Rubens is questing! Episode 1/25

It was the afternoon of the scary Halloween Fayre in London. Armando had arranged to pick up Rubens so that they could go to the Fayre together. He rowed across the Thames to the landing stage.
"All set, Rubens?" he hailed his passenger.
"You bet, Armando!" responded Rubens, and carefully climbed into the boat.

Rubens is questing! Episode 2/25

They bought their tickets and in eager anticipation of the frightening horrors ahead, hurried in. Quite near the entrance they spotted Bonnie, who was looking worried!
"What's up, Bonnie?"
"I'm just wondering if some of the rides and events are going to be too scary! I've never been over-keen on shocks and horrors."
"Tell you what, you come around with us! We won't let anything happen to you!"
"Thanks, chaps," said Bonnie gratefully.

Rubens is questing! Episode 3/25

They came to a stall selling scary-looking iced Halloween biscuits shaped like skeletons, mummified figures, ghosts and spiders. Whootie the Owl suddenly popped up from behind the counter, causing them almost to jump out of their skins!
“Sorry!” said Whootie cheerfully. “I was just checking on supplies! We’re running very low on ghouls ... anyway, are you all enjoying the fair?”
The little group assured Whootie they were having great fun so far.

Rubens is questing! Episode 4/25

"Oh wow!" cried Armando. "Just look at that Pumpkin House! It would be so much fun to live in it."
"I think you need something a little bigger, Armando!" remarked Whootie. "Anyway, I must get back to my biscuit stall."

Rubens is questing! Episode 5/25

"We’re just heading for the House of Horrors,” said Armando, examining a spider biscuit. “Is this made of chocolate? I’ll have two, please.”
There was a pause while all the pets made a careful selection of Halloween biscuits, which Whootie put in paper bags for them, sealing each one by skilfully twirling it round.
“Did you say you were heading for the House of Horrors?” asked Whootie. “Can I come with you? It’s just the end of my shift here!”

Rubens is questing! Episode 6/25

They assured Whootie that she would be very welcome indeed to share in the scary things lying ahead of them. They all waited a minute while the Rose Bear took over, then headed over in the direction of the House of Horrors.

Rubens is questing! Episode 7/25

On the way was the easily recognisable Fortune Teller’s tent.
“Ooh, I must have a go at this!” exclaimed Bonnie.
Whootie snorted. “Don’t bank on it being anything too earth-shakingly revealing.” She spoke to thin air, as Bonnie, pausing only briefly to play with a tempting gold tassel, had already parted the purple and blue curtains. She put her head back out. “You’ll all come in, won’t you?” she said a little nervously.
Whootie rolled her eyes but followed Armando and Rubens inside the dark interior of the little tent. The fortune teller’s sign proclaimed her name to be Madame Angélique (“A common name here in east London!” scoffed Whootie sceptically.)

Rubens is questing! Episode 8/25

“Cross my paw with silver, dearie,” droned Mme Angélique. Bonnie, perched excitedly on the stool in front of her table, pushed a little pile of silver moles across to her and waited expectantly.
Mme Angélique made mysterious passes over her crystal ball and fell broodingly silent. They all—even, despite herself, Whootie—leaned forward to peer curiously into the depths of the glass sphere. The fortune teller came to life again. “You have a sensitive soul, my dear,” she crooned.
“Yes! Now you mention it, I think I have!” said Bonnie, and Rubens and Armando looked first at her and then at Mme Angélique in awe.
“You sometimes feel unappreciated.” Bonnie pondered for a moment, then nodded slowly. “You’re right. How clever!” she gasped.
There was a long pause. “O-o-o-h! You’ll be going on a long journey, my dear,” Mme Angélique intoned. “You will be crossing a stretch of water!”
At the back of the group, unable to help herself, Whootie sighed heavily.
Bonnie wriggled happily. “Oh, Armando, Rubens, Whootie! Do you think I’ll be going back to Canada? Or Italy?” she whispered.
“Steady on, Bonnie—we’re not long back from Canada! And Italy!” murmured Rubens.
Mme Angélique continued. “You will meet a tall, blond stranger,” she announced. “That’s “blond” without an “e” on the end. “Meaning a tall, blond, male stranger. And the mists have gone dark; I can see no more, my dear.”
Bonnie squeaked in excitement. “That was brilliant, Mme Angélique, thank you!”

Rubens is questing! Episode 9/25

They all left the tent, with Bonnie in a wondering daze at the predictions made for her, chattering to Armando and Rubens about what it could possibly mean, and when her journey across water would occur.
“What are you thinking, Whootie?” Bonnie asked. “You’re very quiet!”
Whootie paused. “You know, this ‘blond’ with or without an ‘e’ to show if it’s a male or female. I was just wondering, when they translate murder mysteries into foreign pets’ languages, how they deal with a clue in English where someone mentions, say, a ‘cousin’ or a ‘friend’—because a lot of languages specify the gender of the cousin or friend in the noun, you know. It can’t be left ambiguous like it can in English. Anyway, that’s by the way. So, House of Horrors now?”
They headed off in the direction of the spooky attraction, each of them nibbling at their iced Halloween biscuits to give them energy for the hideous marvels ahead of them.

Rubens is questing! Episode 10/25

The House of Horrors didn’t seem to be where they thought it was. As they progressed, the fairground seemed to become emptier of pets; those they came across all seemed to be scurrying anxiously in different directions. It had grown gradually darker, and a mist was falling. Unconsciously they edged further towards each other.

Rubens is questing! Episode 11/25

Eventually they came across a dilapidated building that loomed out of the fog bearing a dimly lit sign: House of Misery. They paused dubiously.
“I don’t remember that it looked like this at all,” observed Armando. “How strange! Where’s the gleaming fangs and glowing eyes highlighting the entrance? Why has it got a different name? Are there two of them?”
They spent some moments surveying the battered façade of the three-storey building in front of them. It was like a ramshackle dwelling from the poorest area of town, with a bent chimney, slates missing from roof, and a broken ridge. A row of dull, patched, nondescript garments hung limply from a washing line stretching from one open window on one side of the exterior to the other. The heavy wooden door was open but dipping towards the ground due to a broken top hinge. Outside the gate a tall grey figure stood motionless, stooping, with its face completely covered by a cowl.
Finally Whootie spoke up. “Well—sometimes more horror lies within the familiar and mundane than amongst all the fierce, super-natural beasts you could imagine. C’mon, it’s what we’re here for. Let’s see what they have in store for us! I’m sure we’ll cope.”

Rubens is questing! Episode 12/25

Encouraged by Whootie’s calm good sense, the little group ventured forward, cautiously giving the grey Thing a wide berth. Just as they mounted the house decking, it reared up, turned and made towards them, with forelimbs extended, each one brandishing long, sharp talons. Shrieking, they rushed for the open door, piled in and with shaking paws and wings, pulled it to as best they could.
“Phew!” said Armando after a minute. “I say, it’s very good, isn’t it? Where do we go now?”
Cautiously turning to examine the dark interior as their eyes adjusted to the gloom, they saw there was only one way to go—a very dusty wooden staircase with holes in the treads and missing balusters snaked its way up to the first floor landing and they could just make out where the banisters started their way up to the second floor.
“Okay, single file, everyone,” instructed Whootie. “Armando, you go first as you can spread your weight over a larger area, then Rubens next, Bonnie will follow you and I’ll bring up the rear.”
Rubens was inclined to argue the order, but Bonnie, feeling very nervous and happy that she was being guarded by her strigine colleague who she considered the smartest amongst them, quavered that his was in a good place and they should carry on up the stairs—the alternative being to confront the faceless Thing outside the door again.

Rubens is questing! Episode 13/25

Inch by inch they made their cautious way up the perilous staircase. The light was poor, and now and again and huge dangling cobweb or a dust bunny would brush against a paw here, a tail there, making them jump and twitch it off. Sometimes there would be an ominous creaking sound, at which they would hurriedly check their footing and proceed even more carefully.

Rubens is questing! Episode 14/25

Pausing to catch their breath on the landing, they were just congratulating themselves on their strong nerves when a horrific skeletal zombie sprang up just in front of them! For a few seconds they froze on the spot, eyes wide, then Bonnie and Rubens bolted, shrieking, for the second flight of stairs and dashed up them without pausing. Whootie and Armando, breathing a bit more rapidly than usually, edged their way past the zombie as far away from it as possible, then followed their friends up the stairs.
“The special effects are really awfully good, aren’t they?” whispered Armando. “You’d almost think that creature was ... you know, real.”
After regrouping on the second landing and assuring each other how much they were enjoying the lovely horrors, they carried on up the third flight of stairs. Instead of being in Whootie’s carefully considered line, they proceeded up the decrepit, broken stairs side by side, Rubens clinging onto the sleeve of Bonnie’s costume and Bonnie clutching Armando’s tail.
At the top, they breathed sighs of relief and looked about them.
“It doesn’t say where to go!” said Bonnie in a worried little voice. “We can’t go up any further, and there’s solid walls to left and right.”
Whootie concurred. “So the only way is——“

Rubens is questing! Episode 15/25

At that point, the remaining dim light suddenly vanished. In the ensuing pitch blackness a piercing eldritch scream rose around them, increasing in crescendo until they thought it would deafen them, and then the floorboards beneath their feet gave way and they were all pitched in a long, downward spiral, tumbling over each other, unable to grasp hold of anything. Then with a series of thumps they landed on hard ground and each other.
Winded, Armando carefully removed his jaws from around Rubens while Whootie shook her feathers into place and Bonnie twitched the sleeves and legs of her costume back towards her paws.
They looked around themselves in some trepidation. Their surroundings were at first sight not too alarming, being the platform of an underground train station.
“It’s Baker Street Station!” remarked Whootie. “Wow. I wonder if we will be playing detectives tonight?”
Just then they heard the low hum, gradually becoming louder, of an approaching train.
Armando perked up, excited. “Do you think it’s the Ghost Train?” he asked.
Whootie considered this. “I suppose it would make sense for the House of Misery to link with the Ghost Train. Let’s see what arrives.”
The train pulled into the station. After a few seconds’ pause, the doors of the compartment opposite them slid silently open. The train waited.
“It all seems quite normal,” said Whootie, faint disappointment in her tone. She hopped towards the open door and after glancing at each other, Rubens and Armando followed.
Bonnie hung back. “Why is the entire train empty?” she quavered. “Why did only this door open?”
Armando, his front paws on the edge of the train compartment doorway, turned. “Oh, c’mon, Bonnie. It’ll be being operated by someone at the fayre watching us via CCTV or something. The sooner you get on this train, the sooner they can start doing all the scary effects. I wonder what they’ve got in store for us?” He lumbered forward till his tail cleared the doorframe, and he joined Whootie and Rubens inside the carriage.

Rubens is questing! Episode 16/25

This train is about to depart. Stand clear of the doors, announced an echoey, disembodied voice. Bonnie meowed sharply. She was scared but no way was she going to be stranded in this deserted station on her own! She sprang forward, landing with a sprawl inside the train just in time! The doors hissed shut, and after a pause, the train started moving.
“Baker Street,” said Rubens thoughtfully. “I didn’t notice which line we were on, or whether we’re going northbound or southbound.”
“But it’s not a real train, is it?” whispered Bonnie. “How can it be, when it doesn’t have a Haunted House directly on top of it in real life?”
“Well—it’s all very realistic so far!” This was true. As they looked out of the windows on both sides, they could see perfectly normal tunnels with cables running along the walls, all illuminated by the lights of the train. Eventually the train drew to a halt at a neglected looking station.
Whootie looked out to see which station they were at. “British Museum,” she said slowly. “That’s very strange ... “
Rubens got up and pressed the Open Door button. “It’s not working! We’re locked in!”

Rubens is questing! Episode 17/25

The train started going again, very slowly. But after leaving the station platform it entered a tunnel at a crawl, and then ground to a halt. For a few minutes there was total silence. Then they heard a prolonged scratching sound, like nails being drawn down glass. Some dim emergency lights came on in the tunnel. Pressing their faces to the window, they peered out into the gloom, where they could just make out old tiled tunnel walls. There was a dull thud and a hideous face loomed at the window, its eyes glowing yellow and its teeth bared in a terrifying rictus. Its fingers stroked the window, the claws leaving grooves in the ice that had appeared on the glass. The creature watched them malevolently for some moments,its eyes moving from one pet to another, and then it started screeching.
The thing’s howls both surrounded and penetrated the petrified group of pets, buffeting them and echoing inside their heads. They threw themselves down on the floor of the carriage and clamped paws and wings over their ears. The screams were unbridled and conjured up images of evil in times long past.
“Make it stop!” cried Bonnie. “I want to get off now!”
“Not in this tunnel you don’t!” shouted Armando.

Rubens is questing! Episode 18/25

They were suddenly started by the appearance of a Norwegian Fjord Horse in the compartment.
“How did you get in here?” gasped Armando.
“I came through the connecting door there. I was just behind you at Baker Street. Something has gone seriously wrong tonight! Take the ghoul biscuits out of my saddle panniers and eat some of them. The other ones were infected in some bizarre way and made everything go very scary. These are a sort of antidote. Quickly!”
They hastened to comply and soon had a ghoul biscuit each. Armando swallowed his whole while the others made hasty bites and nibbles as fast as they could. All at once the carriage started spinning around them, the shrieking voice of the venomous creature outside faded and for a second time they felt themselves falling and falling ...

Rubens is questing! Episode 19/25

They came round from what felt like a deep sleep, to find they were in another railway carriage, but over¬ground this time. They were on a deserted, misty train track after midnight. The train clanked its way onwards while the little group of pets looked at each other and out of the window, and finally at the palomino horse, who was standing quietly in the corner of the carriage.
Whootie shook her feathers down and turned to the horse. “I have questions,” she announced. “Firstly, who are you, and where are we now?”
“My name is Boots. We’re just going on a little trip to wind down, as it were, after the alarms of the day,” replied the horse. “I hope there will be no more scary events like the earlier ones!”
Armando raised his head. “You mean ... all that happened was real? Not somepet making special effects happen by flicking a switch or pulling a lever?”
Whootie was wearing her fiercest expression. “The British Museum Underground Station closed in 1933,” she said. “But we were there. It was real.”

Rubens is questing! Episode 20/25

Boots considered this. “I wouldn’t call what happened ‘real’. More like a group hallucination. The ghost train has an abiding place in popular culture. What you experienced just now is based on a legend that that particular station is haunted by the extremely malicious and vengeful spirit of an ancient Egyptian princess distraught at having had her tomb excavated and her mummified remains and casket moved to England. There had been some very strange and tragic events at various resting places of her casket which the tabloid press and the public pounced on voraciously. At one point in the 1930s, newspapers offered a reward to anyone who would spend the entire night in the British Museum station. There were no volunteers.”

“Other times and cultures have their own stories. The midnight train in Colorado, for example, for which you pay no fare, but once aboard, you can never alight. You just keep travelling, travelling and travelling.”

Rubens is questing! Episode 21/25

“In Sweden," continued Boots, "there is the eerie Silverpilen train, or Silver Arrow. Within Stockholm's fleet of green underground trains, the Silver Arrow stood out, its aluminium exterior being unpainted and its interior being bare of the usual advertising posters. It was disliked, and it was felt that there was something very strange about the train. Accounts of the events it caused varied, but a common theme was that it would only be seen after midnight. Some claimed it stopped only once every year. The passengers in the train seemed to be living dead, with expressionless, vacant looks."
"Like the audience at Edgar's last lecture!" interjected Armando irreverently.
Whootie frowned at him severely and Boots continued. "An oft-claimed detail was that a passenger who just wanted to travel to the next station remained seated for one week, one month or even for one year in the Silver-pilen. Sometimes these passengers disappeared forever.”
Bonnie shivered. “How horrid! So—where are we going, Boots?”
Boots perked up. “You are all going to experience a ghost train of quite a different nature. Don’t worry—this is one of those quirky British Transport things and quite harmless. We’re going on a trip to Peartree Station in Derbyshire. It’s quite a long journey so I arranged for a midnight feast for you, as I’m sure you must all be very hungry after the events of tonight!”
They agreed they were starving, and settled back to enjoy plates of delicious food and fruit juices of all types while Boots did his best to explain.

Rubens is questing! Episode 22/25

“There are ghost trains and ghost stations all around Britain," said Boots. "Ghost stations typically have no ticket machines; there will be no ticket office or taxi ranks. It’s a station or line that receives a very limited service usually with only one train a week or one or maybe two a day in some cases and which runs in one direction only with NO return service. The trains that do operate usually end the journey with no passengers at all on board.”
“So why don’t they close them?”
“An excellent question, and here we come to the crux of the matter!” said Boots enthusiast-ically. “Do you know what Parliamentary trains are?"
“They are mentioned in The Mikado," said Whootie. “In the Mikado’s song about letting the punishment fit the crime:
The idiot who in railway carriages
Scribbles on window-panes
We only suffer to ride on a buffer
In Parliamentary trains."

Rubens is questing! Episode 23/25

“That was actually a different sort of Parliamentary trains, but good point, Whootie," said Boots. "But following the national outcry that followed Dr Beeching’s over-zealous culling of train services in the 1960s, Parliament made it much harder to close lines down in future, meaning it is now so difficult and expensive to go through the necessary procedures to close an underused line, that often it is simply cheaper to leave an unnecessary service running. These trains run, with very few or no passengers, between Station A and Station B, or they call at long since abandoned train stations. These so-called Parliamentary trains are also known as ‘ghost trains’.”
Armando had been nodding off gradually. They had reached the outskirts of Derbyshire when he woke with a start, glanced out of the window of the gently rocking carriage, cried “A ghost!” and promptly fell asleep again. There was therefore no need to explain that all he had seen was a sheep in a passing field at dawn.

Rubens is questing! Episode 24/25

“Thank you so much, Boots. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come to our rescue,” said Bonnie. “We’re sending a Pumpkin House by immediate special delivery to your habitat!”
“That’s extremely kind of you!” responded Boots. “Enjoy Peartree Station—there are others I could have guided you to, but this one has lovely surroundings and it's a well-known "ghost station". You might even find yourselves joining an enthusiastic and diverse band of Britons who enjoy searching out such ghost stations and travelling on them! I’ll leave you to it now.”

Rubens is questing! Episode 25/25

One by one, full to bursting with the splendid feast provided for them, the pets fell asleep, not stirring until they arrived at Peartree Station in Derby later that morning. They had a splendid adventure exploring Derbyshire for a few days before catching the train back to London—this time without any scary incidents! Very soon their memories of the British Museum ghost station faded.
Rubens was given 20 golden moles for being brave enough to take part in the action.
Postscript:
On the last leg of their journey, Bonnie was sitting on the edge of the train seat swinging her tail around, muttering something under her breath.
“What did you say, Bonnie?” said Whootie, a little irritated.
In response, Bonnie declaimed:
“A princess from Egypt—a mummy

Caused goings-on scary and rummy.

The boldest found daunting

How evil her haunting

The response of the world was: Cor lumme!"

"Oh, and Whootie," remarked Bonnie. "You did the fortune-teller an injustice. It all came true, didn't it? The tall blond stranger—Boots—the trip across water—the Thames—the long journey—up here to Derbyshire."
"Yes, I think Mme Angélique did jolly well!" agreed Armando.
Rubens has completed the quest! Please select another pet as visitor, so it can also take part!