Elsa looked down as she walked through the snow on the roof of the caboose, hoping that the Conductor and Honeymarren's footprints wouldn't be erased by the wind or falling snow. Suddenly, orange light reappeared. Elsa gasped, thinking that maybe they did hear her after all and were coming back. But as she got closer to the light, she heard music and a man humming. As the snow slightly weakened, she got a clear view of the source of the light. It wasn't coming from the Conductor's lantern, but a campfire. And by that campfire was a man dressed in shabby clothes, a hobo. As Elsa came closer, he stopped playing his instrument and turned to face her.
"Is there something I can do for you?" He asked.
"I'm looking for a girl." Said Elsa.
"A gi-" The Hobo suddenly laughed hysterically so hard that he was wheezing. "Ain't we all?!"
"No, no, no, no, no! Not like that! No! I have her ticket and want to give it back to her." Said Elsa as she showed the ticket.
"Well looky, looky here. Well this is a, this is an official, authentic, genuine, ticket to ride. Oh, you better keep this in a safe place young lady."
Elsa stuffed it in her left pocket, which was still intact.
"If I was you, I'd keep all my valuables right here. Right here in the old size 13." Said The Hobo as he took off his shoe. "Experience shows that this is the safest place."
Taking his suggestion, Elsa put it in her right slipper beneath her foot.
"Not that I have much use for those tickets. I ride for free. Oh yeah, yeah, I hop aboard this rattler any time I feels like it. I own this train, oh yeah. It's like I'm the king of this train. Yeah, the king of the Pol-Ex! In fact, I am the king of the North Pole!" The Hobo yelled the last part so loud that it echoed throughout the open wilderness. Elsa wondered if any of the other passengers heard him.
"Oh, where's my manners? Sit, sit, sit! Take a load off here. Hey, would you like some Joe?" Asked The Hobo as Elsa sat on a wooden box on the other side of the campfire and he poured black liquid into a small metal cup from a metal pitcher hanging over the campfire. "A nice, hot refreshment, perfect for a cold winter's night."
Elsa grabbed the cup with both hands at first, but her right hand flinched when the top of the cup proved to be rather hot, so she held it from the bottom with her left hand. The Joe looked rather strange, but she didn't want to be rude, so she drank some. The moment she saw The Hobo pulling one of his socks out of the same pitcher he used to serve her though, she spat it out while cleverly disguising it as a very convincing fake cough.
"Bless you." Said The Hobo as he put the wet sock on the stick over the fire.
"What about Santa?" Asked Elsa.
"Santa?"
"Isn't he the king of the North Pole?"
"You mean, you mean this guy?" Said The Hobo as he pulled out a Santa hat identical to the one she saw her father with earlier and put it on while making some creepy and mocking Santa-like laughs with some stiff, robotic movement. Elsa was more disturbed than amused.
"Yeah, that guy." She said, hoping that it would get him to stop, which he did.
"What exactly is your persuasion on the big man? Since you brought him up."
Elsa thought about the fact that she was on a train going to the North Pole, but then the Conductor's words echoed through her head. ("Well it says here, no photo with a department store Santa this year, no letter to Santa, and you made your sister put out the milk and cookies." "Christmas may not be important to some people, but it is very important to the rest of us!") Then she thought about the papers in her dresser, the cheap Herpolsheimer's animatronic, and the words CHRISTMAS SPIRIT: ALL-TIME LOW that she saw on the clipboard.
"Well, I want to believe, but..."
"But! You don't want to be bamboozled! You don't want to be led down the garden path! You don't want to be caught, or duped, have the world pulled over your eyes, hoodwinked! You don't wanna be taken for a ride railroaded!" Said The Hobo as he stuffed smaller items in his coat before dousing the campfire with the rest of the Joe. He grabbed the stick hanging over the campfire and hoisted it over his shoulder.
"Seeing is believing, am I right?"
"Well, what about this train?"
"What about it?"
"We're all really going to the North Pole, aren't we?"
"Aren't we?"
"Are you saying that this is all just a dream?"
"You said it, kid! Not me!" Said The Hobo as he snatched the cup of Joe from Elsa's hand and drank the rest of it. "So, let's go find that girl!"
The Hobo grabbed the box Elsa was sitting on and the suitcase he was sitting on and started forward.
"One other thing." He said as he walked back to her. "Do you believe in ghosts?"
"No."
"Interesting." Said The Hobo as he walked forward again, at a rate much faster than Elsa.
"Wait!"
Elsa pushed hard, but the wind and snow were seriously slowing her down and starting to take their toll.
"What have you gotten yourself into, Elsa?! You have to wake up! Yeah, I have to wake up!" Elsa pinched her left hand. "Uh, wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" Nothing changed. She was still in the same situation. "Wake up!" Elsa got down onto her knees and started throwing snow into her face. "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" Elsa buried her face in the snow. "WAKE UP!"
Elsa finally accepted that she really was awake and got her face out of the snow as the train whistle blew again and she heard The Hobo come back.
"Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid!"
A light was on The Hobo's head.
"Kid, get your head out of the clouds! Wake up, kid! There's no sleepwalking on the Polar Express!" He said as he walked back toward Elsa, holding ski poles and with skis attached to his feet. A miner's light was on his hat.
"I wasn't sleepwalking." Elsa said defensively.
"Good. We gotta jump them knuckles!" He said as he turned around, careful not to hit Elsa with his skis.
"Come on, kid. Flip my shoulders. Grab my lily." He said as he extended his hand. Elsa grabbed it and he grunted as he pulled her in front of him, her feet resting in front of his on the skis.
"That skirt you're chasing must have moved on ahead. We gotta hightail it to the hog, pronto!" He said as he and Elsa started forward.
"To the hog?" Elsa said, confused.
"The engine. The engine, you tenderfoot. We gotta make the engine, before we hit Flat Top Tunnel."
"How come?"
"So many questions." The Hobo and Elsa turned to get a better look at each other. "There is but one inch of clearance between the roof of this rattler... and the roof of Flat Top Tunnel. Savvy?"
Elsa looked forward and gasped in shock as the train started going uphill.
"It's just the run up to the hump, kid. This will be interesting."
The Hobo made a backwards pizza position with his skis as they started drifting down the roof of the caboose. Even by sticking his ski poles in the ground, it did little to slow him down. He looked back as a chunk of ice cracked into pieces and flew off the roof, exposing a hand-grip. As they reached the end of the roof, The Hobo stuck his left ski pole into it, keeping him on the roof, but making Elsa fall off from the sudden stop to the momentum. She grabbed onto the red light at the end of the caboose and struggled to get herself back on top as the hill briefly leveled out, only for the train to start going down.
"Get back on, kid. hurry! Grab my muck stick!"
The Hobo freed his left ski pole and pointed it to Elsa. She grabbed onto it with both hands as he swung it out over the side, taking her with it, before putting her back in front of him on the skis. They both grabbed onto the poles as the caboose pointed downhill with the rest of the train. As they sped across the roof of the caboose, they jumped across the end of it, landing on the roof of the passenger car. They soon cleared that roof and went onto the next one as the train went down the hill at blazing fast speeds. They cleared the next car and jumped onto the other, and the one after that. Elsa looked forward as Flat Top Tunnel started coming into view. Icicles that formed around it gave the impression that they were heading straight into a beast.
"There's only one trick to this, kid!" Said The Hobo as the tracks leveled out, slowing down their momentum.
"When I saw "jump"..."
The locomotive entered the tunnel, making it glow a bright yellow-orange as it broke some of the icicles.
"You jump!"
Suddenly, The Hobo disappeared in a cluster of ash. Elsa gasped in horror before she leaped forward, right as the rest of the train reached Flat Top Tunnel.