struggled, yelling, but her attacker wrestled her down and pressed his forearm to her throat. His clothes were wet and heavy. She choked. Her eyes widened as he pulled a double-hypodermic needle from his pocket, a murder weapon whose mark had masqueraded as a snakebite. The twin tips dripped with poison.
“Let her go!” Eleanor ran back from the bathroom and jumped on the man’s back. He struggled and elbowed the girl, hard. Rosemary punched desperately. Her right arm, still blackened from its dip in the Sea of Ink, landed solidly in the man’s stomach. He grunted. His grip slacked.
Nicholas, staggering up, tried to shove open the compartment door.
Inside, Puck and the Mystery Man pulled the flailing girl off of Peter.
The man in the deerstalker hat knocked Eleanor off him and dragged Rosemary to her feet. He held her from behind and pressed the hypodermic to her throat as Puck, Peter, and the Mystery Man poured out of the compartment.
“Do not move!” he shouted, his voice rich and British. “We are taking her! We shall have our revenge!”
The girl with the horn-rimmed glasses stepped to the door of the compartment. “Now!”
The man in the deerstalker hat shoved Rosemary into a window. It caved in. Rosemary screamed as a grapple caught her blackened arm in its metal teeth.
Peter and Puck rushed forward, grabbing at the metal jaws, but they held fast. The man in the deerstalker hat moved to stop them, but the Mystery Man surged forward and blocked him like a wave of water. “Get off my train!” he shouted. They fought. The Mystery Man swept him back into the compartment.
The hook pulled back, dragging Rosemary towards the broken window.
“No!” Rosemary yelled. She flailed. The grapple holding her arm hit the wall and sprang open. She fell away and lay on the floor, moaning. Peter grabbed her arm to check for injuries. She wasn’t even bleeding.
The Mystery Man emerged from the compartment, locking its door.
“How fast are these Zeppelins?” Peter gasped.
“As fast as the story requires,” said the Mystery Man.
The grapple made another swing, but checked itself. The train pulled ahead. Peter could see the bulk of the Zeppelin above them edging into view. “Why are they hanging back?”
“We’ve entered a range of mountains and there’s a tunnel ahead,” said the Mystery Man.
“Tunnel?” said Peter. He peered out the hole in the side of the train as Puck helped Rosemary to her feet.
“Puck, I’ve got an idea!”
“I hope it’s a good idea,” said Eleanor. She held the door shut against the shouting and fists of the girl with the horn-rimmed glasses.
“We’ve got to get off this train,” said Peter. “If we don’t, the Zeppelins will keep following us and pick us off.”
“But if you stop the train, we’ll be sitting ducks,” said Nicholas.
“Not the whole train,” said Peter. “Just the last car.”
“And use us as decoys!” exclaimed Eleanor. “Oh, how exciting!”
“You two” — the Mystery Man pointed at Nicholas and Eleanor — “hold these characters here. The rest of you, follow me!”
Pushing Rosemary ahead of them, Peter and Puck dashed along the corridors to the rear of the car. They pulled open the door to the next car and ran through that and through the one after that until they reached the end of the train.
At the entrance to the last car, they halted.
“We need to clear this car,” said the Mystery Man. “Fast.”
“I saw the murderer!” Peter shouted. “He went that way!” He pointed.
Heads poked out of the doors of the compartments. At the sight of Peter pointing, they stampeded into the corridor. Puck and Rosemary barely managed to duck away in time.
The Mystery Man took out a key and opened a panel. “Once you lose the Zeppelins, try to follow the train. We were heading towards the next setting.”
“But then the Zeppelins will be between us and it,” said Rosemary. “How do we get past them?”
“Let me deal with that,” said Puck. “Your business is with the challenges.”
The car plunged into darkness as they entered the tunnel. Puck moved Peter and Rosemary into the car, while the Mystery Man held back.
“Challenges are never easy, Rosemary. But it is from challenges that heroes are born.” In the dying light, the Mystery Man pulled a lever. There was a rush of escaping air, and then the last car pulled back from the rest of the train, slowing steadily.
“Good luck, Miss Watson,” said the Mystery Man. “You will save your brother, Theo.” Then, bending the light from the corridor, he tipped his hat to them and waved.
Then the train pulled into the distance as the final car rolled to a stop.
“What now?” asked Rosemary.
“We walk,” said Puck.
CHAPTER TEN
FALLING ACTION
“You heard the Wise Woman,” said Marjorie, pushing her horn-rimmed glasses further up on her nose. “Anything is possible if we put our minds to it.”
“Including jumping about the universe at a whim?” said John. “What do you take me for?”
“Just hold hands,” Marjorie ordered.
“This is silly,” said John, as Marjorie took Andrew’s and John’s hands into her own.
“Shh,” said Andrew. “It can’t hurt to try.”
“You just like holding my sister’s hand!”
There was a rushing of air. The world around them changed. Then there was a moment’s stunned silence.
“Marjorie,” said John, barely holding his voice steady.
“Oh dear,” squeaked Marjorie. “It really does work!”
***
“Rosemary, are you okay?”
Rosemary snapped out of her daydream. “Yeah.”
They trudged through the darkness of the tunnel, Rosemary stepping from tie to tie while Peter scuffed the rocks between the rails. As they came to the tunnel mouth, they crept close to the walls, keeping an eye on the sky, but there were no Zeppelins
