//------------------------------// // Flat Top Tunnel // Story: The Polar Express // by The Blue EM2 //------------------------------// The man seated before me had an unkempt appearance, for lack of a better word. His beard clearly hadn’t been shaved in ages, and his clothes were old and worn. He had a flat cap upon his head, and a long nose that made him resemble Pinocchio. At the current moment in time, he was sat in front of a fire, and was playing an accordion, all the while singing out of tune. “Good King Wenceslas looked out, On the feast of Steven, Where the snow lay round-about Deep and crisp and even. Brightly shone the moon that night, Tho' the frost was cruel, When a poor man came in sight-” He looked up, seeing me there, and stopped. “Gathrin’ winter fuel,” I finished. “Well?” he asked, looking at me with eyes that glimmered with intensity. “What do you want?” I shivered in spite of my dressing gown. “Ah’m lookin’ for a girl who passed this way. Have ya seen one?” “There are a lotta girls on this train kid,” the man said. “How about ya sit down here and warm yerself up? You look like yer freezin’!” I sat down by the fire, not entirely sure of what was going on. The man passed a drink over. “Here’s some Kinderpunch!” he said. “It’s from Germany originally, and is derived from the Weinachtsman tradition.” I tasted it. It had a nice taste, but boy was it hot! “So,” the man continued, with a smile on his face. “Can you describe this girl in more detail?” “Well,” I said, “she had white skin, candyfloss hair, and was wearin’ purple. The conductor should have been with her.” “The conductor?” the man said. “Well, that man can keep away from me. I’m the king of this train.” He stood up. “As a matter of fact, I AM KING OF THE ENTIRE WORLD!” I was confused. “Isn’t Santa the king of this train?” He laughed. “You mean this guy?” he asked. He then started laughing in a stereotypical manner. “No, he ain’t got nothin’ on me.” I was getting worried. “If we don’t find that girl, she’ll get thrown off the train, and it’ll be all my fault!” The man sat down again. “Well, I know this train inside out. He’s probably taking her to the locomotive. If you’re gonna catch them, we’ll need to hurry.” He stepped up, strapping a pair of skis to his feet. “Step aboard kid, we’re goin’ for a ride!” I stepped onto the skis, and he propelled us forward onto the next carriage, jumping as he did so. We covered at least 3 cars that way, putting us on car number 16. The man pointed ahead. “We’re about to descend a slope, a pretty steep one,” he said. “At the bottom is Flat Top Tunnel. No prizes for why it’s called that. If we fail to get there before the tunnel, we’ll never catch them.” “Won’t the train go fast when it descends?” I asked. “If the train goes fast, so do we.” We started sliding down the carriages at high speed. “GRAVITY!” the man shouted. “NATURE’S DOWNHILL EXPRESS!” We jumped from car to car, the wind whistling through our hair as we flew forward. Slowly, but surely, we closed the gap from car to car. But the tunnel mouth was approaching. We reached the final car. “We can’t make it to the cab!” I cried. “I can’t!” The man cried. “But you can! Remember this, just believe!” I was suddenly thrown forward, and yelped as I fell through a pile of coal in the tender. I slid through, and landed on the floor of the engine’s cab. Boy was I messy! I was covered in coal dust, and probably looked like a chimney sweep. Coughing, I pulled myself forward, out of the coal and stood up on the platform deck. To my amazement, Sweetie Belle was sat in the engineer’s seat! “Sweetie Belle!” I cried. “Yer OK!” She looked back. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” she said. “They let me drive for a bit, as the Engineer and Stoker are out front, changing the front light.” She pointed up to the whistle chord. “You can blow the whistle, if you want.” I tugged on the chord, and sounded out four notes. Long-Long-Short-Long. “Ah’ve wanted to do that mah whole life!” I cried. “It’s fun, isn’t it?” she said. But then, danger loomed. Sweetie Belle looked at me. “We need to stop!” she cried. “The Engineer is signalling danger up ahead!” “Which is the brake?” I asked. “It’s the lever there,” she said, pointing to a brass lever mounted to a column. I stepped over, and then saw a red lever. “Ya sure it’s not that one?” “That’s the Reverser!” she cried. “The brake is mounted sideways!” I reached for the brass lever, and swung it from left to right. The brakes came on with a sickening crunch, as Sweetie Belle pulled back the throttle. The train slowed down and stopped, and we got out of the cab and walked forward to see the conductor arguing with the crew. “Flim, Flam, you always mess it up!” he shouted. “It’s not our fault there are Caribou here!” one of them shouted back. “Those are elk!” the conductor replied. “They just sound like caribou for some strange reason.” “How do we get them out of the way?” asked the other. One of them hopped off, walked back down to the engine, climbed onboard, and sounded the whistle. That did the trick. The crowd of the creatures scattered in all directions, and myself, the conductor, and Sweetie Belle boarded the locomotive, standing on the front buffer beam. I’d read in history that it used to be quite popular to ride on the front buffer beam of an engine, so this ewas quite an experience. The conductor looked back. “ALL AHEAD, SLOW!” he called. The Engineer opened the regulator and released the brakes. Away we went, slowly as we did so, biting into a steep gradient along the way.