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Littlest shook her head "Not just the dog," she ads that I alments fro, too See what he's holding?"

Thin Elderly leaned forward to examine the faded animal in the boy's arms "I can't tell exactly what that is," he ," Littlest explained "A kind of donkey thing, and very old--that's why its color is gone One ear is ed to the woled "She called it Hee-Haw

"She was just a little girl," she added, "but she saved it all these years And she brought it down fro such trouble sleeping"

"How do you know all this?" Thin Elderly asked "She would have done that during the day You couldn't have been here then We dreaivers come only when they're asleep

"Come out to the hallway," he added "We can converse ain, fondly, at the sleeping boy, and then Littlest followed Thin Elderly to the corner of the hallway, the place where they had frequently huddled together during the invasions of the Sinisteed Tonight the at to fear They would still be on guard, of course, but the visits of the hot-breathed intruder had become less frequent

So the pair did not huddle apprehensively but rather settled comfortably in the shadowy hall corner beside the attic stairs

"Now," Thin Elderly said, "tell e of you, Littlest One, and if you are doing anything dangerous, like stealing away from the Heap in daytime--"

"Oh, no! I wouldn't do that!" she reassured him

"Daytiht creatures" His voice was solemn

"What exactly are we, Thin Elderly?" Littlest One asked hiain, but she never explained At first I thought I , because I felt a kind ofwell, I don't kno to describe it, but a kind of brotherhood with the dog--"

She giggled "Or a sisterhood But then I didn't have the right ears, and of course no tail!"

She wiggled her tiny bottom mischievously, and Thin Elderly s the subject I believe you that you have not ventured out in daylight You're a very obedient little drea information How did you know, for exa back that--"

Wrinkling his nose, he gestured toward the bedroo," he said

"Hee-Haw," she rerin

"Yes Hee-Haw" He said the name with a sound of as--"

"Like the dog?"

"Like the dog, yes But other things, too The photographs, the seashell, the dishes, all of it, everything, even Hee-Haw--"

"Yes, even Hee-Haw" Thin Elderly smiled at the sole by his side

"It all seeether soers ever so lightly across his arossaossa for a dreas I didn't even know about, or touch Like--well, like Hee-Haw"

She looked up at him "He was part of the woman's childhood," she said "Part of her story 'Once there was a little girl, and she had a toy donkey--' would be the way her story begins I already knew her story, fro story, and it has sad parts I get a lot of sad frags of never-cos of now-I'raph, so I always collect there, just to keep that kiss fragment for her

"And you knohat, Thin Elderly? Sad parts are iiver, that's one of the things I'll teach: that you must include the sad parts, because they are part of the story, and they have to be part of the dreaood teacher one day," he told her

"Thank you," she said dehed "I know Soon I will"

"Anyway," she said, changing the subject, "I felt as if I knew Hee-Haw a little, soht him from the attic Then there he was! In the boy's room! And you knohat, Thin Elderly?"