On Tuesdays, Trains, and the Audacity Of the Ordinary

 

A Cozy Corner for Stories

On Tuesdays, Trains, and the Audacity Of the  Ordinary 

Hello, dear readers, and welcome back to our monthly gathering. May has arrived with its blossoms and longer days, and I cannot think of a better time to introduce you to a family who decided that predictability was simply not worth the trouble. So, pull up that armchair, pour something cool and refreshing, and settle in. I have been waiting all month to tell you about the Soggybottoms.

 

This story arrived on a Tuesday—which seems fitting, really, because Tuesdays have always struck me as the most underappreciated day of the week. Mondays have their reputation, Wednesdays are hump days, Fridays are celebrated, and the weekend needs no introduction. But Tuesdays? They just sit there, quietly dependable, asking for nothing. They are, in other words, the perfect day for a story about people who refuse to be quiet and dependable.

And May, with its sense of new beginnings and the world shaking off the last of winter's drowsiness, feels like the perfect month for a tale about shaking things up.

 

Let me introduce you to Petunia Soggybottom.

Petunia is the sort of woman who looks at a chimney and thinks, "Why does it always have to sit on top? Why not sideways? Why not upside down? Why not elsewhere entirely?" She looks at doorknobs and finds them terribly unimaginative. She looks at stairs and is frankly offended by their determination to go only up and down.

In short, Petunia Soggybottom is dissatisfied with the ordinary, and she has absolutely no intention of apologising for it.

She lives in Nettlepot Grove, which I should mention is the sort of place where people have respectable doormats and perfectly reasonable garden fences. The days plod along in a neat queue. Everything is, as Petunia puts it, exasperatingly predictable.

It is, in other words, the perfect place to leave.

 

Now, I should tell you about her sons. Their names are Pushkin and Pipkin, which is entirely their own doing. Petunia has a philosophy about names: if you can speak, you should take responsibility for the words coming out of your mouth. So, when her firstborn made a sound like "Push me," he became Pushkin. When her second babbled something like "Pumpkin," he became Pipkin. It seems as sensible a naming system as any, if you ask me.

These boys grew up with eyes that held the gleam of midnight shadows and hair as unruly as a field of wild ferns after a storm. They were always desperate to push through doors and let the wind whisper strange ideas into their ears. They were, in other words, the perfect children for a mother who found the world far too predictable.

I suspect the Soggybottoms are the sort of family you either run toward or run away from. There is no middle ground.

 

What follows is a decision—the kind that seems reckless to outsiders but feels like breathing to the people making it. Petunia decides that enough is enough. They will sell everything. The pigs, the linens, the teapots, even the pickled pasties in the pantry.

The neighbours, as neighbours will, have Opinions. One believes they're off to the Lost Cabbage Fields of Grumbleton. Another is certain it's the Dingleberry Downs Shore. A particularly odd fellow with a mitten perpetually on his nose—don't ask, it's better not to know—declares they'll end up on the moon and find everything just as boring as it was down here.

But Petunia is not deterred by scepticism. She stuffs the money from their sales into a ragbag, slings it over her shoulder, and leads her boys to the most exciting place she can think of: the railway station.

 

The railway station is where things begin to get properly interesting.

The ticket agent is sleepy, as ticket agents in these stories often are. He asks if they want tickets to come back or if they're planning to never return. Petunia declares she wants three tickets "to where the rails run off into the stars and beyond. To the very edge of reason and forty ways farther!"

Now, if I were the ticket agent, I might have asked for clarification. But this ticket agent—bless him—simply hands over three long, slick, yellow tickets with peculiar blue squiggles across each one. "This one's special," he says. "You'll go farther than you've ever been."

And just like that, the Soggybottoms board a train and depart for somewhere wonderful.

 

What follows is a journey I shan't spoil for you. I will tell you only that the landscapes grow increasingly peculiar the further they travel. Trains solve problems in ways that defy logic. The sky becomes thick with things that have no business being there. They encounter people who have been changed by the world they inhabit in ways both marvellous and strange.

The journey itself is the point, I think. The getting there. The decision to keep going even when the familiar disappears behind you.

 

There is a moment—and I will not tell you when or how—when something unexpected is plucked from the sky. Something that reveals a hidden world most people never even imagine exists. There are secrets up there, guarded by clouds, and the Soggybottoms are about to stumble right into them.

I would tell you more, but honestly, some things are better discovered on your own. It's May, after all—a time for fresh discoveries and the kind of wonder that makes you feel like a child again.

 

They pass through strange territories. I will say only that somewhere along the way, they encounter a place where laughter is manufactured in the most unexpected way possible. There are ovens involved. And sprinkles. And cream. It made me laugh out loud while writing it, and I suspect it will do the same for you.

 

And then there is the chase.

I won't tell you who or what is chasing whom. I will say only that something is snatched, something precious, and an adventure ensues that involves dining cars, rooftops, coal piles, and a creature in a waistcoat. There is also, I should mention, an alarming number of spoons.

This is where the spoons become important. I have already said too much, but I will say this: Petunia Soggybottom is far cleverer than she appears, and things are not what it seems.

 

Eventually—and this is not a spoiler, simply a destination—they arrive at a place called Bumblethorpe-on-the-Wold. And how do they know they've arrived? Because they see the pigs.

The pigs, you see, wear dungarees. Striped dungarees. Spotted dungarees. Checkered dungarees. Paisley dungarees. Each one matches the pig's personality perfectly. And when Pushkin asks who gives the pigs their dungarees, Petunia answers with the perfect logic of a woman who has seen it all: "Their mothers, of course."

This, right here, is why I write. For the moment when a pig in paisley dungarees trots past and everything suddenly makes perfect, ridiculous sense. For the feeling that the world is more wonderful than we give it credit for. For the reminder that May is the month for fresh starts and unexpected adventures.

 

This story, more than the others, is about the courage to leave. To sell your pigs and your pitchforks and your pickled pasties, to stuff your treasures into a bag, and to board a train to somewhere you've never been. It is about refusing to accept a world where chimneys always sit on top and stairs always go up and down and nothing ever does anything unexpected.

Petunia Soggybottom is my kind of hero. She doesn't fight dragons or rescue kingdoms. She simply decides that ordinary is not enough, and then she acts on that decision. She takes her boys—with their wild hair and restless hearts—and she shows them that the world is as marvellous as you allow it to be. In May, when everything is blooming and the days stretch long and golden, that feels like exactly the right message.

The moral, if there is one, is this: never settle for the dull when you can seek out the marvellous. And always, always keep a few spoons handy. You never know when they might come in useful.

 

This month's story is dedicated to my nephews Ryan and Zion, with love from their Anty who lives far, far away. I hope, when they are old enough to read it, they will understand that the distance between us is nothing but geography, and that adventure is always just a train ride away.

Thank you, as always, for being here. For pulling up that armchair and letting me share these strange and wonderful tales with you. I wonder—what ordinary thing have you decided is not enough lately? What train are you about to board? May has a way of asking those questions, doesn't it?

Until next month, may your days be filled with dungaree-wearing pigs, helpful spoons, and at least one Tuesday that refuses to be predictable.

With all my love,

P.S.

From the girl with feathers in her hair,

sunflowers in her garden, books on her table and art in her soul,

Joules Young, the Story Catcher

P.P.S.

 If this sort of tale makes your heart a little lighter, you can listen to the story for free—just follow the link below 

 And if you'd like more stories like this from Joules Young, you know where to find them.

A Cozy Corner for Stories