第 7 页

"Well, that's a blessing, wouldn't you say? Sometimes it's a good thing we don't remember things

half as well as books do. But for them we probably wouldn't know anything for very long. It

would all be forgotten: the Trojan War, Columbus, Marco Polo, Shakespeare, all the amazing

kings and gods of the past..." Elinor turned around — and froze.

"Did I fail to hear you knock?" she asked, staring so angrily that Meggie had to summon up all

her courage not to turn around and slip quickly back out into the hallway.

"How long have you been there, Meggie?" asked Mo.

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Meggie stuck her chin out. "She can see it, but you hide it away from me!" she said. Attack, she

knew, is the best form of defense. "You never hid any book from me before! What's so special

about this one? Will I go blind if I read it? Will it bite my fingers off? What terrible secrets are

there in it that I shouldn't know?"

"I have my reasons for not showing it to you," replied Mo. He looked very pale. Without another

word he went over and tried to lead her to the door, but Meggie tore herself away.

"Pigheaded, isn't she?" remarked Elinor. "It almost makes me like her! Her mother was just the

same, I remember. Come here." She stepped aside and beckoned Meggie over. "Look, you can see

there's nothing very exciting about this book, at least not to you. But see for yourself. We're

always most likely to believe the evidence of our own eyes. Or doesn't your father agree?" She

cast Mo an inquiring glance.

Mo hesitated, then resigned himself and nodded.

The book was lying open on the reading desk. It didn't seem particularly old. Meggie knew what

really old books looked like. She had seen books in Mo's workshop with their pages spotted like

leopard skin and almost as yellow. She remembered one with a binding that had been attacked

by woodworms. The traces of their jaws had looked like tiny bullet holes, and Mo had gotten out

his book block, carefully fixed the pages back together, then, as he put it, gave them a new dress.

Such a dress could be made of leather or linen, it might be plain, or Mo might imprint a pattern

on it with his tiny decorative stamps.

This book was bound in linen, silvery green like willow leaves. The edges of the pages were

slightly roughened, and the paper was still so pale that every letter stood out clear and black. A

narrow red bookmark lay between the open pages. The right-hand page had an illustration on it,

showing women in magnificent dresses, a fire-eater, acrobats, and a man who looked like a king.

Meggie turned the pages. There weren't many illustrations, but the first letter of each chapter

was itself a little decorative picture. Animals sat on some of these initial letters, plants twined

around others, one F burned bright as fire. The flames looked so real that Meggie touched them

with one finger to make sure they weren't hot. The next chapter began with an N. An animal

with a furry tail sat perched in the angle between the second and third strokes of the letter. No

one saw him slip out of town, read Meggie, but before she could get any further with the story

Elinor closed the book in her face.

"I think that'll do," she said, tucking it under her arm. "Your father's asked me to put this book

somewhere safe for him, and so I will."

Mo took Meggie's hand again, and this time she followed him. "Please forget that book, Meggie!"

he whispered. "It's an unlucky story. I'll get you a hundred others."

Meggie just nodded. Before Mo closed the door behind them, she caught a last glance of Elinor

standing there looking at the book lovingly, the way Mo sometimes looked at her when he put

her to bed in the evening.

Then the door was closed.

"Where will she put it?" asked Meggie as she followed Mo down the corridor.

"Oh, she has some very good hiding places for such things," replied Mo evasively. "But they're

secret, as hiding places should be. Suppose I show you your room now?" He was trying to sound

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carefree, and not succeeding particularly well. "It's like a room in an expensive hotel. No, much

better."

"Sounds good," murmured Meggie, looking around, but there was no sign of Dustfinger. Where

had he gone? She had to ask him something. At once. That was all she could think of while Mo

was showing her the room and telling her that everything was all right now; he just had to do his

bookbinding work, then they'd go home. Meggie nodded and pretended to be listening, but her

mind was full of the question she wanted to ask Dustfinger. It burned on her lips so fiercely she

was surprised Mo didn't see it there.

When Mo left her to go and get their bags from the camper van Meggie went into the kitchen, but

Dustfinger wasn't there either. She even looked for him in Elinor's bedroom, but however many

doors in the huge house she opened there was no sign of him. Finally, she was too tired to go on

searching. Mo had gone to bed long ago, and Elinor had disappeared into her own bedroom. So

Meggie went to her room and lay down on the big bed. She felt very lost in it, like a dwarf, as if

she had shrunk. Like Alice in Wonderland, she thought, patting the floral sheets. Otherwise she

liked the room. It was full of books and pictures, and there was even a fireplace, although it

looked as if no one had used it for at least a hundred years. Meggie swung her legs out of bed

again and went over to the window. Outside, night had fallen long ago, and when she pushed the

window shutters open a cool breeze blew on her face. The only thing she could make out in the

dark was the gravel forecourt in front of the house. A lamp cast pale light over the gray and

white pebbles. Mo's striped van stood beside Elinor's gray car like a zebra lost in a horse's

stable. Meggie thought of the house they had left in such a hurry, and her room there, and school,

where her desk would have been empty today. She wasn't sure whether she felt homesick or

not.

She left the shutters open when she went back to bed. Mo had put her book box beside her.

Wearily, she took out a book and tried to make herself a nice nest in its familiar words, but it

was no good. Again and again the thought of that other book blurred the words, again and again

Meggie saw the big initial letters before her — large, colorful letters surrounded by figures

whose story she didn't know because the book hadn't had time to tell it to her.

I must find Dustfinger, she thought sleepily. He must be here somewhere. But then the book

slipped from her fingers and she fell asleep.

The sun woke her the next morning. The air was still cool from the night before, but the sky was

cloudless, and when Meggie leaned out of the window she could see the lake gleaming in the

distance beyond the branches of the trees. The room Elinor had given her was on the first floor.

Mo was sleeping only two doors farther along, but Dustfinger had to make do with an attic room.

Meggie had seen it when she was looking for him yesterday. It held nothing but a narrow bed

surrounded by crates of books towering up to the rafters. Mo was already sitting at the table

with Elinor when Meggie came down to the kitchen for breakfast, but Dustfinger wasn't there.

"Oh, he's had breakfast already," said Elinor sharply, when Meggie asked about him. "Along with

some animal like a Pomeranian dog. It was sitting on the table and it spat at me when I came into

the kitchen. I wasn't expecting anything like that. I made it clear to your peculiar friend that flies

are the only animals I'll allow anywhere near my kitchen table, and so he took the furry creature

outside."

"What do you want him for?" asked Mo.

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"Oh, nothing special. I — I just wanted to ask him something," said Meggie. She hastily ate half a

slice of bread, drank some of the horribly bitter cocoa Elinor had made, and went out.

She found Dustfinger behind the house, standing on a lawn of short, rather rough grass where a

solitary deck chair stood next to a plaster angel. There was no sign of Gwin. A few birds were

quarreling among the red flowers of the rhododendron, and there stood Dustfinger looking lost

to the world, and juggling. Meggie tried to count the colored balls — four, six, eight. He plucked

them out of the air so swiftly that it made her dizzy to watch him. He stood on one leg to catch

them, casually, as if he didn't even have to look. Only when he spotted Meggie did a ball escape

his fingers and roll at her feet. Meggie picked it up and threw it back.

"Where did you learn to do that?" she asked. "It looked — well, wonderful."

Dustfinger made her a mocking bow. There was that strange smile of his again. "It's how I earn

my living," he said. With the juggling and a few other things."

"How can you earn a living that way?"

"At markets and fairs. At children's birthday parties. Did you ever go to one of those fairs where

people pretend they're still living in medieval times?"

Meggie nodded. Yes, she had once been to a fair like that with Mo. There had been wonderful

things there, so strange that they might have come from another world, not just another time.

Mo had bought her a box decorated with brightly colored stones and a little fish made of shiny

green-and-gold metal, with its mouth wide open and a jingle in its hollow body that rang like a

little bell when you shook it. The air had smelled of freshly baked bread, smoke, and damp

clothes, and Meggie had watched a smith making a sword and had hidden behind Mo's back

from a woman in a witch's costume.

Dustfinger picked up his juggling balls and put them back in his bag, which was standing open

on the grass behind him. Meggie went over to it and looked inside. She saw some bottles, some

white cotton wool, and a carton of milk, but before she could see any more Dustfinger closed the

bag.

"Sorry, trade secrets," he said. "Your father's given the book to this Elinor, hasn't he?"

Meggie shrugged her shoulders.

"It's all right, you can tell me. I know anyway. I was listening. He's mad to leave it here, but what

can I do?" Dustfinger sat down on the deck chair. His backpack was on the grass next to him,

with a bushy tail spilling out of it.

"I saw Gwin," said Meggie.

"Did you?" Dustfinger leaned back, closing his eyes. His hair looked even paler in the sunlight.

"So did I. He's in the backpack. It's the time of day when he sleeps."

"I mean I saw him in the book." Meggie didn't take her eyes off Dustfinger's face as she said this,

but it didn't move a muscle. His thoughts couldn't be read on his brow in the same way as she

could read Mo's. Dustfinger's face was a closed book, and Meggie had the feeling that if anyone

tried reading it he would rap their knuckles. "He was sitting on a letter," she went on. "On a

capital N. I saw his horns."

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"Really?" Dustfinger didn't even open his eyes. "And do you know which of her thousands of

shelves that bookmad woman put it on?"

Meggie ignored his question. "Why does Gwin look like the animal in the book?" she asked. "Did

you really stick those horns on him?"

Dustfinger opened his eyes and blinked up at the sun.

"Hm, did I?" he inquired, looking at the sky. A few clouds were drifting over Elinor's house. The

sun disappeared behind one of them, and its shadow fell across the green grass like an ugly

mark.

"Does your father often read aloud to you, Meggie?" asked Dustfinger.

Meggie looked at him suspiciously. Then she knelt down beside the backpack and stroked

Gwin's silky tail. "No," she said. "But he taught me to read when I was five."

"Ask him why he doesn't read aloud to you," said Dustfinger. "And don't let him put you off with

excuses."

"What do you mean?" Meggie straightened up, feeling cross. "He doesn't like reading aloud,

that's all."

Dustfinger smiled. Leaning out of the deck chair, he put one hand into the backpack. "Ah, that

feels like a nice full stomach," he commented. "I think Gwin had good hunting last night. I hope

he hasn't been plundering a nest again. Perhaps it's just Elinor's rolls and eggs." Gwin's tail

twitched back and forth almost like a cat's. Meggie looked at the backpack with distaste. She was

glad she couldn't see Gwin's muzzle. There might still be blood on it.

Dustfinger leaned back in Elinor's deck chair. "Shall I give you a performance this evening —

show you what the bottles, the cotton wool, and all the other mysterious things in my bag are

for?" he asked without looking at her. "It has to be dark for that, pitch dark. Are you scared to be

outdoors in the middle of the night?"

"Of course not!" said Meggie, offended, although really she was not at all happy to be out in the

dark. "But first, tell me why you stuck those horns on Gwin! And tell me what you know about

the book."

Dustfinger folded his arms behind his head. "Oh, I know a lot about that book," he said. "And