Jenny Nimmo - Gabriel and the Phantom Sleepers

But a person can’t last forever without taking a breath, and eventually Gabriel had to release his nose. The smell lingered but it was gradually fading. Gabriel stood up and looked along the carriage. It appeared to be empty. Suddenly, above his head, the conductor’s voice informed passengers that, due to a fall of snow ahead of them, the train could go no further. However, a bus would arrive within the hour.

Gabriel pulled out his mobile and tried to contact his uncle. There was no signal. ‘Of course not,’ Gabriel said with a sigh, ‘we’re in the wild.’

The door at the end of the carriage opened and the woman in the red coat came in. She walked briskly down the aisle, saying, ‘Oh, there you are.’

‘The train seems to be stuck,’ Gabriel remarked, a little nervously.

‘We must get off right now,’ she said.

‘Must we?’ said Gabriel. ‘But it’s cold outside, and the bus might not arrive for an hour.’

‘We’re not waiting for a bus,’ said the woman.

‘Er,’ Gabriel said hesitantly, ‘my friend hasn’t come back from the toilet.’

‘If you mean that man with the white moustache,’ said the woman, ‘he got off at the last station.’

Gabriel gaped at her. ‘But he can’t have. He never said goodbye.’

‘The train probably arrived at his station sooner than he expected. Never mind. Let’s get off now.’

‘I saw him,’ she went on as Gabriel continued to look uncertain. ‘I asked him why you weren’t with him and he told me to mind my own business. We’re getting off now.’

Maybe she had decided to try and escape the hooded man, Gabriel thought. ‘OK,’ he said.

The woman lifted Gabriel’s bag off the table, but he jumped up, crying, ‘No. You can’t. It’s mine.’

‘Ssh!’ the woman hissed. She handed the bag to Gabriel. ‘I’m sorry, you must be very confused.’ She smiled again and said, in a hushed voice, ‘I’m Hetty Bean, a friend of Cook’s, you know, at Bloor’s Academy. She asked me to watch over you, and so I’m what she calls a Guardian now. Please trust me. We must get away from that stinking stranger as soon as we can.’

Gabriel nodded in agreement. ‘I think I’ve seen you in the dining hall at Bloor’s.’

Hetty smiled. ‘That’s me. Cook’s assistant – well, apprentice, really.’ She picked up Albert’s black hat. ‘Is this yours?’

‘No, it’s Albert’s, my companion. He must have left it behind.’

Hetty thrust the hat into her pocket. ‘Come on, then,’ she said, and hurried down the aisle.

Gabriel followed, hugging his bag. Hetty was already opening the train door when he reached her. She stepped down on to the platform and held up a hand to help with the bag. Gabriel clung to it and jumped out. The cold wind wrapped itself round their legs, and flurries of snow drifted into their faces. Gabriel turned his back to the wind and gulped. ‘I’m not sure about this.’

Hetty patted his shoulder. ‘Everything will be fine. I called my father before we lost signal. He won’t be long.’

Gabriel stared at the train. It looked very cosy in there. He couldn’t see the hooded stranger in any of the windows. Where was he? And why had Albert got off without saying goodbye? It didn’t make sense. Gabriel turned away from the train and looked over the platform railing. Fields of grey snow stretched into the darkness. ‘We’re nowhere,’ he said.

‘We’re in Humbledown.’ Hetty pointed to a sign, halfway down the platform. ‘We had to get away from it, Gabriel. Hopefully it doesn’t know we got out, but you’d better stand back, out of the light from the windows.’

Gabriel shuffled backwards into the shadows, and Hetty squinted at her watch in the weak beam from a lamp post. ‘Come on, Dad,’ she muttered.

‘Just now, you said IT,’ said Gabriel. ‘It?’

‘You know what I mean,’ said Hetty.

Gabriel nodded. ‘It smelled like something dead.’

‘I think it was, Gabriel.’ Hetty grimaced. ‘Dead but dangerous.’

Gabriel stared speechlessly at Hetty’s friendly face. And then, through the whine of the wind he caught the distinct sound of an engine.

‘Here he comes,’ said Hetty.

The engine noise was accompanied by a loud crunching sound, and then, between two rows of snow-laden hedges, a large vehicle rolled into view.

‘It’s a tractor,’ said Gabriel. For all that it was decked out in fairy lights, tinsel and holly, there was no denying that the big vehicle in the car park was a tractor.

‘Only thing in this weather,’ said Hetty. ‘Come on!’ She dashed to the end of the platform and began to descend the steps.

For a moment, Gabriel found himself gazing at the falling snow. There was something unusual about those elegantly dancing crystals. They seemed to be watching him.

He ran to the end of the platform and down the steps; there he found Hetty embracing a large man in a green boiler suit.

‘Gabriel!’ Releasing Hetty, the big man grabbed Gabriel’s hand and shook it so vigorously Gabriel thought his arm might fall off. ‘Fred Bean,’ the man said in a rumbly voice. ‘Pleased to meet one of the gifted ones, and one with SUCH a big responsibility.’

‘It’s only for a few days,’ said Gabriel, wondering how Fred Bean knew so much.

‘Indeed, but what a privilege.’

Unsure as to which of them was privileged, Gabriel allowed himself to be bundled up into the cab of the tractor. Hetty hauled herself after him, and Fred climbed into the driving seat. It was a bit of a squash, but at least they were dry.

The tractor bumped its way round the small parking area and then they were off, down the narrow lane, the snow thickening around them and the large wipers squeaking across the windscreen.

Fred Bean began to sing carols and Hetty explained that her father always did this for at least a month after Christmas. She invited Gabriel to join in. ‘Everyone knows a carol,’ she said cheerfully. And so they sang their way through the silent countryside with the wind whistling at their backs, and the headlights sweeping across glistening drifts of snow. Gabriel found that he felt completely safe with two people that he really didn’t know at all. He even forgot to ask where they were going until he saw the lights of a small town twinkling ahead of them. Behind the town, the lower slopes of a mountain could be seen, before it disappeared up into the dark sky.

‘Here we are, Meldon itself,’ Fred happily announced.

Gabriel suddenly realised he hadn’t told either of his rescuers where he wanted to go. ‘How did you know?’ he asked Hetty, who was squeezed into his side.

‘Cook,’ she said. ‘You might not have needed us at all, but your father rang her, just in case. And she did the rest.’

They were now rolling along Meldon High Street. The tractor made a difficult manoeuvre round a corner and then they were driving down a long steep road, with snow piled at the kerbs, and terraced houses with holly wreathes on their brightly painted doors. After the lonely wilderness of the fields, it was a surprise to see Christmas lights still twinkling in windows, and trees festooned with coloured globes and tinsel.

They came, at last, to three older buildings, timber-framed and roofed in lichen-covered slate.

‘Number twenty-nine, if I’m not mistaken,’ said Fred, bringing the tractor to a grinding halt. ‘The Carpenter’s Cabin.’

‘You knew the number.’ This time Gabriel wasn’t surprised.

‘Dad knows your uncle,’ said Hetty, climbing from the cab. ‘Jack Silk made him a table.’

‘A fine table,’ said Fred.

Gabriel thanked Fred for the lift and jumped out. Hetty followed him down the path to the front door, and waited while he rang the doorbell. His uncle’s Christmas wreath was hung with strong-smelling cloves and wrinkled tangerines. ‘Sadie’s work,’ Gabriel said with a grin. ‘My cousin,’ he told Hetty.