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“I’VE A KNACK FOR IT,” Rupert roared “GOTTA TAKE

WORK WHILE WORK’S TAKING, YEAH?”

“Yeah,” Tam offered weakly This seemed to snap the Office back to the task at hand

“COME ON THEN, NO MOANING, I HAVEN’T GOT ALL DAY”

Their little wretched band cliue as best they could Rupert boosted Scratch up into the drawer first, then popped Blunderbuss, squealing woolly protest, after Penny got To Lane before Rupert hoisted theentle hand

To lay at the bottoave theracefully into the depths of the Office, dripping gold all the way down

Let us say a house is a world Its hallways and landings are rivers and seas connecting the great continents of living roo anchor in the port of breakfast, the harbor of bookshelves! Great mountains of stairs lead up into the alpine country of bedroo rooms and linen closets Let us say this is true—for it is just exactly what Toh the little door at 17 Love-Lies-Bleeding Lane, a handsome tweed brownstone sandwiched between two others just like it on a broad and pleasant street lined with poplin poplars

Tom Thorn pushed open the door—an oval velvet elbow patch with a brown-button knob The horrid pain in his bones and his skin and his teeth and his feet went up like steam and vanished back to wherever it had coreen meadow studded ildflowers His friends crowded in behind hiht violets and dahlias and tangled bittersweet berries racing one another across the sweetgrass Little groves of alerine and breadfruit trees sprouted up in the most perfect places, where the nooks of hillocksthrough the countryside The sun gushed light like a burst grape; four happy trickling brooks full of sh the rich black soil The clouds blossoplant, but it soht in this particular sky They had stepped, not out of the oval velvet door, but out of a very neat groundskeeper’s hut, walls ashed and roof tiled in blue

A lady caerine trees Penny stiffened; Toawped She was the most perfectly beautiful person he had ever seen, so perfectly beautiful that she looked entirely wrong, precisely because there wasn’t the tiniest thing wrong with her She looked like a drawing or a sort of architectural plan for a lady—except she wasn’t really a lady, but a Fairy Her hair swept up into a wild lets clasped with live black starlings claainst her long, slim back, nearly black, so thick and dense were the colors of theone slightly green with age Yet she wore the own e It had been haether out of horseshoes and wheel hoops and hammer heads and ax blades and manacles Where it touched her delicate skin it left red welts and tiny blisters like dewdrops, but the Fairy did not seem to mind them in the least; rather, she wore them like proud rubies

“I thought Fairies were allergic to iron,” Tamburlaine whispered

“Quite,” said the Fairy curtly Her voice collided with them and burst into a shower of dark honey “But that’s an absurd reason to be afraid of a thing, don’t you agree? I wearto four thirty in the afternoon faithfully I used to bleed the whole while Oh, you never saw such a er now I can put on s and handle a hobnail without the smallest wince It h about ether Her saffron eyes sparkled “I hted to make your acquaintance! I asked for the two of you specially I do so enjoy a spot of the unusual inas I say Very useful indeed You may call me Madame Tanaquill Your…aniestured toward an outcropping of blue rock to the west Atree was trying valiantly to grow out of it “Go on, my little pups!”

“I’m no one’s pup, Miss Rustybritches, and I don’t sleep in a stable, thanksfor this person calling him an animal He stared doith the mouth of his bell But Mada

“I shouldn’t like to callvoice

Scratch and Blunderbuss went, furiously, the graht Now he did want to sing—or spit—at her! But he could not see has yet been written that goes: I love Tamburlaine and if you take me away from her I shall play John Philip Sousa at top volume till I explode or you do

“Now, that’s all sorted! How nice Let’s get you started on the laundry, shall we? And after supper I a an Affair You will be expected to dress appropriately and present yourselves at the Cranberry Bog at one quarter past nine I do not abide tardiness, children! Ginnie knows the way to the Laundries My regular boy is already at his post, so don’t er than you must”