scary; my brother and I go on adventures all the time and we get lost."

"But you always get home right?" Clove asks. Felix nods. "Then no reason to fear getting lost if it turns out OK in the end. C'mon, let's go."

Clove didn't really give Felix time to protest. She simply grabbed his hand and dragged him to the sliding door; Agnes simply followed along. together the three passed through empty passenger cars until they came to a room full of old toys. The sign on the sliding door said 'Recycling'.

"Whoa," Agnes breathed out, gently touching an old, beat-up teddy bear. At one time it might've been a bright shade of tan, it might have been fluffy and soft to the touch. But now its fur was matted and it was almost black with years of dirt and grime.

"I have one of these!" Clove exclaimed, picking up a plastic toy horse, that had three broken legs. "It was my mom's when she was little and she gave it to me."

Agnes picked up another horse, which had no mane or tail, and gently clopped it along the tabletop Clove was standing next to. Clove put her one-legged horse down on the tabletop', rearing it back and neighing. Agnes smiled at the girl's creativity, and the two played for a short while, clicking the plastic hooves across the wooden tabletop.

"Is that the North Pole?" Felix was standing at a frost-covered window, pointing to a glob of lights in the distance. He left a fingerprint as he pulled his hand away from the window.

"I guess," Clove shrugged. "I mean what else is in a deserted snowland?"

"It's so sparkly!" Agnes said, pressing her hands against the cold glass in excitement. If she were in the car, her mother would likely chastise her for leaving grimy handprints on the window.

"It's like someone spilled glitter in the snow." Clove had to stand on her tiptoes to see out the window without the bench. "How long do you think it'll be till we're there?"

"Maybe about thirty minutes?" Felix estimated.

"So we can still play!" Clove seemed to be more excited about being able to play with the toys than the prospect of arriving at the North Pole in thirty minutes. She ran off to find a new toy to play with. Agnes and Feli stuck close together, gently exploring the poor toys. She picked up another stuffed animal; this one was an owl. The stuffing had separated leaving it with a floppy neck, it's beak was pushed into its face making it look flat. The two black plastic eyes that were likely once shiny were scraped and dull. Its once soft fabric was matted and there was a cut in one of its ears.

"I don't understand how toys end up like this. Are people really that careless?" Agnes mused.

"Maybe it's not that they didn't care, but maybe that they did care. A lot." Felix shrugged. "I take my stuffed frog almost everywhere with me; I think sometimes just because something is broken doesn't mean it wasn't well loved. Sometimes it means just that."

Well, Agnes supposed, that was one way of looking at it.