Wow! You came second!’ Pip thought it was amazing that, out of all the people competing – and the dozens who didn’t make it through to the final rounds played out on TV – Frankie had so nearly taken the prize. ‘That’s amazing. There are lots and lots of people who go on that show. Matilda told me. She reads a magazine that tells you what happens behind the scenes.’
Frankie glared at her. ‘You don’t get it, do you? I lost.’
‘No you didn’t, you nearly won!’
‘But I didn’t win.’
‘But you must have been really good to come second.’
Slumped in her seat, Frankie looked away. ‘Just shut up. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.’
Pip was bewildered. Why would Frankie be so angry about an amazing achievement? And what had brought her from second spot in a wildly popular reality TV contest to stealing deluxe beach burgers?
‘Well, I’d like to hear you sing sometime.’
Frankie hunched her shoulders and kept her face turned to the window. Pip sighed and helped Houdini to take a drink from her water bottle. She was wiping the lip, about to offer Frankie a drink, when they both heard the voice from the next carriage.
‘Tickets, please!’
Pip bolted to her feet and caught a glimpse of the ticket collector in the next carriage. ‘Rats!’ She dived under the seat to haul out a protesting Houdini.
‘What do we do now?’ Frankie whispered.
‘Don’t you know? I thought you were too clever to get caught!’
‘We’re on a moving train, if you haven’t noticed.’ Frankie grabbed her guitar.
The ticket inspector was getting closer. Pip made a decision. ‘This way. Hurry!’ With Houdini’s lead wrapped around her wrist, she led Frankie through the train away from him.
‘There are only two more carriages to go,’ Frankie panted, nearly knocking out a man with her guitar as she struggled to squeeze past a group standing in the corridor.
‘Just keep moving.’ Pip ploughed through but not too fast, not wanting to look suspicious. Eventually, they could go no further because the corridor was blocked with people getting luggage down from the racks.
‘Oh no!’ Frankie seemed on the verge of panic. ‘Do something, Pip!’
Pip looked out the window. ‘The train’s slowing down. Maybe it’ll stop before he reaches us and we can get off.’ Although people were always leaping from moving trains in the movies, she reckoned it was one of those things you shouldn’t try in real life.
The approach to the station seemed to take forever, and the ticket inspector determined to get to every last person before they had a chance to get out. Fortunately, he was slowed down by a few people who couldn’t find their tickets or who had the wrong ones, but just as they pulled to a stop, he entered their carriage.
‘We’re stuffed,’ Frankie groaned under her breath. From the scowl deepening her face, it looked as though she was preparing to argue her way out of strife. Meanwhile, the ticket inspector looked as though he’d heard every excuse on earth and off it a million times or more.
‘We’ll just have to make the best of it,’ Pip said, hoping he would understand if they explained they hadn’t had time to buy tickets and offered to pay now.
‘Tickets, girls!’ he called out.
‘Um, you see—’ Pip began.
‘What’s that?’ he interrupted, pointing at Houdini, who had stuck his nose out between Pip and Frankie’s legs.
‘It’s my dog,’ Pip explained. Oh no! Now she was going to be in trouble for taking a dog on board as well as having no ticket.
‘No dogs on trains, except assistance dogs. Is that an assistance dog?’
All heads turned their way and Pip’s ears turned bright red. ‘No, but—’
‘No ifs, no buts. I’m going to have to make a report.’
People crowded around them, keen to get off. Pip glanced desperately outside. She couldn’t see any way of escaping the trouble she was in, which would surely only worsen once the ticket man asked for her name.
‘Settle down, folks. I just need to take this young lady’s details and then you can all be on your way and the train will get moving again.’ He looked at Pip. ‘What’s your name, love?’
There was nothing for it – Pip was going to have to lie, or else she was done for.
‘It’s…it’s—’
An explosive noise ripped through the clamour of passengers gathering up bags, boxes, babies, and, in one case, trying to corral an umbrella that refused to stay closed. Everyone went quiet as the carriage filled with the stink of one of Houdini’s finest farts. Then…
‘Eurrgghh! What a pong!’
‘That’s disgusting! Who did that?’
‘Lemme out of here! I can’t breathe!’
Ignoring the ticket inspector’s pleas, the crowd of travellers who had been waiting mostly patiently to get off decided they could wait no longer amid the suffocating pong. They surged towards the door, carrying Pip, Houdini and Frankie with them out of the train and across the platform towards the exit.
Pip turned back briefly to see the ticket inspector leaning out of the train, calling, ‘Stop! Wait!’ But it was far too late and he could barely be heard above the hubbub of passengers getting off the train and the new arrivals getting on.
‘This way!’ Frankie grabbed her arm and they skidded towards a side exit.
Pip glanced over her shoulder, and saw the ticket inspector close the door and the train slowly rumble forward on its journey.
They ran out into the street, not stopping until they had turned the corner into relative safety.
Frankie had a huge, cocky grin on her face as though everything had worked out exactly as she’d thought it would. ‘Told you, didn’t I?’ she said. ‘Stick with me, kid, and you’ll never get caught.’
Her heart hammering as fast as a train at top speed, Pip could only shake her head in disbelief.
‘So, what next?’ Frankie said, as though she expected Pip to have a plan of action ready for any occasion.
‘Let’s keep walking.’ Pip wanted to get far away from the station. ‘Do you know where we are?’
‘Nup, never been here before.’
They walked briskly along the shopping strip, putting as much distance as they could between them and the station. It was late in the afternoon, and only a few people were around. A couple gave them curious glances and Pip supposed they must make an odd-looking trio – Frankie in her big hairy coat, mop-headed Pip and Houdini, the world’s goofiest-looking dog.
‘Let’s turn up here.’ Pip pointed to a quiet residential street, keen to get away from prying eyes.
‘Saved by a fart! Hilarious!’ Frankie’s grin had returned. ‘Clever Houdini!’ She gave him a pat.
Pip didn’t think there was anything clever about farting. Nevertheless, Houdini seemed to have more lives than the proverbial cat, and after this latest episode there was no doubt that her dog was the rightful namesake to the great escape artist, Harry Houdini.
‘We’ll have to stay here tonight.’ Pip didn’t want to risk returning to the station in case the ticket inspector had reported her.
‘Stay where?’ Frankie sneered.
‘Do you have a better plan?’ Pip thought that Frankie might be good at talking bulldust (as Sully would have said) and losing her cool when things went belly-up, but she wasn’t quite so great at making decisions.
Frankie just shrugged.
‘Where do you usually stay?’
‘Pubs or motels usually.’ Frankie didn’t make eye contact and Pip figured the beach café probably wasn’t the first place she’d skipped out of without paying.
‘I don’t think we’ll be staying anywhere that comfortable tonight.’
‘Then where?’
Pip had been thinking hard as they walked about just that, and she thought she had an answer. After last night’s little misadventure in the van, vehicles were out. Breaking into an empty house didn’t seem to be an option either, with lights on in all the homes they passed.
‘Here.’ She stopped. Houdini sat on her foot and looked up in surprise.
‘On a sports oval?’ Frankie looked even less impressed. ‘Don’t think we’re exactly prepared for camping.’
Pip pointed across the small three-tiered stand for spectators.
‘It has a roof in case it rains and benches to lie down on. And I don’t think anyone will want to play sport at night.’
‘We’ve got a guard dog, in any case,’ Frankie said as they walked across the sports field. When they got to the stand, she walked up to the top level and sprawled out on the bench, closing her eyes. ‘Don’t suppose you’ve got anything to eat?’
Pip sank down a short distance away and fished out the cookie. She broke it in half and gave Frankie one half. When she looked at Houdini, his eyes were fixed pleadingly on the cookie. She sighed and gave it to him. He wolfed it in one gulp. That was the last of the food.
Making a pillow of her backpack, she lay down. The stars were starting to come out. Houdini jumped up beside her and laid his head on her belly. She stroked him as she thought about all that had happened in the last two days and the journey still to come.
Pip had thought that Frankie was already asleep because she had been silent so long, but just as Pip’s eyes were beginning to close, Frankie’s voice drifted over to where she lay.
‘Where were you last Christmas?’
‘Living with my friend Sully in Spring Hill.’ Pip thought about her nine-year-old self without a clue that within a year Sully would be dead, that she’d have to go on the run to elude the welfare and that she would end up on a quest to find her long-lost mother.
‘This time last year I was famous,’ Frankie said, wistfully. ‘Now…I don’t know where I am.’