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With his last scrap of wakefulness, Toerine-colored ear He remembered that yarn Gwendolyn had used it to aroo hat His hat! He ru it along with them There it was, bunched up at the botto, wonderfully knit hat and pulled it onto his head It stretched, thank goodness, big enough to hold a troll’s thick skull He felt better at once

“Buss, when you first woke up,” Tos Yes and No and then two Yeses and two Nos and a Maybe Green Pineapples Gin Who were you talking to?”

Blunderbuss nuzzled up next to her troll She bit his great, gnarled hand softly and looked up at him with her mismatched button eyes

“You, dearest darling delirious diently “When Gwennie first s

I answered as soon as I could, for crying out loud You were only little You said: Will you be my best friend? Do you want some of my ham sandwich? Do you miss the Excellent Land of Woobble up Nicholas if he yells at ain? If I sleep with theopen, will you run away in the night? Will you stay with me forever and never leave? What is your favorite color? What is your favorite food? What’s really in your little barrel?”

By the ti his first snore as a troll—a deep, blossoh, would beco each troll makes but never hears

Toward dawn, the great soe of the Painted Forest It stood up on its tiptoes and peered through the branches at the sleeping children and their cold, ashen fire Even the scrap-yarn wo the ht and felt quite self-satisfied, having been such an excellent and stealthy stalker that the sweet little things just snoozed away like nothing at all was the matter

Colored lights poured over their faces, dancing, flitting, batting at their cheeks like hot butterflies Long shadows dropped their black bars onto the forest floor Rustling sounds filled the air—the great so could not keep quiet forever Curtains opened in theair, coffee trickled into cups, ten thousand fair folk stretched till their shoulders popped delightfully Newspapers opened, birds peeked out frooyles at the new day, and a river flowed round and round in a circle Spires of wool and silk and bohaurgled along itsfor Thomas and Tamburlaine and Blunderbuss and Scratch to wake up and notice that they’d been captured by a city

Pandemonium had come for them

CHAPTER XI

AN AUDIENCE WITH THE KING

In Which Thomas and Tamburlaine Summon a City, Are Forced to Share Their Breakfast with a Most Unpleasant King, and Learn Sos, Monarchies, and the Great Chicago Fire

Toain

Tamburlaine, Blunderbuss, Scratch: three Plus hih his bleary, thousand-ton sleep—for trolls sleep the sleep of stones, and cannot be roused quickly nor safely without serious technical equipment—he counted four lu himself made five, and that in turn made his head hurt and sleep seem deeply preferable to whatever nonsense that other lu out in a jazzy, swinging, somehoorried voice:

Morning bells are ringin’, in’