Chapter Two: The Beach Car

Brooke had spent a couple days with Zac and Oliver and her opinions on them still hadn't changed. To her, they were still the same annoying weirdos that she was only following around through car after car because she couldn't open doors for some reason. To make things worse, her number was still 299, the same that it was when she first woke up on the train.

She did not know what to expect when they entered the Beach Car. The car looked normal at first (by train standards, of course), except in the distance they saw another cat. This feline was cream colored, wearing a vest with a tie, with a sleeveless shirt and collar underneath. It was talking to a sentient blob of water. Zac, Oliver, and Brooke decided to move closer to them so they could hear their conversation more clearly.

"So, Randall, how's the donut holer business going?" asked the cat.

"It's going pretty well" said Randall the water creature. "They're selling like hotcakes around here!"

"That's good to hear" said the cat. Randall was still clueless to the fact that the cat had conned him into selling a bunch of pipes as these devices which she claimed could turn lots of things into donuts.

"I could use a bit more help with the business, though. Do you know where I can find some?"

The cat quickly noticed the passengers and the puppy. "I see we have some guests with us today. Perhaps they can help us with our brilliant scheme?"

The visitors introduced themselves.

"My name's Zac."

"I'm Oliver!"

"Um, my name is Brooklyn Hayes. But you should call me Brooke". She found it quite interesting that there was another cat on this train. She was tempted to ask her so many questions but something compelled her to be… polite to this other cat. She didn't quite understand why, but there was something that captivated her about this sharply dressed feline.

"Hi, I'm Randall, and I could really use some help selling these donut holers. You three seem to be good candidates."

"Um, sure. You certainly are an interesting person" said Zac.

"Wow! I'm getting really great at marketing. He called me interesting!" said Randall. The cat looked at him in a weird way, baffled by how easily impressed Randall was. Perhaps he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. Zac and Oliver left to help Randall, but Brooke decided to stay behind because she found the cat more interesting.

The cat was surprised to see another of her kind. "Je n'en crois pas mes yeux! Is that another cat I see?"

Brooke was startled by the other cat's question. "Yeah…"

"How did a kitten like you end up here? I heard that a passenger named Brooklyn Hayes ended up on the train, but I didn't expect her to be a chatte like me."

"I have no idea."

The cat was disappointed but not surprised. "That's what I thought you'd answer. Say, why is your name Brooklyn anyway?"

"Well, my parents told me they named me Brooklyn because they once wanted to move to Brooklyn, New York. But then they eventually ended up moving with me to California instead, which is where I should still be right now instead of this stupid train!"

"So impatient, kitten."

"I'm not 'Brooklyn', and I'm not a 'kitten'! I'm Brooke, and I'm the most popular girl in school, so you're going to listen to me!"

"Pourqoi? On this train, I'm the bigger fish. You need to listen to denizens of the train like me if you want to get back to… where did you say you lived? Oh right, Cal-uh-forn-yuh."

"What the…"

"Listen, kitten, someone like you is truly one of a kind. And since I'm feeling generous, I have something I want to give you once you get your number down a decent amount."

"But I don't even know how to get my number down!"

Right as Brooke said that, the other cat left so she could figure out how her number worked. Soon after that, Zac and Oliver came back, with Randall following them with a "donut holer" in his body.

"Hey Brooklyn!" said Zac. "We just wanted to check on you to see how you were doing. Is everything OK?"

"Everything's fine" lied Brooke. She quickly noticed that Zac's number had gone down to 132. "How did you get your number down?"

"I don't know."

"You… don't know? How do you not know what you just did, given that everyone on this stupid train always obsesses over lowering numbers, whatever that means?"

Oliver decided to chime in. "Well, we helped the water person, and we were all talking to each other and then his number went down!"

Brooke was confused by Oliver's claim. "So, your number lowers when you do nice things to other people on this train? That's ridiculous! I don't want to be nice to these random dorks who I don't even know!" As she said this, she could hear a shuffling sound. When she looked back at her paw, her number had gone up to 305. "Great. My number just went up. That's the opposite of what everyone says should be happening to me right now."

Randall decided to join the conversation as well. "Well, one way you could help me is by buying a donut holer!"

"I don't want a donut holer, and I don't want to help anyone on this train!" insisted Brooke.

It was at that moment that everyone realized that she'd be on the train for quite a while.