Caught on a Train

Set in the nineteenth century, a boy working in the dining car of the Great Midland West Ireland Railway is asked by the mysterious Mr Cink to judge a story telling contest between some unlikely competitors. Mr Fee tells the story of Micky Mealiffe, who gets his living from the contents of ships wrecked on a rock bar near his home. One day, he meets a Merrow, a race of people living in the sea, who thanks him for all the treasure he's sent him by not protecting the rock bar. Down in his sea house, Micky sees a room full of soul cages, full of the souls of the drowned sailors from the ships. He makes a plan to get the Merrow drunk, and release the souls. Things go according to plan and, never knowing his souls have escaped the Merrow become godson to Micky's son. Mr Smyth tells the story of Jeremiah O'Dwyer and the bewitching of his cattle. Only after following the words of an old woman, does he follow a hare, wounded in the chase, from his field to his neighbour's house. There he finds his neighbour, wounded exactly as the hare had been and the curse is removed from his herd. Mr Cink begins the story of Daniel O'Rourke who got drunk one night and found himself swept on to an island. From there he was rescued by an eagle who stands him on the moon. The man in the moon kicks him off, but he is caught by geese, then swallowed by a whale and washed up on the shore...only to find his wife has woken him with a bucket of water. The dining-car boy cannot decide between the stories, and he is fearful of Mr Cink's reaction in particular. There is something unpleasant, other-worldly about him...Mr Smyth wins when they leave it to chance and Mr Cink is furious. The boy leaves the compartment, and when he returns, all three competitors have vanished into thin air...Perhaps whisked away by malevolent fairies? Could Mr Cink be one himself? We'll never know...


Genre: Children's Fiction