CHAPTER ONE
Riding the Train
Marvin and Elaine cannot believe how lucky they are. They are going on a trip with James! James’s father, Karl, and his wife, Christina, have a house in the country, and James is going to see it for the first time. He will have a sleepover.
So many new things at once! It’s very exciting.
Yesterday, James asked Marvin, “Do you want to come? Would you like to bring your friend?” Of course Marvin did want to go, and of course his cousin, Elaine, wanted to go too. To their great surprise, Mama, Papa, Uncle Albert, and Aunt Edith said yes.
Nobody in Marvin’s family has ever been to the country. They’ve lived in the city all their lives. But they have heard wonderful stories about the country from other beetles, like the ladybugs that sometimes visit the Pompadays’ apartment. The country has fields of grass and corn and strawberries. There is so much to see, and do, and eat. Marvin and Elaine can hardly wait.
So today, here they are, hurrying through the train station with Mrs. Pompaday. Marvin and Elaine are in James’s shirt pocket, peeking out.
“Marvin, this place is huge!” Elaine cries. “I have never been anywhere this big in my entire life. And there are so many people.” She grabs one of Marvin’s legs. “Be careful you don’t fall out or you will be smashed flat as a pancake.”
“I won’t,” Marvin says, annoyed. Elaine always thinks about bad things that can happen, especially bad things that can happen to Marvin.
Mrs. Pompaday stops suddenly. “James, here’s your train,” she says, pointing to a sign.
They go through a tall, dark doorway, and straight ahead of them is the train. It is long and silver.
“Let’s find you a good seat,” Mrs.
Pompaday says. “You must be very
careful, James. Don’t talk to strangers. Just sit and look out the window, and when the conductor comes, give him this.” She holds out a little piece of paper. “This is your ticket. Don’t lose it! Let’s put it in your shirt pocket.”
Wait, what?! Marvin and Elaine duck down. What if Mrs. Pompaday sees them?
“That’s okay, Mom,” James says quickly. He grabs the ticket just as Mrs. Pompaday is tucking it in his pocket, poking Marvin and Elaine. “I’ll put it in my pants pocket.”
Phew!
Marvin and Elaine are too afraid to climb back to the top of the shirt pocket, so they can only hear bits of what Mrs. Pompaday is saying. She is talking a lot. They hear her say, “Hold on to your ticket … Karl and Christina will be waiting for you … It’s the eighth stop.”
Finally, they see James’s eyes, big above them. “Are you okay, little guy?” he whispers. “Is your friend okay?”
Marvin and Elaine crawl to the top of the pocket.
“That was close!” James says. He smiles. “Look, I’m on the train. All by myself. Well, except for you guys.”
Marvin looks around. James is sitting by the window, with his backpack next to him, and now the train is starting to move. It bumps and rumbles through the darkness.
“Why is it so dark outside?” Elaine asks.
“We must be underground,” Marvin says. “In a tunnel below the city.” Beetles know all about tunnels. They make tunnels inside walls and beneath floors.
“Do you think it will be like this all the way to the country?” Elaine asks. She sounds disappointed.
Marvin hopes not … even though beetles can see well at night, much better than humans. In the tunnel, he notices pipes and cables along the train tracks.
“Look! There’s a rat,” Elaine cries. And Marvin sees it too, a big rat sniffing some garbage on a nearby track.
Elaine shivers. “Oh Marvin, thank goodness we’re inside this train. Remember Aunt Lulu?”
How could Marvin forget poor Aunt Lulu, who was collecting crumbs under the Pompadays’ kitchen table one night when she was surprised by a mouse.
“Isn’t it strange to think that we could be FOOD?” Elaine says. “Why, a rat could probably eat a whole family of beetles! I wonder what we taste like.”
“Stop, Elaine,” Marvin says. He is not enjoying this talk one bit. He is very glad when there’s a burst of sunlight and the train roars outside.
Marvin sees sky and streets and tall buildings.
James sits up to look out the window. “Wow, cool!” he says.
And then something bad happens. As James kneels on the seat, the ticket in his pants pocket falls out!
It drops into the tiny space between the seat and the wall of the train, out of sight.
James does not notice. He is busy looking out the window.
“James lost his ticket!” Marvin tells Elaine. “It fell down there.”
“Oh no!” Elaine says. “What if they make him get off the train?”
That would be terrible. They are still in the city, but far from home.
“Then we won’t get to see the country,” Elaine says sadly. Marvin thinks that is the least of their problems.
“Maybe I can get it,” he tells her.
“Do you think you can? Be careful, Marvin. There’s not much room for you. What if you get stuck?”
“I won’t get stuck,” Marvin says.
“You might. And what if you’re trapped there, riding this train forever?”
Marvin crawls out of the pocket and down James’s shirt.
“Well,” Elaine calls to him, “don’t worry. If something happens to you, I will be friends with James.”
Marvin ignores her. He leaps onto the seat and slips into the tiny space between the seat and the wall.
Where’s the ticket?
At first he doesn’t see it. It is so thin …
Did it fall all the way to the floor?
No. There it is, pressed against the wall.
Marvin crawls to it and grabs it with his front legs.
He tugs.
He can move it, but it is heavier than he thought. The paper slips out of his grasp. He tries to drag it up to the seat cushion.
“I can’t see you,” Elaine calls. “Are you stuck?”
“No,” Marvin says. “I’ve got the ticket, but I can’t pull it up.”
“Well, you’d better hurry,” Elaine says. “I see a man coming and he’s taking everyone’s tickets.”
Marvin hears a loud voice. “Tickets! Have your tickets ready, please.”
And then James says, “Uh–oh. Where’s my ticket?”
Marvin doesn’t know what to do.
He tugs and tugs, but the ticket is stuck.
Then he has an idea. If he can’t pull the ticket, maybe he can push it down to the floor.
With all his strength, Marvin pushes the ticket. It slides out and falls to the floor.
Marvin quickly crawls back up to the seat cushion. James is turning around in his seat, looking everywhere. For a minute, Marvin is afraid James might kneel on him by accident.
But then James sees Marvin.
“Little guy, what are you doing down there?” He picks Marvin up. “I lost my ticket! I must have dropped it.”
Marvin races to the end of James’s finger and dangles off the tip, waving his front legs at the floor.
“There it is!” James says with a rush of relief. “You found it.”
The man taking tickets is standing next to James’s seat. “Ticket, please,” he says.
James quickly puts Marvin back in his shirt pocket.
“Here it is,” he says, picking the ticket up off the floor.
The man takes the ticket and does something that makes a clicking noise. Then he gives it back to James.
“Look, he made a little hole in it,” Elaine says.
“Be careful with your ticket,” the man says. “You’ll need it for the ride back.”
“Okay,” James says. When the man leaves, James whispers to Marvin, “Thanks, little guy. You were a big help.”
It makes Marvin happy to help James. That’s what friends are for. And Marvin has learned that even someone small can be a big help. In fact, being small can sometimes be the best way to help someone big.
“It’s a good thing we found that ticket,” Elaine says. “What would James have done without us?”
Marvin sighs. He settles into the pocket with Elaine as the train rumbles toward the country.
Text copyright © 2020 by Elise Broach
