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“I think so, Tom”

“Well, it’s not Sydney, you dimwits,” yawned Blunderbuss Bits of cornbread and peas made a mustache over her muzzle “My favorite dimwits!” she corrected hurriedly “Best dimwits in all the world”

Tamburlaine stared up into the Sunday dinner tree with the lazy, gentle thoughtfulness one straps on after a good meal “It’s my mother’s recipe Roast pork with mint and thyh till she fell over to see her Sunday roast growing out of the ground I wonder what it looks like in Autuht to have a Latin naic language of hu’s really official, really real, unless you can call it to lunch in Latin Porcinus delicia Ameliae, I should think That sounds mostly Latin”

Sovast and heavy and curious None of our merry band could hear it yet But it had scented therass under the stars

Tamburlaine rolled over onto her sto theh the shadowy baked-apple leaves at the great dinner plate of the moon—dinner plate and bread saucer, for here in this place not one h the sky, one enormous and one small

“You look fantastic,” Talints in her wooden eyes

“Do I?” said Toht I could be so big I’s, too I feel all over pins and needles, like my heart’s been squashed asleep since I was born”

“Me too,” nodded Ta slab of wood One set of hands were red, and the other set were yellow The fingers swelled up to do the long parts of s and arms, and shrunk up for the delicate bits My hair, ans can do that, I think Get bigger or sans!”

Torass below their wonderful tree He still couldn’t remember his parents—his real parents His troll parents When he thought of his mother and father, Nicholas and Gwendolyn’s faces still rose in his head like balloons Scratch’s dented bell was turned toward thean to droop, falling toward the strange drearamophones, where no one needs cranks and all records are s nocturnal, was quite busily awake, snuffling about in the roots of the Sunday dinner tree for cornbread crumbs

“Top grub,” the wombat snorted “We’ll live here now Yes Much better Much best”

And all the while, through the wild, unsown fields beyond the trees, so its breath so as not to startle its prey too soon

Tom Thorn’s body could hardly keep awake—but his heart was running circles round his bones The troll in his heart was now free The troll inside was the troll outside—and it hadn’t the foggiest what to do with itself

One question burned through him like a wish

“Ta’s changed, everything in the whole world and the world, too There’s no school, no after school, no houses or bookshelves or aparto? What e do?”

But Taainst her shoulders like an exhausted puppy To pieces with one of Ta shaped like a snare dru healthy and full of green tubas next to the Sunday dinner tree What a strange girl his friend was! Strange enough when he thought she’d only remembered this place, dimly, the way he now remembered Apartment 7 But she’d made it up, all of it, in her head, and painted it alive Being in the forest was like walking and talking and sleeping and eating in her mind