✅ The Baby Makers

36. Living on the Outside

There were train tracks on the ground. They were metal lines in the dirt, so small that you might walk over them without even noticing them. They went across the garden and then came back here, going out past the blue-and-orange tiles and into the sandpit. The other end was buried in a sand hill that was way too big for anybody to ever dig it up, but it was easy to see that somebody had already digging along the tracks.

There were spade marks in the sand; bits of shiny metal all dug up and bits with big piles of sand on top. And there, lying on its side in the sand, was a train. It was wooden, and it must have been the biggest toy that Stacie had ever seen. It had proper wheels, and a big engine that Stacie wouldn't have been able to reach around with both hands.

"Help me with the train!" Kyle asked, dancing from one foot to the other. He grabbed one of the wheels and tried to pull, so Stacie went round the other side and tried pulling there. She could see that there was sand everywhere, so the train must be getting buried. They would be like superheroes, saving everybody from getting lost in the desert. But even when they pulled, the train didn't start going. It just rocked from one side to the other, and it wasn't even going onto the tracks. And when Kyle let go, Stacie found herself rolling backwards, with the train almost running her down.

That was when Phil stepped in to help them. He knew exactly what he was doing. He was like the smartest grown-up ever, he even knew how to fix a broken train. He lifted up one side, and told Stacie when to push and when to stop on the other side. Before long, the train wasn't under any sand at all, and it was even the right way up, with the big round engine bit lying across the top like a tree trunk. It had a chimney on top too, she noticed. It must be a steam train, she thought, so that was where the steam came out when it was driving.

"Can you put it on the tracks?" Kyle directed them. "Trains go on tracks. That's what makes them not cars." Stacie nodded. She didn't know that much for sure, but it all sounded like something that would make sense. She was glad she had met Kyle now, because he knew a lot of fun things as well. They tried to put in on the tracks, but that was when Kyle needed to help more. He told them to go a bit closer, or back a bit, or up more, or take a step to the other left. It was super confusing, and Stacie was glad there was somebody so clever to tell her what to do. But eventually, he seemed to be happy.

The train was on the tracks now. The engine pointed off into the garden, and there was a little bit at the other end where there might be space for somebody to sit on it. It was really an amazing train, and Stacie wondered if she would be allowed to have one of her own when she was older.

"The wheels are magnetic," Phil said, filling up a little moment of time where neither of the little ones had anything to say. "They make it stay on the tracks once it's on. You can sit on the coal car, see? It's built on the back of the engine. And then you can push it along with your feet. The track goes all around the courtyard, so you can use the train to explore if you want."

"Wow!" Stacie could hardly believe that. She didn't know what magic wheels meant, but she was sure there must have been a wizard to make them. And if there was a wizard here, stacie wanted to meet him. She wanted to run off into the woods and find him, and then see if there were any special magic tricks he could do.

"Is he old?" she asked. And for once Phil sounded confused, like he hadn't been following what they were talking about.

"Who?" he asked. Stacie looked over at Kyle, and he seemed to be just as confused.

"The wizard, silly! Can we go see the wizard?"

"You can if you can find him," Phil answered with a chuckle. And then all that mattered was two little kids trying to sit on the same wooden locomotive, when it only had one seat. When they did that, it was very easy to make it tip over so they had to save it from the sandpit again and again. Stacie thought that was fun enough anyway. She would have been happy to keep playing train rescue for the rest of the week, but she really wanted to see the wizard now. So eventually she gave up and let Kyle sit down. He could go first, so if there was anything dangerous in the temple, he would find it first.

He put his feet down, and moved like he was walking along. But the train moved with him, and he was riding it towards the jungle. Suddenly Stacie was excited, and just a little bit scared. She didn't want Kyle to get bitten by a snake or a weasel or something, that might have been hiding in between all the trees. But she needed to know where the track went, so she rolled another carriage out of the side of a sand pile, and put that on the same track. Now she had a train too, she was sure she would be fast enough to catch up with Kyle before he got to the forest.

Phil watched the two toddlers speeding away, and smiled after them. He started to walk in the same direction, but he knew there was no danger here. They would call for him if they needed help, so there was no need to run around staying right next to them every minute. He could take his time, and watch them having fun on their own.