All right, here is the much-touted chapter six. The next few chapters won't be ready to post for a bit, but in the meantime, try to spot all the cameos in this scene.
"I think they're gonna be sad, I think it's today...the bird that's driving them mad, it just flew away..."
Had to throw that in.
***
Chapter Six: Ticket to Ride
From the journal of Eleanor J. “Nora” Brandon, writer and traveler
Favog sounded a little shifty to me. But we didn’t have anything else to go on, so we went back to the harbor, collected our luggage and set off for the train station at Wavering Place. Besides, if the train was the fastest way to clear town, there was a chance that the thief could have gone that way.
At four o’clock, the huge, brick-with-glass-balloon-roofs station was mobbed with passengers juggling suitcases (“But chainsaws would be more impressive," Gonzo remarked) and porters pushing luggage trolleys everywhere.
We went up to the ticket booth. The clerk, a sleepy-looking platypus-like Muppet whose desk plate read “Nigel," was saying to a group of teenagers, “Okay, you’ll want platform nine and three-quarters. Can’t miss it; it’s the barrier between nine and ten.” He turned to us. “May I help you?"
“What time does the Muppet Express leave?" Kermit asked.
“An hour and a half from now, on track nine," Nigel said. “They’ll be boarding in half an hour.”
“Are there any spaces left?"
“Let’s see…” Nigel read through a passenger manifest. “Well, car 12 is fully booked….there’s a huge group traveling there…but there are a few spaces left in each of the others, and there’s plenty of room for all of you in car 13. It’s pretty much empty," Nigel said.
Car 13. Hope that’s not an omen.
“We’ll take it," Kermit said.
One by one, we stepped forward to buy tickets for the full run to Greater Burden. Since the Muppet Express was a sleeping car train going on an overnight run, the fare included berths and meals.
At four-thirty, we set off for platform nine, dodging luggage trolleys and harried passengers as we went.
I noticed that Kermit was gazing at many pieces of luggage, as if wondering which one could have the Golden Albatross hiding inside.
The Muppet Express was a long train of glossy blue and bronze cars pulled by a steam engine in the same colors. The engine sent clouds of misty grayish-white smoke out over the platform and the passengers and crew milling about on it.
There were eleven sleeping cars, with a dining car and a buffet-lounge car in the center of the train. One of the windows of the lounge car was open, and I could hear piano music drifting out.
At the dining car, crews were loading on crates of food, under the direction of a chef speaking some Scandinavian language.
There were a middle-aged man and a shaggy gray dog standing outside of car 10. The man was eagerly showing a bizarre-looking mass of gears and blades to another man. “But look, Ned! It’s the future of automatic vegetable slicing!"
A group of Fraggles was leaning out one of the car windows, watching and commenting on the hubbub on the platform.
I spotted Sam standing in the doorway of car 11, eagerly shaking hands (or wings) with another passenger, a tall, thin man in a gray overcoat.
The large group Nigel mentioned was milling around outside car 12. There were fourteen of them, and all seemed to know each other very well.
“Hi, Richard, decided to show up on time, did you?" one man was saying to a younger, curly-haired man.
“Hi, Jerry, and your face.”
I leaned over. “Hey, Scooter, that curly-haired guy sounds a lot like you.”
Our car was the last one on the train. After handing off most of our larger bags (most of them Miss Piggy’s) to the baggage handlers and getting our tickets punched, we climbed on board and went looking for our compartments.
There were seven compartments with two berths each. Kermit and Fozzie got the first one, Skeeter and I got the second and Scooter, Gonzo and Camilla got the third. Miss Piggy and Link, needless to say, took separate compartments. Miss Piggy vanished into hers, announcing that she wanted to tidy up a bit before dinner.
In car 12, the conductor was busy punching tickets and welcoming the passengers onboard. I leaned out the door and listened, and scanned the passengers’ faces.
“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Henson, it is a pleasure to have you both with us again…” A genial-looking bearded man and a woman with gray curls showed their tickets to the conductor, and then the man helped the woman up the steps. They had the appearance of being the group leaders.
“Ah, yes, Mr. Hunt…you’re in number five, with Mr. Nelson.” The curly-haired man – the one who talked an awful lot like Scooter – climbed into the car. There was a folded International Herald Tribune peering out of his travel bag, which was marked ‘RHH.’
“Thank you, Ms. Mullen…you will be sharing number seven with Ms. Prell. And if you two are looking for Red and Mokey and the others, they’re in car 10 with Mr. Crystal and his dog.” The woman picked up her satchel and climbed aboard.
"Excuse me, Mr. Goelz, Mr. Whitmire...Mr. Henson told me that if you two were carrying any fake spiders, silly string or rubber snakes, you had to hand them over." The bearded, bespectacled man and the blond-haired man both smiled, shook their heads and started rummaging through their carry-on bags.
None of the passengers looked as if they could be jewel thieves. But I did have to wonder about those two men carrying the practical joke stuff.
It was five-twenty. The Albatross had been missing for at least ten hours.
At five-thirty, one of the conductors blew a whistle, and all the exterior doors on the train slammed shut. A conductor standing near the engine started waving a bright red flag. The engine let out a high-pitched whistle, and with a lurch and a puff of steam, the Muppet Express started chugging out of the station, bound for Greater Burden.
***
Spot anyone familiar?
The next chapter (or half-chapter) will be along as soon as I can throw my thoughts together in a halfway coherent fashion. Stay tuned!
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