My life has been a journey - literally. I could fire off all the names of the places we stopped at quicker than Queen Victoria's fastest train. I have lived on a steam train and never once stepped off to explore the wide world outside its windows.

The train swayed slightly as it turned a corner. I woke up to the familiar sound of grinding metal and the click-click-clack-clack sound of the tracks flying beneath me. I flicked my blackened hair away from my face and slipped out of bed.

I tiptoed past the other staff berths in the carriage. Once I'd crashed into a luggage cage at the end of the corridor when walking too recklessly. It had fallen over, making a racket.

My boss was maddened as it had woken up first class and he'd docked my wages for a week.

The train tilted and I leant on my opposite leg to keep my balance. I walked briskly along the corridor that followed the staff sleeping quarters and slipped into a changing room.

Inside the changing room there was a full length mirror and a large lightbulb. It gave off a honey coloured light. The smell of coal dust followed me wherever I went.

I locked the heavy wooden door and then opened a straw basket next to the mirror to find my work clothes. I pulled each item out: black linen trousers, a man's white shirt and a black woollen coat. The coat reached past my waist and attached with bronze buttons on the front and cuffs. Finally, I wore a pair of chestnut colour leather shoes with bows and a long white silk scarf.

I treasured that scarf. I'd discovered it abandoned in a first class carriage and when no one claimed it I added it to my work clothes for a perfect feminine touch.

I checked my look in the mirror. I looked smart. I brushed my blonde hair with my wooden hairbrush and watched as last night's coal dust fell from my hair. My right side of my hair was a lot longer than my left side because I once caught it in a machine. I didn't mind my lopsided hairstyle - it was quirky and unique. My long side trailed over my shoulder and curled slightly at the end. I smiled. My hair was actually blonde, but coal blackened it as I worked.

I am not pretty. My nose was too long, and my eyes were pretty small but I had long eyelashes. My mouth was too wide. Sometimes I longed to be prettier but most of the time, I didn't mind. It's not like someone would marry a 15-year-old train worker anyway.

At 9am, I arrived at the front of the train to start work. It was a normal day and I was unaware it would be one of my last days here. The train was a magnificent, a hulk of copper, iron and bronze, painted with black and and red lizards on the outside. It was enormous too - It could carry up to 200 people in 15 carriages, and sped along at 80mph through the land. The train was a dragon, eating up bucketfuls of dusty, messy black coal and constantly steaming along. As the other, muscly workers heaved open the furnace to start shoveling, the engines roared and ferocious flames heated the room to sauna level. Welcome to my home.

Since being abandoned on top of a train as a baby, I have been an orphan. I had narrowly escaped death because my boss stopped the driver from starting the train and rescued me. It made headline news in all the stops we went to, and I still have a clipping from that paper, given to me by the train baker, Angie.
Since then, I was raised on the train, and earned my keep when I was old and strong enough to. I didn't exactly have a permanent job. I was mostly a substitute stoker - if one of the workers fell ill, I stepped in. But if I were needed for a small job, I would do it. Either way, every day I helped the stokers, heaving buckets of coal into the train. I also would check other parts of the train were working. I fixed other machines on the train if required and I also lit the fire of the train furnace very early in the morning before going back to bed.

But most of the time, I'm wasn't needed, and this meant I got plenty of time to myself. I was paid for my work too, four Chevrets (the currency) an hour. That was enough to buy some rolls from the train bakery, so I was fine with that. I kept my money hidden in a linen pouch underneath my berth's window screen.

I checked the engine room at the front of the train and grab a bucket of coal, thrusting it into the dancing flames. The burly male stokers toss their heads and laugh heartily.

"'Ere's our Mila!" They sounded like rough folk.

I chuckle, and throw more coal into the furnace.

"Well, what are you waiting for! Get back to work - you know what Mr Olton's like!"

They smirk and a few grab their shovels.

"The Panther has spoken!" That's their nickname for me.

The stokers think of me as a child they never had, and they're good friends of mine. They're very protective of me! They're very strong, jokey folk, but they're big softies when I'm around.
I worked with them for a couple of hours, covering myself in coal smuts, and asked if there was anything new.

The largest stoker, Gareth, shrugged.

"Not today, Panther. But, there's been a lot of animals booked onboard recently. Today it's Comodo dragons being transported to Lexan zoological park, whatever that place is."

So nothing new then. Animals were transported every day. I wiped sweat off my forehead, a tarry mix of moisture and coal dust transferring to my pale skin.

"Well I'll be off then. No workers missing today so you don't need me." I said with a teasing smile.

"Aww, come on! Please stay!" They begged, moaning in exaggerated disappointment.

"Nah. See you later." I left the engine room, shutting the door behind me.

As the train rumbled along rhythmically, I was reminded of another place I needed to check for work. I hurried along the red-carpeted corridor with mahogany walls, lit with golden lamps. Then at the next carriage, I pushed open the wooden door and stepped in.

Immediately the mouth watering smell of fresh, baked bread hit me, and I knew I was in the right place. There were two tables in front of a large cast-iron oven, and two shelves next to the flour covered beechwood tables. These shelves were similar in appearance to spice racks, except much bigger. (They were this way to stop ingredients falling off).

A plump woman wearing a cornflower blue dress with swishing skirts and a white apron was bent over the table to the left of the central oven, and was humming as she kneaded bread dough. This was the train bakery, the products of which were nibbled daintily by first class. Second class had to make do without. The baker was called Angie and I knew her well. Her temperamental oven, which fed steam generated to the furnace, was always having problems. Angie sighed happily when she saw me, her bun hairstyle flopped like kneaded dough.

"Thank goodness you're here!" She cried. "My old girl has thrown a tantrum. First class are still waiting for white bread and that automaton "Rosalind" is waiting for the order! Will you help me Mila?"

I nodded and went over to the oven.

"You have turned it off, if I am correct?" I asked.

Angie nodded.

I set to work sorting the oven, and it turned out the gas oven had had it's supply cut off. It was specially designed to run on coal, which would generate steam. This would heat the range and so be able to bake things.

I fixed the pipe causing the gas to be cut off after about two hours, and Angie could bake her bread again.

"You're an Angel, Mila!" She sang happily, and she handed me two Chevrets. I said goodbye, and left the room.

Now my jobs were over, I decided to have some freetime. My pay for todays stoking wouldn't be given out for another week at least. I thought, and then decided to one of my favourite things: climb onto the roof of the train and watch everything go past at high speed. I loved the thrill of it, and also seeing the views of my country.

It was a beautiful country, but I didn't know the name of it.
We never stayed long enough at one station for me to find that out.

I shuffled along the corridor again, looking for the window in the ceiling that would let me get on the roof. I found the window, seeing the sky streak past as blurry watercolours. I stood on the bronze rail and reached up for the window catch.

"MILA!" Barked someone.

The volume of the angry voice made me lose my balance and I fell in front of a tall, thin man in a disgruntled heap.

"What on earth are you doing!?" He seethed.

He was a very wealthy man, wearing shiny black boots, silken trousers and a waistcoat and tails. He wore a burgundy cravat in his waistcoat. The man had grey hair and a moustache like a walrus. Underneath a top hat with a burgundy ribbon, a silver-haired plait streamed out. His long hair was something he was proud of. He also had a habit of constantly adjusting his silver cufflinks, and he did so just before he saw me and got enraged. I knew all this because this man was my boss, Mr Olton!

"What were you doing climbing up to the emergency hatch?!" He shouted.

"I don't know!" I answered. I hadn't any other answer.

"You should know! Go back to the stokers right now, stoker girl." Mr Olton answered and he continued on his way.

I sighed to myself and headed to the engine room. Mr Olton was never cheerful and never had been for all I remembered. He'd left the train last month before returning three weeks later and had been more shouty and irritable since. The good thing was he left the train at the end of each day, at 9pm, so I didn't have to see him all the time.

Disappointed with the lack of excitement today, I went to bed and wished for tomorrow to be more interesting.

I wish I hadn't.

Little did I know what was in store for me...

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