Infinity Train Book 5: The Odd Boy

The Cake Car

Orion opened the door to the new train car. He and Flux entered the car cautiously. They were unsure of what to expect. To their surprise, the entire car was covered in cake. The floor, buildings, and sky all seemed to be made of cake. Orion asked, "Is this car dangerous or something? It's kinda of...not what I expected." Flux said, "Don't know. Never been to this car before." Orion was confused, "Wait, wouldn't you have come here when you went to the balloon car?" Flux shook his head, "Nope. Sorry cupcake, but I didn't come through this car. Then again, it might be that you're the first to pass through this car." Orion asked, "What do you mean?" Flux explained, "The train is never finished. There are new cars being created all the time and those cars are then added somewhere on the train. I'm guessing that this is one of those cars." Orion looked around, "I guess you're right. Well, better start looking around." The two of them continued walking through the car in search for any signs of life.

After a few minutes, Flux groaned, "Uh, this is pointless. We're never gonna find any form of life in a cake car. It's just cake. What would they eat? Cake? What if they ate all of it, what would the car be then? A former cake car?" Orion said, "You need to calm down." Flux asked, "Aren't you getting upset over not finding anything?" Orion chuckled, "Nope. Not finding anything is part of the fun of any good exploration. I'm having a blast just passing through this car." He looked at one of the cakes, "They should have some sort of life though." He touched the cake and heard a scream, "How dare you touch me so casually?" Orion and Flux were surprised and looked around. The cake turned around and they saw that it had a mouth, "What do you think you're doing, touching a lady like that?" Orion walked back, "Um, sorry. I didn't know that you were a lady, or even alive for that matter." "Is something the matter Lucille?" The two of them turned to see another cake approach. Lucille said, "Officer Copper, this young man touched me out of no where!" Officer Copper said, "Don't worry ma'am. We'll deal with him. Come on boy." Orion was confused, "Wait, are you trying to arrest me?" Officer Copper said, "Yes. Touching a cake without permission is a major crime in these parts." Orion said, "But I didn't mean to. I didn't even know that the cakes were people. Why haven't any of them talked or moved before? We've been in this car for an hour!" Copper said, "They must've been asleep." Orion asked, "Why don't they go to their houses then? It's super dangerous to be out." Copper tried to respond, "That's because, um, uh. Actually, I don't know why." Orion turned to Lucille, "Look, I'm sorry that I accidently touched you without permission. I didn't know. Can I make it up to you?" Lucile hummed, "Well, you can help look after my two newborn sons." She moved and nudged to two small cakes that were snoring. Flux said, "And that's it. You just want us to watch these two little brats for you for a while?" Lucille said, "Yes indeed. I've wanted to get my frosting done ever since I gave birth. Should take about an hour? Can you handle that?" Orion and Flux nodded. Lucille smiled, "Good. Take care of Angel and Pumpkin. The left one's pumpkin by the way. Bye." Lucille moved away and left them with the babies. Orion turned to Copper, "So, we free?" Copper hummed, "Yeah, guess so. I don't see why not." He left. Flux started walking around the two small cakes, "This is easy. They're both sleeping. We've got nothing to worry about." Orion asked, "Do you know how to take care of cakes?" Flux said, "I thought you knew." The two of them looked at each other and sat down.

Forty minutes later, the two cakes were still asleep. Orion was doing a puzzle he had brought with him while Flux was looking through the stuff in his suitcase. Suddenly, they heard a sound. They looked at where the baby cakes were, but there was nothing there. They stood up in shock. Orion asked, "Where'd they go?" Flux said, "I don't know. They were just here a minute ago. I think that woke up. But how could they have woken up and left without us knowing." Orion groaned, "This is the worst. Now we have to find them." Flux looked around and came up with an idea, "Or we could just leave?" Orion was confused. Flux explained, "There's no other cakes here. We can just leave and no one would be able to stop us." Orion frowned, "No, we can't do that. Lucille trusted us with her children. We have to stay and help." Flux raised a brow, "I didn't think that you'd be the type to think of others before yourself cupcake." Orion said, "I just don't wanna betray her trust. She left her children with me. It's important to keep trust when it's given." Flux asked, "Is it really that important to you?" Orion sat down, "Yeah. When I was a kid, my dad let me take care of a dog. I loved it and played with it. One day, we had to go on a trip and left it with a dog sitter. When we got back, we learned that the dog got run over because the sitter forgot to close the gate. I didn't trust people after that and tried to avoid them. If I had been there, I would've remembered to close the gate so my dog wouldn't get run over." Orion clenched his fists. Flux placed a paw on him, "Listen Orion. I understand. If it means that much to you, then I'll help." Orion smiled and stood up, "Then let's go."

The two of them continued running. They had just begun their search, but had no luck seeing any sign of the two baby cakes. Orion stopped to catch his breath, "Where...are...they?" A cake approached them, "Are you two okay? You seem troubled." Orion said, "It's fine. We'll deal with it." They continued running around, with several cakes asking what was wrong, but Orion kept refusing to tell them. The two of them stopped to search. Flux said, "Shouldn't we ask for help?" Orion shook his head, "If we ask for help, they might tell Lucille. We can handle this. We can't afford to trust anyone else."  Flux said, "But we haven't had any luck finding the baby cakes. Look cupcake. We need to ask for help." Orion said, "But they don't have a reason to care. They'll just get us in trouble." Flux said, "But they might be able to help. Even if you were hurt in the past because someone didn't care, doesn't mean that no one cares." Orion looked away, conflicted. He let out a sigh, "Fine. We'll ask for help." Flux smiled and turned. He was surprised to see that there were a few cakes behind them. One of the cakes asked, "What's goin' on here? You two been running around for the past ten minutes without telling anyone why." Orion sighed in resignation and turned to them, "Lucille asked us to watch her newborns in exchange for forgiving us. But when they woke up, we lost them, so we've been searching for them. Can you please help us?" The cakes were silent. One spoke up, "Well, of course we'll help." "Take care of newborns is super troubling." "I remember when little Lucille was young. She used to get around all the time." Orion smiled and they all separated to search for the babies. 

Orion looked around, "Lucille's gonna be back soon. And we still haven't found the babies." Flux said, "Calm down. It'll work out." Officer Copper appeared, "You two. I heard that you lost Lucille's babies!" The two of them jumped. Copper said, "I'm taking you in!" "Wait!" The three of them turned to see Lucille with her two babies at her side. Orion smiled, "You found them!" Lucille said, "More like they found me. Looks like they rushed to find me once they found out I was gone. Not surprised that you couldn't catch up to them. Us cakes are very fast." Orion rubbed the back of his neck, "Yeah. Sorry we couldn't keep a close enough eye on them." Lucille said, "Oh hush. I understand. And the others told me that you went to a lot of effort to find my precious babies. It's fine." Flux smiled, "So, we're good?" She said, "We're good." 

Orion and Flux waved bye at the cakes. The cakes started telling them to come back to visit if they had the chance. Orion opened the door and walked out. Flux said, "Well that went well." Orion said, "Yeah, guess it did." As he said that, his number glowed and changed. The number went down from 125 to 97. Flux said, "Looks like you're doing well. Let's get going." Orion nodded as they walked over the bridge to the next train car.