Page 149 of Whistle
“I would never do that.”
“I know, but you know the saying?”
Charlie nodded.
“It’s kind of like that. When you hurt something that’s pretend, it makes the real thing feel the pain. I just wanted to be sure you understood.”
“I guess I do.”
“And you’re going to find just what you need in my Bloomingdale’s bag. You know the one? That saysmedium brown bagon it?”
“I know the one you mean.”
“Okay. I love you, Charlie. We’re a great team, always have been.”
She gave him another hug, and a kiss, and then stood. Charlie looked at her and then at Nabler, not sure if he was supposed to leave now or not.
“Go on, now,” Nabler said. “Get your stuff. I know your mom doesn’t believe me, but Iamgoing to take you home. Soon. I hold up my end. And don’t be thinking of doing anything stupid, like running off without me, because if you do that, I’m not going to give your mother that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity she was telling you about. I’m going to be sending her to join your dad. You understand me?”
Charlie nodded.
“Then get going. You go through that door, takes you through the shop, you head out the front. Got it?”
Another nod. He took one last look at his mother.
“Bye, Mom,” he said.
His mother tried to smile, with a quivering chin.
“Bye, Charlie. You be good.”
Charlie turned away, opened the door to the shop, and disappeared.
Annie stood there a moment, collecting herself, before turning around to face Nabler.
“Shall we begin?” he said.
Fifty-Eight
Charlie walked through Choo-Choo’s Trains as though still emerging from a dream. He remained so exhausted from his hours of nonstop bicycling that the enormity of what had just happened had yet to sink in. His legs ached, his chest hurt with every breath he took, even his arms were sore from holding on to those raised handlebars. Looking back, he realized that bike ride had been similar to one of this sleepwalking episodes. Had he actually been awake as he pushed on those pedals, or under some kind of spell from Mr. Nabler?
He’d been functioning while under a delusion, that was for sure, thinking that his father was alive. He knew that wasn’t true now. But other facts had not quite come into focus. Had he really been inside that toy train, looking at his mother through the top of that dome car? Had his mother really said goodbye to him? Was she really staying here to help that bad man and sending him, Charlie, away?
Or had she been trying to tell him something?
He walked through the store, paying little attention to the boxed train sets that lined the shelves. They no longer held any interest for him. If he never played with trains again in his entire life, that would be just fine.
Charlie came to the front door of the shop and stepped outside.
Whoa.
He hadn’t seen any of this when he got to Lucknow. After he had hopped into the van with Nabler, and not long after he’d managed to guess which railroads were represented by many of the patches on his vest, he had fallen asleep, and it wasn’t until the van was parked in the alley behind the shop that Nabler had said, “We’re here!” They had entered through the rear of the store, so the first thing Charlie saw was Nabler’s bizarre model railroad, and at first, he had to admit, he thought it was pretty cool. Totally weird, but cool.
And then he saw the watch.
That was when Charlie knew he’d been tricked.
So as he came out the front door of Choo-Choo’s Trains and stood on the sidewalk, he stared openmouthed at what must have been, at one time, a vibrant street. It didn’t take him long to notice that the various businesses were just as he had arranged them, albeit rather crudely, on the floor of his mother’s temporary studio. In his mind, he’d already been here, but when he imagined Lucknow, it wasn’t deserted like this. The stores weren’t boarded up, didn’t have their windows smashed in. There certainly wasn’t a moose walking down the middle of the street.
