It steamed up and began to leave the station with a quiet chug-chug.
Sophronia took aim and shot her grappling hook.
Felix leaned over the side and took a swing with an improvised lasso. He missed whatever protrusion he was aiming for.
Sidheag tutted at him and took the lasso away to give it a try. Being a gentleman, he let her, although he was clearly not pleased with ceding a sporting endeavor to a female. Sidheag, however, managed to loop the lasso over a finial-looking thing on the last passenger carriage on her first try.
Sophronia’s hurlie scraped along the top of the same passenger carriage and then hooked into the front top lip of the last coach. Now they had purchase on two points of the same carriage.
The train picked up speed out of the station and both ropes jerked. Sophronia, for added security, unstrapped her hurlie and fastened it to the railing of the gondola. She trusted Vieve to have built the hurlie to hold her weight, not necessarily to haul an airdinghy full of people.
The airdinghy leaned dangerously as it was suddenly being dragged along by a moving train. Luckily, the locomotive wasn’t moving fast. Nevertheless, an airship had not yet been built to be dragged along by something big on the ground.
“Soap,” yelled Sophronia into the wind, “we need to take her down, land her on top of the train.”
“Oh, miss, that’s not your best idea.”
“We can do it.”
“You, my dear, are overly optimistic!” said Felix, agreeing with Soap for once.
The gondola leaned all the way to one side. Dimity shrieked and almost tumbled over the edge. Sidheag grabbed on to her and the railing at the same time. Soap braced himself against the tiller, and then realized there was no point—the sail was now useless.
The train slowed. The airdinghy partly righted itself.
Soap pulled in the sail.
Sophronia said, “Everyone take a corner of the basket and let out the helium, slowly now, not too fast.”
“Oh god oh god oh god,” murmured Dimity, who up until that moment Sophronia would never have categorized as particularly religious. “This is bad.”
Sidheag agreed. “Cut us loose, Sophronia, you’re hurting the poor train. There’ll be another one along soon.”
But Sophronia knew they could do it. Plus, she was wildly curious about that strange-looking train. “Brace for it, and hold tight!”
Sidheag took one corner, Dimity another, Felix the third, Sophronia the fourth, with Soap holding the center and manning the controls.
Each of the four balloons had various dangling cords, but one cord in particular, lined with small red flags, was connected to the helium release flap at the base.
Sophronia nodded and they all tugged on their red flags at once.
The airdinghy jolted and sank like a stone.
“Whoa, stop, too much!” yelled Soap.
The train below them picked up speed and the gondola tilted in response.
Only Soap managed to hang on, possibly because he was the strongest among them. Everyone else cried and fell. Sidheag landed with her feet near Dimity’s head. Sophronia landed on Felix. The picnic hampers landed one on Sidheag’s foot and the other on Soap. Soap caught it by the handle and lashed it down to the base of the tiller with a few quick loops of spare rope. Sidheag grunted in pain but seemed no more than bruised.
“Well, Ria, this is nice,” said Felix.
Sophronia was plastered against him. She struggled to roll away. He put one skinny arm about her, keeping her close.
It was a bit too good feeling. Sophronia had a brief hysterical thought that perhaps Felix was like figgy pudding. Rich and delicious but best sampled in moderation. A seasonal treat. He smelled amazing.
Sophronia righted herself and shrugged Felix off. “Ready, everyone, let’s try again. Little more gradual this time.”
Soap was tall enough to lean over and pull down on one release cord and then another. Sophronia rolled to one side and Dimity to the other, pulling on those flags. The basket sank some more. Felix and Sidheag began to ratchet in the mooring ropes. No easy task against the pull of the train, but they did their best.
It was working. By careful degrees they sank down, taking care to go toward the train before sinking further; otherwise they might be dragged directly behind and fall to the tracks. The mooring ropes had winches attached to the top. Sidheag and Felix strained against the levers.
Then, with a clunk, the gondola landed on the top of the rear passenger carriage. The basket was still on its side, which made for an awkward crash. The last of the helium escaped the balloons, and the balloons collapsed half on top of the train, half onto the basket and everyone’s heads. Quickly as they could, the five stowaways untangled themselves and climbed out. Sophronia knew they had made too much of a racket on the roof, but no one seemed interested in checking the source.
Everyone was bruised and shaken, but otherwise unharmed. Dimity was white faced but still functioning. After all, there had been no blood. Sidheag was looking, if anything, buoyed by the experience. Soap was stoic and calm. Felix was grinning.
“Jolly good,” he said, sounding a bit too much like a toff out on the town.
Sophronia gave him a quelling look and tried not to think about being pressed against him.
After a brief discussion, they decided to leave the airdinghy where it was. Its usefulness was weighed as superior to the fact that its discovery would alert others to their presence.
“Here’s hoping we don’t go through any tunnels” was Sophronia’s opinion.
They extracted their supplies. Mercifully, the picnic hampers had stayed latched during the landing, although Sophronia couldn’t vouch for the condition of the contents. The hard-boiled eggs had probably coddled in shock. They had to collect the clothing, scattered about, and stuff it back into the sack.
Sophronia’s heart was in her mouth. “Oh, no, where’s Bumbersnoot!”
She began frantically rustling through the collapsed balloons, her world in crisis. Had he fallen out? Was he lying damaged and alone in the middle of the moor?
Soap produced him from within the second picnic basket. “Stashed him there for safety when we first took to the skies.”
Sophronia clutched her mechanimal gratefully. “Oh, thank goodness!” She resisted a near-overwhelming urge to embrace Soap.
Bumbersnoot wagged his tail at her and tooted a bit of smoke out his ears in excitement.
The train rattled along at a snail’s pace, for which Sophronia was grateful. They lashed down the gondola and rolled up the balloons as much as they could. Then they cautiously made their way to the side and peered over the edge. Like most first-class carriages, this one had three doors along its side for boarding at a station, one to each separate compartment. There was no ladder or way to climb down, and simply a footboard at the coach door.