Page 30 (1/2)

“Any way it likes, I expect,” shrugged Crunchcrab “But of course you don’t know! You haven’t got a crowbar for my crown in your back pocket I know that I’m not addled, boy Nobody knows Except the Spinster And she won’t tell Mostly because we can’t find her to ask But you’ll find her for ramophone And whatever the yarn-pile is”

CHAPTER XIII

UNHAPPY FEET

In Which Thomas and Tamburlaine Are Introduced to Pandes, While a Walrus Gets a Nasty Cough

Any city looks a bit like its mother and father If you peer closely at New York, you will see that the old girl has Dutch ears and English eyes London cannot hide her Ro that is awfully Greek This is why you may see streets in one city with just the same name as the streets in another, and even cities with identical names, like two Joshuas or A to a fa fondly their old grandfathers and great-aunts, all the way back to the very first hut and fire and lonely cave with horses painted on it that had no name at all In one city, if you are very clever and sneaky, you can spy out the whole world it belongs to, just as you can spy out a few thousand years of singing and dancing and le person’s face

I tell you this so that, when I say Pandemonium looked just like Fairyland, you will knohat I mean (Traditionally, all cities are politely referred to as “she,” though the actual situation is somewhat more complicated As we should not like to look up a city’s underskirts, we shall hew to tradition) Pandee Wyverary once infor, hyperactive copy of Fairyland itself, made and sewn and stitched and tied all of cloth, of wool and silk, of yarn and ribbon, of batting and bunting

And she is rather prone to indigestion You really cannot see it unless you are a roc or a pterodactyl or some other beast who does not need h Let us pretend we are pterodactyls! Look! There, in the northwest quarter, you can see all the crinoline aparte and red and chocolatey brown, just as in the north and west of Fairyland the Autumn Provinces are forever colored in October’s fire In the southern part of the city, clusters of houses with bo forest that looks so very like Skaldtown Youlives there that is not covered in organza origami flowers and birds and butterflies, in every shade of pink, of green, of violet, of gold, just as the Springtireens if you do not wear your glasses (Only beware, the butterflies are quite vicious, being an ancient nation of warriors without mercy)

Fro in a circle around Pandemoniue days! Now it is tea again, afloat with sugar luriffins and hippogriffs and Fairies dive and flutter down into the city like great bright feathery bo to Pande, Hallowgruoing even now, even as we co like ten thousand souls live in the satin and brocade and calico towers, walk the muslin alleys and cashmere boulevards, and cheer when the black lace streetlahest point is Groangyre Tower, holynow Flats So fish, bicycle parts, children, sandwiches, brandywine, silver bullets—and Changelings

All this Tom and Tam and Blunderbuss and Scratch saw as they left the Painted Forest—though not frole quite so wonderful as ours Let us fold away our pterodactyl wings and hide theain! No, Tom and Tam and Blunderbuss and Scratch saw Pande, fuzzy, ropy buildings soaring up to tufted, ice-cream-colored cupolas in the sunshine They walked very quietly, in the coo, a very grand place indeed, Chicago does have rather fewer centaurs than Pandemonium, and no turquoise rhinoceroses at all Blunderbuss capered happily through the avenues, giddy to find herself a scrap-yarn wombat in a scrap-yarn city

It is very boring to follow people all the way fro place They do take so terribly long to do it, and we are important people with busy eyes, so I shall hurry ourCrunchcrab intended: Bespoke Espadrille’s Shoe Imporium The Imporium was a sweet little shop nestled in fashionable Little Buyan, in the Hallowgrum Quarter It had just the sort of littleness and sweetness that whispers: I am very expensive and exclusive; in fact, there is only rooawkers peeking in at the wonders which are yours alone It whispers such things, but everyone in Pandenores it and piles into the I feet and the cash register quits in a huff

But not today Today only a few boys and girls in rags lag around outside the shop—though rags in Pandemonium are quite fine, cut sneakily with delinquent scissors fro streets, leaving potholes like groundhog dens The kids stood in front of the , passing a bit of green Fairy flaet up and dance in the shape of a ballerina, a witch, a gondolier, a toad They giggled One looked a little like Max, Toht Taller, perhaps

“Hullo,” said Tom He put out his hand to shake “What’s your name?”

The oldest girl flicked her eyes fro She curtseyed a few times, aardly, like a broken doll

“You shouldn’t be talking to us, Mr Friendly,” the boy who looked like Max hissed, snapping his hand shut and extinguishing the green fla

chu sort Which is us” He curtseyed, too But both of theh they weren’t talking to Tom at all He felt quite invisible