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The troll inside Tho his face to a shopTom and Tam held their breaths

Blunderbuss’s left eye was a pearly enta diamond-shaped button with a thistle carved on it (which had belonged to one of Gwendolyn’s spring dresses) and her right was a thick round brass button with a sailing ship stamped on it (which had come from one of Thoh she inking at so secret and funny She looked that way now, and Thomas couldn’t help it—he winked back, as he so often did when the world was baffling and only sorabbable could make him feel better

And Blunderbuss winked back

The chocolate-colored yarn over her enta eye bunched up like a real eyebrow and shut Then it sprang open again Next, the bold blue yarn over her brass right eye tried it Finally, the scrap-yarn woled her old and turquoise front feet on the bed, then her white and black back feet She dropped her front half down and wiggled her motley, patchwork rump in the air At last, Blunderbuss the wild and wonderful wo, powerful cloak-clasp teeth, and gave a chittering cry, like a pig and a songbird snorting and singing at the same time

Blunderbuss gave a great leap, which was slightly less great than she expected it to be as wos, but can never see hiht like a heap of cannonballs, her dense,like ool and a little, just a little, like bush grasses and a blazing hot sun beating down on dry dust

“Troll! Troll Troll!” the scrap-yarn wombat chortled Her voice was just perfectly ruruether “Yes! No! Yes Yes No No Maybe! Green Pineapples Gin” Blunderbuss banged her front paws on Thoain She beamed “TA-DA!” the wombat cried, and, quick as a pub-dart, dove in and bit him on the neck Thomas squealed

“You said I could!” Blunderbuss grueta promise Besides, in the Land of Wo And that we don’t like a thing And that we think a thing is delicious And that we think it is ours! Because anything you bite is yours, that’s just obvious! We bite e are angry and hungry and joyful and excited to go to the cines and because it is Tuesday but also because it is Sunday and especially e are DELIGHTED but NERVOUS Nothing says I AM HAVING FEELINGS like a bite! And I bit you so you are mine, Tom Rood I own you Wombat Rules I own a troll!”

Blunderbuss sprang off of hi her worsted claws on the floorboard nails She juain that she was not, in fact, a kangaroo, and thusher hindpaws in the air till she could clamber up and collapse on top of the red notebook with balloons on the cover, panting, her eyes shining and wet and alive

“I’asped Thomas

CHAPTER IX

THE EMERALD THERMODYNAMICAL HYPER-JUNGLE LAW

In Which Tom and Tam Host a Very Boisterous Party in Apartht, and Are Kidnapped by a Baseball Thomas and Tamburlaine played for seven hours, which is the proper nu

It takes a span of seven, at a minimum, to make a neorld

Seven days, seven hours, even seven ood breakfast Less won’t do; you spend the first bit justto find the hao on and on and procrastinate and sleep in weekends, before you know it you’ve spent a year on one little curlicue on one tiny blue fjord and the whole thing starts to seeiant

Don’t look at me so suspiciously—you and I make neorlds, too It is only that our hands are too sreat red stor for centuries We er stuff: We choose people who do not annoy us, places of green or glass and steel that feel as alive and necessary as our brothers and sisters, houses in which everything has a place, rules such as Do Not Take Things That Aren’t Yours Unless No One Is Looking and Good Things Happen to Good People and A Year Is 365 Days are agreed upon, even when they aren’t true, perhaps especially so