Local Hero

The family, clearly tourists, push their roller suitcases under the subway turnstiles before the whole group has gone through, which is why they’re unable to prevent one of the bags from rolling down the platform and tumbling onto the tracks, just before the train entered the station. 

The train manages, impressively enough, to stop right before hitting the bag, but now we’re stuck - there’s a maroon carry-on sized bag on the tracks, and it’s Sunday, which means nobody is going to be able to come retrieve for a while, and everybody has someplace to be.

I ask if anyone has an umbrella (it has been raining today, after all), so someone volunteers their full-sized one with a traditional, curved handle, and now Katie is lying on the edge of the platform while I hold her legs as she hooks the handle of the suitcase with the umbrella and hauls it up off the tracks to an enthusiastic round of applause.

The conductor thanks Katie, pulls the train the rest of the way into the station, and everyone, including the tourist family, piles onto the train, but after a hurried discussion, the tourist family, grinning sheepishly, gets off the train before it leaves, because apparently they meant to go the other direction, into Manhattan.