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But he was not so lucky—Tae, scribbled-over leg, brandishing delicate, decorated daggers in each hand, plucked froo The wind rustled its boughs behind her and the clinking of knives, one against the other, filled the forest air She had stabbed hio again, her knees bent, knives raised, wooden teeth bared The giant brandished his fist to knock her flat—and glass exploded against his face Thomas whipped his head round to see Blunderbuss, rainbowher rainbow yarn, in the

traditional Wos splayed out before her,whiskey bottles, passionfruits, and horseshoes into the baseball’s flabby cheeks

“I’et stuck in the washing machine once Round and round you went! Who’s afraid of so that can’t defeat a rinse cycle?”

The funniest thing happened The tattooed giant blushed They were all so shocked to see such a thing on his awful face that for aRed spread over his sharp, starving cheekbones and his great bald head He was eone in a second, but they’d all seen it He looked so wretched, so confused, like a walrus suddenly deposited at the perfume counter of a department store

“I used to be somebody else,” he whispered

“Me too,” said Tom Thorn

He could ales Church bells The ever-present danger of pirates So aain, I still have my pencil and my notebook and I shall not hesitate at all to write you into a baseball quick as you can say third strike Or worse! A golf ball Or a little marble I promise to instantly lose down a storm drain”

He drew his pencil out of his satchel and held it before him like a sword Its tip was broken, and he had no notion of whether or not such s back into unalive things at all, but the h he meant it He did hope his new troll eyes were fierce and steely and all the things they ought to be “Now, Mr Sunday, which we’ll call you until you coain and can tell us it’s Harold or whatever it is, you can come with us if you like—”

But it would seeolden fangs and the depths of his golden throat, and leapt away through the eyeball and firework trees, which boomed in his wake

The Sunday dinner tree rose above the cara butter and honey andcrust onto the little caed a fire of fallen firework branches It blazed green, then blue, then purple, then green again, shooting up showers of sparks whenever it felt particularly festive Tamburlaine sat a little farther back than her friends, so as not to scorch They all lay back, very pleased with therizzly thing and followed that up with supper frolittered in birthday colors, unfamiliar and faot dented so:

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains,

There’s a land that’s fair and bright,

Where the handouts grow on bushes

And you sleep out every night…

“This is Fairyland, isn’t it, Tam?”