Part 8
The boys move away from the pile. Edging back to the sidewalks and into the yards. Soon the pile is roaring.
A rumbling stats, you can feel the ground shaking. The night train is coming. The one that comes by every night when I’m in bed, in the attic room I share with big brother.
I should be in bed now. I’m always awake in bed when the train is coming and lulled to sleep by the rum-drumb-rumblings before the train finishes passing by.
But not tonight. Not on this strange, puzzling sort of magical night.
Sparks and embers float up into the night to mingle with moths and bats and stars. The train sounds its whistle, a long, slowly loudening, mournful kind of sound that makes me twist inside.
*ARRROOOONGGHHH, AAAHARRROOOONGHHH*
You can hear the wheels, with your whole body, not just your ears.
*CCCHHHHHHNNGGH-CCHHNNG-CCHHNNG-CHNG*
Everyone is quiet as they watch the steadying down of the fire and listen to the echoing of the train horn. It’s the kind of sound that you keep hearing in your head and your chest for a time even after its over.
A boy with a lopsided grin breaks the silence,
“Hey, Mary. How about a story!”
The request is taken up by others. Big boys and big girls alike.
“Yes, a story Mary McGreggor before the fire dies out!”
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