Page 16 (1/2)

He looked down at his toes, poking out fro for food He’d pulled his blanket up too far, exposing his feet, and wondered if the chill of the night had awakened hishookposition, any remnant of sleep completely quashed He threw the covers off, put on his velvet slippers, and shuffled to the next roo trinkets blinked and clinked and chirped A large computer screen took up the entire left wall Several hundred nareen, a variety of syht of each na purple checkasp and sit down in his specially-ordered, onomically sophisticated swivel chair He spun in three co hih he were dancing And then he laughed He laughed loud and long and hard, his heart bursting with pride and joy

After many disappointments, someone had finally made a Pick, one so powerful it had shaken the very foundation of the Coht, giddy and still chuckling

And then, to his utter and coht in his bones, two more purple checkmarks appeared on the screen, alether? I the chair backith the backs of his knees, squinting to make sure it hadn’t been a trick of his eyes There they were--three purplehe’d learned froe went in search of his tabby cat, Muffintops He found her snoozing behind the ging her fiercely

"Dearest Muffintops," he said, petting her "We ht aith soan ruh his pots and pans to find a clean teapot Once he’d set sohtened and put his hands on his hips, staring down at his whiskered friend

"My goodness gracious me," he said "Three Picks within a few minutes of each other? I daresay we have a lot of work to do"

Upstairs in his room, Tick ide awake, despite the late hour

He studied the first letter from MG until the sky outside faded from black to bruised purple and the first traces of dawn cast a pallid glow outside hisThe wind had picked up, the infa up its age-long duty, scraping the side of the house with its creepy claws of leafless wood But Tick kept reading, searching, thinking

The ic words

He didn’t knohat they were, why he needed them, or ould happen on May sixth when he was supposed to say theure the necessary to do just that

Nothing caraphs, the words for clues He tried rearranging letters, looked for words that were perhaps spelled vertically, sought the word "

He res where the entrance to the Mines of Moria said "Speak friend, and enter" It had literally meant for the person to speak the word "friend" in the Elven language and the doors would open But nothing like that see out the date of the special day from the first clue had been a piece of cake corew frustrated He also felt the effects of staying up all night and a sudden surge of fatigue pressed his head down to the pillow, pulled his eyelids closed

When his ed for onewith a kid who’d been eaten alive just a few days earlier

After his mom tucked him back into bed and patted his head like a sick three year old, Tick pondered the pledge he’d ht the fear, to solve the puzzle No matter what

I’m either really, really brave or really, really stupid

Finally, despite the light of sunrise streah his , he fell asleep