An Unexpected Paperback

In the morning, as they were packing up, Lumpy came up to their railcart with three small bundles. He still looked grey and exhausted, and still had bouts of nausea and vomiting, but despite seeming to be in worse shape than the rest of the villagers or the Wanderer, he was still able to move around, slowly helping where he could.
“You may find these useful.” He said, handing over three large knives, one to each of the children. “There’s some survival stuff hidden in the handle; Keep them on you, just in case you get separated from the railcart.”
“At least nobody got a coil of rope.” Mister Station commented in an odd voice, with a strange grin and a quick sideways glance at Lumpy.
Lumpy looked thoughtful when he saw the baffled expressions on Cy, Bug, and Luce’s faces, and turned back towards the station building.
“Whatever happened to the little bookshelf that used to be in the waiting room?” He asked. “I think there was a copy there, and I don’t think these three know it.”
It was Mister Station’s turn to look thoughtful for a while.
“In the village hall, I think.” He eventually replied. “Consolidated into the rest of the library by Adrian?”
Lumpy glanced at the railcart, then back at the station.
“It’ll take me a while, but if you’ve got things here?” He suggested. “Could help them to have something for the dark parts?”
Mister Station nodded, and Lumpy slowly set off, heading back through the station and towards the village.
By the time he returned, the trio had detached their railcart from the Wanderer’s one and loaded it up with all the supplies for their trip.
The original plan of simply rolling it down and across to the second set of tracks so that they could get past the Wanderer’s railcart hit a snag when the track-switching mechanism refused to move, having rusted shut years before, and no amount of pushing, pulling, kicking, or hitting it with a hammer could fix it. In the end, with Mister Station’s help, they set up some blocks and rolled the railcart up and over the stuck track-switch, forcing it briefly through the weeds and gravel of the track bed until they could get it onto the second line, parallel to the first one.
Cy looked at the deep furrows they’d cut in the ground with the railcart wheels and breathed heavily.
“Do we have to do that again at the top of the station?” He asked. “Because I’m not sure I can.”
Mister Station sat heavily and awkwardly on one of the rails.
“I hope not.” He replied. “That … That was exhausting.”
He looked at the railcart.
“Are you sure you want all that stuff? Even the jugs of moonshine?”
“It’s the best option we have to deal with any infected stuff we find.” Cy replied. “And like Lumpy said, if we can’t easily dunk it in a bucket of the stuff, fire is always cleansing.”
Even Bug and Luce noticed that Cy was a little too enthusiastic about that last part, and they shared a concerned look with Mister Station as everyone slowly pushed the railcart up to the other end of the station, where the second set of tracks rejoined the first.
“Yes, but … Try not to cleanse the whole valley, will you?” Asked Mister Station. “We still need to live here.”
They’d just got the track-switching mechanism to to move by repeatedly kicking it when Lumpy reappeared, walking slowly up the platform, carrying a small book which he tucked into one of the bags.
“For the night, when you’re trying to sleep but are too nervous and worked-up.” He explained. “It’s about some people going on a trip; Take turns reading it aloud or something.”

The trio set off, finally, at mid-morning.
They’d all, Lumpy and Mister Station included, found it hard to stop double and triple and ‘just to be sure’ checking the gear, but eventually everyone reached the point of not being able to delay any more.
“If we’ve forgotten something.” Bug declared. “We’ve forgotten it so hard that we don’t remember what it is.”
Cy nodded.
“Yep; Time to get moving.”
The trio positioned themselves at the back of their railcart and started to push, steadily picking up speed.
“It feels like this should be more … Momentous.” Luce complained. “Not like the last trip; This one’s really important.”
“I could hum a little tune, if it’d help?” Lumpy called out from where he was standing on the platform.
“Have you decided on your first stop?” Mister Station asked.
The railcart was rolling at a steady pace now, and Bug took the opportunity to slip around into the lower-effort ‘clearing the tracks’ position at the front while Luce and Cy continued to push.
“Hopefully the second station.” Cy said.
“We should get there faster than last time if we’re not stopping to clean anything.” Luce added. “Bur if not, we’ve got the tent.”
“No sense travelling at night.” Cy agreed.
Lumpy whistled a jaunty little tune and waved as the trio slowly rolled up the line and around the bend. As soon as they were out of sight, Mister Station turned and jabbed him in the stomach with a finger.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“You know exactly what it was for.” Mister station replied. “The kids might not have recognised it, but I sure as hell did.”
Lumpy shrugged.
“What? It’s entirely appropriate, it’s from a show about trains.”
Mister Station pointed at him, shaking his poking finger menacingly.
“I know it’s about trains, but I very much object to being cast in the role of the Fat Controller.”

As the trio had predicted, they moved much faster when they weren’t stopping to clean solar panels. They paused from time to time to check out side trails heading off into the woods, just to see whether there were any signs of people, but found nothing.
At the burned-out station, Bug and Cy carefully searched the whole palce while Luce put together a quick late lunch, but again, they found nothing.
“Oh, I agree …” Bug said through a mouthful of flatbread. “There’s not much chance that someone would camp here, instead of a place with a roof and walls, but … “
She trailed off and gestured around.
“Maybe if they wanted to hide? We did roll right past without stopping.”
Cy and Luce considered this.
“I kind of got the idea that Lumpy thought people would hide out in the woods.” Cy said around his mug of tea. “Not in a building on the tracks.”
They looked from their seats around the fire ring on the platform and across the tracks to the woods.
“If someone’s hiding in there.” Luce declared. “There’s no way we’d find them.”

In their camp at the second station, once dinner was done with, Bug pulled out the book Lumpy had added to their gear. She studied the battered cover for a few moments, silently sounding out the title, until she saw Cy and Luce staring at her.
“What?” She said, defensively. “It’s not a word I know, so I’m deciding how to say it.”
She held up the book, showing the others the cover.
“Unless either of you know it? At first I thought it might sound like ‘robot’, but … I don’t think that’s right.”
Luce and Cy shook their heads and shrugged.
“No idea.” Said Luce. “Just … Use your best guess? We can always ask Lumpy when we get back.”
By the light of their solar lantern, which they’d had charging on top of the railcart, Bug opened the book and began to read aloud.
“In a hole in the ground, there lived a … Hobbit?”