Gilda reclined comfortably in the plush cushion, letting herself bake in the sultry sun pouring through the panes and melting it’s warmth over everyone in the cabinet, lulling the atmosphere into dreary relaxation, and Letting Simeon lightly caress her arm. Rubbing his hand back and forth over it in a warming motion from where he was seated on the floor next to the seat she lay on, he hummed her to sleep with a memory of a tune composed by Chopin. Gilda smiled at him as she stared into his eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever eaten such good food,” she mumbled, remembering the perfectly gooey-cheesed, tender macaroni, the salty peanut butter, sweet strawberry jelly, and fluffy white bread, and the chocolate milk that could compare to the tasty nesquik she drank back home. She looked over at Hilda, and noticed that she was asleep in Philemon arms, a dreamy smile pasted to her crimson lips. Ruby was curled up like a cat in the corner of the room, and once in a while her nose would twitch and she’d swat away some fleck of dust and mumble something incomprehensible. Lisa and the other boy, who said earlier during their feastings that his name was Frederick, were snuggled in the other corner. She lay next to him with her arm limply draped over him, and he next to her with his hands folded beneath his head.
As if wanting to disturb the peaceful adolescents, a speaker cracked and popped over their heads and began to wheeze out a scratchy Announcement: “Will all the first Graders of Bleethwoods High School Academy for Female Witches and Highly Excelled Warlocks please report to the main lobby of the central caboose. Will all the first graders of Bleethwoods High School Academy for Female Witches and Highly Excelled Warlocks please report to the main lobby of the central caboose? Thank you.” There was a click as the speaker hung up, signaling the end of the announcement. Stretching like a cat, Lisa reluctantly arose, and was followed sleepily by Frederick. She floated halfway to the door, but then looked back at Philemon as if to say, “Aren’t you coming?” Philemon looked reluctantly from the beautiful woman he had just spent an hour with and was secretly attracted to, this Hilda lady, to the woman he had followed like a sick puppy for years, Lisa, who was far more attractive but promised what she couldn’t offer, and halfheartedly he arose from his spot cuddled next to his heart throbbing beauty and took Lisa’s arm.
“Oh Philemon dear don’t you want to escort Hilda? You two are a pretty pair and she has no one to escort her.” Lisa said. Philemon beamed at Lisa and quickly rushed to Hilda’s side to help her off the couch before she could even move. “Well, uh, thank you,” Hilda said, flushed from the attention. And with that, the three pairs as well as a very grumpy Ruby left the cabin. Very grumpy. So grumpy in fact that that instead of just following along like a normal and descent human being, she decided to grumble unintelligible and snappy remarks that were only slightly comprehensible, and Gilda winced strained her ears to listen to her friends opinion: “No one to escort ME, no, no they would never dream of letting me have someone that actually cares about me enough to lead my by the arm to my destination. They came perform amazing spells I have seen them at it and yet they cannot be bothered even to call for me an escort. No, no that would just be too much for them to handle.”
Gilda frowned in awkward discomfort at the biting words, but kept this over-heard opinion to herself. When they reached the end of the car, they discovered that there was no conjoining hall between the two train cars. There was only a thin rod of metal held between them by complicated hook and loop conjunctions. “It looks like we will have to walk across that little metal rod there,” Lisa said calmly, peering through the scummy window at the rod that was suspended a few feet above the racing earth. “I’m not walking across that,” Hilda said. “Well then you won’t get to the main hall of the central caboose,” Ruby said informatively with her nose high in the air as with a wave of her hand she pushed Lisa away from the window so she could inspect the outside world for herself. “Well then, we might as well get it over with.”
