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* -- denotes soonish.
But it was true. A chill went through the air.
Try as she might to deny it, there it was, plain as day, or evening, rather. Slipping the sunglasses off cleared things up, not so much. Without them: one sun setting. With them back on, two. There was a queer experience of looking at one of those old toys where you peek inside and there are pictures of landscapes and far-away things. Only in this instance, everything else was the same, except the sunset. Everything else was the same, wasn't it? Now she wasn't so sure.
"Whatever kind of sunglasses these are, I'm not sure I should be wearing them," Pickle issued aloud. "They belong in a zoo or a museum." However, try as she might, she couldn't put them away and get back to running away. Already she was messing this whole business up! But it wasn't her fault. That crazy Mr Peckins was mostly to blame. Pulling all those things out of his pockets. And spilling everything everywhere. And being in such a rush! Honestly. Try as she may, try as she might, Pickle couldn't help from looking at each night: the one with the one and the two with the two. That's when she noticed the third.
"Oh my, there's another train track, connected to this one in such an unusual way. This is another thing that cannot be. For train tracks don't connect in T's. ... Do they?"
With the glasses off, there was just a dirt trail, leading off in the opposite direction of where Mr Peckins went galloping off to. But with them on, well, it was definitely a train track, and it definitely connected to the one Pickle had been walking on, and it definitely connected in a hard, straight T. "Perhaps I'll see where this track leads," Pickle thought. It couldn't be any worse than where she had been going, considering that she hadn't been going anywhere. Just somewhere. Somewhere was somewhere, wherever you went. So off she trotted down the strange train track, keeping the sunglasses on so that she could follow it.
* * *
Let's leave Pickle there for a while, shall we? She still has some trekking to do before she arrives at the Teapot Depot, where she'll meet her new friend Grrr. At least, she hopes he's her friend. Because he's four times the size of her, and when he laughs, things often fall out of trees. So where will we go, if not down the new train track? We'll track back, down the track, to an old house that sits just beside it. A young boy is sitting inside the house that is sitting beside the train track. There was no stew sitting inside of the boy, but the boy was stewing over his recent misadventure.
Onion sat stewing. Boy, he was mad. Heckuva a lotta mad. Darned mad. Tootin' mad. Grown ups could be so ... so ... childish!
"Grown ups have a lot of growing up to do!" he declared out loud. Of course there was no one around to hear him. His parents were downstairs. The faint sound of the tele's laugh track bounced up the stairs to his room, where he sat, looking forlornly out the front window. His bike was still lying in the front yard, where it had been dumped by Pickle's mom. He was in trouble, and Pickle was in trouble. Everyone was in trouble. The trouble with being in trouble was that once you were in it, it was impossible to get out. Which just didn't make any sense. Adults messed up all the time. But they went to "court" or "apologized for their actions" or whatever the newspapers said. And they "fixed" their problems. But not kids. If you were a kid and you did something and an adult thought it was wrong, well, kablooie, you were sacked for sure. No more fun for a long time. Forever, probably. That's the way with adults. Always overdoing it.
As Onion sat, his anger started to flow away, like it always does. He tried to goad himself into getting madder, but it just wouldn't work. He couldn't ever stay mad. He would try, and try, and sometimes if he really cared about something enough, he could stay mad for, maybe, a day. But then it was gone. Pickle had done some silly things during their friendship, like the time she pushed him out of Elmer. They had been climbing around the branches and it was getting dark and she said that it was an accident, but that didn't help Onion's arm heal any faster. It was a "lucky break," the doctor said, trying to be funny. Doctor's have a funny way of not being funny. Onion didn't like funny doctors. Doctors needed to be serious.
So finally all his anger had leaked away like a spilled glass of orange juice, and now all he could do was sit in his room at his desk and stare outside. His dad's station wagon was parked in the driveway, and the neighbor's cat was curled up on the engine hood. Onion sighed. For such a young boy, he was "awful prone to sighin'," his dad liked to say. Yes, his dad was strange. Onion was just starting to calm down enough to go try to talk to his parents, again, when something odd caught his eye.
What caught Onion's eye just now was a strange thing outside the window. There was a squirrel, and it appeared to be hunting for nuts, and in doing so, it had unwittingly come right up next to the car. Now the neighbor's cat, Cleo, had appeared to be sleeping, but Onion was pretty sure that he saw Cleo's ears perk up when the squirrel came near. Now, Onion couldn't say why, but this bugged him. Something about the cat's sneaky mannerism made Onion want to shout, to warn the squirrel about the cat on the car. Cats were just awful to squirrels. Onion recalled one time when his aunt was visiting, and their old cat Spidey, apparently trying to show off because Aunt Edna was such a nut for the cat, had caught and killed a squirrel and left it on their back porch. Aunt Edna was just tickled about it, and mentioned it over breakfast, trying in some way to praise the cat. Dad was apologizing about it, but Aunt Edna replied back, "Oh no, I think it's marvelous. What a great pet! Did you see, that little Spidey-widey had started to eat it? It's true! Half of the squirrel's head is gone! Just fascinating!" Onion's stomach had turned at the thought of it, but before he could excuse himself from the table, his Aunt had gone on, "You know what they say. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo." Onion shuddered thinking back. His Aunt Edna was not your normal aunt, that's for sure. Looking out, he saw the squirrel picking up nuts and chewing happily on them. Cleo's tail had begun twitching every so slightly, and Onion knew it was just a matter of time before she pounced. Onion decided to do something about it. He decided he would give Cleo a piece of her own medicine.
He quickly raced down the stairs and into the garage. There was a door leading out of the garage on the side, and he ran over to it, then slowly pulled it open. It didn't squeak because Onion's dad was a door-nut. That is, his dad was always going around asking people if their doors squeaked. When they said yes, he showed them how to fix it. He had a spare set of tools in his station wagon just in case there was a door that needed fixing when they went out. So, quietly, silently, Onion crept around the garage to the front of the house. There was the car, and Cleo was still on it. But now Cleo had its back to Onion, and was standing up. Looking ready to pounce any second. Onion jumped into the air himself.
"HAI YAI YOO LOO DOO DEE DAY HEY WHOO HEE HAW YEE HA DOO!" Onion screamed as he landed right beside the car. Cleo did a strange thing: she jumped sideways and backwards, so frightened of Onion as she was. Only, she forgot she was on a car, and she fell farther than she expected. She landed on her rump, and then bolted back across the yard to her owner's home. The squirrel, meanwhile, had safely retreated up a tree.
"I guess they don't always land on their feet," Onion said. He was grinning, proud of his accomplishment. The smile lasted for about five seconds. After the fifth second had elapsed, Onion noticed crotchety old Mrs McDurly staring at him, holding a very frightened and very disturbed Cleo in her arms. "Uh-oh," Onion said.
"Young man, come over here this instant!" Mrs McDurly shouted at him. Onion slowly slunk across the yard. Somehow this day kept getting worse and worse. He wondered what was next. Getting hit by lightning?
When he got to Mrs McDurly, Cleo gave a hiss and darted out of her arms and into her house. Mrs McDurly frowned, then said, "Just what do you think you were up to, scaring my Cleo like that? Well, explain yourself young man!"
Onion started to say that he was just trying to defend a squirrel, but once he thought about, it sounded silly, and instead he just shrugged his shoulders.
"Don't just shrug your shoulders like that. Soon you'll be all shoulder and no neck. For crying out loud. What has gotten into you kids today? Just an hour ago, I saw your young ruffian friend, that little tomboy girl, walking all by herself down the railroad track. Good heavens. You'd think your parents would have taught you two better. Cats aren't made to be scaring. Railroad tracks aren't..."
But Onion interrupted her, saying, "What did you say you saw? You saw Pickle on the railroad tracks?"
"Mind your manners and don't interrupt, young man. I don't know that little brat's name. But sure as day, I saw her kicking rocks and walking down the tracks."
"Which way was she walking, er, ma'am?" A sudden deep concern had arisen in Onion's stomach. What was Pickle doing out so soon? And walking anywhere? This couldn't be good.
Mrs McDurly nodded when Onion said "ma'am" and continued, "That's better. Now, if I recall, she was walking thataway, east. Seems a little late for kids to be wandering around unsupervised, don't you think? Hmm? Up to no good, no doubt. And you," she started, but Onion was already turning and heading back to his house.
"Sorry Mrs McDurly, I can hear my dad calling. I won't scare your cat again, I promise. I have to go." And Onion rushed off inside.
"Always speeding up just to slow down," Mrs McDurly mumbled to herself as she wiggled back inside. "Where's Cleo, where's my little baby?"
Onion acted like he was going inside, but the first thing he did was run around to the back, where the tracks were, and he ran out to them. He looked east, then west, then east again, but there was no sign of Pickle. Perhaps it wasn't even Pickle that old Mrs McDurly was talking about. But somehow he thought it was. He knew it was. He had that tingling feeling in the back of his head. Every so often, he would get the tingling, and he would know things. Not know them know them, but he would get a feeling, and he would know what to do. It had happened when Pickle pushed him out of the tree. He forgot about that. He had that feeling, and he somehow knew she was going to push him. But he let her push him anyway. Later, all he had thought about was how much his arm hurt. But now he remembered. That feeling. It meant something. He had to do something. He had to go after her. She probably wasn't that far ahead. Torn between taking off in a sprint, and going back inside to get some things, Onion stood motionless for several seconds. That's when he noticed something white dangling on his swing. Well, Pickle's swing really. It was the shorter one, and she always insisted on swinging on it. He got the taller one, the one his dad used when he swung. There on the swing was a little piece of paper, attached by being threaded through the chain links. Onion took the paper out, and left it folded in his hand. He didn't have to open it, though. He let it drop. Then he began running.
He was going after Pickle, and he was going to find her.
The note, by the way, said, "Good-bye, Onion. I'll miss you. --P."