Page 36 (1/2)

And then the moose stood up, one by one, quite calreen

“What was that? What? Hoas that laundry?” Taether like winter branches

Penny looked at them oddly “You can’t see? Oh…that’s…” And she had to sit down, she was laughing so hard Robin Hood shook his head while she explained “Well, you wouldn’t, would you? We all get a gob of gno, but you came round the back way I bet this all looks like a lovely countryside to you, doesn’t it? Pretty enough to pitch a village in? It’s just a house That’s the parlor, where ere talking to Tanaquill, her dressing rooot a bedroom in the white hill up there It’s all just a Fairy’s idea of interior decorating They make us dress like milkmaids and noble thieves so we match the draperies If you could see clearly, you’d knoe’re in the laundries now”

“So that was just a lot of bedsheets and petticoats? That’s what you saw? Bedsheets with poison tails?” Tom huffed

“No, actually, that was a lot of white moose with poison tails,” Robin Hood cut in “That’s just what Fairy laundry looks like It hates us and wants us to suffer It’s not like they wear clothes, really, or sleep in beds that would look like beds to us Their laundry is…it’s their insides, see? Rage, ry jealousy thrown in with the delicates They use it hard all week, and on the Sabbats we get it ready to wear again But anye still see the ully We just see the washboards, too”

“Don’t people get stuck with those tails?” asked Tamburlaine

“Sure I know a girl who lost an ar man He took off his Robin Hood cap, which even Tom had to admit looked silly “Sorry, I didn’t introduce myself You sort of lose your manners around here, like old socks” He held out his hand and se, horribly familiar, lopsided smile

“I’m Thomas Rood,” he said

CHAPTER XVI

THE CRANBERRY BOG

In Which a Troll Meets Hi Hides a Ferret in His Pocket, a Girl Made of Wood Says Quite a Lot Concerning the Emperor of Turkey, and a Fairy Ball Co

“No, you’re not,” Tom Thorn insisted

“I ah,” replied Thomas Rood

Toreen hose and doublet and cap with a long pheasant feather sticking out of it He could see it, almost His own face, his hurown up with a slare other than Nicholas’s to learn If he’d hardly ever had a haircut and had worked so hard he had muscles before he had a beard If he’d spent half his life with his head bent and his jaw clenched Though, Tom supposed, they’d both done a little of that He reet away fros that et in on the joke if I’ht

“Pleased toto nize “I’m Thomas Rood”