Wylder giggled. Addy shot him what she hoped was a fierce look, but he just shrugged.

“You have to admit, it’s kind of funny,” he said. “Look at their faces.”

Everyone in the train car was staring at Addy and Wylder. As if they were the ones standing next to a toilet. Uncle Vim had a way of doing that. Pretty much any time Addy was out in public with him, he said embarrassing stuff too loudly, not thinking about how it would sound to other people.

“Stay where you are!” called Addy. “Don’t turn the page! And please try to whisper! C’mon, Wylder. Backpack, remember? Jeans. Sheesh, let’s get Uncle Vim now, before he says anything else.”

But the aisle was blocked by dozens of new passengers. In the last ten seconds, it had become so crowded that Addy couldn’t budge. And not just the aisle. Two or three people sat in every seat, some right on top of each other.

“Ow!” yelped a scowling man. He snatched a boy’s arm. “Is that a slingshot, you scallywag?” The boy looked like Nevins, except that his hair was curly, and he was missing his front teeth. He wriggled away from the injured gentleman’s grasp while other passengers tsked.

“Excuse us,” said Addy. “We have to get through.”

She recognized most of the faces. Mr. Cicero, who ran the Italian market on Queen Street. The postman, who had one time stepped on Catnip. Emma’s mom, who drove Addy and Emma to soccer every week. All of them with exaggerated features and wearing steampunk-y clothes.

“Hey, there’s a robot made of car parts!” said Wylder. “And look at the one with drill bits for hands!”

Addy remembered sitting in this very carriage before Captain McGurk showed up to shoot his blunderbuss at Catnip. It had been quiet then. She and Wylder had sat together in an empty pair of plush-covered seats. What was going on here?

“Wow!” Wylder’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Addy followed his gaze and immediately poked him.

“Hey!” she said. “Don’t look at that!”

He was gaping at a woman whose face was similar to Isadora’s, only this one wore a skimpy bikini top that showed off too much curviness, above and below.

“I told Vim that was totally gross and sexist. I made him crumple up that drawing into a little ball.” Addy peered at the woman and saw that her skin was faintly creased. A cross-eyed version of Nevins squirted mustard on the lady’s butt, and Addy pretended not to see.

“Excuse us, please.” Addy wriggled her way between bodies, pulling on Wylder’s sleeve to make him stick close.

“There’s another one,” said Wylder. “Isadora dressed up as a doctor, see? White coat, surgical mask?”

“That’s why she could sew Snap’s hand onto Flynn,” said Addy. “Vim wanted her to have endless cool skills—like doctoring, alongside flying, and fighting humongous reptiles.”

“ADDY! AT LAST!”

“What?” said Addy.

“NO, WAIT! YOU’RE NOT ADDY! YOU ARE NONE OTHER THAN NELLY DAY! YOU HAD ME FOOLED IN TORONTO. GOSH, I’M GOOD.”

“Aunt Isadoraaaaa!” cried Nelly. “There’s a man in the water closet! Talking to me!”

“ON MY WAY, NELLY DAY! ADDY? REAL ADDY? I’M COMING TO FIND YOU!”

The washroom door opened. Addy craned her neck to see through the crowd. She could make out the ragged halo of Vim’s wild hair.

“Auntie, where are you?” Nelly sounded frantic. “Come save me!”

“This could be bad.” Wylder clenched the back of Addy’s vest.

“Yeah,” said Addy. “I do not want to witness Isadora beating the sludge out of Uncle Vim with her whip.”

“Or ten Isadoras,” said Wylder. “Plus a tiger.”

“He wasn’t trying to hurt you, Nelly,” Addy called out. “I promise!” She looked around at the bemused faces of the crowd. So many false starts and multiple tries.

“Oh!” she cried. “Lightbulb!”

“I don’t understand,” said Wylder. “Who are all these people?”

“ALL THESE PEOPLE,” said Uncle Vim, “ARE MY INVENTIONS!”

“Exactamundo,” said Addy. The answer had come to her in one whole piece. She tossed away being polite and began to shove, chattering at Wylder in breathy spurts. “Uncle Vim is an artist, right? So he draws a million different versions of every character.”

A doodling maniac, sketchbooks full of efforts. Every detail on every person and every page.

She pushed past a pair of arguing Nellys, one wearing a sun hat and the other with her arm in a sling.

“Huh,” said Wylder. “So when Vim came through the portal—”

“It was like his brain exploded all over the entire comic. Everything he ever drew for the Summer Special came along with him, inside his head. It’s all here at the same time.”

“Stop that rascal!” A lady with a cane spat like a mad cat.

A Nevins look-alike wearing strange purple kneepads and an eye patch swung from an overhead luggage rack with a pea-shooter between his lips, aiming tiny missiles this way and that.

Addy opened her bag and urged Catnip to run up her arm and onto her head. “Move!”

“Eep! A rat!” Alarmed passengers scrambled to get out of the way as Addy dragged Wylder after her.

“PART THE WATERS, GOOD PEOPLE. LET HER THROUGH!”

Uncle Vim’s voice cleared the few lingering characters as if he were a snowplow.

“Uncle Vim!” Addy threw herself at him, Catnip sliding down her hair. The crowd held its breath.

Vim went down on one knee and scooped Addy into his arms. Just for a second, the world disappeared, and she hung on to her uncle as tightly as ever a girl could.

“ADDY, ADDY, ADDY,” he murmured—if you could call it murmuring when it was more like the roar of a vacuum cleaner. She was crying, but so was he. They looked at each other and laughed through tears, then hugged all over again. Finally she let him go so she could catch a breath.

“HARRUMPH.” Vim made a noise into his sleeve. Addy suspected he was blowing his nose and tried not to be grossed out. She disentangled Catnip from her hair.

Vim leaned over to shake Wylder’s hand, face bright with wonder.

“ASTOUNDALICIOUS, MY BOY! YOUR REPORT WAS ENTIRELY ACCURATE! THIS PLACE IS REAL!”

“It’s great to see you, sir,” said Wylder. “Uncle Vim. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance yet to fix your comic. You know, to pick up the stuff we left behind. But we’ve been talking about it.”

Ha, thought Addy. If that’s what you call me insisting and you caving.

“MY BOY, THREE HEADS ARE BETTER THAN TWO. WE SHALL STRIVE TO DO IT TOGETHER!”

“Are you in deep sludge, Uncle Vim?” said Addy. “With FunnyBones?”

“THE VERY DEEPEST, ADDY-PIE.” Vim launched into his tale of woe, filling Addy in on every little detail. In a big, big voice. Magnus Snayle, the FunnyBones prez, was breathing down Vim’s neck like a bounty hunter.

He wanted those ten thousand comics, and he wanted them yesterday. But they needed Viminy Crowe’s signature to release them from the customs lockup at Union Station. Vim was supposed to have been there … jeez, how long ago? Magnus would be pacing and checking his phone every two minutes in case he’d missed a text message.

“Remind me,” Addy interrupted, “to tell you about the VaporLinks.”

“They’re real,” said Wylder gloomily.

“HOW LONG BEFORE MAGNUS SWEET-TALKS THE CUSTOMS FOLKS INTO LETTING HIM HAVE A LOOK?” said Uncle Vim.

How long before he discovered that the story had gone beyond quirky and inventive to the verge of lunacy? How long before Viminy Crowe received word that FunnyBones was withdrawing its investment and never, ever wanted to see him again?

“I DON’T KNOW,” Uncle Vim went on. “BUT, YEAH, I’D SAY I’M KNEE-DEEP IN SLUDGE.”

“If you want to get home right now and see that Magnus guy—” Wylder began.

“No,” said Addy. “We have to get our stuff out of the story first. Your backpack and my jeans?”

“AND—”

“And what, Uncle Vim?”

“THINGS WENT WRONG LONG BEFORE THE BACKPACK GOT LOST,” said Vim. “I NOTICED SOMETHING CRUCIAL WHILE I SEARCHED THE PAGES FOR YOU.”

Catnip leapt from Addy’s head to Uncle Vim’s shoulder.

“HELLO, LITTLE FELLA! BIG DAY FOR A RODENT, EH? HOLY CANNOLI! WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN EATING?”

“He has kind of grown,” said Addy. “He had a couple of sips of Lickpenny’s catalyzer. But what was that you were saying about—”

“INTERESTING! THE LAB IS EXACTLY WHERE WE HAVE TO STOP ON OUR WAY TO FLORIDA.”

Uncle Vim waved his comic book. A hearty breeze lifted the hair right off Addy’s neck.

“What for?” she said.

He ran his thumb over the edges of the comic, making a noise like shuffling cards.

“Hey!” shrieked Wylder.

“Stop!” said Addy.

Vim thwipping pages was like an ocean wave slamming into you, knocking you over and holding you under, with swirling grit and seaweed and the dreadful feeling that you might not come up again.