8456893456983

AND RIDE THE TEENYTOWN RAILWAY!
It didn’t take a genius to see that Teenytown was a teeny replica of Cranmore Avenue. There was
the Methodist church he had passed, its steeple rising all of seven feet into the air; there was the
Music Box Theater; Spondulicks Ice Cream; Mountain Books; Shirts & Stuff; the Frazier Gallery, Fine
Prints Our Specialty. There was also a perfect waist-high miniature of the single-turreted Helen
Rivington House, although the two flanking brick buildings had been omitted. Perhaps, Dan
thought, because they were butt-ugly, especially compared to the centerpiece.
Beyond Teenytown was a miniature train with TEENYTOWN RAILWAY painted on passenger
cars that were surely too small to hold anyone larger than toddler size. Smoke was puffing from the
stack of a bright red locomotive about the size of a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle. He could hear the
rumble of a diesel engine. Printed on the side of the loco, in old-fashioned gold flake letters, was THE
HELEN RIVINGTON. Town patroness, Dan supposed. Somewhere in Frazier there was probably a
street named after her, too.
He stood where he was for a bit, although the sun had gone back in and the day had grown cold
enough for him to see his breath. As a kid he’d always wanted an electric train set and had never had
one. Yonder in Teenytown was a jumbo version kids of all ages could love.
He shifted his duffel bag to his other shoulder and crossed the street. Hearing Tony again—and
seeing him—was unsettling, but right now he was glad he’d stopped here. Maybe this really was the
place he’d been looking for, the one where he’d finally find a way to right his dangerously tipped life.
You take yourself with you, wherever you go.
He pushed the thought into a mental closet. It was a thing he was good at. There was all sorts of
stuff in that closet.
4
A cowling surrounded the locomotive on both sides, but he spied a footstool standing beneath one low
eave of the Teenytown Station, carried it over, and stood on it. The driver’s cockpit contained two
sheepskin-covered bucket seats. It looked to Dan as if they had been scavenged from an old Detroit
muscle car. The cockpit and controls also looked like modified Detroit stock, with the exception of an
old-fashioned Z-shaped shifter jutting up from the floor. There was no shift pattern; the original knob
had been replaced with a grinning skull wearing a bandanna faded from red to pallid pink by years of
gripping hands. The top half of the steering wheel had been cut off, so that what remained looked like
the steering yoke of a light plane. Painted in black on the dashboard, fading but legible, was TOP
SPEED 40 DO NOT EXCEED.
“Like it?” The voice came from directly behind him.
Dan wheeled around, almost falling off the stool. A big weathered hand gripped his forearm,
steadying him. It was a guy who looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties, wearing a padded
denim jacket and a red-checked hunting cap with the earflaps down. In his free hand was a toolkit
with PROPERTY OF FRAZIER MUNICIPAL DEPT Dymo-taped across the top.
“Hey, sorry,” Dan said, stepping off the stool. “I didn’t mean to—”
“S’all right. People stop to look all the time. Usually model-train buffs. It’s like a dream come true
for em. We keep em away in the summer when the place is jumpin and the Riv runs every hour or so,
but this time of year there’s no we, just me. And I don’t mind.” He stuck out his hand. “Billy
Freeman. Town maintenance crew. The Riv’s my baby.”
Dan took the offered hand. “Dan Torrance.”
Billy Freeman eyed the duffel. “Just got off the bus, I ’magine. Or are you ridin your thumb?”