Archie's Unbelievably Freaky Week (11 page)

He had just rescued the hat, when another gust of wind blew the door of the van closed and they were plunged into total darkness.

‘Here we go again!’ said Cyd, cheerfully. ‘I’ll bet we can’t open the door, and get driven all the way to Scotland or something before they find us!’

‘As a matter of fact,’ said Archie, ‘that happened to me once. I got stuck in a laundry basket and the—’

But Archie never got to say what happened to him in the laundry basket, because at that moment the door at the back of the van opened, to reveal the figure of a woman.

‘I don’t believe it!’ said the woman. ‘Archie? Cyd? What are you doing in here?’

The woman standing in
the
road was Miss Humber, the teacher who had saved Archie’s life on Tuesday by grabbing the spider from his back.

Archie explained about Cyd losing her hat and the doors closing behind them in the wind.

‘Well, it’s just as well I found you,’ Miss Humber chuckled, ‘or you might have been stuck in there till we got to Scotland!’

‘You’re moving to Scotland?’ said Cyd.

‘I’ve been offered a job there,’ said Miss Humber, ‘as a teacher in the village where I grew up. It’s what I’ve always wanted, and I still can’t believe how lucky I am!’ She smiled. ‘It’s all thanks to Archie, of course!’

‘To me?’ said Archie.

‘The headmaster of the school I’m going to, saw in the paper about my getting a medal for what I did with the spider,’ explained Miss Humber, ‘and he wrote and said I was just the sort of person he needed.’ She paused. ‘How about you both come inside for a drink and a
biscuit
, and I’ll tell you all about it?’

‘That’s very kind,’ said Archie, ‘but we don’t really have time.’

‘Archie’s taking me somewhere,’ said Cyd. ‘For a surprise.’

‘Oh, is he!’ said Miss Humber, smiling again. ‘Well, if Archie’s arranged it, I’m sure it’ll be something very wonderful!’

Looking at his watch, Archie knew they would have to hurry if they were going to get to the station in time, but when they turned the corner at the end of the road, they found the pavement blocked by a crowd of people gathered outside the church, all trying to take photographs of a couple who had just got married.

Archie and Cyd crossed the road to try and get past, but were stopped by a loud shout.

‘I don’t believe it!’ said a voice. ‘It’s Archie and Cyd!’

And that was when they realized that the two people getting married were Miss Henley,
who
had been trapped in the stockroom with them on Wednesday, and Gary, the man who had come to their rescue.

‘These are the children I was telling you about!’ said Miss Henley, addressing the crowd. ‘If it weren’t for them, Gary and I would never have found each other again, and we wouldn’t be getting married today!’

Everybody gathered round Archie and Cyd, wanting to hear the story, and then Gary insisted that they be included in the photographs and it was several minutes before Archie was able to say that, much as he would like to stay, they needed to get on.

‘Archie’s taking me somewhere,’ said Cyd, happily. ‘For a surprise!’

‘A surprise!’ Gary beamed down at her. ‘Well, I hope it’s a nice one!’

‘If Archie’s arranging it,’ said Miss Henley, ‘I’m sure it’ll be the best surprise ever.’

As they continued their walk to the station, Archie was a little worried that if anything else happened, there might be no surprise at all, and he was very relieved when they got to the station with two minutes to spare.

The entrance to the railway station had glass doors that opened as you went towards them and closed after you’d gone through. Archie was leading the way and the doors opened as he walked towards them, but then started closing again while he was still going through. Before he knew it, they had slammed
together
on the backpack he was carrying and refused to budge.

‘I don’t believe it! Not again!’ The ticket collector came hurrying towards him. ‘That’s the second time it’s done that this morning!’

Outside, Cyd was trying to pull the doors apart.

‘You’ll never shift them,’ said the railway man, ‘not unless you’re a professional weight-lifter. You’ll have to wait while I phone for the engineer.’

The man disappeared through a door at the side of the ticket hall and Archie waited, trapped in the doorway. There was a clock on the wall in front of him, and it said the
Tornado
was due to depart in exactly one minute.

‘Archie?’ said a voice. ‘Is that you?’

Archie didn’t recognize the speaker at first – it was a big woman in yellow shorts and a Hawaiian shirt – but then he saw the tattoo around her neck. It was Miss Hurrell, the teacher who, on Monday, had thought he wanted to kill her, thrown him onto his back in the corridor, and sat on him.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘He’s trapped in the doors,’ said Cyd, ‘and we can’t open them.’

‘Well, I might be able to help you there,’ said Miss Hurrell. She briefly flexed her fingers, reached out, grabbed a door in each hand and . . . heaved.

There was grinding noise and the doors moved slowly apart. Archie stepped forward, and Cyd followed him through.

‘You are incredible, Miss Hurrell!’ she said. ‘Thank you! Thank you
so
much!’

‘I’m glad I could help,’ said Miss Hurrell. ‘As a matter of fact, I was hoping for a chance to say thank you to Archie. It’s because of him that I’ve got back into professional wrestling. I don’t know if you heard, but I’ve got this contract in America and—’

‘Would you mind,’ said Archie, ‘if we heard about it some other time?’

‘We have to hurry,’ said Cyd. ‘Archie’s got a surprise for me!’

‘A surprise?’ Miss Hurrell chuckled. ‘Well, he’s good at those, isn’t he? Go on, go for it!’

Shouting thank you and goodbye as they went, Archie started running, and Cyd followed him.

They ran past the ticket office, across the station lobby, along the bridge and then down the stairs that led to the platform. Archie was jumping the stairs two at a time when, halfway down, there was the
toot toot
of a steam whistle and . . .

 . . . and ahead of him he could see the
Tornado
, in a thunder of steam and noise, pulling gracefully away from the station, to the sound of cheers from the watching crowds.

Archie stopped, his head falling on to his chest in disappointment. That was it. They had missed the train. There would be no surprise for Cyd.

Sadly, he turned to his friend to say how sorry he was, but found she was not looking at the departing steam train. Instead, she was looking at the other platform where a diesel with three coaches had just pulled in. That platform was almost empty, but Cyd was staring at it, frozen to the spot.

‘I don’t believe it,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t
believe
it!’

With the clouds of steam from the departing
Tornado
still swirling round the platform, Archie couldn’t see what she was looking at, but then the clouds parted and he could make out the tall figure of a man in army uniform, adjusting the cap on his head, before picking up a kit bag and slinging it over his shoulder.

‘Daddy!’ Cyd’s voice echoed round the station. ‘It’s my
daddy
!’

Even as she spoke, she was jumping down the last few steps and racing along the platform as fast as her legs could carry her. And then the man in the uniform saw her and his face broke into the biggest smile Archie had ever seen, and as Cyd came flying towards him he dropped the kit bag, held out his arms and caught her, and held her, and swung her round . . .

 . . . and round . . .

 . . . and round.

Archie watched from the bottom of the stairs as the man eventually lowered Cyd to the ground, and then he waited as the two of them slowly made their way back towards him.

‘This is Archie,’ said Cyd to her father. ‘He told me he had a surprise for me, but I never imagined it’d be this. I still can’t believe it!’

‘Neither can I,’ said her father. He turned to Archie. ‘I didn’t think anyone knew I was coming. I didn’t know myself till this morning. How did you find out?’

‘Well . . .’ Archie wasn’t quite sure what to say.

‘Nobody knows how Archie does these things,’ Cyd answered for him. ‘They just happen.’