"I spy… with my little eyes… something that is round, white and happy."
"Oh, I know this one," said Atticus, "Ooh, it's on the tip of my tongue I just know it… um… err… bah, woof, I give up, I just don't kn… wait the minute, wait the minute, I've figured it out! It is a head of a happy snowman, yes I'm sure of it."
"I'm pretty sure that One-One is referring to himself, Atticus," said Tulip.
"Oh no, he's right," Glad-One laughed, "I was thinking of a happy little snowman."
"You know, I'm not even sure if you know how to play this game," Tulip told the little bot, "you can't just make up something out of thin air, you have to actually be able to see this object."
"Well, I did see a happy little snowman…" Sad-One said, "In my dreams that is."
"Wait, do robots even dream?" Tulip squinted.
"I don't know, do dogs dream?"
"Of course we do," Atticus said, "Yesterday I dreamt that Corgidia was in flames and everything was destroyed in the fire. Of course I know that it couldn't be true because we have Nero back home in charge of things."
"Don't try to change the subject here, One-One." Tulip snapped at the bot.
The three of them had gone though a total of three cars since they left Fredrick's chess car. The puzzles hadn't been too hard in those cars, so they managed to go through fairly quickly.
"Okay, here we go," she muttered to herself, "let's hope we find something… new here…" She still hadn't been able to make much headway on discovering the truth about the number. The girl was hopeful every time she opened another door to another car, and each time the results were the same – nothing.
But this time – things were a little bit different…
It was the same feeling when she first entered Corgidia, the feeling of overwhelming awe – A train car that from the outside looked like any regular train car, but when the doors were opened it led her into an entire whole world that defied the laws of physics itself.
But this was a different kind of awe. In fact she wasn't even sure if it was awe at all, the car was big, that was no lie, but it was also pretty empty. There was basically nothing around for miles but a floor full of yellow sand and the scorching sun shining down onto it. There were also gusts of sandstorm lingering about, but nothing too dangerous. Now that she thought about it, it was more of an underwhelming kind of awe rather than the overwhelming type. But still, she wanted to be cautious regardless, Fredrick did say that the train was unpredictable.
"This… is rather depressing, don't you think so Miss Tulip?" Sad-One said.
"Yeah," she agreed, "even by your standards…"
"Well, then… shall we proceed on finding the door to this train car?" Atticus suggested, "It is a rather large car, we should get going as soon as we can."
"I was thinking maybe we should stick around a little bit to find some clues," Tulip said, "most cars we've been through so far had a purpose, or at the very least a kind of puzzle to it, I don't think that it'd be that easy… I mean what are the chances that we're just going to suddenly run into th…"
"Is that it over there?" Glad-One pointed to their left with his tiny little limb.
"Huh… what are the odds?"
It was strange, the door was situated a little bit over to their left instead of straight ahead like the other cars. The three of them approached the door after treading across the deep piles of sand. Tulip tried the door knob but it wouldn't budge.
"Drats!" She cried, "It's locked."
"Well at least now we can all die knowing we tried…" Sad-One said in a tone full of sorrow.
"I'm not gonna give up that easily."
"That's the spirit!" Atticus cheered her on.
"Start looking around guys," she told them, "maybe there's a key or something lying around in the sand. Look for anything that could be a clue."
"Hey what's that over there by the door?"
They didn't even notice it before, must have been covered up by all the sandstorms. Tulip dusted off all the sand and revealed the object underneath, it was a scale made out of iron. The thing was rusty and cold despite the burning sun. On one plate of the scale there was a pile of sand, about the size of Tulip's palms, while on the other side there was nothing, thus keeping the scale in imperfect balance.
They all then noticed a plaque made of iron placed above the scale and it read: A HEAP OF SAND.
All three of them exchanged gazes with each other, all confused and concerned about what the plaque was saying.
"What do you suppose it means?" Atticus said.
"I think it wants us to make a pile of sand," Glad-One said, "anyone got a shovel? I want to dig up a pile or two."
"Or we can use that shovel to start digging our own graves," Sad-One offered his opinion, "since all of this will be fruitless regardless of what we do."
"Doesn't sound half bad to me," Glad-One agreed.
"You guys keep saying things like that one more time and I swear I'm going to throw you off this train!" Tulip snapped at the two, "let's use common sense here guys, there's a scale here, and the plaque says 'a heap of sand' which means…" She waved her hands at the bots, hoping they would be able to fill in the sentence.
"Which means… um… I think… um… err… it means…"
"Ugh," Tulip groaned, "sometimes I think you guys are doing this on purpose. It's like I have to do everything myself. Just go and gather around a pile of sand, the scale obviously wants us to balance it with another pile of sand. Just like the balance puzzle back in the other car."
"Oh, yeah, now I remember."
It honestly felt a bit too simple, but who was she to argue, the girl thought to herself. She didn't hesitate a moment, due to how much she wanted to get out of here as quickly as possible. So with a handful of sand she poured them onto the empty plate on the scale until both plates were balanced.
"Okay, that should do it," she wiped her hands of the sand, "go ahead and try the door now."
The little corgi nodded and leapt upwards towards the door knob – but it wouldn't budge.
"Huh, that's weird," Tulip scratched her head, "maybe we need to balance it exactly… hoo boy, this is going to take a while."
Try as she might, the metal door just would not budge. Sand piles after sand piles, she measured it carefully, making sure that the two were exactly the same height above the ground. She even tried having each of the Ones to stand underneath each plate to make it balance then placed the sand pile on top, still nothing happened. It felt like she wasted an entire afternoon trying to count these grains and make them perfect but at the end of the day the results were still the same – the door was still locked.
"Ugh, my god, this is TAKING FOREVER!" She yelled out of frustration, "We are never going to get out of here at this pace!"
"I don't know, I quite like it here," Glad-One said, rolling in the sand.
"Take it easy, Tulip," Atticus told her, "I suggest you take a break from solving this puzzle, you've been going at it for a long time now, if you keep this up you'll never have the energy to make it across the train."
"Fine," she sighed, "I suppose you're right. I suppose we can spend the night here, it's… not so bad… maybe…"
It got dark real quick, Tulip still couldn't figure out the mechanism of the sun inside the train. Maybe she'll learn once they got to the front of the train. They managed to build a campfire around the door, surprisingly the train car wasn't completely empty since there were still a few broken twigs here and there, maybe enough for a night or two. Tulip had to use her lighter to light up the fire. It was getting cold, even with the sun burning the car for the entire afternoon.
"So… let me see if I understand this correctly…" Atticus said, lying on his belly, "you… don't remember how you got on the train?"
"Yeah… it's just… everything's been kinda… blurry lately… I… I don't really wanna talk about it. I just have too much on my plate at the moment, first things first, I have to find a way off this train."
"I understand Tulip. I too have a family back home in Corgidia. I know what it feels like."
"Aren't you worried at all?" Tulip asked, "I mean what if you go too far away from your car on this train? How do you even know you could return? Your family is probably worried sick at the moment."
"That's true," the corgi said, "but they also put their trust in me, because they know that I will stop at nothing to return home to them once my mission is complete. That's what families are for… it is built on trust and faith in one another."
The little redhead sighed:
"I just wish that was always the case…"
"Um… Miss Tulip…"
The wind suddenly rose from the darkness, they heard its screams, the screeching of the midnight wind. The campfire was weakening, and One-One saw something lurking in the darkness.
"Careful Tulip," Atticus started growling towards the direction of the wind.
"Hold on Atticus, I think I have a flashlight in my backpack." The girl started rummaging through her stuff but it was still so dark and the flames were close to going out.
Before the girl could even turn on the flashlight the large shadow emerged from the distant sand piles of the cold darkness. It was gecko.
The creature didn't seem like a threat, but it did look quite queer. The thing was standing on its hind legs, almost straight up. It was a lot bigger than most geckos. As the matter of fact, now that Tulip got a better look of the creature in the light, the gecko was actually at least four foot tall. It was nearly as tall as Tulip herself. Its scales also seemed a lot harder than regular geckos, it almost looked like they were made out of hard tree barks.
Tulip held her chest while sighing in relief, thankful that it wasn't some kind of horrendous monster from a horror novel.
"It's okay guys," Tulip told them, "I got this."
The girl slowly approached the creature, careful not to startle it. But the gecko did not move from its place, it gave her a strange look. It was as if it was a look of curiosity rather than a look of fear.
"It's okay little buddy," she extended her hands, reaching towards it, "you don't have to be afraid little buddy…"
"Okay, you seriously have to stop talking to me like I'm some kind of brainless pet."
She widened her eyes, almost popped out of the sockets in her head. Oh yeah, that's right, she really did forget that the rules on this train were not conventional, it was illogical. And yet so far she still couldn't get use to hearing animals talking aloud like it was no big deal.
"Oh… sorry about that… little… gecko… man…"
"My name's Zapp," the gecko said, "and y'all shouldn't be out here alone, especially at night."
"What do you mean?" Atticus asked.
But before he could answer, the wind started howling again. Zapp's expression suddenly changed.
"No time to explain," he said, "follow me if y'all wanna live tonight. It's safer down town."
"There's a town around here?" Tulip asked, surprised.
"Yes, but we must hurry. Come! Quickly now, we haven't much time. And douse that fire quick!"
They managed to make it back to this town just in the nick of time. But honestly, Tulip didn't really feel like they were in any actual danger. Sure it was kind of dark and the wind howling made the air kind of cold and unpleasant, but that was about it. She didn't actually see anything around for miles, until Zapp led them over a sandy hill where they finally spotted the town. Tulip couldn't believe that they didn't notice this before.
It was an old-fashioned old western town, the kind that you would find in one of those old cowboy cartoons. There was a big saloon over to her right and couple of old buildings here and there, built with rustic mahogany wood. Strangely enough there were a couple of tortoises parked outside of some of the buildings as if they were horses or something. This train was a very strange place indeed – reptiles riding on top of other reptiles – she never thought she'd live to see the day. Still made absolutely no darn sense.
"It's not much," Zapp said as they walked down the hill, "but at least you'll be safe."
"Safe from what exactly?" Tulip asked.
"It's… um… it's best if you don't know… for now."
Confused as always, but the girl kept reminding herself to just go along with it, since there was likely no point in trying to make sense of any of this.
"Ahh…" One-One suddenly rose out of Tulip's bag, catching her by surprise.
"One-One, you're awake… what on earth haven you been doing all this time?"
"I was napping," Glad-One said while smiling (with his eyes apparently).
"And you didn't feel or hear us running for our lives? Not even a bit?" Tulip asked.
"Nope," Glad-One said, "it was pretty cozy in your bag here I tell you… so, what did I miss?"
"Ugh…" she groaned, figured that she was already so exhausted so why bother, "nevermind…"
They walked in the darkness for another long while before they approached an old house by the outskirt of town. It was ancient and really dusty, or maybe they were sand, not dust, you could never tell in the darkness like this. He grabbed his dangling keys by his side and cracked the old door open, the inside was even worse than the exterior. The room was simple, it was two stories tall, most of it was made of wood and there was an old piano by the corner covered in dust and cobwebs just like everything else from the table and the one chair beside it.
"Well, here we are," Zapp said, "it's really not much but you can stay here during the night and in the morning we'll figure things out."
"Thank you for your generosity, Mr. Zapp," Atticus said, "we are in your debt…"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, save it," Zapp said, scanning around, "just go inside and find a place to rest and um… do whatever it is you wanna do, I have something I need to take care of. I'll probably be back when the morning comes."
"Wait," Tulip reached out for him, "I have questions…"
"I said save it! We'll talk in the morning alright? Right now I need to go meet up with a buddy of mine… and whatever you do, DO NOT go outside until the sun rises, got it!"
"But…"
But before Tulip could ask any questions the gecko slammed the door shut, leaving them in this dark room alone. I suppose it's not so bad, Tulip thought to herself. At least they had a place to stay. Well not much of a choice anyway, also it was not like she was going to object anyway, she really wanted to sleep.
It was a pretty rough night but they managed through – barely. Tulip found a rather cozy bedroom upstairs, it wasn't anywhere near the quality of Corgidia but it was serviceable. The sun was so bright that Tulip was already awoke just after a few minutes of it barely peaking over the horizon, she figured it was still rather early.
Zapp really did keep his promise, he came back just minutes after Tulip opened her eyes. Everything felt strange, almost to the point of nausea, because they'd been going through this whole situation non-stop without any explanation whatsoever. They weren't just traveling through darkness, but they were almost literally kept there in the dark.
"Ah, good," Zapp called out, "you're awake. Well, the sun's up so it's safe for now."
Zapp quickly dashed across the dusty wooden floors to the kitchen area, he still seemed impatient and almost as if desperate, just like how he was yesterday. He reached for the cupboards and yanked out a bunch of apples which he then threw onto the table.
"Alright, 'ere," he said as he grabbed one himself, "eat up, we've got a long day to go. We haven't got much time, see."
"What?" Cried Tulip, "No, wait… now hang on a minute. I still have some questions."
"Not now alright? We simply do not have the time."
"Sure we do, Zappy." A deep voice suddenly echoed from the doorway which snapped Zapp out of his impatience.
He was another gecko, slightly taller than Zapp, and surprisingly was wearing clothes. He wore a long navy-blue duster covered in sand with a cowboy hat on top. He also had a beard believe it or not, an actual beard full of hair, it was like silk threads made out of silver. He also sported a pair of holster with two shiny metal revolvers on his thighs.
"Hello, Klyde," Zapp said.
"Aw, cheese and crackers, for the love of… would you just put on some clothes already? I'm tired of seeing you walking around like this, it's… really uncomfortable."
"I don't have the time alright!" Zapp snapped at the other gecko, "Look Klyde, we have to go now! You saw what happened yesterday."
"I did, and panicking ain't gonna do us no good. So just calm… just calm down alright?"
"Um, fellas…" Tulip barged into their conversation, almost had enough of being left in the dark, "I hate to interrupt, but would somebody please fill us in on what the heck is going on here?"
The two geckos stared at the girl dumbfounded. Klyde started looking at her from head to toe then adjusted his duster as he approached her.
"My apologies," Klyde said, "We are dealing with a rather stressful situation at the moment so forgive our rudeness… mostly from my partner Zapp here anyway."
"Hey!" Zapp cried.
"Now… and you are…"
"Um… oh, yeah, I'm Tulip, and this is Atticus and One-One."
"Hello."
"Greetings to you."
"Great," Klyde said, "look, let me just cut to the chase, despite my partner's rash and hasty actions, he really wasn't wrong when he said we were short on time, so how 'bout we take this out on the road, I'll explain everything. There's a great saloon in town owned by a woman named Judith, it'd be much better to talk there than here in this… this awful dump."
Tulip and Atticus nodded. Beats staying here in this dusty house, she thought.
"Here we go," Klyde said when they got outside, "we'll ride with my tortoise, Hank."
Tulip had never ridden a tortoise before… actually she'd never even ridden a horse before in her life, never even seen one. Riding on top of this 1000 pounds creature really was one of the strangest experiences ever. It was actually surprisingly fast, nearly as fast as an actual horse, you couldn't really tell the difference.
The sunrise really did make it easier on Tulip's eyesight since she could now look at the town a lot clearer now. It was covered in a lot more sand than she expected. Nearly every roof on every single building had at least one layer of sand on top. The sandstorm must have been a lot harsher around these parts.
"You see Tulip," Klyde started explaining as they rode along, "this is just a simple town inhabited by simple folks living some simple lives, just an ordinary spring with a great fresh water spring over yonder and some coyotes we can hunt, there's nothing too special about that and we'd like to keep it that way. Of course, that was only until recently when we've been experiencing attacks from an unknown source. Those darn things are attacking our farms, our houses, our cattle. Things have been pretty harsh lately, and no one knows why. So panic is the obvious result."
"Who's been attacking you guys?" Tulip asked.
"Well, we don't know where they come from," Zapp joined in, "all we know that there's been reported sightings of mysterious white figures roaming near the areas where these attacks happened. Those creatures all have something in common, blue blazing eyes and a blank white face. Some folks started calling them the Phantom People."
It struck right at Tulip's core, the description sounded exactly like the encounter she had with that monster full of wires and claws back in Corgidia, the one which attacked them with machine guns. She felt the sudden obligation to chime in:
"That sounded just like an encounter we had with… a similar creature."
"Ah, so you've been experiencing similar troubles I assume," Klyde said, "well that puts us on the same boat then. Zapp and I have been keeping active patrols to help keep the folks 'round here safe. But it's been rough, the attackers never stayed in one place long, they also attack us with these strange weapons… it's almost like a kind of string or wire that came out of their hands."
It just got too familiar for Tulip, there was definitely a connection between the monster she met and these attackers in this car. But the question still remained, what purpose did these creatures serve?
"How long has this been going on?" Atticus asked while riding in the backseat.
"Not entirely sure."
"I heard the first reported sightings came in 'bout a week or so, could be a bit more." Zapp said, which gave Tulip a strange chill down her spine.
"We're here!"
The tortoise called Hank stopped just short of the saloon.
"Zapp, how 'bout you put Hank into the stable while I introduce Judith to our guests here."
Zapp nodded and rode off just as they got off of Hank.
"Follow me, quickly now."
Klyde barged furiously through the door. The place was like a typical cowboy saloon like in one of the comics or cartoons only this time it was filled with geckos that were a bunch of loud and brash patrons, going around and spilling their drinks all over the place through their petty fights or ridiculously over the top arm wrestling contests that always ended up in breaking a table or two, all while the musician in the back played some ragtime scores on the dusty piano by the corner. It was actually even more camp and over the top than most cartoons Tulip had seen. She really did felt kind of uncomfortable and out of place with all these violent and loud geckos fighting all over the place, she wasn't really used to these kinds of things.
"Ha-ha, I liked this place," Glad-One said from Tulip's bag, followed by Sad-One mourning:
"I don't."
"Come on you guys," Tulip hushed them, "let's just try not to attract too much attention to ourselves alright? Just be natural and blend in."
Klyde walked across this 'warzone' as if they were nothing but bug bites. Which sort of made sense since he looked like a tough son of a gun himself. They approached the bar where a big chubby yellow gecko was polishing one of the mugs on the cupboard. Tulip assumed that it was Judith.
"HEY JUDY!" Klyde yelled over all the commotion in the bar, the big gecko slowly turned around.
"Klyde, darlin'," Judith called out as if he was an old friend she hadn't met in a long time, "How ya doin' baby? Care for a drink?"
"You mean that yucky muddy water you call a drink? You know that I couldn't care less for any of that disgusting goo."
"Ha-ha, sure thing, honey, whatever you say. Just you wait, one of these days you're gonna be begging for it… since you'll be drinking these stuff non-stop, I guarantee it."
"Yeah, I doubt it," said Klyde smiling, "anyway, I'm not here for a drink, I'm just here to check on how Hardy Herbert and Jed's doin' with their fence building, we need that thing up as soon as possible."
"Sorry hon'," Judith told him, "those boys are doing the best they can but they just can't help it if there's a shortage on logs now, can they?"
"Curses!" Klyde cried under his breath, "Alright, alright, alright, I can deal with this. Just tell me that the boys at least have their weapons ready, me and Zapp haven't had a single hour of sleep yesterday with all the patrolling."
"Well… you see…"
"Gosh dang it, Judy!" Klyde slammed his fist on the table.
"Hey, hey, hey, it ain't all bad ya see, I already had Jed round up all of Percy's cattle into his barn. You know how reckless that boy can be ever since he inherited that whole barn from his Pa."
"Yeah… at least there's one less pain in the butt now," said Klyde, "Oh yeah, Judy, I'd like you to meet our guests, Miss Tulip, Atticus and um… One-One, right? ... Yeah One-One."
"Um… hi."
"Hello."
"Greetings."
"Well," Judith leaned over to look at them closely, as if she had trouble seeing, "it sure is nice to meet all of y'all now. Care for a drink? Finest western muddy ale from 'round here."
"Oi, look at you," Klyde said, "Offering kids these drinks, heh, classic Judy."
"Hey, this actually pretty mild compares to what the kids are doing these days." Judy joked, shrugging her shoulders.
"Ha!" Klyde chuckled, "Keep this up and I might actually be a mood good enough to buy one of yer drinks."
"So erm, hey," Tulip waved at them, grabbing their attention, "so Klyde here told me that you guys have been having some trouble with these… ahem, Phantom People."
"Oh yes," Judith said, spitting onto one of the mugs then started wiping them, "absolutely terrifying, ugh, what I would give to just get rid of them. They've been terrorizing these good people for far too long now, Percy's been crying on and on about missing cattle, fences are getting torn down, it's awful I tell ya."
"Well…" Tulip said, "I've been encountering with a similar creature so… maybe I can help out. Is there a way for me or for us to help out or…"
But both Klyde and Judith started chuckling like they just heard a good joke, Judith said:
"Let me tell ya something alright kiddo? Do you know who this son of a gun is? This is Klyde 'the Viper' Bradshaw, sheriff 'round these parts you see. There's a star badge and everything." She pointed towards the tiny silver star that Tulip never even noticed before.
"Pleasure to meet you," he took his hat off while bowing his head, Judith continued:
"This is a fella so tough that he once survived a blizzard storm full terrible monsters and predators fer… fer a whole darn month with nothing but a can of beans… he never even opened the can of beans."
"Because I forgot the blasted can opener," Klyde started laughing his butt off, seemed as if he wouldn't be able to stop.
"So you see," Judith said, "if the Viper here can't solve this problem then no one can."
"Remember Tulip," said Klyde smiling, "it's the little things that counts, you don't need to be out there trying to change the world every single day. It's all about the little actions, the little details – that's what really matters here. Don't believe me? See over there? That's the butcher, she once helped the baker with a supply shortage problem, the baker needed some filling for his cake, the butcher suggested meat, it was just an idea but they worked on it together and eventually… you know what happened? They managed to produce one of the most heavenly dishes I've ever tasted, a kind of meat pie you see. Trust me it tastes better than it sounds, the meat pie helped a lot of poor and starving folks around these parts… so yer see, what started out as something really small is now something… um… revolutionary."
There was something about all of that that made Tulip grin like an idiot, she didn't know what but she couldn't help it either.
"Just something to keep in mind," Klyde said, "… Oh, oh, wait now just a minute, that reminds me, though, you fellas haven't told us why y'all are wandering 'round these parts yet, haven't you?"
"Oh, right, right," Tulip smiled awkwardly, "well you see the thing is we're just trying to get off of this train. There's a door over by… east of here… I think, I don't know, but it's locked and we just couldn't figure out how to get it to open and…"
"Wha… wha… what's this?" A random patron suddenly came around, "What's this talk about leaving the train? Eh? Who wants to leave the train?"
A strange darkness suddenly fell onto Tulip, Atticus and One-One. All the other patrons of the saloon suddenly stopped whatever the heck they were doing before – fighting, screaming and so on – and immediately shifted their focus onto the girl, even the pianist by the corner stopped playing turned his neck right around. Their reptilian eyes were watching, not a second to blink.
"Now, now everyone, just calm down will ya," Klyde stood up from his seat, "she didn't really mean it now… did you?"
"Well… um… no, I mean… yes," Tulip stuttered, "I mean I really am trying to get home. I was told by this… this horse guy to find the Conductor of this train, he said that he could help me to…"
But she could already hear people gasping in horror even before she could finish her sentence. Apparently she said something that she shouldn't have said, which was probably why people were whispering to each other at the moment.
"What?" Asked Tulip while still confused, "What's going on?"
"Don't you know anything?" Judith said, "The Conductor is one of the biggest jerk-face 'round these parts. Heck, I bet he's the reason why we've been getting all these attacks as of late."
"What? No," said Tulip, "no, but the horse… Fredrick said that he's a good guy, he helped him and his people and all…"
"Well, sorry to burst your bubble kid," Judith said, "But the fact of the matter is that nobody here likes the guy, we once let the darn fella roam freely around in here for a day and he literally trashed it overnight. He destroyed the barn, he took down all the fences letting all the cattle loose, he even filled up our well with a bunch of giant rocks because he thought it would be funny."
"He's a dangerous man, Tulip," Klyde told her, a strange darkness surrounded him, "he has powers that none of us could even comprehend. Not much is known about the man, but it's best to not have anything to do with him… so you see a guy with white hair wearing a coat – you run, just run, don't even look back, don't try to fight him and whatever you do, do not, I repeat DO NOT try to outsmart him… because you can't."
"Yeah… but…"
However, Tulip was suddenly cut off when a loud crashing noise burst through the door which made everybody's heads turn – it was Zapp. The gecko was breathing like an old train's engine, with hot sweat pouring furiously from his scales.
"Zappy!" Klyde called, hopping off of his seat to check on his partner, "What's the matter? Talk to me!"
Took a few seconds, but Zapp finally managed to compose himself.
"The Phantom…" Zapp cried, "They're here! They're here, Klyde! We tried to hold them off as long as we could but there were just too many of them, Hardy Herbert and Jed stayed behind to buy us some time but that's all we have. We have to leave, Klyde… we have to leave now! The Phantom People are here… please… Klyde…"
"Alright, alright, I know, Zapp… I know… we should leave as soon as possible, any of those Phantom folks find us and we're toast. We evacuate immediately!" He shouted towards the patrons in the bar, "Go home to your folks now and start packing, don't leave anything important behind, alright? We might not return here for a while, so make sure you prepare, so CHOP-CHOP people! We ain't got all day now. Be sure to help anybody around who's having trouble packing, I don't want anybody left behind, you got that?"
The geckos leapt out of the saloon as soon as they heard the announcement, they were surprisingly quick on their feet despite just having at least a few dozen gallons of Judith's drinks. The creature on this train never ceased to surprise Tulip.
"Wait, Klyde!" The girl grabbed the sheriff during the ruckus, "I think I can help, with the evacuating I mean. I have experience dealing with these kinds of monsters so maybe…"
"NO Tulip!" Klyde shouted, there was something in his eyes, a certain… spark. Perhaps a spark of… frustration. He could do nothing but sigh, "Look… if ya really want to get off of this train… then… I suppose… I suppose I can't really stop you. But Tulip, listen to me, this… all of this… is too big for you."
"But I can help!" Tulip cried over all the commotion.
"Remember what I said about the little things?" He told her, "This is one of those cases. You can't always go out there every day and hope you'll be able to do something to change the world. You have to know your limits. What really matters is the little things, small acts of kindness and things like that."
Klyde showed her a little passage behind the town and directed them back to the door where they came from. He insisted that they leave the town as soon as possible, it wasn't like Tulip had any objection… but still.
This feeling… this emotion inside her – she really did want to help the gecko folks back there. She hated the feeling, the feeling of being rejected. The girl just couldn't wrap her head around all of this. She could've helped with the evacuation, but Klyde still said no. She never understood why.
"Back to the drawing board Miss Tulip?" Glad-One asked.
The girl didn't answer, but managed a slight nod.
"But we never did find out how to open the door," Sad-One said.
"That's true," Atticus said, "but I know that that won't stop us from figuring it out in the end. After all, we have Tulip the Literate on our side, with her vast knowledge and quick wit I'm sure she will be able to devise a plan to open up the door."
"Oh just stop it already," Tulip groaned at them, "I… I can't help us… I can't help us out of this mess. I can't help us out of anything. I couldn't even help those poor folks back there. I thought I had the answers in the back of my hand but then this train just had to come around and makes things complicated. I just… I just don't know anymore."
"Don't be so hard on yourself Tulip…"
"But how can I be anything other than that?" The girl almost shouted at the corgi, "I mean look at this stupid scale, the plaque and the pile of sand. I mean 'a heap of sand'? What the heck does that even mean? It's almost as if…"
She suddenly stopped. The cogs were turning, something within her sparkled. An idea? A solution?
It suddenly clicked with her. Something Klyde told her made her think.
"A heap of sand…" she muttered to herself, "… the little things…"
Of course.
"THAT'S IT!" She snapped her finger, somehow, some way snapped out of her trance of depression, "How could I be so stupid? It's so obvious, how did I not think of it before? I of all people should know this!"
"What is it Tulip?"
"It's all a paradox you see," the dog and the robot seemed puzzled, so she explained, "Imagine you have a pile of sand with a million grains, it's considered a heap right? What happens if you take away one grain? I bet that it would still be considered a heap. But what happens when you take away nearly all the grains and leave behind only a single speck? Is that still a heap? Where do we draw the line? And thus herein lies the paradox."
The girl walked by the rusty iron scale while grabbing a handful of sand off of the ground.
"The rules of this train work in illogical and paradoxical ways, it's just its nature. I finally understand what Klyde was trying to tell me." Said Tulip, "The values in the little things, the small actions we take. No matter how big or small it is, even something tiny as a single grain…"
With careful fingers, she managed to pick out a single speck of sand from her palm. It was so tiny, almost fragile. And yet somehow it was rather… shiny, she could feel the desert's sun burning from within.
She placed it onto the cold plate of the scale. They couldn't notice anything changes at first, and yet Tulip knew in her heart right then that the most beautiful sound in the world at that moment was the sound of the clanking metal within the door knob – a solid sharp click.
"Even something as insignificant… could have immense value…" At this point she just couldn't help but smile like an idiot.
