Jake looked at the picture accompanying this not-exactly-unexpected turn of events for a long time. Rough drawing it might be, but it was still definitely a three-handkerchief job. Charlie looked old, beaten, and forgotten. Engineer Bob looked like he had lost his last friend . . . which, according to the story, he had. Jake could imagine children all over America blatting their heads off at this point, and it occurred to him that there were a lot of stories for lads with stuff like this in them, stuff that threw acid all over your emotions. Hansel and Gretel being turned out into the forest, Bambi’s mother getting scragged by a hunter, the death of Old Yeller. It was easy to hurt little kids, easy to make them cry, and this seemed to bring out a strangely sadistic streak in many story-tellers . . . including, it seemed, Beryl Evans. But, Jake found, he was not saddened by Charlie’s relegation to the weedy wastelands at the outer edge of the Mid-World trainyards in St. Louis. Quite the opposite. Good, he thought. That’s the place for him. That’s the place, because he’s dangerous. Let him rot there, and don’t trust that tear in his eye—they say crocodiles cry, too.
He read the rest rapidly. It had a happy ending, of course, although it was undoubtedly that moment of despair on the edge of the trainyards which children remembered long after the happy ending had slipped their minds. Mr. Martin, the President of The Mid-World Railway Company, came to St. Louis to check on the operation. His plan was to ride the Burlington Zephyr to Topeka, where his daughter was giving her first piano recital, that very afternoon. Only the Zephyr wouldn’t start. There was water in the diesel fuel, it seemed. (Were you the one who watered the diesel, Engineer Bob? Jake wondered. I bet it was, you sly dog, you!)
All the other trains were out on their runs! What to do? Someone tugged Mr. Martin’s arm. It was Wiper Bob, only he no longer looked like an engine-wiper. He had taken off his oil-stained dungarees and put on a clean pair of overalls. On his head was his old pillowtick engi-neer’s cap. “Charlie’s is right over there, on that siding,” he said. “Charlie will make the run to Topeka, Mr. Martin. Charlie will get you there in time for your daughter’s piano recital.”
“That old steamer?” scoffed Mr. Briggs. “Charlie would still be fifty miles out of Topeka at sundown!”
“Charlie can do it,” Engineer Bob insisted. “Without a train to pull, I know he can! I have been cleaning his engine and his boiler in my spare time, you see.” “We’ll give it a try,” said Mr. Martin. “I would be sorry to miss Susannah’s first recital!”
Charlie was all ready to go; Engineer Bob had filled his tender with fresh coal, and the firebox was so hot its sides were red. He helped Mr. Martin up into the cab and backed Charlie off the rusty, forgotten siding and onto the main track for the first time in years. Then, as he engaged Forward First, he pulled on the lanyard and Charlie gave his old brave cry: WHOOO-OOOOO! All over St. Louis the children heard that cry, and ran out into their yards to watch the rusty old steam loco pass. “Look!” they cried. “It’s Charlie! Charlie the Choo-Choo is back! Hurrah!” They all waved, and as Charlie steamed out of town, gathering speed, he blew his own whistle, just as he had in the old days: WHOOOO-OOOOOOO!
Clickety-clack went Charlie’s wheels!
Chuffa-chuffa went the smoke from Charlie’s stack! Brump-brump went the conveyor as it fed coal into the firebox! Talk about zip! Talk about zowie! Golly gee, gosh, and wowie! Charlie had never gone so fast before! The countryside went whizzing by in a blur! They passed the cars on Route 41 as if they were standing still! “Hoptedoodle!” cried Mr. Martin, waving his hat in the air. “This is some locomotive, Bob! I don’t know why we ever retired it! How do you keep the coal-conveyor loaded at this speed?”
Engineer Bob only smiled, because he knew Charlie was feeding himself. And, beneath the clickety-clack and the chuffa-chuffa and the brump-hrump, he could hear Charlie singing his old song in his low, gruff voice: Don’t ask me silly questions,
I won’t play silly games,
I’m just a simple choo-choo train
And I’ll always be the same.
I only want to race along
Beneath the bright blue sky,
And be a happy choo-choo train
Until the day I die.
Charlie got Mr. Martin to his daughter’s piano recital on time (of course), and Susannah was just tickled pink to see her old friend Charlie again (of course), and they all went back to St. Louis together with Susannah yanking hell out of the train-whistle the whole way. Mr. Martin got Charlie and Engineer Bob a gig pulling kids around the brand-new Mid-World Amusement Park and Fun Fair in California, and you will find them there to this day, pulling laughing children hither and thither in that world of lights and music and good, wholesome fun. Engineer Bob’s hair is white, and Charlie doesn’t talk as much as he once did, but both of them still have plenty of zip and zowie, and every now and then the children hear Charlie singing his old song in his soft, gruff voice. THE END
“Don’t ask me silly questions, I won’t play silly games,” Jake mut-tered, looking at the final picture. It showed Charlie the Choo-Choo pulling two bunting-decked passenger cars filled with happy children from the roller coaster to the Ferns wheel. Engineer Bob sat in the cab, pulling the whistle-cord and looking as happy as a pig in shit. Jake sup-posed Engineer Bob’s smile was supposed to convey supreme happiness, but to him it looked like the grin of a lunatic. Charlie and Engineer Bob both looked like lunatics . . . and the more Jake looked at the kids, the more he thought that their expressions looked like grimaces of terror. Let us off this train, those faces seemed to say. Please, just let us off this train alive.