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.”
I shrugged and walked away from the booth. I felt bad. It wasn’t Polly Partial’s fault that I didn’t have money for a ticket, so I didn’t really have a good reason to spoil the ending of the book. But I decided not to apologize for two reasons. The first was that I didn’t feel like it. And the second was that someone had spotted me, someone who was striding toward me with a scowl that I’m sure matched my own.
It is not difficult to describe Sharon Haines, because we’ve all seen the likes of her plenty of times. Bad mothers are like old newspapers. No one has need of them, but they’re everywhere, blowing around town. Sharon Haines was the mother of two children—a daughter named Lizzie, who had been kidnapped by Hangfire, and a son named Kellar, who had joined us to fight him. Sharon, on the other hand, had joined the Inhumane Society in a misguided effort to please the villain holding Lizzie captive. “Misguided” is a word which here means that it wasn’t going to work, but even with her treachery revealed she continued to stride toward young people, barking orders and questions.
“Come over here, Snicket!” she barked. “What are you doing at Stain’d Station?”
“Being a child, a pest, and a nuisance,” I said. “What are you doing here, Mrs Haines?”
“I might ask you the same thing,” she said haughtily.
“You already did,” I said, and she gave me another scowl, although her heart wasn’t in it. Her fingers fiddled nervously at her sides, one hand more nervously than the other, and her eyes were scanning the enormous room, back and forth like anxious pendulums. “I’m looking for someone too,” I told her. “Wouldn’t it be funny if we were both looking for the same person?”
Sharon gave me one more scowl and a gasp and then yet another scowl for good measure.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’re not. You’ve already found the person I’m looking for. That’s how you got your skeleton key back.”
Sharon’s hands raced to their pockets, but one pocket wasn’t big enough. The skeleton key stuck out like a feather in a bad hat. It would be an easy caper to steal it like that. “You’d better get it back to Hangfire,” I said. “I’m sure he has no idea you lent it to a friend.”
“I’ll thank you,” she said sternly, “to stop interfering.”
“Oh, you don’t have to thank me, Mrs Haines.”
“Get out of here, young man. You have no idea what is going on.”
“That’s why I’m here,” I said, but she gave me a little growl of frustration and stalked off. She came over to you, I told myself, and now she can’t wait to walk away. A rude buzzer was ringing from someplace, and the station grew louder and busier. There were calls of “All aboard!” from the conductors, and passengers raced past me like I was nothing but an obstacle. A young woman stepped on my toe without apologizing, and my elbow got walloped by a suitcase carried by a man I probably should have looked at. The train was leaving shortly, and I wasn’t on it. Think, Snicket. This is the train’s only scheduled stop in town, and your only chance. How can you make your way onto that train?
“We have to get on that train!” exclaimed a voice near me, and a tall woman hurried through the crowd, followed by a porter who looked about my height and about my age. But it was the woman I recognized. Sally Murphy was once Stain’d-by-the-Sea’s most celebrated actress and more recently had been among those who had fallen under the power of the Inhumane Society. Some time ago Ms. Murphy had put on a very convincing performance as the original owner of the statue of the Bombinating Beast, and at the moment appeared to be doing a very good imitation of someone very nervous.
“You,” she said, very nervously.
I stood in her way and wouldn’t budge. “Me,” I agreed.
“I suppose you want me to thank you for your actions when we saw each other last.”
“It is traditional to thank the person who rescues you from drowning in the basement of an abandoned mansion,” I agreed. “In fact, it might be said that you owe me a favor.”
She tried to step around me this way and that. “Maybe I can buy you an ice cream cone sometime,” she said quickly.
I kept on not budging. “That’s not what I want.”
“All children want ice cream.”
“What I want is to get aboard that train,” I told her.
“It’s a very popular night to leave town.”
“So I’ve noticed,” I said,
