 
# THE FLYING BUFFALO UNICORN

BY

Larry Good

Jethro to fly with them? It was an amazing colorful crazy idea!

The Tackling Dummy Press

**SMASHWORDS EDITION**

**Copyright © 2013 by Larry Good, All Rights Reserved.**

**Smashwords Edition, License Notes**

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Cover Designer: Todd Hebertson

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"Leaves lift trees."

\---The Tackling Dummy
ACROSS THE MISTERCALD Is a SERIES of Six Books:

Book One: The Tree of Ticket Leaves

Book Two: The Land of Walking Through Cake

Book Three: A Favor for Sticktight

_BOOK FOUR:   THE FLYING BUFFALO UNICORN_

Book Five: Pumphrey The WaterSpout

Book Six: The Land of Now and Later
This book is dedicated to The Greater Good:

That is,

To my brother

Jerry,

Although he did catch me that one time

in the alfalfa field.

I could usually outrun him!

Hi Jerry!

# IN THE LAND OF PINK WINDMILLS:

Chapter One    The Disappearing Land

Chapter Two    Only the Whites of Her Eyes

Chapter Three    The Ability To Stay

Chapter Four    The Owingstone Target

Chapter Five    An Extremely Soft Loud Boom!

Chapter Six    A Completely Unexpected Question

Chapter Seven    A Leap of Unbelievable Excitement

Chapter Eight    Perfit Gets To See Some Lands

Chapter Nine    Intense Lavender

Chapter Ten    The Laughing Cake

Chapter Eleven    The Fantastic Idea

Chapter Twelve    A Big Surprise for Perfit

Chapter Thirteen    The Flying Buffalo Unicorn

# Chapter I: THE DISAPPEARING LAND

_This was to be one of the most unforgettable days ever in The Lands!_

Quite understandably, _all_ of the dummies who lived in The Land of Pink Windmills wanted to know what had happened up in The Tower Tree and also above The Yellow Trampoline when Meri had jumped. All they had been able to see were the many pieces of The Paper Airplane Sky suddenly floating down from the cliffs, like birds.

They wanted to hear everything!

Meri had decided to sit on the very end of The Sliding Board, so she could tell more easily who was asking her a question. She could then talk directly to that dummy as well as to all of them.

There was a wonderful pleasantness of colors spread out before Meri as she looked at the animated faces of the many light yellow and soft pink yarn dummies of The Land of Pink Windmills before her. Their hair sometimes had minor accents too, like Syl's. Hers was light green with hints of pink. Some of the dummies were wearing outfits by Aquamarie, which Meri thought she could recognize. This was the first good look at Meri by all of the dummies of the land. Meri could tell by their eyes that they liked her, and it was a lot of fun talking to them and getting to know more of them individually.

It wasn't often that one got to fly UP to an airplane! The dummies were especially interested in how she had felt every _second_ of the adventure! They were also listening to Wut, Fico, Jethro, Syl and the Tackling Dummy at different places in the large crowd, telling the story from their points of view.

With her legs dangling over, Meri never tired of emphasizing that each of her friends up in the tree had succeeded—not just her. She was quite aware of how much credit Fico especially deserved, and what _all_ of the others had done. She made sure that everyone knew—everyone who was listening to _her_ , that is.

There was always great quiet _in the whole crowd, however, whenever_ any of them described Meri's marvelous leap, and her beautiful upflying arc up to The Immense flat Airplane.

There was one small adorable dummy, with beautiful hair, who quickly became quite attached to Meri. Her name was Perfit. She climbed up to the end of The Board to sit beside the friendly and courageous visitor, and to hold one of her hands—with her own small legs dangling over too.

She had such a sweet nature that they quickly began to develop a sister relationship.

Perfit was the youngest dummy in all of The Lands. Even so, she had her own windmill.

"Splendidious!" Meri heard the Tackling Dummy saying several times from somewhere else in the crowd, and she smiled. He loved to say that word—and his other favorite words too, which she also sometimes heard. So much had been happening, she hadn't had a chance yet to tell him about The Lending Library in The Land of Tiny Shiny Chains, also known as _The Land of Better Lending_.

_They were sure to have an unabridged dictionary!_

_And she also hadn't even had a chance to tell Wut about the owingstones and her promise to Sticktight._ The Visiting Sky had come when she was at The Ticket Tree, and afterwards, all she had been able to think about was the spectacular jump she needed to make. Now she wanted to tell him as soon as possible.

"Yep!" she kept hearing Jethro say from somewhere in the crowd. Dummies were hanging all over him, all over his back and even on his unicorn and head, listening to his side of the story. His part in the adventure, so unexpected, was of course especially thrilling—and he told it very well! He became excited all over again each time he re-lived it! He was having a great time! _His accidental opportunity to prevent The Falling Black Sky from getting away again was one of the best things that had ever happened to him._ His eyes were quite bright.

Meri kept glancing affectionately over at Wut as he vividly described, to another group of dummies, the adventure in the great tree. It was a strange place for a question mark! She noticed that he kept inconspicuously, every now and then, tilting his head back and glancing up at the cliffs. It soon became quietly obvious to her that he was _still_ very concerned about the croapfs.

_She realized he was watching to see if they were coming at that very moment, with another unusual danger for The Land of Pink Windmills!_

And then she remembered: T _he croapfs still had those five flying wands that gave them so much of an advantage!_ _And they still had their creative minds, although something was wrong with them!_

_They could do something else at any minute!_

With these thoughts, Meri began glancing up at the cliffs herself—but this time _, because of her own concern!_

She was seriously worried for the land again: Because the first two problems, the fireballs and attack from the sky, had come in just the last two days.

_And this was the third day!_

_Would the croapfs be back again with something else the third day in a row?_

And then—in a coincidence that made her heart sink!—at that very moment, as she was thinking about the third day in a row, a single croapf appeared in the air near the sheer rock facings that were already so high above them. He was very small in the sky because he was so far up.

With one of the flying wands, he appeared far to the right of The right Tower Tree.

_Meri noticed immediately that he had something in his hand!_

In his _other hand_ —the one not holding the flying wand out in front with little hand motions—he was carrying a neatly wrapped plump black ball. A fat ball wrapped in a completely round black bag.

It didn't look dangerous— _in fact, it looked harmless_.

Except that it was black.

_And a croapf was carrying it!_

And he was carrying it straight toward The Land of Pink Windmills!

_Once over the cliffs, he could come directly down to the land!_

All of the dummies who lived there were watching too by this time. They all had the same thought. Remembering the spectacular fireballs and then what had happened, only the day before, to shut off their sun, they dreaded—and wondered _:_

_"What is inside that little black package?"_

They all had a second thought, too, and this one, fortunately, was a comforting one: the ball seemed too small for anyone to worry about too much.

The crowd stopped talking, as they watched the croapf fly straight down from the cliffs— _perfectly straight down!_ —at a considerable speed.

_The flying wands could be very fast, and he was being helped by gravity!_

Before he reached the bottom, at a magnificent speed, he curved outward, toward the pink windmills, leveling off and shooting toward them at a height of about fifty feet above the grass.

He arrived in about two seconds.

Still traveling at a vast speed, near the windmills he let go of the small round black ball that everyone was so curious about.

The colorful dummies spreading out from the foot of The Sliding Board—all of the dummies of that land—were shocked and fearful.

They had seen gigantic fireballs coming, and then a new sky!

Now what was this?

For a moment there was hardly a single movement among all of the dummies as they looked up, wondering if this was the next creative attack by the croapfs.

_They didn't have long to wait!_

The black ball descended in a beautiful black arc, down toward the pink windmills, where it struck one, splattering the top with a powdery black substance.

The croapf kept right on going. Immediately he ascended, almost straight up, to a great height in the sky, where he finally turned toward the cliffs and shot toward them again in a great black rectangle.

Quickly he was out of sight again over the One Tree Forest.

"Oh no!" shrieked Sylvestra,

"My home!" she cried, her eyes frantic, realizing it had been _her_ windmill that was hit. She—and everyone else in the great crowd—raced toward it. Meri and Perfit quickly jumped down from the end of The Sliding Board.

When they reached the targeted windmill, it looked pitiful. Its beautiful surface was covered with black all over the top, streaked across the front and smutted down one side.

The small black ball apparently had been a flimsy round paper bag filled with something like soot. Tightly packed, it had colorfully exploded its contents upon the windmill. And that color was black.

Touching the top of Syl's sparkling pink windmill on one side, it had splattered downward and across and then down again. Even the light blue circle, where the four pink blades crossed in the middle, was dirty. The faint yellow dot in the middle of that, a hint of cheerfulness always turning in a perfect circle, couldn't be seen at all anymore. It was there, of course—but it was completely hidden under the darkness of the powder packaged by the croapfs.

Sylvestra was wringing her hands frantically. She ran inside to get her squeegee and a bucket of water. Everyone was sympathizing, for they all loved Syl. This attack was especially difficult for them. For, separate from Syl, it was an attack on one of the two things they all loved the most: cleanliness.

Many tried to help, and did, after weakly recovering from the shocking sight, running to get their own squeegees as Syl came out of her front door with hers. She had stopped briefly to turn off her beloved windmill blades.

It was sad to see them coasting to a stop, _all_ with at least _some_ soot on them!

Meri wanted very much to help, but she knew she wasn't very skilled with a squeegee. And _all_ of the dummies who lived in the pink windmills _were_. So she didn't get in the way of their frantic efforts. But she did walk softly over, and when she could, put a hand on Syl's shoulder. Her friend looked over at her with pain in those aquamarine eyes, so like Meri's, but a smile came into them just the same when she saw Meri.

"Thanks," she said quietly and sweetly. "We'll get it off. See, some of it is on one of your windows."

Meri looked up, and then Wut bounced over. They backed up just a little as Sylvestra and her neighbors continued cleaning. These dummies were quite skillful with their rags and squeegees. It was good that they loved so much to clean! But sad that they were caused so much pain by the traveling artificial soot.

One of Syl's neighbors brought a ladder, and a dummy climbed right up to Meri's window.

Bouncing beside Meri, Wut inconspicuously got her attention by taking her hand for a moment and ominously nodding toward the cliffs. It was only then that Meri realized with horror that—there could be _many_ of those little bags coming down—all over the village! And probably would be! She didn't like the look in Wut's eyes, because she could tell he was thinking the same thing!

There was already a lot of worry in those now familiar green eyes out in the air on either side of his face. This could be much worse than anything that had ever happened to any of The Lands before!

_And sure enough, only several minutes after the arrival of the first croapf_ , a second one appeared over the cliffs.

The crowd—except those cleaning—began watching again—this time with horror. They were also beginning to realize what was about to happen. The look in their eyes at that moment became noticeably personal, because each one had his, or her, own windmill.

The second croapf shot downward, at the same rate of speed as the first one, holding the flying wand in one hand and a round bulging bag of the soot substance in the other. It was a flimsy bag that had been balled into a kind of neat circle. Before reaching the bottom of the cliffs, he leveled out at about fifty feet up, as the other one had. In a second or two, he also let go of his bomb—but a _little earlier_ than the first croapf.

This one came shooting down toward Fico's windmill, the one closest to The Sliding Board. Curving down, the ball of soot exploded in a large puff of black, violating the beautiful home with a large scattering blemish that covered the top while cascading down the front too.

Fico strode briskly and with perfect coordination back toward his home, saying nothing but looking very solemn and dissatisfied. He stepped into his windmill, turned off the whirling blades, and re-emerged through them, as they slowed down, with his own favorite light raspberry colored squeegee and a large bucketful of water. His neighbors ran to help him.

The Tackling Dummy raced around to Aquamarie's windmill, in case she was going to need help. Because what was going to happen—to each one of the windmills— _was now becoming quite clear to all of the dummies!_

_A disaster was beginning!_

For from then on, every two or three minutes, a new croapf darkened the air above the cliffs and then successfully darkened a new windmill, until in the afternoon every one had been hit, many more than once. The village, which had always been kept so meticulously neat and clean, so sparkling and so cheerful, looked dismal and sad for the first time ever.

It looked especially pitiful, especially heartbreaking, where sparkling pink was still showing through enough to remind the dummies of the soft beauty of their own original village.

_The sight devastated them!_

_So much uncleanness was numbing!_

Morale was about as low as the powdery black soot that now covered and discolored the once charming grass. There simply wasn't time to get to the grass, so much soot was being caked upon the windmills.

Not a single large windmill blade was turning.

It certainly didn't look like anything could be done to help this time, because the croapfs, if they wanted to, could fly as high as the sky with their five flying wands. How could one defend against _forever up in the air??!!_ Because that was how high the croapfs could go up to drop the sootballs they had invented.

If they wanted to.

Gradually, as the croapfs kept coming across the air of the sky, across The Yellow Trampoline, down the cliffs and then above the dismally streaked and caked village, The Land of Pink Windmills began to disappear under layers of croapfsoot. As hard as the dummies worked all day, still their beautiful land was slowly disappearing.

It wasn't long before it was just about gone.

In just one day, the land had been saved and lost again.

# Chapter II: ONLY THE WHITES OF HER EYES

Even after the village had just about disappeared, the croapfs kept coming, one right after another, covering it even more.

Jethro, not being able to help anyone clean, and not wanting to be in the way, and feeling especially low and desperately sad for his friends, meandered, with his head down, slowly toward The Mistercald River. There he sat down under a tree. From time to time he looked with his great brown forlorn eyes at the sad spectacle taking place in the distance. Every now and then he could even smell a scent in the air of soot.

And some of the particles even got that far!

By late afternoon, it was hard for him to see the windmills from where he was. A black mist floating around them gradually seemed to darken as they themselves turned blacker.

And still the croapfs kept coming across the air above The Yellow Trampoline, traveling at tremendous speeds as they zipped down the cliffs with their _unending_ small roundbags of the smirchy substance.

It was good that the dummies in the village, working feverishly hard to clean their windmills even as the pounding continued, didn't breathe.

_However they were having trouble seeing!_ The black mist kept getting in their eyes. This was helpful in a roundabout way, because it prevented them from seeing the whole pitiful disaster occurring all around them. It would have been too shocking!

It was painful enough for them to see the calamity of their own windmills and of those nearby! The village was slowly disappearing from sight in the thickening mist.

Meri did breathe, and she was having trouble doing it. And she was having even more trouble seeing than the other dummies. Her eyes were black all around, like her face.

After succeeding so marvelously that very morning, by late afternoon her feelings were the complete opposite of what they had been.

She, like all of the dummies in the land, and Wut and Jethro, was in almost unbearable mental pain. With the grainy blackness slowly and unstoppably transforming the beautiful windmills and the exquisitely charming landscape, it was by far the most horrible situation Meri had ever experienced!

And against such loveable dummies! And in The Lands!

Earlier, just arriving in The Lands and beginning to find out about them and to love them, Meri wouldn't have thought a situation like this could ever have happened.

_But something had gone wrong with The Land of the Croapfs._

_Actually, Meri was right. What was happening was very unlike The Lands_. Normally, nothing _remotely_ like this ever happens!

The unpleasant smell of soot was everywhere in the air. It was a sharp burnt smell. And that was because the obnoxious soot was everywhere. Meri noticed that it was making her cough frequently. Her throat was extraordinarily dry.

By this time she was helping Syl clean their windmill, because Sylvestra's neighbors long ago had had to return to their own bespattered homes.

"What can I do?" Meri had asked, when she had noticed Syl's neighbors having to leave. Sylvestra's face was set in hard lines, for by this time her windmill had been struck seven times. This was because it was just about in the middle of the village, where many of the croapfs were aiming.

Frustration and suffering had changed the shape of Syl's face. The blackness had gathered in the new lines, emphasizing her pitiful emotions.

"Thanks," she had mumbled to Meri, genuinely grateful, her besmirched face softening a little again at Meri's offer. She was three quarters of the way up the ladder at the time. "Dip this into the bucket with the soapsuds," she directed her friend, handing down the overworked and soot-discolored squeegee. Meri looked down at the bucket. The soapsuds were already mostly black.

With the squeegee back again in her hands, Syl doused the top of her home, bringing it clean again where she crossed it from a distance with the long-handled cleaning tool, repeating the action with a second sweep, and then handing it back to Meri again to rinse off the cleaning edges in the bucket.

Frequently the soot-blackened flesh and blood girl ran inside the jeopardized windmill to replace the fouled grainy water and to add new soap. She understood better now why a dummy made of yarn needed running water in her home and a lot of sinks! They weren't supposed to be for anything this bad, but they helped immensely!

All around, the soot rockets were falling! Each one was only a flimsy bag of black powder dropped by a croapf shooting over the village with a flying wand in his or her other hand. The croapfs were arriving about every other minute or so now. And so the village began to fall even further behind, with so much big black rain falling in such a short period of time.

Although working feverishly and feeling so much pain, the dummies just couldn't clean as fast as the rockets were falling. The village became almost totally black.

The mist of soot was beautiful to see, it even sparkled sometimes in the light. But it was terrible to be inside. Meri was having the hardest time of all. She was the only one there who had to breathe. Once when she ran inside for fresh suds, she hung a damp cloth over her nose and mouth. She always rinsed her mouth and throat, but it was never enough.

As Meri worked, just as hard as Syl—among the falling rockets—she realized with ever growing and startling dismay how serious this was, _and was going to be!_

She with everyone else!

For the dummies of The Land of Pink Windmills loved cleanliness almost more than anything, and now their windmills were disappearing in an incredible covering of exactly the opposite! _There was no way they could keep up!_

Further, although not as important, they also loved light breezes, but now they couldn't let their windmill blades turn at all because if they did, an impossible mess would float up. All around, the still windmill blades showed tiny patches of pink and blue where the soot wouldn't stick very well. But the pink crystal of the windmills seemed to attract it magnetically. The blacksoot was thick on them in many places.

Up on the ladder, below Syl, Meri suddenly thought, with a start, "With the windmills caked with soot, they certainly won't be able to absorb any sunshine—if any could get possibly get through. So they soon won't be able to make those wonderful tornadoes if they need them." Meri remembered the fireballs. "Suppose more of _them_ should come, too, without any tornadoes to keep them back?"

It was a dread thought, adding to the misery that was already falling.

Meri was coughing continually as she kept taking the squeegee from Syl up on the ladder to rinse off the soot and then handing it back again to her with new soapsuds dripping off. It didn't help when she had to run frequently into the windmill to replace the soap. She just kept coughing. Her eyes were stinging and burning, and reddening.

Trying to look around with those eyes, she felt so sorry for everyone: the dummies working so hard, yet falling further and further behind, as the village was slowly disappearing. She could now see only blurs of frantically working dummies nearby, because of the sparkling and beautiful black mist. The grass, which no one was even _thinking_ of trying to clean, was filling up. The flowers around the base of each windmill, usually so fresh and uplifting as they moved gently in the light breezes, could no longer be recognized as flowers. Closer to the windmills than the grass, they were now only strange zigzags of black.

Once Meri did unexpectedly catch a glimpse of the Tackling Dummy through one of the openings that suddenly occurred in the sparkling shapelessness of the floating soot.

From a distance he looked quite smudged to Meri, but she couldn't tell for sure if she was seeing the soot in the air or on his canvas. She knew it was both, but she couldn't tell which was which.

She guessed it was mostly on his canvas, for the beautiful outfit Syl was wearing—the aqua overall bib jeans shorts like hers, including the white blouse with the red vacuum cleaner on top like a cloud, and the poem below coming down in a silver rain—was almost completely covered by the fine black powder in the air and the spatterings that shot everywhere after the collisions. Her white top, especially, was filthy with soot, and yet she and Meri continued to work on as the little roundbags kept falling with remarkable accuracy now.

Near the end of the day, the croapfs began to drop _even larger_ flimsy roundbags of the soot. And at the same time they began arriving about every thirty seconds—as if to take advantage of what was left of the remaining black-streaked and speckled sunlight.

With the addition of this new soot, in the larger bags, and the greater frequency of them, the situation around the windmills became a complete nightmare. The air slowly turned into a hanging black jello of soot.

Finally, at dusk, as the sun was beginning to drop on a very colorful, misty black parachute far away over the Autumnforest, the croapfs stopped arriving. It was a welcome desperate relief, but the dummies of the village knew that it wouldn't be for that long. They would only have the night between bombardments. So they would need to continue working during much of the dark.

As disheartened and as worn out as they were, they kept right on cleaning. They removed as much of the soot as they could, until the stars, which couldn't be seen, came out. And they kept right on working then too. They continued to work by whatever lights they could get to shine murkily through the hanging black jello of soot and the dark.

Although there was so much activity everywhere in the village as evening came on, there was very little noise except for the squeegeeing sounds that could be heard from every windmill.

_Because the spirits of all of the dummies had been knocked quiet and intensely pained by the huge calamity that had come down upon them from the sky all that day._

"Are you mad at the croapfs?" asked Meri of Sylvestra, as they continued to work by the feeble light that came from Syl's downstairs and upstairs windows. She remembered their conversation of before, and how surprised she had been that Syl wasn't then.

However, this was much worse, and so Meri wondered how she would answer.

There as a pause as Sylvestra stopped scrubbing for a moment. She was working on an upstairs window that she was trying to clean with a short-handled brush that Meri, just below her on the ladder, kept rinsing in the pail.

"No," she replied finally, drawing out the word into two syllables. " _Because something's gone wrong with them_. They can't help that. We've had wonderful times, because they've always come here, to the edge of the cliffs, to fly their paper airplanes. I'm not mad at them, I'm really not, as much as I love this land and my friends and my neighbors and my windmill. I just wish something could be done to help them. Especially in time to help us," she added wearily, with more than a hint of desperation in her voice that Meri had come to know so well.

She kept on scrubbing, and more light came out of the window from the inside, showing her smudged face better to Meri holding onto the ladder just below.

Meri marvelled at her continuing unselfish attitude, even as Syl seemed to be losing everything.

Throughout the cleaning, Meri—although tense herself at what was happening—had become even more tense because of Syl's obvious suffering, loving cleanliness and her land as much as she did. But there was a light moment once when, looking up, Sylvestra was bombed right on her forehead by a falling roundbag of soot. It spread out all over her head and face and down the front of her outfit.

Meri happened to be watching at the time, and was momentarily shocked at the sight, when suddenly the same thing happened to her. For two croapfs just happened to come flying by at just about the same time that once!

Meri's face was completely blackened, showing only her eyes as she looked up at Syl, and her hair was solid black, as well as her shoulders and the front and back of her once coral-colored top. A large amount also went down her neck. She felt it tingling down the bare skin of her back.

She looked up at Sylvestra and Syl looked down at her. Each was shocked and quiet for a second, looking at each other, but then, they suddenly began to laugh at the same time at how ridiculous the other looked and how absurd they both felt with the soot on their heads! The two, much more grimy and soot-covered than anyone else, laughed themselves into feeling a little better.

"Where is all this soot coming from?" called up Meri when they stopped laughing, for she had been very curious about that for a while. She hadn't asked the question because of her growing tension and the difficulty of the situation. Now, having just laughed, she momentarily felt a little more relaxed.

"I really don't know," replied Syl up on the ladder, stopping her swishing motion, which she had started again, briefly. "It might not even be soot. But I'm not surprised about it, because the croapfs are so good with their hands, they really are. But I suppose you can tell that yourself by now. They're ingenious at making things and doing things."

With completely sooty faces and bodies, the little girl who was a human and the little girl who was a dummy, both with aquamarine eyes, kept working.

So far, in The Lands, Meri's hair had already been four colors: light brown, which she had come with; magenta, because everyone in the presence of Picups had hair the same color as his, and she had been near The Help Button; all the cake colors in The Land of Lavender Thought—and now solid black.

This time her hair was chunky again, too.

Finally, after seemingly unending work, they stopped a little after midnight, for each had become too exhausted, and too conscious of being absolutely and unbelievably dirty, to be able to go on. They also knew that they had to have some rest for the coming day, when they would need even more strength. For the next day would _begin_ with a huge amount of soot _already_ all over the village—and a lot of it still in the air.

The approaching day would be unbelievably hard indeed, everyone knew. No one even considered that it might be _a challenge they wouldn't be able to meet!_

That was just too much to admit.

All of the dummies in the land seemed to have the same idea at the same time, for the sounds of cleaning began ceasing all over the village. Doors could be heard opening—and shutting just as quickly—to make sure no soot came in. Or as little as possible.

The shutting of those doors, on dummies with the heavy thoughts of what was going to happen the next day—now not that far away—seemed so very saddening to Meri.

"I would give _anything_ to be able to help them again," she said to herself as she thought about how easily—or so it seemed now—she had helped them that morning.

But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't think of anything. The flying wands gave the croapfs too much ability to stay out of reach. Although the croapfs weren't themselves exactly, they had learned to fly high above The Yellow Trampoline and the trees up on the cliffs, before they shot straight down the bare walls—so they couldn't be stopped by the same type of plan again.

_It seemed a profoundly unsolvable problem!_

_Meri didn't see how there could be any solution at all this time._

But she didn't give up.

She just wasn't that kind of person. She just wasn't that kind of flesh and blood dummy.

Sylvestra, downcast and deliberate, and moving with a slowness that suggested deep thought and over-wearied emotions, walked into her own windmill to begin cleaning herself up. She wondered why Meri didn't come right in. And then Meri instead reached in and pulled the door closed towards her, saying, "I'll be back in a minute."

Syl guessed where she was going.

"I wish her luck," she said to herself fervently. There was something about Meri that did give her just a spark of hope. She didn't know why. But she did know she loved her new friend now more than ever.

"I'm so glad we have the same eyes," she thought affectionately.

As dirty and as unrecognizable as she was, before going inside for the night, Meri had decided to walk over to Fico's windmill for two or three minutes. She knew that Wut and Fico would be there, sitting at the round table in the middle on Fico's first floor, as before, trying to think of something.

It was there that she had presented her idea of the long yellow jump, and quite naturally she wished that one of them might be able to think of another idea that would be just as successful, although that seemed impossible.

As she walked, she drew strength from her belief in The Lands and from who lived there. But then she became desperate again, looking around in the dark and using her memory and imagination to envision what all of the windmills _really_ looked like now, and thinking about the days ahead.

Her emotions were as if she _herself_ were a dummy from The Land of Pink Windmills!

"Someone _has_ to think of _something_! _"_ she thought as she walked alone through the black mist and the dark.

_"Something has to be done!"_ she insisted forcefully in her mind. She didn't allow herself to think that they might not be able to. Her spirit wouldn't let her.

_Her spirit knew that a solution simply had to be found!_ The suffering of the dummies in this land couldn't be allowed to continue.

_"This exquisitely beautiful land can't be given up!"_ she thought emphatically.

It was almost gone already.

" _But what could the solution possibly be_ , since the croapfs have the flying wands, they stay up so high, and they don't understand what they are doing enough to stop by themselves? _And suppose they never stop?"_

It was a terrible question. She wasn't sure there was an answer.

But she did believe one thing: she believed there was hope _as long as everyone kept talking_. From her game of Suddenly! she knew that unusual and good ideas have a way of arriving quite suddenly, from out of nowhere sometimes, even from _just one person talking_. She often surprised herself. So she had a background of belief in continuing to talk and in _allowing ideas to unexpectedly get together_.

She also believed that Fico and Wut wouldn't mind if she joined their desperate conversation for a little while. They would certainly welcome any help they could get, she thought!

Her being there for a few minutes couldn't hurt anything, either. Instead of two talking, if she joined them there would be _a conversation of three_ —a dummy made of yarn, a question mark, and a flesh and blood dummy.

It was a combination possible only in The Lands.

Black from head to toe, except for the whites of her eyes, she reached Fico's windmill.

# Chapter III: THE ABILITY TO STAY

Fico's door was closed tight when Meri arrived, like every other door in the village, to keep out the soot.

At first the windmill looked dark.

But eventually Meri saw a dim light coming through the smudged panes, and peering through an opening in the soot, she saw Fico and Wut sitting at Fico's round table. It was exactly in the middle of the black windmill.

That afternoon they had worked furiously to keep the windmill clean. F _uriously is rather fast when Fico is doing the work!_

The result was that they probably had the cleanest windmill of all. But it was still badly smudged and discolored, because the sootballs had fallen too fast for even Fico and Wut to keep up, and also because the plummeting down of the larger balls at the end of the day had eclipsed everyone's earlier work.

Fico and Wut were talking briefly before cleaning up, for each was extremely upset about what to do. They gladly interrupted their—so far—fruitless dialogue to let their visitor in when she knocked.

Fico didn't recognize her at first and looked perplexed upon opening the door. But then he saw who it was when she stepped into the round room.

Wut also had to look twice to recognize her.

"Oh my," he muttered at the sight.

But he and Fico didn't look that much better. Fico had been lucky enough not to have been struck directly by a soot rocket, as had Meri, and so his face was a little more recognizable.

But Wut, who was already black, because he was a question mark, looked better only until you looked closer, and then it was obvious that he was caked with soot all over too. He had been actually helped a little by the fact that he had to bounce to move around, and each bounce all that afternoon had helped to shake off some of the loose soot.

But because he bounced, _upward toward_ the falling soot, the upward motion also had the extra effect of caking the soot on his upper surfaces.

So his head looked much taller, as did the tops of his arms, which looked much stronger. Everyone looked different because of the soot, but he looked even more unusual because of his re-made features. His eyebrows were also caked up high over his eyes out in space.

For this reason especially, he _truly_ looked ridiculous!

The three of them, looking at each other, had the presence of mind first to laugh heartily. But then Fico and Wut quickly became serious again, as they faced the big question before them:

_What could be done to save The Land of Pink Windmills from slowly disappearing under the soot?_

Trying unsuccessfully to think of an idea, Meri's two friends sat blankly staring at the clean shiny surface of the light wood of the table before them. It was a pretty round table. But it didn't help. And nothing else did either.

The problem was an impossible one. And therefore depressing. Observing them, Meri could tell they had reached a point of almost total frustration. Very simply, the croapfs had the flying wands. _With them_ , they had the freedom to do anything they wanted to in the sky, _including destroy The Land of Pink Windmills!_

_And easily—the way they were now!_

_There was no way to stop them!_

Meri knew the land was desperate. But, just for a moment, glancing around she was glad to see the interior of Fico's windmill again.

There was hardly any furniture on the round shiny light wooden floor except for the round table in the middle and a lone fig colored sofa with a matching chair nearby.

Having so little furniture left Fico plenty of room to exercise and to run around the inside of the windmill in bad weather.

What Meri mainly noticed, however, which she hadn't before, was the wallpaper going all the way around the wall. She had been too excited before, but now she looked at it.

It showed scenes of Fico in a race.

The fastest object by far on the surface of The Lands was the monkeybars. Meri had experienced how fast it can go. And Fico was the fastest dummy. He had never ever outrun the sparking bars, but it had always been his secret ambition to do so—just one time, at least.

But he had never been able to. He had tried many times, but the best he had ever been able to do was to _tie_ it in a race, with a friend swinging across the sparkling equipment as fast as he possibly could. And that friend was Wut.

The _first_ scene around the wall of the windmill showed that race beginning. Meri recognized The Land of Fields, which she was glad to see again. Wut was just beginning to swing below.

The _next_ scene showed Fico far ahead, as he could _always_ jet away much faster than the monkeybars. It _always_ started off slowly, wherever it was in The Lands. That was the nature of it.

The _next_ scene, when both Fico and the monkeybars were going very fast, showed the gleaming upsidedown U passing Fico who had a look of desperation on his face.

Fico must have had extra reserves of energy, though, for the concluding picture of the race was of a tie, at a finish line that had been marked off in advance.

They must have raced all the way to The Land of Handwriting Speech, because the _final_ scene was of Fico standing beside the silvery bars, his hand affectionately on an upright, and his words in the air in light pink, light yellow, white, and light lavender, saying, "What a race! I'm unexpectedly lucky to have been able to run as fast as the monkeybars today. But I have to be honest, and I mean no disrespect of my good friend Wut here: if _I_ had been the one swinging, racing against myself running, there _wouldn't_ have been a tie. It wouldn't even have been close! Frankly, the monkeybars may be invincibly fast on the ground. But I'll be trying again anyway, the next time. As long as I'm not swinging, one of these days I'm going to win!!"

Meri read this pleasant spirited message and then looked over at her friend Fico. It was really a funny message, she thought. It was the one time that Fico reminded her of Jethro.

Fico was lost in thought again, like Wut. They both had their elbows on the attractive table which was inset with square white tiles. Both of them, without meaning to be rude to Meri, were staring in frustration at their minds in front of them, so far blank of solutions to the massive problem of the invading soot.

"Thought of anything?" asked Meri reluctantly, for she could tell they hadn't, but it was the only topic of conversation on anyone's mind.

"Not a thing yet," replied Wut, glancing up, depressed. He looked far more concerned than Meri had ever seen him. She was worried about him.

She overlooked the fact that he couldn't sit in the chair right. He was simply too narrow.

"No," answered Fico, looking up at her a little more poised. "The trouble is, they have those flying wands. They can go higher than anyone. And although we think they don't know what they are doing to their good friends, they can do it very well."

"Sorry you've been delayed about using The Ticket Tree to get back," offered Wut apologetically, turning a thicker head than usual toward her again. Because the croapfs had been attacking the land for two days, first by flying The Black Sky overhead to eliminate the sun, and then by dropping the sootcases to eliminate the windmills, he hadn't had a chance yet to learn about the favor Sticktight that had asked. He didn't know yet that she had agreed to take the owingstones somewhere first, before trying The Ticket Tree again to leave.

Looking into his eyes, Meri noticed, without smiling, how funny he looked with a thicker head and with his piled-up eyebrows out in the air on either side of his head!

Meri then decided that, in the middle of this terrible crisis for The Land of Pink Windmills, it was a good time to tell Wut about Sticktight. She was glad to be able to change the subject to something positive, if only briefly.

"I never did get a chance to tell you," she began with a tone that suggested a new subject, looking at her friend who seemed to have so little inspiration at the moment.

_Perhaps what she had to say would cheer him up somewhat_. Now she'd be staying in The Lands a little longer.

"My third ticket the day before yesterday was to The Autumnforest, where I had a long conversation with Sticktight, the yellow apple tree. I'm sure you know him."

Wut nodded, and for some reason, a strange light began to come immediately into his eyes. Some soot sprinkled from his enlarged head onto the table when he shook it in reply, and Fico immediately whisked it up with a cloth.

Meri continued. "He asked me to do a favor for him—quite a big one too—and I agreed to do it: he asked me to take something called _the owingstones_ to the other side of The Lands. I hated more than anything to take them from him, but I did it for him, because of _him._ I like Sticktight so much," she added, thinking of her friend. She had gotten used to having _a tree_ for a friend!

"The owingstones!" blurted out Wut, starting up, startling both Fico and Meri. More soot showered down onto the table, but this time Fico just let it be, because of the strange animation of his friend. Wut was suddenly shot full of energy, his eyes blazing. Raising up so fast, he almost knocked himself out of his chair and had to catch hold. Fico steadied him.

" _You have the owingstones?!"_ he asked, bewildered, his eyes dazzling.

"I've heard of them," said Fico uncertainly, reaching his well-developed arm over to steady Wut again, who was shaking in his excitement. "But I don't know that much about them. And, of course, I've never seen them and didn't ever expect to."

"I've actually never seen them myself," admitted Wut stammering, "but I know so much about them. Always they seem to go from tree to bush or shrub to patch when it's time, with someone's help. But it's never been _my_ help, strangely, _as much as I get around_."

" _Do you have them with you?"_ he asked Meri, almost choking over the question, for he was far more excited than he had ever been.

"Right here," said Meri easily, deftly unsnapping with black fingers the metal catch on the small pocket at the top of her bib overall jeans shorts.

Reaching deep in to get them out, she poured them out of her forgivably grimy hand onto the white tiled table, where they found the division between two white tiles and lined up in a translucent row. There were five of them—the color of translucent straw. The light in the center of the ceiling above made all five of them gleam softly and brightly.

They all looked down at the special stones.

Wut's voice was shaking with emotion, and there was a hint, a small light of hope, and even of joy, in his two green eyes in the air on either side of his face.

"Hardly anyone knows it," he began, "and in fact it's rare ever for anyone to see them, but the owingstones have something else about them in addition to being able to allow a plant to talk. They have _the ability to stay_."

Of course neither Fico nor Meri understood. And it didn't seem that important at first.

Remembering her second visit to The Autumnforest, Meri thought affectionately about Sticktight. She felt a pang because she wanted to say something else to him. She had never met a more unusual talker. And he was so friendly. They were friends.

"The ability to stay is a very unexpected and unusual ability," continued Wut, still unsteady at the round table, but calming down somewhat. The owingstones had done that for him too. But his thoughts were still erratic, and his emotions were still climbing through him. He wasn't paying much attention at all to remaining balanced in the chair.

He had far more important things to think about.

But although his thoughts were jumping about, he continued talking, chokingly at times, to his friends. "If you squeeze an owingstone, although it's a stone, it remains right there in the air, wherever you squeezed it. It's fixed there, invisible. It will _always_ be right where you put it, which you would know if you forgot about it and accidentally walked into it."

Meri reached over and picked up one of the translucent straw colored owingstones from between the two tiles.

"Don't!" cried Wut suddenly, startling her as she picked up the smooth, round, bright and soft, straw colored stone. This time it was _she_ who almost fell out of her chair onto the floor. With his quickness Fico caught her just in time. It was almost like being up in the giant Tower Tree again.

"Sorry. I meant, _don't squeeze it_ ," explained the mark apologetically. "I'm sorry I spoke that fast. I thought you were going to try it, I thought you were going to squeeze it, right here. If you had, it would always have been right there, in Fico's way. He would always be bumping into it. Sorry," he repeated, putting a hand on Meri's black shoulder and patting it in a friendly way, causing soot to both puff up and brush downward to the floor.

Fico got up and cleaned it up again.

"That's all right," said Meri, understanding. But she also knew Wut was excited for another reason that she didn't understand yet. For what he had said so far couldn't explain the excitement in his eyes and in his behavior.

"It would have been all right with me, too," chimed in Fico, "maybe I could have hung my cap on it, or something."

"One more thing," added Wut, his eyes lighting up again, "and this is what is so important to us now. No matter how many owingstones you squeeze and leave fixed in the air, you still have five."

As he said these last words, he continued looking at Meri and Fico, from one to the other and back again, his eyes large, an excited green right out in the air on either side of his face. They sat there, looking back, vaguely thinking something was expected of them, but not knowing what. In fact, to be fair, they hadn't had time yet to put together everything about the owingstones and their present situation. Wut finally realized this as he sat looking at them expectantly.

Not being able to sit still any longer, and ready to explain what he was thinking—what he had realized from the very beginning—he jumped awkwardly down out of his chair and began bouncing around and around the light wooden table with the inlaid square white tiles, his eyes bursting with the light of his enthusiasm. His excitement clearly was on the rise again.

Although he became totally exhilarated again, somehow he was able to express his powerful idea simply and clearly this time. "With the owingstones, we can put something in the air that remains fixed. And because there are always five, we can put as many in the air as we want to. By leaving some in the air, we can climb up to where the croapfs fly with the bags of soot and put something in the air there to stop them!"

So that was his idea!

Fico and Meri, still sitting at the table and having to turn steadily as Wut, in his enthusiasm, bounced around and around them in a circle, began to understand. Their own eyes began to glow, gathering recognition of the power of the wonderfully liberating idea.

"Someone will have to climb up into the air, pressing the owingstones one by one, leaving them in an invisible pattern for the croapfs to fly into," Wut told them as the idea began to take flight in all of them.

But Fico frowned momentarily. "Won't the croapfs just fly around it, after they hit it the first time?" He thought he had found a serious flaw in his friend's idea. He spoke reluctantly, not wanting to hurt Wut's feelings.

But Wut wasn't bothered at all. "That's good!" he exclaimed. "Now you're beginning to see what I mean! But remember _: remember how fast they fly down from the cliffs?!"_

He was becoming more confident, although his eyes were still bright and shining with his emotions.

"And how fast they are zooming when they swoop down to level out and shoot over the windmills?"

Meri and Fico just sat silently, completely absorbed at imagining what Wut was picturing. Each, however, although not convinced yet, was beginning to feel better. At least there was hope! At least there might be _a chance_ to save the village!

"Well," Wut continued, his emotions still propelling him around and around the table, "if a croapf with a flying wand and a large bag of soot swoops straight down from the top of the cliffs—at that great speed, and you know how fast it is!—and then is stopped suddenly and unexpectedly by a pattern of owingstones, do you think he or she can hold onto the flying wand? _Do you believe he or she will be knocked out of the sky??!!"_

Wut was so excited that he almost missed his turn as he bounced around the white tiled table. So abruptly he stopped, surprising Meri and Fico, caught hold of the edge of the table with his hands, and just held on, trying to calm down.

His great friend Fico put a supportive hand on his back, and held it there for a few moments. Wut's eyes were triumphantly blazing.

"Yes!!" Meri then announced, springing up too. _"They will be knocked out of the sky!_ I think you're right! The ones who haven't come yet will never know what has happened! They'll keep coming!" Her own strong feelings began to rise as she became convinced about the idea. Her enthusiasm enabled Wut's to subside a little—but only a little!

"I hadn't thought so before," Meri went on, "but now I think The Land of Pink Windmills can actually get out of this terrible situation with the soot!" Quite spontaneously, she spoke quite loudly and brightly. Her own elation was beginning to match Wut's!

She was just as black, and now she was just as excited, as he was!

"I do too," Fico spoke firmly and confidently, the only one of the three who was still calm and poised. "I do too," he repeated, with an eager light of anticipation—of the morning to come—in his warm, gray, and competitive eyes.

The owingstones were lying between two tiles, in a straight line. A cheerful amber light glowed from each of them. The three soot-covered friends momentarily sat silent, resting from their emotions, and looking at the owingstones before them and at each other.

They hadn't thought it was possible! A solution had come! It had been there the whole time!

Each was beginning to feel a new peace about The Land of Pink Windmills, as the plan continued to become stronger in their minds. It _should_ work, each was re-assured by continuing thought. They looked down at the glowing straw colored owingstones before them, so still and just five. Could these five little objects do all that the three friends expected and needed them to do?

"But who will do the climbing and the squeezing—and the placing?" suddenly asked Fico, breaking the silence, thinking about the practical details of the next morning and the working out of the plan. He had managed to remain calm so far, but now there was a tremor of excitement in his own voice.

"It has to be someone strong," suggested Wut, imagining the pattern that had to be made in the air. "Someone who will have to hold on with one hand while climbing up high and using the other hand to arrange and squeeze the owingstones."

"And agile," Meri joined right in. "Someone who can move around up in the air on small invisible stones while making a pattern that will work."

"And fast," said Fico, joining in. "Because there won't be too much time between sunrise and the first croapf arriving with more soot."

As he thought of the soot, he added, "Someone who can work _very_ fast!"

There was a silence for a few moments in the windmill as each one of the three ideas took hold.

"Now who among us is strong, agile, and very fast?" asked Meri, repeating the requirements for them to consider.

Fico was listening, with his head bent down. Then, looking up when the silence became a little too long, he noticed that both Wut and Meri were looking at him with an appreciative gleam in their eyes.

"Thank you," he told them, deeply moved. He would get a chance to help his land in this terrible plight. "You _know_ I'll do my best."

"We won't need any better than _your_ best," said Meri simply, and Wut shook his head too. More soot fell on the table but they all just let it lie there. Wut's taller than usual head looked comical—in fact, all three of them looked comical—but nevertheless, they were overjoyed at the idea of _possibly_ escaping the soot. At least they had a chance now!

Meri gave both Fico and Wut a hug, and Fico also put and kept his arm around Wut as the question mark continued to bounce up and down, a feat which only Fico, with his agility, could have accomplished that successfully.

He would need _all_ of that agility in the morning—and about 50 times more!

Then Meri returned to Syl's windmill, and the three friends, after an unbelievable day, finally began the long and tedious task of personally cleaning themselves up.

Each: the extremely talented athletic dummy, the caring and responsible question mark, and the loveable flesh and blood little girl, looked forward with eagerness—but also with considerable nervousness and uncertainty, and even dread!—to the very first few moments of the day that was heading towards them. For the success of just the first few moments of the coming day would probably decide whether, in the future, there _would be_ a Land of Pink Windmills— _or not!_

There were only a few hours left before the sun would rise over The Mistercald on a very colorful parachute, and the future would be on its way toward The Land of Pink Windmills. One thing was certain: it would be a future of soot; **_OR_** , it would be a future of sparkling windmills with their blades pointed in many directions and turning at various speeds, light breezes, surrounding neat green grass with a few flowers, and friendly dummies who loved their land, The Lands, and visitors.

_The Land of Pink Windmills could go on._

_Or not._

It all depended now on Fico—on his strength, on his speed, on his agility, and on his judgement. On all of these. He couldn't make a mistake.

And so he also needed a little help from good luck.

# Chapter IV: THE OWINGSTONE TARGET

When Meri arrived back at Syl's windmill, Sylvestra had just finished cleaning herself up. Not having seen Meri in a while, and not having seen her in the light at all, she couldn't believe her friend's appearance. It was worse than hers had been! One look with her turquoise eyes at her soot-encrusted friend brought back to her mind all over again the happenings of the day, as nothing else could.

She winced with pain, almost starting to cry at the reminder. But, for Meri's sake, she blinked back her feelings as she closed the door on the especially black darkness.

"Oh my," was all she said, as Wut had earlier, as she looked at her friend carefully up and down. She was so fond of her, she couldn't help but smile at the comical effects the soot had created.

Meri couldn't believe how clean Syl looked! With the thorough efforts of one who truly loves cleanliness, Syl had brought herself back to being colorful and normal again.

Quickly she hurried to get her vacuum cleaner to begin to do the same for Meri.

As they proceeded, and got to the water, Meri began to reflect how useful Syl's many sinks were. They had certainly helped during that day! She remembered wondering about the various sinks her first morning there, only 48 hours before. Thinking about it, she couldn't believe she had been in The Lands for only two days!

_So much_ had happened!

Although it took a long time, with Syl's help Meri finally got completely clean again herself. Sylvestra marveled at how white Meri was, except for where the sun had tanned her lower arms, her lower legs, her neck, and of course, her face. She couldn't believe how very soft Meri's skin was!

And while the girl was in the pink bathtub splashing and scrubbing away all that soot, eagerly—actually with vivid excitement that now somewhat resembled Wut's—Meri described to Syl the plan with the owingstones.

Sylvestra, of course, had never seen them either. She had heard _something_ about them, as practically all the dummies in The Lands had. But few dummies in _any_ of The Lands had ever _seen the owingstones!_ Syl had never even heard about their _ability to stay in the air!_

Or that there would always be five.

Listening, for the first time in many hours Syl felt her strained face relax somewhat. She was still devastated by what was happening to her land. But she allowed herself to become cautiously hopeful as Meri excitedly explained the owingstone target they were going to erect in the morning, at the edge of the village, just before dawn.

To help her feel better, Meri, leaning from the tub, with both hands carefully took the owingstones from the top pocket of her bib overall jeans draped on a nearby chair. Then she slowly opened her hand in front of Syl's eyes.

The small round stones glowed translucently in the light. The upstairs bathroom suddenly became more charming. Syl even experienced _the unusual and rare opportunity_ , for a dummy, of holding them in her own hand.

The look on her face, both of hope and of surprise, as she bent her head to stare down at them, touched Meri's heart.

"Oh, Dear, I so hope so," Sly said quite fervently to Meri after hearing more of Wut's daring plan and after asking some questions. She handed the owingstones carefully back to her friend.

"Oh, I just hope so."

But a new and positive look appeared in her two aquamarine eyes, so that a pain shot through Meri's heart, with an unusual sharpness, at the thought of a possible failure in the morning—if something should go wrong.

Finally the flesh and blood dummy Meri went to bed that night, in the loveable round bed at the top of the windmill. She was wearing a nightgown of deep maroon, with a large yellow moon on the front, shining down on a silvery monkeybars glinting just perceptibly on the grass below. It had been designed and sewn by Aquamarie, of course, but this article of clothing was the first one designed and sewn just for Meri. On the back, the color was light blue above the yellow trampoline, and far up above it was the tiny figure of Jethro, who had bounced up _that_ high, with his head turned this way, looking at Meri (or whoever was looking at the back of the nightgown). She had to smile, remembering the trip across The Lands and her magnificent friend.

* * * *

It was almost light. Meri, eagerly awaiting the morning, had slept very little—with so many thoughts tumbling through her head. However, when she did wake up, Sylvestra had already cleaned, dried, and folded her bib overall jeans shorts and her coral top—a feat that would have seemed impossible the night before, the way Meri had looked. And she had washed and dried her white tennis shoes and white socks too. Because of the soot, the white tennis shoes and socks had been especially challenging—even to one who loved to clean.

Before the light had any more time to come, Meri hastily dressed and went downstairs. It was a good thing that Syl, on that little trip out during Meri's first morning—when the girl was still fast asleep—had gathered enough fruit and nuts for several days.

Very hungry, but so excited and nervous that she could hardly eat at first, Meri enjoyed the healthy breakfast once she started. She had worked extraordinarily hard and had felt an unbelievable number of emotions the day before. She badly needed the nourishment. Every now and then she drank some water. The whole time, she was also talking quietly to Syl about the coming second attempt to save the land.

They both had many emotions.

Meri tried not to look too much through the window at the sadly darkened and blackened land outside.

Sylvestra, who had had plenty of time to think in the night and early in the morning, was understandably feeling both anxiety and anticipation—just like Meri. Sometimes her anxiety was stronger.

_It was her land!_

And sometimes her eyes sparkled at the thought that they might succeed! Meri understood both emotions on the face of her friend.

When they opened the door, their spirits were instantly crushed again, at the contrast between the land out there and the clean and cheerful interior of Sylvestra's windmill. It was dark, but they immediately noticed the presence of the soot in the air by its stinging effect on their eyes.

Luckily it impossible to see yet exactly _how all of the windmills and the surrounding land really looked!_

The air outside was surprising to Meri at first. It was pleasantly cool. But when she took her first breath she began to cough and sneeze. Particles of soot were still floating everywhere. These particles instantly filled Meri with memories of the day before, the worst in her life and the worst ever in The Land of Pink Windmills.

One good thing, though, was that, for the time being anyway, the dense hanging black jello of soot was gone from the windmills. Only a stubborn black mist, shimmering here and there in the early dawn, remained. Regrettably Meri had to breathe it, and to blink her eyes more than usual. It was an improvement over the day before, however!

Looking around, as their eyes adjusted, Meri and Syl were shocked. For word had spread during the night about what was to happen, and _every other dummy in The Land of Pink Windmills_ was already out and walking silently toward the spot above which the owingstone target was to be located in the air. The plan was for it to be circular, of a great diameter, and pointed toward the cliffs, to insure success. Its final design was up to Fico. But it would never be seen.

Meri saw the faint huge outlines of Jethro. His white unicorn especially stood out in the almost absence of light. He was walking in the same direction as Meri and Syl, among friends. Looking more closely though the dimness toward where everyone was crowding closer and closer together, Meri thought she recognized one of those friends. Yes, it was the Tackling Dummy. He waved. Jethro then turned his head too and recognized her with a huge whimsical look.

Above the cliffs, the morning was already visible. A soft gray was rising toward the sky from The Yellow Trampoline, which maximized whatever small light fell upon it. Behind The Land of Pink Windmills, far to the east, the sun was getting ready to ascend on an enormous parachute of attractive soft colors.

It was still dim at the bottom of the cliffs, however. The air was carrying extra freight.

Meri hurried over to a familiar-looking dummy, recognizable even in that light. His head tilted up, he was concentrating on the air above him with a strange intensity. She knew it was Fico, and it was. Apparently he was preparing himself for the enormous challenge of constructing the owingstone target, high up—with almost nothing to hold onto!

"Fico, it's later than I thought," Meri whispered worriedly. "Is there enough time?"

She was still puzzled. She hadn't thought she was late.

And then suddenly she understood, as the right ideas came. "Oh no!" she whispered. "The soot in the air made it darker and made the time seem earlier! _"_

"Yes," said Fico, smiling and also whispering. "I think _almost everyone_ was fooled."

But it turned out _he_ hadn't been, and that he had waited this long to begin _on purpose._

"It's all right," he said, reassuring her in his kind way. "I had to have _some_ light down here—if only _the meagerest_ —to do the job. It hasn't been possible for me to start. _I needed at least the amount of light that we have right now!"_

Meri realized that he had just told her—he was ready to begin!

She was now able to see him better. The light was increasing! But she knew that because of all the light now up on the cliffs, _it was going to be close!_

"Jethro!" Fico called in a loud whisper over the crowd, which was murmuring lightly and busily. They were excited about possibly escaping the soot. _They had more hope than they should have had_ , but that was the result of how much they dreaded to have the soot falling from the sky for another day!

Remembering the day before, and the terrible calamity it had been for all of them, they found it almost impossible to be without _considerable_ hope that it would end.

Their hope was bolstered, too, because they had friends with them in these troubles. Wut was with them, almost impossible to see in this light because of his color, but easier to see because he was softly rising up and down among them. His presence lifted the spirits of the dummies in every land he went to—every time he went up into the air!

The Tackling Dummy was with them. They were fond of him already, with his unusual words and endearing disposition.

Jethro was with them. He also lifted everyone's spirits. And he had shown how useful he can be when he had unexpectedly yanked The Pretend Black Sky down onto The Yellow Trampoline.

And Meri. All of the dummies felt much better because she was there. They knew she had had the idea that had saved them the day before—realizing the importance of her weight and seeing the possibilities of the tree and The Yellow Trampoline. And they also knew she had brought the owingstones to their land, which had made Wut's idea this morning possible.

_They all understood why Sticktight had trusted her!_

Although hardly any of them had had the opportunity to get to know her well yet—except for Syl, and possibly Perfit—they thought she was lucky, they knew she was nice, they trusted her ideas, and they had all learned that she had an enormous spirit.

The dummies in the crowd _tried_ to be reasonably skeptical—as well as hopeful—remembering that they had celebrated after the fireballs, and after The Black Paper Airplane Sky, too. Because, look what had happened! The soot had come after _both_ of those celebrations! And _this idea_ might not even work!

But they couldn't help themselves: they were still as hopeful as they could be. They couldn't help hoping that they wouldn't have any more soot _or even any more problems at all_ with the croapfs after this! Not one of them failed to recall, as often as every few seconds, that the plan included getting possession of the five flying wands! If they did, the croapfs couldn't seriously ever bother them again!

Wut, harder to see than anyone, came bouncing over, followed by Jethro, who in the soft light had an expectant look on his face.

"You called?" he asked pleasantly.

"Yes," whispered Fico, all business, though just as courteous as ever. "Would you mind standing exactly right here, my old friend?" he said to the great shape with the whimsical eyes in the dimness. "Do you mind if I stand on your back?"

"It would be an honor," the deep voice of the huge Buffalo Unicorn was heard to say by everyone in the early cool air, as he quickly moved, adjusting with small steps to be precisely where Fico wanted him.

"Good," praised Fico, satisfied. "Now please stay right there."

Then he said a single word: "Meri," and she knew what it meant.

Having already, in Sylvestra's windmill, carefully taken the straw colored owingstones from the top snap-down pocket of her bib overall jeans shorts, she now, even _more_ carefully in the low light, laid them out in his vague outstretched hand. For if she dropped even one, they would lose valuable time, and every second now was precious.

Both knew, and in fact everyone knew, that the croapfs were already on their way through the air with their soot. Somewhere, up above the cliffs, they were flying, even at that moment, above one of The Lands!

"Thanks," whispered Meri's especially strong and agile friend. He wasn't wearing a shirt, just maroon sweat pants with yellow straps that came up over both of his strong shoulders. His feet, of course, were bare—he would need them to help feel the owingstones he would be climbing on up in the air.

Then, in one dextrous leap, he jumped all the way up to the very center of Jethro's back.

# Chapter V: AN EXTREMELY LOUD SOFT BOOM!

Being tall himself, on top of Jethro Fico was already far above them all.

An "Ahhhh!" had escaped collectively but lowly from the crowd as he had jumped up in a single leap. As long as they had known him, it was still hard to get used to all he could do.

Meri, Wut, Jethro, the crowd—all knew the unusual plan that was now beginning—that meant the fate of their land.

Fico could have started at ground level. But if he started high, the owingstones would never bother anyone in the future. They would always be there, but they would always be too high to be a problem.

That was Fico—always being quietly thoughtful.

Reaching up, he quickly put the first row of owingstones across the front of his face in the air, spaced just wide enough for him to climb on. The owingstones disappeared as squeezed, just as Wut had explained they would. They wouldn't have been easy to see in the light anyway, even if they had remained visible.

Realizing that in his haste he had put the first row of owingstones a little _too_ high, Fico quickly put a second row just under it. These rows were only about a foot and a half across, just wide enough for him to climb up on at the beginning.

Then he quickly dotted another row across, above the first, this time absolutely as high as he could reach. When he was finished, in the blink of an eye he surged up with his great strength to hang with one hand onto his invisible top row while he stood as best he could on the bottom one. He was on his way! But there wasn't much distance between these rows, and he had to maintain perfect balance to stay up there while establishing even another row.

With each new series, however, he was able to stand up higher, and in this way he rose up into the air, his hands and arms moving absolutely swiftly in blurs that would have been hard to follow even in _good_ light.

The crowd watched nervously and almost in complete silence, wondering if he were going to be able to finish in time and if he would fall! Because several times he almost did, and it was a wonder that he didn't, as the owingstones he was climbing on were _invisible_. He had to remember where they were or simply find them in the air with his hands and agile feet. But he caught himself each time he slipped. Shrill but subdued voices from the crowd punctuated each almost fall. Meri breathed very little, holding her breath with anxiety much of the time, as she watched.

More pink and some yellow were now showing above the cliffs.

As Meri continued to watch his progress, her neck became a little tired and achy from holding her head up at an angle for so long. Jethro was having even more of a problem, because Fico had placed him in the line of flight and then said, "Now please stay right there."

He had to twist his head around at a very difficult angle to watch, and he was watching so intently he hadn't realized that there was no longer any need for him not to move, because Fico was up on the owingstones now. So his head and neck, twisted all around and angled up, and getting more twisted as Fico ascended, had become very fatigued indeed.

Wut bounced over beside him and whispered a reminder, so that he could look up more normally.

"Oh," said Jethro a little too loudly, embarrassed at his oversight. But those around him, who understood their friend's concentration perfectly well, didn't laugh. There was a general feeling that they all would probably have done the same thing. Jethro, still all twisted up, decided not to move after all, not wanting to lose one second of what was happening. His neck remained quite tired.

The Tackling Dummy stepped through the crowd quietly to be beside Meri, who glanced over at him briefly. As their eyes connected, a message sped across, although they actually said nothing in words. The message was the intensity with which each wanted the plan to succeed.

A second message was their friendship.

"Uh oh," suddenly said the Tackling Dummy, as a translucent straw colored owingstone dropped shinily down through the dawn, toward where Jethro was still standing underneath, with his neck twisted backwards and upwards at the same time. The increasing light made the falling stone visible, lighted up, as it fell.

Fico, now fairly high, had accidentally lost control of one. And who could blame him?

There was no time to watch. The Tackling Dummy leaped over to Jethro, braced one hand on his back, and dived up and across his shoulder to try to catch the falling owingstone in his other hand.

He did!

There was no time to lose. Fico had stopped momentarily, and was looking down, frustrated. But he didn't have to stop to consider if just four owingstones would work, because the Tackling Dummy, without a second's hesitation, without even stopping his motion, carefully tossed it right back up to Fico. He caught it in his mouth. Then with his owingstone hand, he retrieved it, turned back around, and worked even faster. The light was getting better—or worse!

A mild, but very meaningful, clapping greeted the Tackling Dummy as he got back down beside Meri. He felt a few hands patting him on the shoulder, but he kept looking up, as did everyone else. He was too elated, too full of emotion, that he had been able to provide the critical help that was needed, _when_ it was needed, to be able to speak just then.

Fico had changed the design, and now was moving through the air with unbelievable speed. His considerable agility was at its maximum now that he was warmed up, and the mistake with the owingstone had been corrected so quickly and easily.

On top of the earlier base he had put in place, he was forming a wide invisible circle, which had been planned to have the center exactly where it was thought the croapfs would be flying. The extra area was to make sure of success, in case a croapf was off line. If visible, the design would have looked like a large circle of innumerable dots, balanced on a narrow but tall rectangular base, all up in the air.

It was getting lighter much faster now, and suddenly the first croapf shot over the top of the cliffs. Fico was just finishing the very highest arc of the circle, but he didn't have time enough to get down, because of the unbelievable speed of the flying wand! He was quite high up in the air, at the very top, and it looked like he would be seen and the plan might be ruined—at the very last second!

He hesitated for a fraction of that second, and then looked down. All of his fellow dummies had simply fallen down into a pile right below him. All he had to do was let go, and he did, landing softly and safely on his back among his friends, just in time _not_ to be seen by the croapf who luckily wasn't paying a lot of attention to the village as he began his steep descent. He flew _straight down the cliffs_ , the flying wand in his outstretched hand in front of him as he accumulated _incredible speed_.

It was the fastest the croapfs were ever able to fly, and he was taking full advantage of it. The large flimsy bag of soot in his left hand even added to his speed.

Streaking down the cliffs, The beautiful Sliding Board over to his right gleaming in the peaceful morning light, the croapf gradually raised the flying wand to gain level flight as he zoomed at a wonderful speed right at the village. Slowly, without even realizing it, he began to loosen his grip on the ponderous bag of soot.

And then he thought, "What is that all over the ground just below? Dummies? What are _they_ doing there, lying all over the grass like that? I wish I could see a little better down here. And there's that girl, Meri, the flesh and blood dummy that I met at The Help Button."

It was Nuggety!

"Imagine: _she's really a flesh and blood dummy!_ She's standing up, looking up. _I wonder if she recognizes me?_ I've genuinely tried to help, but haven't had much luck. And there's Jethro, too!"

A lightly whistling wind could be heard as the croapf flew up, followed immediately by an extremely _loud soft BOOM!_ as he struck the target, right in the center!! He made that much sound as he struck the target, _even though he was made of yarn!_

The blurred fast croapf, flying at a breathless speed, suddenly stopped! From impossible speed, to sudden stillness—j _ust like that!_

Smashing straight into the center of the invisible owingstone target Fico had constructed, he crashed away all his forward motion, dropping limply downward to the grass, while his flying wand went traveling on by itself through the air at a great speed for a great distance, bouncing on the top of Aquamarie's windmill, and ending up, almost impossible to see, in some blackened flowers beside another windmill—the last one of all.

It had flown _all the way_ from one end of the village to the other!

But what was so surprising was the bulging bag of soot that instantaneously broke and sieved right through the owingstone screen! It had _silver_ soot in it this time, not _black_ soot as all the others had! It shot right through the owingstones and opened up into a shimmering silver cloud above the dummies and the whole village.

The brightness so unexpectedly startled the dummies below that their eyes all opened immensely and a loud appreciative "Oooohhh" escaped from them all at once. They couldn't help but appreciate the lovely sight of the shimmering silver flash, before they had a chance to think, even though it was soot falling on their village!

The silver soot had been Nuggety's own private idea. He had arranged to bring soot of this color in a creative attempt to try to raise the spirits of the dummies in The Land of Pink Windmills, if only a little bit. It was the best he could do to help under the circumstances!

In a moment, Wut had the flying wand in his hand. Meri had never seen him move so quickly.

_The Land of Pink Windmills had ONE of the flying wands!_

One less to be used to drop soot on them. And who knows what _else_ the croapfs would have thought of to do with the flying wands?

The dummies of The Land of Pink Windmills, although overjoyed, remained quiet and quickly ran over to hide behind windmills, not wanting to spoil the rest of the plan by raising any suspicions—now that there was even more light.

Jethro ambled over toward The Sliding Board, to be less conspicuous, and Meri and the Tackling Dummy walked beside him. They weren't that far from the owingstone target now invisible up in the air.

The second croapf, flying not quite so fast, appeared over the cliffs a minute later, right on schedule. The windmills, so covered with black, must have been quite a sight from that high up!

This croapf, too, although clearly not accelerating to the full speed of which the wand was capable, approached and also flattened herself into the owingstone target with the same soft loud _BOOM!_ She then slid and banged limply, end over end at first, down the invisible owingstones to the grass where she didn't move. The flying wand had rocketed out of her hand and also had gone sailing through the air across the village.

"It's Faye!" murmured Syl, running over to get her friend, lying motionless on the dew-covered, soot-invaded grass just below the invisible structure rising so firmly into the air. Quickly she took her to her windmill, where it was some time before the croapf recovered from the startling and unexpected collision.

Nuggety, still out but dazedly beginning to move his head, had been placed neatly on the grass on the other side of The Sliding Board where he wouldn't be seen by the inflying croapfs. Luckily he was made of yarn, because this was the _second_ time recently that he had been the one to receive the benefit of invincible motion in The Lands! In the border that looks like Amelia, a bowling ball had struck him at full speed, banging him vigorously against a tree near The Help Button; and using the full power of a flying wand, he had flown and crashed with enormous power straight into the unmoveable owingstone circle of The Owingstone Target!

Wut, of course, had the SECOND flying wand in his hand—with the other one—long before anyone else could get near it. He seemed especially anxious to get them himself, and this was true, as he later explained, because one of these wands could have taken any of the dummies up into the air, and on and away over The Lands, before anything could be done! You _have_ to know how to use them, or they are too dangerous to pick up!

In this way, all five of the flying wands were soon in the possession of The Land of Pink Windmills—and lost by The Land of the Croapfs.

Wut had, indeed, gotten to the first four of them before anyone else. But the tiny, beautiful little dummy named Perfit, the youngest dummy in all of The Lands, the one who was beginning to be Meri's little sister, caught the fifth one right in the air.

She had been waiting for it.

Very loveable and always full of life, she was usually seen following Wut around everywhere on his visits to the land. She hadn't had that much of an opportunity this time, however, because of the problems with the croapfs. She had extremely long yellow curls, past her waist—not yarn hair but _real_ hair—and she often wore yellow. At the moment she was wearing a long light yellow dress with soft white, pink, and light brown flowers with black centers, made for her by Aquamarie, who adored the little dummy although she wouldn't admit it.

Perfit, when she caught the wand, already had it by the bottom pointing up and so she immediately started rising swiftly into the air. But Wut, like lightning diving up after her with an instantaneous powerful bounce, caught her hand just in time—the one with the wand—and brought her back down before she went to who knows where over The Lands.

Although quite fond of this beautiful little dummy who was so lively, and who had always followed him around, he tried to speak firmly to her.

"Would you have known how to get down?" he asked her pointedly, with an appropriate frown on his face as he bounced up and down but managed to keep looking down.

The little dummy, Perfit, shook her little head, "No."

Her long yellow curls bounced up and down irresistibly as she did so.

"What would you have done?"

As full of life as ever, Perfit, with her light blue eyes, began moving her head up and down to follow Wut as he spoke and bounced.

"Waited for you," she answered, trying to appear regretful, but failing badly. The life within her simply kept coming out of her eyes, in appreciation of Wut. She liked talking to him.

"Humpf," the living question mark answered, shrugging his shoulders, and trying to appear stern in his green eyes, out in the air on either side of his face. But he failed badly too, for it was just about impossible to be stern with this loveable little dummy. In fact he was as unmanageably fond of her as everyone in the land and everyone who ever met her.

Putting his arm around her small shoulders, which was a little interesting to watch, since he was bouncing up and down on the grass, he said, not surprisingly, to the beautiful but mischievous face turned up toward him, "You wouldn't have done much waiting, I'm afraid. There's no telling _where_ you would have gone! But you're right—I would have followed you, wherever you flew to—to save you. It would have been interesting. You might have gone all over The Lands—up in the air, of course."

Perfit's eyes lighted up.

Then Wut bounced away to leave the flying wands safely in Fico's windmill.

"I've got to put these away," he explained to the little dummy over his shoulder as he left. But he added, in a lower but tantalizing voice, almost in a whisper, before disappearing up-and-down around one of the windmills, "But I'll take you up later."

Now _this_ was _truly_ surprising!

Thrilled, Perfit fell backwards onto the grass, and, leaning back on her hands, she looked up into the air he had promised to take her up into later. Her light blue eyes were full of the sky. As she looked up, she noticed a certain unusual feeling within herself again. She had been having it since the second she had caught the flying wand in her small hand and started to rise up into the air with it. The strange feeling was that she wanted to _fly up into the air above The Lands!_ That small flight had done something to her!

In her mind she had the oddest notion that there was something _right_ about _her_ being up in the air, up there in the sky.

It was truly an odd new feeling!

Noticing the feeling at first, after the flight, she had tried to ignore it because it was so strange. Then, with Wut's invitation, it had overtaken her!

She had never had these strange emotions before, or any similar to them.

"What a truly different idea about me," she thought, looking high into the air and imagining _herself_ up there with Wut.

She couldn't be sure, but she _thought_ she was beginning to learn something important about herself.

Leaning further back on her hands in the grass, and looking up through a hole in the still floating soot to the mild blue sky above it, she continued with even more vigor to put herself up there, above The Lands, in her imagination. It was surprisingly easy! She was startled at feeling so much at home in the air—before even being there!

_She even imagined herself up there all alone!_

"What's happening to me?" she asked herself, looking down to her feet sticking up in the grass. But she looked perfectly normal, sitting and leaning on some of her lovely long yellow hair.

"Now _how_ can I wait for him to keep his promise??!!" she wondered to herself, looking up again quickly before running back to join her friends below The Owingstone Target. Although invisible, it now existed as a permanent part of The Land of Pink Windmills, like The Sliding Board, the windmills, The Fly Bye, and The Ticket Tree. It was already becoming a famous part of that land!

For the moment, though, all of the dummies who lived in the windmills were still below it—stunned into joy and the thought that the terrible blizzard of soot—although still painfully caking their village—was now definitely over. With the flying wands in their own land, they would now be safe against fireballs, flying skies, blizzards of soot, and whatever else unknown that the croapfs might have done to them.

_The croapfs couldn't do anything else of importance to them!_

And the croapfs were better off too, because it wasn't that easy now for them to do anything to a land they liked while something was wrong with them—something they might regret later, if ever they became themselves again.

Luckily, the four other croapfs besides Nuggety, who were all dazed motionless for some time, had been _knocked back right again_ by their collision with The Owingstone Target. When they woke up, they were themselves for the first time since something had gone wrong with their land.

They apologized to everyone in The Land of Pink Windmills for what The Land of the Croapfs had been doing. They were genuinely shocked and sorry about the problems they had caused, especially when they learned _all about_ what had been happening—which they hadn't realized when they weren't themselves. In fact, they were _mortified—and even in agony—with regret!_

Meri, who had already met Nuggety but who was meeting the other four for the first time, liked them all. She realized Syl had been right not to be mad at them all along.

It was good to see Nuggety again. "Quite original—and thoughtful," she commented about his idea of the silver soot. "Your idea worked." Nuggety was pleased.

Syl was extremely glad to have her friend Faye back again. They did a lot of talking! After everything that had been happening, they had a lot to talk about. Meri thought Faye was an especially attractive dummy. Her colors were pleasantly light, and she had a special way of talking that seemed characteristically sensible. She was quite gentle. Meri found out that _all_ the croapfs are especially practical as well as gentle. That was why it was so movingly unfortunate that whatever had gone wrong had led them to act destructively and so _un_ gently. And so far, only a tiny number of them had been helped to be right again.

The problem with their land remained.

With joy, the dummies who lived in The Land of Pink Windmills began cleaning the rest of the soot from their windmills and the grass, this time with the thrilling knowledge that there would be no more hanging black jello or beautiful black mist in the air around them. They really didn't need to celebrate in a special way, because they were _all_ celebrating, _all the time_ , on the inside as they restored their land. They had developed _an even greater_ appreciation of cleanliness— _which might not have been thought possible before._

_But it was certainly understandable!_

The land still looked sad, indeed, but throughout the afternoon, with Meri, the Tackling Dummy, and Wut, and the five croapfs helping, it slowly began to return to its original colors. Even Jethro joined the fun by insisting on having a squeegee attached to his unicorn. The only problem was that he couldn't see where he was squeegeeing! But Wut, swinging freely from his lower left black horn, and holding onto both with his hands, was able to shout directions as he carefully watched the yellow squeegee. It was a strange arrangement that worked while it made many laugh!

By early evening, the uniquely charming freshness of the land had returned. The grass and flowers re-appeared, as well as the windmills. The newly gleaming blades were turned back on, all at once—movingly—and were allowed to sparkle moonshine all night long at a peacefully appreciative pace. Many dummies awoke during the night, noticed through the windows the soft lightshow outside under the stars, smiled, turned over and went back to sleep with the smile still there.

Wearing their own nightgowns, for Meri now had her own, Meri and Syl talked late into the night about everything that had happened and that was going to happen. Meri was especially excited about the trip she was about to take. Because now that The Land of Pink Windmills was safe, _it was time for her to keep her promise to Sticktight_.

_She was going to travel all the way across the other half of The Lands_ , to deliver the owingstones for him, as she had agreed! Not the very next day, but the day after that, because Wut needed time to plan the trip.

Meri had already had a memorable trip across the _first_ half of The Lands! Now she was going to see some of The Lands in _the second half!_

_On purpose_ she didn't ask Syl about specific lands. She wanted to see them _unexpectedly,_ and to be completely surprised, as she had been before.

She had a whole day to wonder what these new lands would be like.

_She didn't know how she would get through it!_

# Chapter VI: A COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED QUESTION

As excited as she was, after she and Syl, in their nightgowns, talked late into the night, lying on the round bed Meri finally went to sleep. _For the first time in three nights_ , she was able to sleep peacefully!

The sheets were pink, of course, and for the second night Meri was able to lie down in a nightgown made especially for her.

This one was white.

_On the back_ , the Teacup Tornado was just emerging from The Land of Dark, which was solid black to the left. Aquamarie had put the teacups on just perfectly, and there on the nightgown Meri saw herself, other izzits, and, of course, Nart, abruptly flying out of The Land of Dark into the light of sunshine. She didn't have any idea how Aquamarie could have gotten Nart's features so right, because of his shyness. But she recognized her friend.

_On the front_ of the nightgown was another familiar design: a large invisible circle, with a ladder-like climb-up base, in light—almost impossible to see—straw colored stones. Fico was easier to recognize. He had just reached the top of the structure that he had just made. A faint outline of the cliffs was just behind.

The next morning, the day before Meri's trip to the other side of The Lands, everyone completely finished cleaning the land. It looked exactly as it had when Meri had arrived—on the day after, actually, since she had first arrived when it was dusk.

At the final end of the cleaning, there was a moment when the windmill blades on all the windmills were turned up to one of the fastest speeds—about three speeds back from tornado speed. It was Fico's idea, to clean away any particles that hadn't been removed by the thorough efforts of the dummies with their vacuum cleaners, brooms, squeegees, and their love of cleaning.

As expert as they were at it, and as much as they loved their land, it didn't look like _anything_ had been missed.

It was exactly the right idea, though, because there hadn't been a celebration yet, and the zooming winds _became_ a kind of celebration of the end of the blizzard of soot. The dummies stood right in the winds with smiles on their faces and let it blow right through them! And blow them around, too, especially Perfit, whose long yellow hair blew up in circles and all around while she laughed.

These streams of moving air seemed so appropriate and so happy that the dummies turned their windmill blades up to _next to_ tornado speed and let the _impossibly_ strong winds just fly. It was an impressive sight, although the wind couldn't be seen.

Every now and then Meri thought she could see a tornado starting to form, but one never did. The windmill blades were spinning furiously, and they were an amazing sight themselves. No one stood out in the open for this speed, of course—the dummies just stood in the right places and cheered as the powerful winds swept by. Jethro was the only one who at this time braved walking from one windmill to another—and he almost didn't make it! Meri was quite moved to see her dummy friends so happy, and she felt especially honored to have contributed a small part to saving their land.

She would have been a lot happier accepting the owingstones from Sticktight if she had known everything about to happen! (She hoped she was going to feel the same way during her visit to the other side of The Lands!)

Watching the celebration, she was standing beside Wut who was bouncing silently and contentedly on the grass near The Sliding Board. Glancing over at him, Meri noticed an _unquestionably_ relaxed look on his face and in his eyes. This made her feel even better, because there hadn't been many times since she had been in The Lands when she had seen him look truly relaxed.

She thought that the way they had all worked together to solve the problem of the soot was especially nice. _She_ had _just happened_ to have the owingstones; _Wut_ had supplied the idea about how to use them; _Fico_ had provided his great strength, agility, and speed to do the work; _the Tackling Dummy_ had caught the falling owingstone just in time; and _everyone_ had fallen down for Fico to have a soft place to land on at the last second, when the first croapf was coming over the cliffs; and even _Jethro_ had maneuvered his back for Fico to stand on, when he was first getting started.

Later Jethro had also been quite helpful by squeegeeing the sides of windmills, since he could scrub up much higher than anyone else without needing a ladder. With his strong neck, he did an especially good job at swishing the soot off. Awkward at first, he developed his technique. And sometimes five dummies were standing up on his back at one time, all squeegeeing at different levels with their squeegees of different colors! They didn't hesitate to tell Jethro to move this way or that around the windmill, either, and to be careful of all the flowers! This was because they knew he loved following their directions, even when they competed with each other.

Everyone had contributed!

Having cleaned non-stop so steadily since the owingstone target had worked—and so heartbreakingly _before_ it worked—all of the dummies came out to enjoy the light breezes when the celebration was over.

The air felt good to Meri, too, fluttering softly her light brown hair as, watching and thinking, she stood beside The Sliding Board with Wut. Her light turquoise eyes, below her brown eyebrows and lashes, were especially bright. Besides being glad about this special moment in The Land of Pink Windmills, she knew that on the following day, she was going to take a memorable trip to the other side of The Lands for Sticktight.

To a place called The Strawberry Patch.

"Somewhere over there," she thought. She could see the faint unusual colors of some of The Lands in the distance, across The Mistercald.

She was beginning to wonder more and more what effect the owingstones were going to have on the strawberries. _After all, they had allowed Sticktight to talk_.

_"What about the strawberries?"_ she thought. "What would they possibly say?"

"And what's going to _happen_ in the other lands over there?" She couldn't help but wonder, as her mind was in a whirl.

_Because no matter what she imagined, she knew it was going to be different and imaginative in ways impossible to think of!_

Her mind was having a unique experience!

Then, as she stood there beside The Sliding Board, and Wut was softly bouncing beside her, she suddenly asked him a completely unexpected question. The idea just popped into her head. Wut almost fell over when he heard it:

"Do you think I might use one of the flying wands this afternoon, please?" she asked.

"Since we're through here for the day, and since we're going to take the owingstones tomorrow, I'd like to go and see my friend Ello for just a few minutes. It won't take long to get there, and I won't stay long. And I'll be careful."

Wut was _more than a little_ shocked!

His two green eyes widened momentarily, surprisedly, moving outward in the air a little. His small light pink mouth opened voicelessly. He had planned to show Meri how to go up just a little way above the ground on a flying wand, when he kept his promise to Perfit, who at that moment was just walking toward them.

_But he hadn't planned on turning her—or anyone else—completely loose with a flying wand!_

They're too dangerous!

He didn't know what to say.

And then Perfit arrived wearing yellow shorts and a white top with pink flowers, her long yellow curls bouncing: fluffy and soft and light yellow. They were almost always bouncing.

Meri and Wut spoke to the little dummy as she came up and put her arms around Meri's waist. The spirits of each of them were lightened and raised at the sight of her. Wut's especially needed lightening after the shock of Meri's question.

The problem was, he didn't know if he could say _no_ to _her_!

"They're not as easy to use as you might think," he began to answer Meri nervously. But it was clear from the beginning that he wasn't going to be able to deny her.

She had already contributed too much to The Lands, and she had also earned his respect. Further, he had become immensely fond of her, as he was of Perfit. Actually, in this short period of time, he had already come to love the little girl who had visited The Lands so strangely, the only flesh and blood dummy he had ever met.

So he quickly added, _to his own surprise_ , "But I think you can do it.

Meri's heart jumped right in her chest at the realization that she was actually going up on a flying wand!

"The _main_ thing to remember," he emphasized, bouncing just a tiny bit higher as he had already become concerned, "is to cover the end with your hand when you're ready to come down. If you do, it will just set you down gently. Otherwise, you may not get down safely."

Perfit was listening very intently. She had almost gotten in trouble the day before, when she had caught the fifth flying wand already pointing up. _She had had no idea how to get down!_ Of course, she didn't know how to get anywhere else she wanted to, either!

As Wut spoke, a strange, seemingly irresistible feeling almost overwhelmed Perfit again. She wanted to go up into the air! This time it was even stronger than the day before!

She was quite obviously learning something about herself.

"Besides that," Wut went on, more casually, getting more used to the idea of Meri flying with a flying wand by herself, "you just point it in the direction you want to go. And one more thing: you hold it by the end," he said, pointing, "and stretch your arm out as far as you can to go the fastest.

"And above all always remember, for your own safety: _It's the fastest thing in all The Lands_."

He added this last bit of information to continue to emphasize the danger. "It's even faster than the monkeybars, which is the fastest across the surface. But this is up in the air.

"If you want to go more slowly, just hold it nearer the tip and don't stretch your arm out so far."

Wut was demonstrating as he spoke, holding his other hand over the tip of the flying wand he had brought, so he wouldn't actually go anywhere.

"I'll tell you what," he said to Meri, getting an idea. "Since you're going in that direction, after we finish learning the basics here, why don't you go up and _practice_ , over The Yellow Trampoline? After you get started here, I think you can fly up to it easily, since it's so close. It's just up there," he said, pointing up to the cliffs with his small black arm and extended finger. I'm sure you can understand why it's a good idea to practice over the trampoline—if something goes wrong, safety is just below you."

This idea seemed to make him feel better as he spoke to Meri and Perfit, who had taken one of his hands as he bounced. Although he had confidence in Meri, it still wasn't easy for him to let a flying wand go! _It was never easy for him to let go of his concern!_

Perfit's mind was going like crazy! Was Meri actually going to take a trip on a flying wand? Her eyes were full of many ideas as she listened!

Meri looked up at the cliffs, suddenly feeling all kinds of feelings. Including nervousness, but it was mostly a nervous kind of increasing joy. For, like everyone, she had always wanted to see what it would be like to fly.

It was an enormous idea!

She too liked the idea of practicing over The Yellow Trampoline. It was obviously a good idea, and she would be glad to see The amazing Yellow Land again! Flashing through her mind in a millionth of a second were its real names of The Yellow Trampoline, The Land of the Yellow Trampoline and The Land of Yellow Transportation. And in her mind she had just spontaneously called it The Yellow Land!

"Here," said the living question mark, startling Meri by putting one end of the flying wand right in her hand and closing her other one over the tip. "Wait a moment."

Leaving them there, with Meri quite nervously holding the powerful object in her hands, in front of her, he sped surprisingly quickly to Fico's windmill, which was nearby.

Clearly he was getting excited himself.

"Nervous?" asked the tiny girl dummy, looking up, with all kinds of life in her soft inquisitive light blue eyes. She was especially fond of Meri. She also mischievously knew how Meri must be feeling.

"A little," understated the attractive one not made of yarn.

Wut returned with a _second_ flying wand, which he handed to Perfit, placing her hands carefully on it in exactly the right way—the way he had given the other one to Meri.

Then he bounced backward to face them, from a working distance.

A new firmness, friendly but serious, came into his voice. "Now, both of you, when I say 'Go!' point your wand up, and take your hand off the tip for just one second, and then put it back on. You'll go up for a short distance, and safely settle back down again, right here. Any questions? Remember, if you ever get in trouble, just cover the tip with your hand, and you'll float back down easily. You'll be okay. Okay?" The two got ready with wide open eyes. Expectant smiles appeared on their faces.

An expectant smile appeared on Wut's own face.

"Ready?"

"Go!"

Meri and Perfit each rose up perfectly, higher than they thought they would—Meri rose a little faster—and settled right back down to the grass again in almost a floating manner. Each was thrilled.

Then they practiced again and again, including, eventually, going forward. The small hand moves required considerable skill. Neither girl had had any idea.

Each: the tiny little girl dummy, and the girl of flesh and blood, excelled. Especially Perfit, being the youngest dummy in all of The Lands, showed an unexpected ease and naturalness with the flying wand, so that Wut was completely surprised. She seemed to be naturally agile at being up in the air.

But of course he didn't tell her!

Meri he had already known—after first thinking about it and getting used to the idea of letting _anyone_ have a flying wand—would be able to fly with ease. And he had been right. But he was wondering why in each case, she seemed to go a little faster and a little farther than Perfit. "It must be their hand positions," he thought, not quite satisfied, "or maybe she's just a little more daring."

After he was sure they were ready, he told them, "Now point them above the cliffs, keep your arms bent, and, when I say 'Go!' take your hand off the ends. And remember, you're going very high. So if you get in trouble, or if you just want to come down, quickly put your hand over the end, as I've been saying, and you'll be all right. You'll settle down slowly and safely. And by the way—never point a flying wand toward a tree! You won't be happy."

He was remembering all the trees up beside the cliffs.

Perfit was choked, she was so excited that _she_ was getting to go up to The Yellow Trampoline too! Such an idea hadn't been in the original promise _to take her up_. But she was showing such skill that Wut had enough confidence in her already. He was secretly glad to have given her this brief gift of flight.

"Ready?"

"Go!" Wut repeated.

Meri was holding the flying wand with her left hand. Perfit's was in her right hand, on the other side. They pointed them toward the air above the cliffs and lifted their other hands from the tips. Each instantly rose, at precisely the angle they were holding the wands, above and away from The Land of Pink Windmills.

Wut himself didn't know, however, that one of the flying wands was _considerably faster than the others!_

And so of course he couldn't have known _that Meri had it._

_This was why she had been going a little faster and a little further than Perfit each time. But in practicing, neither she nor Perfit had gone enough distance to show, or to know, how fast Meri's wand really was._

_It_ had the _very fastest_ speed in all The Lands, _by far_ , followed by the other four wands, followed by the monkeybars.

Meri was supposed to keep her arm bent, to slow the speed of the flying wand. But she thought that maybe on this one flight she shouldn't, since the cliffs were almost straight up, and she was a flesh and blood dummy who weighed _much more_ than an ordinary dummy.

So she just pointed her wand straight up, her arm fully outstretched.

_Without realizing it, she was holding the fastest flying wand, the fastest object in all The Lands—much faster than Wut even began to suspect—at maximum speed!_

Wut found out. Because when Meri took her hand off of the tip, she rose upward with a truly startling magnificence. _Apparently it didn't matter that she was a flesh and blood dummy!_ She rose toward the cliffs with a speed that was confusing. It was the wand's greatest speed.

And it was overwhelming.

Perfit had remembered to keep her arm bent, so she ascended much more slowly, dumbfounded at Meri's sudden meteoric flight.

The air swept by Meri, and she could sense the ground going away rapidly below her.

She was flying at an angle that quickly took her by the trees on the top of the cliffs. She could have reached out and touched them as she went by, she was so close.

The unbelievable upward rush was so great that it was dizzying beyond imagination. Rising so rapidly, she experienced a disabling breathlessness at the sudden blur of images. She didn't know where she was.

The bright Yellow Trampoline spread out in all directions before and under her.

And then it was too late. Her ascent had been so violently swift, she had risen up so far so furiously fast, that suddenly she fainted from the dramatic changes.

Dropping the flying wand, from her incredible height she fell, limply, down through the air.

# Chapter VII: A LEAP OF UNBELIEVABLE EXCITEMENT

She fell for a long time.

Luckily, of course, The Yellow Trampoline was below—far below by the time she began falling, but safely there.

She came down upon it on her back, flying right back up in a truly tremendous bounce, which was followed by many lesser bounces, still high.

At last she lay still on the yellow surface extending in all directions.

By this time Perfit had appeared above the cliffs. She came flying hurriedly toward where Meri was bouncing up and down and finally lay stretched out perfectly and still.

She appeared lifeless.

Lowering herself slowly, exactly right, as Wut had described, to the trampoline beside Meri, Perfit was extremely upset.

"Meri!" the tiny dummy cried, bending over the girl, frightened.

At this time, believe it or not, Wut had bounced up to the cliffs where the Walkway, or Pass, came up from The Land of Pink Windmills near The Fly Bye. He could bounce amazingly fast when he needed to, and this time, energized by the emergency, he had crossed The Land of Pink Windmills in a blur in a minute.

From below he had watched her extraordinary flight with amazement and felt responsible!

Since he already had his own bounce, it didn't take him long at all, once he reached The One Tree Forest, to cross The Yellow Trampoline to the two girls.

Meri opened her eyes, looking up into two of her favorite faces, overly concerned and upset above her. She grinned weakly. "Lucky you said to come here to practice," she mumbled. "There's something about that flying wand." Her coloring, which had turned to almost solid white from the tremendous rush and fall, was slowly adjusting back to normal.

"Hi, little sister," she said to Perfit, who was holding her hand and still upset. "I'm okay," she told her, taking her small yarn hand in both of hers. "Thanks." And she gave each of them a hug while still lying down, pulling them down to her.

Still quite weak, she wasn't able to sit up just yet.

"Sorry," said Wut guiltily, his green eyes looking deeply into her face for any damage to her spirit. She seemed to be all right physically. He wasn't used to being the cause of problems in The Lands.

"There must be something especially fast about that wand," he said thoughtfully. I've tried out the flying wands before in The Land of the Croapfs, but not all of them. I must have missed finding out about that one. And now that this has happened, I do remember hearing something about one that was faster. They must not have ever handed it to me out of concern for my own safety." As he said this, he began turning his head around, looking for the wand.

"I'll get it," volunteered Perfit, running off, because she could see what looked like a dark object lying on the yellow not too far away. She was probably the only dummy in The Lands who was light enough to run on The Yellow Trampoline as if it were grass. Even so, she did vibrate The Yellow Land just a little with her small legs. Her long yellow curls, with therefore a slight extra bounce, looked especially loveable above The Yellow Trampoline, and even more so because she was also wearing yellow shorts that matched them both.

"Be careful!" called out Wut immediately, concerned about the tiny dummy so full of life and so young, having that dangerous wand.

"Pick it up carefully," he kept calling. "By the tip first with your whole hand, then your other hand next to the tip!"

His words were obviously wasted, because Perfit knew exactly what to do. But they made _him_ feel better.

He and Meri watched, as Perfit brought the fallen flying wand back perfectly, looking up into Wut's face with the knowledge that she had. He nodded his head in approval of his young friend, and she handed it over.

By this time, Meri was completely all right again.

Standing up on The Yellow Trampoline, she held out her hand. Wut knew what for, but he wasn't really that interested in giving it—or _any other_ wand—to anyone again, after what had just happened.

However he trusted Meri. He knew what had happened hadn't been her fault. It hadn't been anyone's, because he hadn't ever been given a chance to find out about that wand. They had had to find out about its speed for themselves. And they had been lucky.

So, carefully, although still reluctantly, he handed over the dangerous but so useful object. Just as carefully Meri took it, enclosing the tip with her hand first, and then taking it near the same end with the other hand, as Perfit had done so well.

"Wait a minute," thought and said Wut, after Meri already had the flying wand, the fastest object in all The Lands. His mind had been racing at the thought of giving the dangerous wand back to Meri. "Will you wait a few minutes?" he asked. "Let me go back to the windmill and get you a slower wand." And he turned as if to go and come back quickly.

"I don't think so," said Meri politely but firmly, laughing gently. "Thanks. But I'd _rather_ learn how to use this one. I don't want to baby myself."

"That's what I thought you'd say," he replied glumly, turning around bouncing up and down half-heartedly on the elastic yellow, admitting defeat. But he also had to admit too that, no, her spirit hadn't been damaged at all by her spectacular flight to the sky and sudden fall! He realized that he liked her _even more_ as he bounced softly beside her.

The Yellow Land spread beautifully all around.

This time, when Meri rose, she did so perfectly, flying straight up above the two upturned heads: the living black question mark with watchful green eyes out in the air on either side, and the small pink mouth, also quite visible; and the tiny little girl dummy with such fluffy long yellow hair and soft light blue eyes, dressed in her white and pink top and sunlit yellow shorts.

Meri expertly covered the tip when she was quite high, and settled straight down, very pleasantly, right beside the other two.

Then Perfit also rose straight up as Meri had, not quite as high, and not quite as fast. When she stopped up in the air, looking down, she drifted back to the yellow surface just as ably as her older friend, who, in her mind, was unquestionably her beloved sister.

Then the two practiced together above The Yellow Trampoline:

first by flying in circles of all sizes and then by flying in squares;

and then by flying side by side;

and then by turning smoothly to the left and to the right;

and then finally by playing tag and other games they spontaneously made up, while laughing continuously and having more fun at one time than either had ever had in their lives before.

During their practice they even tried staying still in mid-air, which was really quite difficult; and walking on air, which was even harder. And sometimes, in the middle of whatever they were doing, they intentionally dropped their wands, in order to plop down playfully onto the yellow surface.

But the most fun they had was simply playing tag. There was no question that Perfit couldn't catch Meri in a straight race, but when Meri came close, as she had to to tag her little friend, Perfit was so quick, had such agility darting in unexpected directions, and used her wand so nimbly, that Meri simply couldn't touch her.

Perfit was much more successful than you might think, because of her size, but at the same time she was laughing so hard about it that several times she almost fell right out of the air. Once she almost flew straight down too far! She curved away just in time. And then when she herself was the one who was _It_ , up in the air, the same qualities often enabled her to uncannily dart, with surprising quickness, exactly where Meri was going, no matter how skillful Meri's tricks to escape.

She kept amazing both Wut below and her flying companion Meri with her lightning quick movements in the air. She kept Meri guessing.

Part of Perfit's success was that she was so much lighter than Meri, being made of yarn, but part of it also was an unanticipated natural ability. As Wut had thought, _she seemed to belong in air_ —as much as on the ground. Watching her, he was dumbfounded.

They _both_ became quite adept. Then Meri settled down beside Wut, who for some time had been lying on the yellow surface, leaning on one elbow, looking up. It was clear that she was now ready to go forward on her brief trip.

"Can I go too?" asked Perfit eagerly, coming down right behind her. She now knew that she had the ability, and she wanted very much to be with her sister and to see some other lands for the first time. Her flight to The Yellow Trampoline was the first time she had ever left The Land of Pink Windmills.

Meri looked at Wut, who was beginning to squint and to lower his eyebrows at the idea. Everyone was automatically protective of Perfit because she was so small and so young. Aside from his own concern for the tiny, especially loveable, dummy herself, he couldn't imagine the effect on the dummies in The Land of Pink Windmills if anything should ever happen to her. Everyone loved her immensely, as he did.

He thought about it, trying to look away from the pleading soft light blue eyes looking so earnestly toward his, as he tried to decide how to answer.

There was a great pull inside him: between his natural concern for her safety and an overwhelming desire to make her happy. He loved this little dummy more than he would have admitted.

Finally he looked up at Meri. "Are you just going to The Land of Lavender Thought, and settle down nowhere else?" he asked with measured tones. It was then evident to both of the girls that he was caving in! A leap of unbelievable excitement electrified Perfit, leaving her trembling as she listened.

"Nowhere," promised Meri.

"OOOOHHHHH!" yelled Perfit, _realizing she was actually going!_ She had thought that she wouldn't be allowed to. She rose up into the air on her wand, turned a flip, and settled joyfully back down again. She had left The Land of Pink Windmills for the first time that day. _Now she was actually going to even another land!_

Wut, bouncing now on the yellow surface, took a hand of each girl and looked into the eyes of each one very carefully and meaningfully.

"Keep yourselves safe," he said, looking from one to the other. "I know you'll both come back here before long and that you'll both be fine. _Please don't let me think even once that it might be otherwise_. In the meantime, I'll be waiting right here for you."

Then letting go of both of their hands, he returned the big hug that Perfit thrust upon him, almost crushing him in her gratitude. And then he watched, his green eyes proud, as the two, simultaneously, raised their wands and rose together up into the air.

# Chapter VIII: PERFIT GETS TO SEE SOME LANDS

After flying slowly in a large circle around Wut to thank and reassure him again, and to calm themselves down, they waved goodbye to their unique friend.

Then turning their heads and pointing their wands, they started in the direction of the faraway Autumnforest. Gradually increasing their speed, they glanced frequently back at Wut, to whom they were soon only two faraway dots in the air.

The Yellow Trampoline quickly skimmed away below them, showing many bouncing dummies, to whom they waved, and who waved to them. At times for fun they traveled not too far above the heads of these friendly dummies, and every now and then Meri drifted low enough to pat the hand of one of them. At other times, also for fun, they would rise quite high, able to see Lands in all directions around and below them.

Finally, at the dramatic beginning of The Land of The Yellow Trampoline, Meri pointed slightly to the left. She wanted to pass over some of The Lands that she hadn't already seen on the monkeybars.

They found themselves above many colorful lands which were completely new to Meri. Perfit marvelled at the sight! They were _her_ Lands! They also often took Meri's breath away, as they had often on the monkeybars. Sometimes she was high enough to see a whole land at once!

It was a lot of fun to fly over them and over so many dummies who were obviously friendly—and obviously as curious as Perfit and Meri! There was a lot of waving. But as much as they wanted to, they couldn't go down and meet anyone, having promised Wut that Perfit would descend _only_ in The Land of Lavender Thought.

Perfit's long yellow curls, dazzling with color, blew around merrily, making her laugh. The two of them were quite a sight to dummies below.

Because they could change the speeds of their wands, sometimes they flew quite slowly. Sometimes, just the opposite, they made themselves actual blurs across the air above. Because they couldn't stop, ultimately they grew tired of playing. Then they sped up and continued at that speed. When they did, it wasn't too long before they began to see hints of The Autumnforest.

They recognized it ahead, from a great distance!

Of trees of lightly tinted autumn colors, the forest grew much larger as they approached. Meri was happy to see it for the third time! She would have been glad to see it many more times! It was very special to her: where she had first come to The Lands, and also where she had met Jethro and Wut for the first time—and then Sticktight!

"OooooooOoooh," said Perfit appreciatively as they approached the great forest with its agreeably colored leaves. The large distances between the trunks made it especially beautiful because the light came down between them easily.

Slowing, Perfit and Meri flew right up to the outer edge of the trees where, hanging in the air, they looked inside as far as they could.

"It's wonderful," spoke Perfit, her yellow curls no longer flying straight behind. She began peering at tree after tree when they turned to the right and began to pass by so many. But she couldn't keep up with all the trees she tried to look at!

"So this is The Autumnforest. I've heard about it _so_ many times, but I never had any idea it would be as pretty as this. Look at those flowers around each tree, so light, while the autumn leaves are so different. And there's grass inside, just like out in the open. Oh, I wish we could go in!" Lots of sunlight was entering The Autumnforest, and Perfit wanted to too.

It definitely looked inviting.

Meri continued to glance into her favorite forest, knowing exactly how Perfit was feeling, because she felt the same, even though she had seen the lovely place before. She couldn't help but think about her arrival in The Lands—hers and the Tackling Dummy's—and their accidental meeting with Jethro, who had been standing directly and hugely right behind them. That was a wonderful coincidence!

And then Wut had come bouncing along. "What luck we had at the very beginning!" she thought, to meet those two almost at once! "Of all the places in The Lands to arrive at, we arrived standing right in front of Jethro's nose! I don't think there _could_ have been any better luck than that!"

Sailing slowly along the edge, continuing to look in while also watching where they were going, Meri told Perfit about how she and the Tackling Dummy had first found the ticket, how they had bumped heads picking it up and torn it in half.

And then she told her a second time about her visit with Sticktight, whom she had met in the forest while trying her third ticket. "One thing I said was _mica toads_ ," she said to Perfit. She thought fondly and also forlornly about Sticktight, who was a yellow apple tree, after describing their game and their conversation to the small flier beside her. Her mother, working in her garden and among her plants, had several times pointed to a shiny flat substance in the soil and called it _mica_. That was where she had first gotten the word, she remembered.

"He was the best player I've ever seen," she said to her sister, praising him, and silently wishing he could still be talking. Moving her right hand up, it reassured her that the owingstones were still safely in the snap pocket in the top of her bib overall jeans shorts. She could feel all five stones through the material.

They circled a bend in the forest, navigating perfectly.

Sticktight wasn't saying a word.

"One of his last phrases was _talking license_ ," she mentioned to Perfit as the bend in The Autumnforest disappeared behind them. "I wish he had one."

"What's that?"

Of course Meri had already known that the tiny girl dummy, flying so naturally through the air beside her, was going to ask that question. _She_ would have too!

"A _talking_ l _icense_??" Perfit repeated, considering the phrase. Her face looked truly puzzled at first, and then she smiled, realizing there wasn't one.

"Don't worry about not knowing what it is—Sticktight just made it up," Meri said, thinking of her unusual friend. "It's like the way of talking that he has. But just that one phrase tells you a little about him— _actually a lot!_ —of what he's like," Meri went on, glancing over. She smiled at the thought of her fluent bark-covered friend, wondering how close they were to him at that moment.

Her light brown hair began to rise gently behind her as they increased their speed along the trees at the edge. Perfit's also flew back again in a yellow stream, playing in the air and liking the light. "But I wish he did have one," she went on. "A talking license, I mean. It's a shame that someone—even if it's a tree—with so much ability to talk, can't."

Meri said these last words quite sadly, and Perfit's face, although she didn't know Sticktight, reflected the same feeling. Perfit wished she _did_ know him! She felt like she almost did. It was just too sad that it was now too late for her to _ever really_ meet him!

"I know," she responded, more thoughtfully than Meri had expected. "It just ought not to be."

As they sailed along gracefully through the air, for each was now completely at ease with her flying wand, Perfit again desperately wanted to walk around inside The Autumnforest—just for a few minutes! _Meri's friend Sticktight was in there somewhere._ But they had promised Wut, and they couldn't. It looked so inviting! She also had never been in a forest before, as the Tackling Dummy once hadn't.

At this time, looking all around, Meri thought she recognized where they were—where she and the Tackling Dummy and Jethro and Wut had first started to walk—and bounce—out of The Autumnforest and into The Lands, just the other day. So she moved her wand to the right, and they began to fly over lands that she thought she recognized.

_Meri was looking forward to seeing some of the same ones again!_

Each of the two fliers regretted leaving the large pleasant colorful forest. But they now began to look forward to their one exciting stop, where Meri would get to see her friend Ello again and Perfit would get to meet her—for the first time!

Their spirits began to rise again after their sad and regretful thoughts about Sticktight.

Meri must have been correct about the right place to turn to the right, because when she said to Perfit, "We'll be there before long," there were no sounds, and the words suddenly appeared in the air in bright letters that were quickly left behind.

Perfit's eyes were especially wide as she looked back at this message, which she now saw backwards. Then she looked questioningly over at Meri.

Meri slowed down to a complete stop up in the air. Perfit also braked and came up beside her. When they were both still, Meri slowly and deliberately said to Perfit, looking into her lovely but wondering light blue eyes,

"This is The Land of Handwriting Speech. Hi."

A beautiful sentence, in pinks, aquamarines, light blues, and other equally beautiful colors, appeared on the air in interesting handwriting. Again, Perfit didn't hear a single word. But she read the sentence and the greeting, and smiled and nodded with a delightful look on her face.

"Perfit!" she then unexpectedly called out in her unique little girl dummy voice, but nobody heard it. Her eyes shone as her name appeared on the air in a soft light yellow, except that the dot for the "I" was the same color as her eyes, and the exclamation point was pink.

They flew on cheerfully, the handwriting having raised their spirits even higher. Their continuing conversation began drifting all over the land, here in whole ideas, there in pleasant syllables that had separated, and sometimes in isolated letters rising and falling in all directions, as they kept on. Sometimes a breeze simply blew the letters and punctuation into a wonderful mystery.

When they came up beside a strange bird in the air, who hadn't seen them at first, his startled "Squawk!!" became an intense pattern of scarlets, light greens, and lavenders which joined their conversations behind them. The bird went flying hurriedly on toward The Fly Bye, looking back once.

The next land, of course, was The Land of Claustrophobic Air.

"What's going on here?" a gruff voice out of the air suddenly asked, near Meri. Seeing the beginning of the land coming up, she had quickly gathered in breath and held it as long as she could. But when she finally let it out, she had had to breathe in again, and the air in her lungs was getting claustrophobia.

Perfit was startled at the gruffness of the voice, since, seeing no one else, she first though it was Meri talking.

Almost dropping her wand, she stopped in the air.

Looking at her friend, with her mouth fallen open and shock in her large light blue eyes, she was even more amazed to hear, "Get out of here! This is intolerable!" This time she knew Meri hadn't spoken, because she was watching her friend, and she hadn't moved her lips. Then she amazedly heard more voices:

"Who are you?"

Perfit, so full of life, immediately answered, "Perfit."

"You sound nice. Where are you from?"

Perfit said, "The Land of Pink Windmills."

The ground below them contained no grass, only flat light turquoise sand.

"Help us!"

"We'll be out in a minute," Meri reassured the air.

"No harm done. Bye."

"Bye," said Perfit, in her tiny dummy little girl voice, as they flew out of the land.

"That was The Land of Claustrophobic Air," quickly explained Meri to her mystified little friend, who certainly had never encountered anything like that before. "The air can't stand to be in small places," Meri went on, "in case you don't know what _claustrophobic_ means. It's my fault. Since I have to breathe, the air gets claustrophobia when I do, because of all the many tiny spaces in my lungs. When I saw the land quickly coming up, I tried to hold my breath and breathe as little as possible, but I had to breathe some." And then she explained to Perfit about needing oxygen, since she was a flesh and blood dummy and not made of yarn or stuffed with cotton.

Meri had been waiting for the _next_ land with a curious mixture of excitement and dread. It was The Land of Other Places. She wanted to see her parents.

_By now they believed she was missing._

She was almost afraid to look. When they were over the land, though, she came to a complete stop in the air and, bravely, immediately thought of them. Perfit also braked and coasted to a stop.

A picture instantaneously appeared in the air. It was of Meri's mother and father in their cabin in the _USS Steady_. The two girls each saw the ship furniture, the porthole in the wall, and a small vista of the moving ocean through it.

Meri's father was holding her mother, who was almost frantic with worry. She could hardly speak. There was a faraway look on her face. She was refusing to allow herself to cry. She was afraid that if she did, she might be admitting—even if only slightly—that she might not get her daughter back. And she would never ever do that.

"We'll find her," her father said. "The best thing I can say is, think of what she's like. You know we can trust her to make good decisions. I think she'll come back to us."

That was all Meri could stand. Flying on, she brushed the tears from her face, reminding herself that she _would try The Ticket Tree again the very next day,_ the moment she returned from the other side of The Lands! That was what she had been planning anyway.

She just hoped the owingstones wouldn't take longer than that!

"I should have stayed in Paris," she at first told herself guiltily. But then, being such a reasonable dummy, she remembered: "But if I had, what would have happened to The Land of Pink Windmills? The great Black Paper Airplane Sky might still be above them, shutting off their sunlight. Or worse, The Blizzard of Soot might be covering them up completely, no way to stop it, perhaps up to the cliffs. If I hadn't come back, there wouldn't have been anyone with my weight to jump down, from The Tower Tree on the right, onto The Yellow Trampoline and back up to The floating Black Sky. The owingstones, still with Sticktight in The Autumnforest, wouldn't have been available to help make a target at just the right place. The land is all right now, because, when I came back from Paris, I was lucky enough to be able to help in the right ways. And what helped The Land of Pink Windmills also helped The Land of the Croapfs too—almost as much—because they did less damage to their good friends—and can't hurt _anyone_ now nearly as much."

So she knew she had been trying as hard as she could to make good decisions, as her father had said.

But she was worried about her mother.

Perfit was intelligent enough to understand what she had seen and what it meant, and she felt profoundly sorry for her friend. She now knew her better, in an extremely personal way. She felt privileged to have seen that touching and moving sight. Quietly and supportively, she flew beside her older sister.

She didn't want to feel any joy then, but at the back of her mind she did feel some, which later she could allow to become overwhelming. For she had realized that if Meri ever left The Lands, she could always see her again, whenever she wanted to. This was a thought that made _spectacular_ joy possible!

"What a marvelous land!" she thought to herself. She was so glad she was getting to see The Lands for the first time.

By this time, they were passing over the unexpected colors of The Land of Fields. She was amazed, and pleased, at this land of perplexing diagrams! She made a sound of admiration as they floated over. Meri also noticed that the impact of the land was much greater from above, than when they had walked across it and could see only a little of the explosive colors, in careful designs, at a time.

Perfit especially liked a field of large rectangles of light cranberry and caramel which included smaller squares of black and gray, with dividing lines in white. Unique dot arrangements in light yellow with a few pink and coffee colored question marks, here and there, added to the magic.

_And this was just one of the fields_! All different!

Meri also pointed out to her small flying friend the marble rings and the many hopscotch grids stuck here and there below.

The geometry of vividly colored grass rectangles, circles, and other shapes shot crazily by below.

And then they flew just above the neat white fences of fields of different colored cottons in dots below, mixed in with interesting squares of wheat and other grains that supplied many flours for the dummies in the land they were now nearing.

Meri held her breath, as they came down a hill.

_There was the border where The Help Button had been!_

A little further and she thought she saw the base of the hill behind which they had first discovered the silvery monkeybars. She remembered that as they had first approached, it had been standing mysteriously silver there by itself, soaking in the light of The Lands.

She was hoping. She was hoping!

_Would it be there this time?_

Yes! That soft sparkling!

There it was! At the bottom of the same hill, in The Land of the Monkeybars, gleaming as softly and as brightly as before. Meri couldn't believe her eyes: it was almost at the same place!

She couldn't help but wonder who, if anyone, had swung on it since they had left it? And where other dummies might have been to on it? Since they had traveled on it so usefully and adventurously across so many lands.

Of course she would never know.

But she was _so curious!_

"The monkeybars!" announced Perfit, when she saw the silvery object for the first time. "Oh, I've heard about it so many many times! I know you even came part of the way on it—everybody knows that. I just wish we could swing on it so I could see it go—only just a little ways!"

There was a similar strong wish in Meri's aquamarine eyes. But they had promised Wut, to ease his concerns about Perfit, that they would settle down in one land only.

They had to keep their word.

So Meri simply aimed herself right beside one of the long horizontals, dragging her hand all the way along it, going by as slowly as she could. Perfit followed behind her, doing the same. It was exciting for the little dummy just to touch the famous monkeybars! The shining metal, standing in the sun, felt pleasantly warm to her small yellow and pink hand.

Rising above it, they were about to start on their way again, when Perfit, suddenly putting the wand over her many yellow curls, and pointing it backward, flew backwards and down in a daring circle to fly through the rectangle of space enclosed by the upside down U. It was a colorful and agile move.

There was no doubt at all now about her ability with the flying wand, regardless of how small she looked, and was, in her yellow shorts and white top with the small light pink and yellow flowers.

"Perhaps we can come back sometime," said Meri wistfully and wishfully, as the two then flew on, "and actually go on the monkeybars together. Or perhaps _you_ can. I may not be able to, since I'll probably have to go back soon."

They both felt a deep feeling of pain at these words, Perfit for leaving the shining vehicle behind and because of what Meri had said about leaving; and Meri because she knew she would probably never see the monkeybars again, ever. This last thought she kept to herself, as Perfit was looking noticeably sad.

After all, Meri was her beloved sister.

Meri led Perfit up to the edge of The Land of Geological Speed, and they flew beside it for a little way up to the first signs of The Land of Lavender Thought. She wanted Perfit to see the enormous power and beautiful violence of the changing land. She herself was in awe of it again as they saw rivers forming and flooding and mountains rising and falling in a few seconds, before their eyes. Perfit even looked momentarily frightened as two volcanoes in the distance, fairly close together, with orange cones and black smoke mushrooming up, suddenly exploded at the same time, discharging spangled debris all over the sky into fields of burning color.

A large plain suddenly spread itself out before them in a temptingly peaceful paradise of flowers, grass, and quiet places among trees. The dangerous land, for a moment, looked extraordinarily gentle and inviting. But then the sky grew blackish red overhead, and huge hailstones the size of baseballs, and then of basketballs, and then of watermelons, began bouncing out of the sky. The serenity and exquisite loveliness before their eyes quickly disappeared in a land of exploding crystal.

_"What in The Lands is that?"_ Perfit asked, unbelieving, as they flew on into a pleasant land of especially light green grass and more flowers than in any other land—mostly yellow, but also light gold and lavender and maize and sky light blue.

Meri raised her head and looked ahead. At the same time they flew into an absolutely beautiful aroma. Meri laughed, remembering how much she had loved to breathe in this land.

She also could hardly believe her eyes. _Cakes were spaced on the grass all over the land._ Large cakes, medium sized cakes, _cakes of all colors and shapes._ It was exactly like Wut had described when they were arriving before, only Meri hadn't expected ever to see the land like this!

There were even some cakes with holes in them, and the two fancifully flew right through them. In one case there were three beautiful cakes in a row, light strawberry, mint green, and tan-amber, with large holes right in the middle of each, and the two girls flew through all three holes without stopping.

Then they had trouble trying to stop laughing.

_There were huge cakes everywhere!_

Meri remembered that this was also The Land of Clinging Light. She couldn't help wondering how the land looked at night, now that these were all over it.

Both dummies were in awe of the land as they continued to fly through and around its huge cake sculptures.

Finally Meri was able to speak. "This is The Land of Lavender Thought," she blurted out.

Perfit looked at her with enormous round eyes. "This is the one?" she mouthed.

Meri nodded.

By this time both girls could already see the largest cake, ahead, in a circle of attractive trees, spaced far apart.

Perfit's large soft light blue eyes were inquisitive as she tried to see it better. She thought she saw dummies around it!

"That's a huge cake!" she was able to murmur, very excited. Even better, she knew she was going to be able to _descend and walk around_ in this special land!

They stared at the top of the magnificent mostly white cake ahead. Some yellow was visible through the trees, some silver, some hints of designs along the sides, and they could see, through branches, traces of more beautiful colors and a figure or two on the top.

Perfit's eyes kept getting wider.

Meri took another deep breath. The air was warmly sweet, the irresistible aroma of soft wonderful cake, a little different this time, because it was a different cake.

Her heart was pounding: she knew that _in just another moment or two_ she would be talking to her friend Ello and her other friends.

# Chapter IX: INTENSE LAVENDER

The two fliers approached unnoticed, about 75 feet up in the air. They could see a large number of dummies around the large cake, many still working. The surrounding graceful trees, completely filled in with grass, formed a pleasant circle. On the side they were approaching, the circle contained space to allow the cakes to be moved around the land on the rollers they used.

This time the enormous cake was a white one, as high as Aunt Amelia's house, decorated mostly in light lavender and soft gold. The smell of warm just baked cake filled the air everywhere.

"Hello!" cried Meri as they landed behind a crowd of dummies gazing analytically at the cake to see what else might need to be done. Surprised, the dummies turned around, and others nearby on both sides turned to look too. They all instantly recognized Meri with pleasure.

Immediately the air around them, and a distance above them, turned lavender. During her last visit, Meri had been learning to notice small variations in the color of their thought. This time she definitely noticed some pink in it.

The eyes of the dummies _widened_ at the sight of Perfit.

Not expecting any visitors, they hadn't noticed them arriving through the air.

"Hi!" called out the small dummy in a soft voice, raising her hand in a friendly wave, her light yellow curls now falling behind her back.

A head popped out of the crowd on the other side. "Did you say _Hello_ or _Ello?"_ she asked, and then Ello cried out in unbelief, "Meri!" running through the crowd, which began to part.

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!" called Ello Ray seven times, stopping in front of Meri, so excited she could say nothing else. She put her hands over her eyes several times, sometimes moving them away and sometimes spreading her fingers to look through them to see if Meri were really there.

Calming down, she said, "You came back!" with wonderfully pleased enthusiasm, giving Meri a hug that exactly matched her feelings, so that Meri was a little crushed. But Meri didn't mind at all, she was so glad to see her light yellow and light strawberry yarn friend, with aqua feet and elbows. Her hair also was yellow—a different color from the light strawberry hair of most of the other dummies—and she didn't wear it in pigtails either as almost everyone else did to keep it out of the way of the cakes. It wasn't as light in color as Perfit's or as long or curly, either, but for some reason, it seemed full of life and energy.

But perhaps that was because it was Ello! _So much_ about Ello suggested energy!

All of the other dummies at this time were trying to get in on the hug. The thoughts of so many by this time had turned the air to an intense lavender, containing also some pink, so that the land took on a different look.

They had liked Meri very much during her first visit, as shown by the way they kept patting her on her back and shoulders. They even patted Perfit, more gently since she was so small and they didn't know her yet. But they thought they could tell a lot just by looking at her. Meri was greeting her many friends there and remembering them.

"This is Perfit, everyone," called out Meri when she got a chance to. "She's from The Land of Pink Windmills. She had never left before today. But we practiced with these wands on The Yellow Trampoline, and, luckily, she was able to come with me.

"The Land of Pink Windmills has the flying wands now—I'll tell you what happened in a minute. Unfortunately this can't be a long visit. Anyway, the wands allowed me to come here to see you one more time before tomorrow, when I try to go home again. Although," she suddenly added, not even knowing she was going to, "I don't want this to be the last time I ever see you."

She was worried about that.

She didn't mention her upcoming trip to the other side of The Lands, thinking it wouldn't affect her plans much.

"You _must_ come back to see us," someone in the crowd murmured. Meri also heard other dummies, which she couldn't always see, saying,

"It's necessary—for our happiness,"

"Often,"

"Please just stay here,"

"We need you,"

"Don't wait long,"

and other statements showing how much they liked her.

And then they started greeting Perfit. One by one they came up and welcomed the tiny little girl dummy, many shaking her hand, many giving her a hug, and many even lifting her up, she was so tiny and light.

"How beautiful," many in the crowd said directly to her, and many said it to others. Meri was so very proud of her sister.

"Can I touch your hair?" some in the crowd asked. And some just touched her light yellow beautiful hair anyway, without even asking, but in a way that showed the greatest gentleness and respect, realizing from Perfit's manner that she wouldn't mind. Perfit was excited and was genuinely glad to meet all of them and to talk to each one, and she continued to, as long as they kept crowding around her, until everyone had finally met her.

This was the first time she had put her yarn feet down on a land with grass outside of The Land of Pink Windmills. She was thrilled to meet so many new friends, and she tried her best to retain her composure while so excited. Mostly, she succeeded. She was so full of life that it was quite charming to be around her.

"Need some cake?" asked Big Ray, the smaller baker who was in charge of the warmer heats, giving Meri a hug. She remembered his white baking cap that was covered with light pink and light yellow suns and green rabbits. It was good to see it again! And _him!_ And she remembered his name too, since he was the smallest of the chefs but had the biggest name.

"Yes," said Little Ray, in charge of the lesser heats, who had been listening. He also gave Meri a warm hug, and she remembered him, too, especially because his chef's apron and extremely large baking hat were both of pale light violet, with a silver fork fixed right in the middle of the front of his hat, placed straight up and down.

The girl especially liked these hugs from the chefs for another reason: because in both cases the smell of newly baked cake on their aprons was so intense. It was like being inside cake again! And she was, of course, sincerely glad to see them both.

"It's not often," continued the larger chef, thinking to himself that he was going to have to use the color of Meri's eyes as the main color of icing sometime, "that we get to actually see someone eat some of our cake. What do you think? Are you ready for some cake again?"

The dummies of this land never got tired of having Meri eat their cake! She was the only dummy who did! She was the only one who could!

After this invitation, Little Ray looked up with a great deal of pride at the enormous cake which Meri hadn't had a chance to notice closely yet.

Glancing up, she sucked in air, momentarily startling some dummies, at the sudden sight of the beautiful cake which was so large. It was a brilliant white, trimmed simply in light lavender and soft gold, so that its moderate colors made it look quietly appealing to the eye. The white looked even more white, if that was possible.

On top, in addition, were other soft colors. In light yellow, there was a figure, perfectly sculpted, whom Meri didn't recognize. He was wonderfully light yellow in color, but one arm only—his left—was super light peach. And in other lesser and lighter colors, going around his middle, were depictions of the seasons, spring beginning in front.

The top of the cake not only honored someone who lived in The Lands, Meri remembered from her earlier visit. She recalled that these dummies also re-created important events.

The top of this cake also seemed to record an event.

The startling light yellow dummy—he looked to Meri as if he were made of stuffed canvas, not of yarn—had another, smaller, dummy under his super light peach left arm; and he was removing, or saving, this dummy from something falling through the air from the sky.

Ingeniously arranged, on the other side of the top of the large cake, was a set of clouds, high enough to see from below, also made of cake and icing, representing the sky. These clouds were plum colored and black, with flashes of green and red here and there.

These cake and icing clouds looked both dangerous and intense, although also attractive because of their ingredients, but it was what was falling from them that was so interesting. And this was what the yellow dummy was saving the other dummy from. Suspended throughout the air below the clouds were explosions, of silver fire, lavender fire, and fires of other icing colors, which the smaller dummy was being helped to escape. There was a look of both relief and anxiety on her face!

The whole scene above was absolutely breathtaking to Meri—who was the only one there who breathed. It looked especially dramatic and meaningful and also quite lovely on top of the beautifully immense round cake with its slightly fainter decorations. Meri was immediately curious about this scene. She knew so little about The Lands.

Her eyes were full of admiration as she turned to both Little Ray and Big Ray, and of course Ello Ray, who was one of the cake sculptors. All three began to beam as soon as they saw her eyes—and so did all of the other dummies there who could see her reaction.

_For everyone in the land worked on the cakes!_

The air above them all was a pleasantly changing lavender, as the dummies thought about Meri's reaction. It steadily reminded Meri of the name of the land: The Land of Lavender Thought.

"I just can't tell you," she told them all honestly of the feeling inside her, "how perfect it is. You know just how to use the right colors, and how to make them work together so absolutely well. And the sculpture—so lifelike! But who is it?" The tone in her voice revealed that he looked puzzlingly familiar.

"I think I know," offered Perfit, who also was marveling at the creations in cake and icing of these dummies of The Land of Lavender Thought. "I think he's been in our land some, although I don't know him too well yet. He doesn't stay long. Isn't that Leo J. upP?"

And then Meri remembered his sudden faraway appearance on The Yellow Trampoline and Wut's visit. He had been little more than a blur of bright yellow in the distance then.

"Exactly right," replied Big Ray beneath his moderately large chef's hat showing light pink and light yellow suns and green rabbits. "We call him Leo when he's on the ground, and upP if we see him up in the trees, where he usually is, because that's where he likes to be."

"Yes, and we also don't get to see him too much," Little Ray added with disappointment beneath his huge chef's hat, "because he spends a lot of his time trying to help those in The Lands who might be in _immediate danger_ from something. Here, of course, he's saving someone from _The Land of Firecracker Hail_."

Meri looked up again with startled eyes at the spectacular scene above. _So that's what was in the air, coming from the intense plum colored clouds with green and red flashing in the swirls here and there. Firecracker hail! That's what that silver fire was! And the lavender fire!_

She shuddered at the thought of _real_ firecracker hail in The Lands, realizing how dangerous it would be for a _dummy_ to get caught in something like that! She even briefly thought of what it would be like if she herself got caught in it, _and shuddered!_

She thought firecracker hail would be very interesting _to see_ —standing at the edge of the land, of course! Her heart skipped a beat at the thought of such a place.

"Imagine," she thought to herself. "A real Land of Firecracker Hail. What unusual weather!"

"There are so many lands!" she pondered to herself, appreciating them even more. It was a thought she had had before.

But she didn't have enough time to think about The Land of Firecracker Hail, or any other land, just then.

_The cake in front of her offered too much to look at!_

For then she noticed a picture _of herself_ in light gold, light green, and strawberry colored icing. And looking farther, she even saw the Tackling Dummy in brand new silver colored canvas made of icing! He looked so good. She wished he could see himself there.

The Upside Steps were standing beside the cake, as usual, looking very silvery and bright. They were covered with shimmering silver foil leading up to a yellow platform showing a gleaming lavender interior with pale yellow suns, that could just barely be seen from the ground. Above, on strings, offering bits of shade, were balloons representing lavender thought, only they were of various colors.

As they walked toward it, Meri and Perfit told Ello and Little Ray and Big Ray and the other dummies there what had been going on in The Land of Pink Windmills. They were amazed, and saddened too, of course, that not long after she had left their land, only several days before, Meri had almost disappeared forever in one of the fireballs! Many were quite upset.

They were also intensely proud of the Tackling Dummy for shielding Meri from the indescribable heat. They asked about his canvas.

Perfit helped Meri describe why _they_ , _her land_ , had the flying wands, and not the croapfs. It was a surprising, exciting, and uplifting story, except for what had happened to the croapfs. Considerable hope was expressed by all that The Land of the Creative Airplane (Paper) Fliers could be made right again soon!

_Somehow!_

And then, too soon, it was time for the two visitors to leave, because they had come for only a short visit, as they had promised Wut. He was still waiting for them on The Yellow Trampoline, they knew. Meri was sad to leave again, but she was so happy for even this short visit. She hadn't expected to be able to come back at all.

"Time for cake," Little Ray gently reminded them, especially Meri. He was still looking forward to seeing her eat some of the cake again. After all, that's what cake is usually for, but dummies can't eat it. Meri's first visit had been the very first time they had gotten to see a dummy, like themselves, eating cake.

_Their enjoyment usually only came from:_

baking the layers,

smelling the hot baking processes,

forming the figures on top,

drawing and coloring the pictures on the curving sides,

adding the minor colorings,

happily looking at their creation from all angles,

admiring it,

and finally,

_jumping into it!_

Everyone, all around, had patiently waited to be brought up to date on the news about the flying wands. So no one had jumped yet. _All_ of the dummies there wanted Meri to eat from the cake when it was completely perfect.

_And there was something else, too_. It was special to them for _their friends_ to jump into their cake, if they were visiting, and they thoughtfully always wanted their friends to jump into the cake _first_ —to jump directly into its great unspoiled beauty.

Perfit still couldn't believe the size of the massive cake, which looked even huger to one so much smaller than the others.

"You're not actually going to jump into it, are you?" she asked Meri, looking up. She already knew that she was, _but it seemed such an overwhelming idea!_

"And you are too," answered Big Ray, in his extremely white baker's hat with the different colored suns and the green rabbits. It completely covered his strawberry colored hair which had tiny strands, woven together, of the very lightest of aqua and yellow. He had been paying a lot of attention to the pretty little dummy with such long wonderfully yellow hair, talking to her in undertones during the discussion about The Land of Pink Windmills.

"Go on upside yourself," he motioned with his head and moderately sized hat, indicating The Upside Steps, another name for The Cake Jumping Tower. Perfit's large soft light blue eyes widened momentarily, as she looked up at him with a surprised and slightly startled expression. And then, with a sudden smile, the tiny little girl dummy began walking over to the steps which ascended to the platform. Meri was right behind her, followed by Ello looking through the fingers of both of her hands.

"Yes, please do," echoed Little Ray falling in beside Big Ray. A murmur of interest and genuine pleasure went through the large crowd of dummies with their hair of light strawberry yarn, mostly in pigtails, as _both Perfit and Meri_ began going up.

"That is, if you really want to?" called out Knickknackatory, one of the youngest dummies in all of The Lands—actually the _second_ youngest dummy, after Perfit. He had noticed how extraordinarily nice the tiny dummy was, and how perfect, and he wanted to make sure _she_ felt comfortable about jumping into the cake.

Hearing the question, Perfit stopped on the steps momentarily, where a shining through the trees seemed to light up her massive light yellow curls. She turned around. The feelings of the crowd below softened noticeably as they looked up at the little figure. A low sound of appreciation could be heard from many dummies. They could all see her at once now at that point in the light. With a glow in her soft blue eyes, and a convincing smile that went right along with it, there was no doubt about her own mind as she replied,

"Oh yes."

It suddenly became clear to the crowd that _she was looking forward_ to the jump!

But Perfit also glanced down to locate Knickknackatory in the thick crowd, to add, finding his eyes, "But thank you for wanting to be sure about me."

Turning back again, she climbed the rest of the way up The Upside Steps and walked across the silver foil platform that extended out over the cake. She looked even smaller standing on it.

Going over to the very edge, she gazed for a few moments down at the crowd, far below, and then at the massive top of the cake, also beautiful from above. It was circular, but not flat, spreading in minimal curves of white, light lavender and soft gold. The interesting scene of the two figures fleeing from the spectacular firecracker hail, coming down from clouds, looked even more impressive, now that she was close to it.

Then she jumped.

# Chapter X: THE LAUGHING CAKE

Down she sailed.

But when she encountered the cake, she was so light that she only sank into it to her knees. The crowd was clearly disappointed when, with great difficulty, she walked into sight, still on top of the cake. But they didn't show their disappointment, not wishing to hurt her feelings.

Perfit also was disappointed. Looking down at the crowd of dummies looking up, unexpectedly she smiled.

"It's okay," she reassured everyone, calling down with a knowing expression on her face. But of course, they didn't know what she meant.

Taking her flying wand, which she had tied onto her shoulder with a pretty yellow dangling ribbon which she had brought with her for that purpose, she suddenly pointed it up without even untying it.

Abruptly she rose, in her yellow shorts and top with pink and yellow flowers, straight up into the air. When she was about three times the height of the cake, she expertly stopped her flight in mid air up there and remained motionless—that high. The dummies below looked up with mouths open, never having seen anyone jump into one of their cakes like that before.

But Perfit didn't jump. With remarkable agility, she turned herself in the air and flew straight down toward the cake, letting go of the flying wand only when she was halfway down and had considerable speed.

In this way she dove successfully into the center of the immense top of the cake, which had appeared like a beautiful target from high in the air.

_This time she completely disappeared from sight!_

_There was no telling how far down she went through the layers!_

The crowd clapped, many cheered, and some, stunned by Perfit's quick wit and dexterity, were able to do neither. There was considerable animated talking about her unique entry. This was one of their many cakes, but it was a visit that they would certainly never forget!

Then Meri emerged into the open from the gleaming lavender interior of the platform, where she had been watching. Since Perfit had aimed for the exact center of the huge cake, she had to jump far out to land close to that spot.

Being a flesh and blood dummy, she traveled significantly down through the layers.

Eventually, she stopped.

Inside the still warm, sweet-smelling cake, she called tentatively with muffled syllables,

"Perfit?"

This time a tiny bit of light had followed her down from where she had entered the cake. She could see only a bit of sky overhead, but she couldn't see the beautiful little dummy at all. She was no longer sure where she herself was pointed, because the cake had turned her body around confusingly on the way in.

Perfit, the tiny little girl dummy with so much yellow hair, that was now a mixture of icings and delicious cake, giggled faintly, "I can't believe I'm inside a cake." She was right beside her big sister, but upside down, with her head at about the same level as Meri's. Their faces were close.

Neither could see the other, as a thin layer of cake was right between them. Meri reached through the layers, in the direction of the faint voice she had heard, and felt her friend's face.

"Hi!" said Perfit, feeling the touch and taking the hand that had reached out. "I'm right here. But I can hardly move at all."

By carefully tugging and pushing and adjusting in the darkness, Meri was able to pull her tiny little sister into her arms. With Perfit's arms and legs both around her, she began walking slowly toward the side of the cake. With each step, she sank farther down until finally they reached the bottom. At the same time, it was such a ridiculous process as they tried to pull themselves through the many layers in the complete darkness, that both she and Perfit began to laugh. And then they couldn't stop.

As the crowd watched, expectantly, _unexpectedly they heard their cake laughing!_

As the laughter approached the side, Big Ray repeated to all those around him his favorite expression,

"This is a day."

The cake smelled especially warm and beautiful on the inside. And it was completely dark, because Meri had walked away from the tiny stream of light that had trickled all the way down from the top. But as they approached the side, the cake became lighter.

What a strange sight, to see light filtering dimly toward you through the side of a cake!

Meri kept ploughing toward the light when she saw it, caking her way and Perfit's, through delicious additional icing and layers, until suddenly they broke through the side and clambered out, each a vision, each a statue of cake and icing.

It so happened that Meri broke through exactly at a portrayal of herself on the curving side of the cake, and so in front her face looked exactly like her own—but it was an icing version!

Then Meri began eating delicious chunks off of her arms and shoulders and the top of her head, as the dummies of the land marveled. A large number came running. _This was a sight they didn't get to see often!_

Little Ray had his wish!

Afterwards the Upside Steps became full of courteous funloving dummies who rained into the cake. It was what they loved to do. The sounds of enjoyment were everywhere. Many dummies, picturesque and outrageous looking, with content faces were walking out of the sides of the cake near where Meri and Perfit were.

"Good-bye everybody!" called Meri after watching for a few minutes, for the time had come for her and Perfit to leave.

"Bye!" called Perfit in a very friendly way, but more softly.

Neither of them was very recognizeable, except that the icing on Meri's face looked like the real Meri, in gold, light green, and strawberry. Perfit, already small, had truly all but disappeared in hanging and clustering globs. Her light yellow hair hung down in silvery strawberry.

"Goodbye!" everyone called and waved, from wherever he or she was.

" _Please_ come back soon, both of you," called Big Ray across the large caving-in cake, now even _more_ delicious-smelling. Somehow, in the mix-ups, he was wearing Little Ray's extremely large baking hat of such pale violet, with the silver fork straight up and down in the front. Being the smaller chef with that gigantic hat on, and piled all over with shoulders of cake, he looked truly ridiculous! But that was simply part of the fun of how they enjoyed their cakes! The hat made him easy to find.

It was especially hard for him to see either little girl go, Meri for the second time. He couldn't quite get to the two of them at the moment, but at least he could go to visit his small new friend Perfit at The Land of Pink Windmills.

"Yes," echoed Little Ray, standing up on a high edge of the collapsing cake and losing his balance as he fell into a cavern that had opened up. He was wearing Big Ray's moderately sized hat of light pink and light yellow suns and green rabbits. "Please do," they could hear him say as he went in, although they couldn't see his head, and they wondered what was going to happen to the hat. "Especially if you need a little cake to go with your day. But come anyway." He said this last in a muffled tone as he disappeared, including his feet.

Ello, who hadn't jumped into the cake at all because she was superintending her friends, walked beside them to the edge of the Land of Lost N Lightning. With them also were many of the dummies who had jumped into the cake and were covered with tinted icing and chunks of various layers.

This time, however, Meri didn't enter the land, or Perfit, because they needed to go ahead, and because it would have been truly dangerous since they weren't on the monkeybars like before. The lightning could have struck them easily, it was so abundant.

The Land of Lost N Lightning was aglow with many colored lightnings as the storms moved and the N's changed. The sound was deafening at times and sometimes low and actually enjoyable.

It was extremely rare for lightning to strike outside the land, so the dummies, including Meri as a dummy made of flesh and blood, stood just before the edge of it, still in The Land of Lavender Thought, where rain fell when a storm came near, sometimes in deluges and sometimes in beautifully peaceful and pleasant showers.

All of the dummies there, including Meri and Perfit, were soon soaked through and through and rapidly becoming clean. The icing and cake first fell off in chunks and then was pelted away completely.

Even Ello, who had not entered the cake, remained right with them in the pouring rain and became as wet as anyone, without minding at all. She wouldn't have thought of stepping back and away from her friends.

"You got wet just for us," Perfit said to her soaking dummy yarn friend, looking her over, as they walked away from the edge and back into the sunshine again, in the direction of The Yellow Trampoline.

Perfit, whose long hair was no longer silvery strawberry, but blond and starting to shine again, took Ello's wet hand. Turning to Meri, she said, "Can you wait a moment? Ello is so wet, and just for us. Do you mind?"

Of course Meri didn't, so Perfit turned to Ello and asked the same thing: "Do you mind?"

By this time, the two of them were about three feet up into the air. A big big grin had spread all over Ello's face. Her one free hand went up to her eyes and covered them as she shook her head,

"No, I don't mind at all."

Perfit then, with a quick move of her hand on the wand, took them straight up into the air as fast as the wand would go, leaving water drops streaming down from both of them. The very tip of Perfit's hair released a waterfall for just a second as inertia left the rain in her hair where it was in the air. Then, circling above the cake and Ello's fellow dummies, and waving, and noticing the cleanup already heading toward The Land of Geological Speed, Perfit circled Ello over that unique land of gigantic motion. By going over it she was able to dry Ello off further, and they were both able to have an incomparable view of the second most dangerous land in The Lands.

After what really had been only a few seconds, they came back to Meri, half dry already.

Ello found it hard to believe that she had actually been in the air over _The Land of Geological Speed!_ There was a starry, struck dumb look in her eyes, along with tears, which may have been actually, Meri thought, some of the rain that had soaked into her hair. But they didn't go away as she hugged both of them goodbye and then waved energetically as they arose. Until they eventually disappeared, tiny in the far distance, she kept watching.

Her friends now gone, Ello's tears still didn't go away as she hung her head and walked slowly back across the grass and the many flowers of The Land of Lavender Thought. She knew she would probably _never_ see Meri again, _ever_. Just barely seeable, the faintest suggestion of lavender kept changing in the air above her head as she kept thinking.

But as she thought about their visit: about getting to be with Meri again, about meeting Perfit and now having her for a friend forever, about the dramatic ride through the air above the wonderfully intense violence of geology, although the tears didn't leave her eyes, the starriness didn't go away either.

# Chapter XI: THE FANTASTIC IDEA

Skyrocketing back up into the air, and crossing The Lands much faster than they had come, Meri and Perfit soon were completely dry again in the warm air above the changing landscapes

The Yellow Trampoline appeared first as a long yellow glow ahead, and it wasn't long before they saw the black mark of Wut waiting for them on its light stretchy surface.

He was lying down comfortably, and he wasn't alone, for the two fliers could vaguely see two bright colors sitting beside him. As they arrived, however, descending, the colors suddenly melted into balls and shot away across the yellow surface.

It was The Scooters, of course, dummies that have lived on The Yellow Trampoline for so long that they have learned to roll on it wherever they want to go, in the form of balls. It's much faster than bouncing.

They bounce when they want to. But they are so shy, though, that only around Wut, Jethro, and a few other dummies do they sometimes regain their real shapes.

"What was _that?!"_ Perfit asked Wut, with her mouth open, looking all around, as the two lighted down to The Yellow Trampoline with comfortable precision and ease beside him. Wut, springing up, explained about the unusual dummies that he was privileged to know. He himself was bouncing, with hardly any effort at all. Perfit and Meri tried to stand but decided to bounce.

"I wish they had stayed," Perfit replied, disappointed, and Meri felt the same. Regrettably looking around at the now mostly empty yellow land, with only a few other dummies bouncing here and there, Meri wondered if she would _ever_ get to personally meet a Scooter.

She and Perfit continued to glance around hopefully, but no bright blur of silver and a second color returned. Because of their shyness, The Scooters reminded Meri of The Land of Too Shy Izzits.

"How was Ello?" Wut fondly asked, glad to think of his friend, his eyes remembering her. He was always happy to see her when he went through that land. He liked thinking about her quirky personality. He also had many other friends there.

His memories of the land were unusually positive at that moment, because he had been the one honored on his last trip through—when he had been with Meri and the Tackling Dummy and Jethro. He liked having the record of being the only one ever to be present when honored with a statue of cake.

Meri and Perfit eagerly described their visit. Wut seemed especially interested in how Perfit had dived herself into the center of the great cake from so high up, after her disappointing first try. He also paid close attention when he heard how she had expertly zipped Ello at enormous speed up into the air to help her dry off. Especially when she was soaked through at the time.

His green eyes, out in the air, slowly began to develop a thoughtful sparkle as he was listening to Perfit's and Ello's trip over The Land of Geological Speed.

Suddenly he had a stunned look on his whole face!

He bounced higher, as he always did when excited.

_"You have given me a fantastic idea!"_ he blurted out suddenly to the two girls. Coming down, the intense glow of his green eyes, descending through the air, showed how good he thought the idea was!

Both Perfit's and Meri's mouths dropped open to ask

"What?" at the same time.

But Wut interrupted them, saying

"Don't ask," before they could speak.

"I can't tell you what it is right now," he explained. "I have to talk to Jethro, Fico, Aquamarie, Sylvestra, and many others in The Land of Pink Windmills first, _before I even think about telling you what it is."_

Then, for an awkward moment, as they all bounced softly on The Trampoline, he just looked at them, and they just looked at him, neither knowing what else to say, since they were so intensely curious about his idea but couldn't ask about it.

_And he couldn't tell them!_

Making them _intolerably_ curious was the certainty _that the idea involved them!_

Wut clearly _wanted_ to explain. But obviously his reasons were so strong that he couldn't.

_That_ made them even _more_ curious!

Bouncing on the beautiful stretchiness, and knowing how very frustrated he had just made them, Wut apologized helplessly.

"Sorry," he said, still noticeably excited even when he said so. "I just don't have any choice. I don't mean to be so mysterious, but please let me explain in a little while. You won't have to wait long, I hope."

But they, left hanging, just couldn't adjust that quickly, and go on as if nothing had happened. So they continued to stand there on the trampoline—they had even stopped bouncing—looking at him. Their long silence, their obvious desire, and their still wide eyes made him noticeably uncomfortable.

Then he thought of a way out of his discomfort. He thought of a way to _help_ make up for the frustration he had caused them—for Perfit, at least.

"I'll tell you as soon as I can," he promised again, bouncing lightly on the yellow surface, his mind now pre-occupied, "but right now I need to think more about it. I'm going to bounce back now and come down by The Sliding Board."

He hesitated just for a second, as if he were through speaking, but then he added, as an afterthought, although it wasn't, "And Perfit, I especially want you to fly down into the land by yourself, along with Meri. I want everyone to see how well you can use a flying wand. Now go ahead. I'll meet you there, before long."

A special smile appeared on Perfit's face as she heard these words, and she eagerly began to move the wand to go up. Wut knew, and even Meri knew, how much it meant to the tiny little girl dummy to fly into her own land—where she had always been _the smallest_ —controlling something as important as a flying wand all by herself.

And doing it with such complete skill. Recognizing her ability from the start, and letting her go across The Lands with Meri, had been quite wise on Wut's part, he now realized. He felt his chest swell up with pride for the little flier as she went right up into the air above them with Meri without even thinking about how to use the flying wand. Her hand movements were automatic and exactly right.

Thinking of her friend, Meri didn't even recognize, at first, that _she_ was being shown the same confidence.

"Don't forget The Owingstone Target on your way in," the bouncing question mark with the green eyes out in the air beside his face, and the small pink mouth, called to them quickly, with his usual concern, as they both started out over the trampoline toward The Land of Pink Windmills.

"I know you know it's there. But don't bump into it _especially now!_ No, _especially_ not right _now_! NO! See you in a few minutes!" He didn't explain what he meant by his funny _and_ mysterious language.

The two, anticipating their solo return, after waving eagerly and calling back "Bye" to their special friend again, became smaller upward over the stretchy land, and left him behind.

It was getting late, since they hadn't even started until afternoon, and the light was noticeably fainter. The sun was at the very beginning of its descent on a very colorful parachute over The Autumnforest far behind them.

Meri drew in breath sharply, and Perfit was also momentarily startled, as they went high above The One Tree Forest, the line of trees on the edge of the cliffs.

Because _suddenly_ they were _many times higher_ in the air than they had ever been—when they could see, that is. Earlier, when they had mounted to the cliffs, they had been looking up. Now they were looking down, and also across the great wide expanse of The Lands from an unbelievable height. It was a huge memorable sight.

What they were looking at was the _second half of The Lands_ which were spread out before them—from that height.

It was quite scary for a moment, to have that much space below them and also before them. But being so good with the flying wands by this time, they both quickly regained their poise and slowly, and then confidently, lowered themselves down to the land. They knew where The Owingstone Target was and flew beside it.

"Well, I'll be dephlogisticated," said the Tackling Dummy, as both of the arriving dummies, especially the tiny little girl figure of Perfit, came down by themselves with such perfect ease and skill. Perfit was grinning happily, proud to be so self-sufficient to those she loved so much, where she was the smallest one. Almost all of the dummies in the land were outside, expecting them, for everyone knew the day was ending and that Wut had taken them long ago to give them a lesson with the flying wands.

More exactly, everyone also knew that the three of them had been gone an uncomfortably long time, especially Perfit. All of the dummies of the land were quite protective of her.

"And I will too," echoed Jethro in his deep whimsical voice, gigantic in the dusk beside his friend the Tackling Dummy, "whatever that means."

He didn't mind at all being _dephlogisticated._

Everyone crowded around the two fliers, asking questions. The two friends talked excitedly and non-stop to everyone about where they had been and what had happened. As they were explaining, Wut arrived inconspicuously down The Sliding Board, hardly seen because of his color, his small size, and the lesser light at the bottom of the cliffs. And because Meri's and Perfit's beautiful descent had just attracted so much attention.

As soon as he plopped off the end, he bounced right over to Jethro and led him a little to one side, where they were observed talking confidentially and rapidly to each other.

Only a few of the dummies in the colorful and lively crowd noticed these actions, but everyone who was there was startled when Jethro in his great deep voice unexpectedly called out, " _Yes! Yes! Yes! Absolutely, Yes!"_ A tremor of eager anticipation was in his voice as well. His eyes were also blazing with excitement.

_Wut had told him his fantastic idea!_

"What?" "What is it?" asked a few dummy voices from the crowd in the gathering twilight, but Wut only mysteriously bounced over to Aquamarie and led her back over to where Jethro was still standing, and the whispering began again.

_"No!"_ suddenly was heard from Aquamarie, by those who had begun to pay attention, and by many who hadn't but were now beginning to.

_"No! No! No!"_

Her _four loud "No!'s"_ contrasted sharply with Jethro's _three ebullient_ " _Yes!'s_." And his " _Absolutely!"_

"You don't mean it!? Are you serious?" she then was heard to say by everyone. Wut was then seen to speak very animatedly, while Jethro shook his head repeatedly in support. Eventually Aquamarie, softening with understanding, finally was heard to announce, "If she did _all those things_ , yes, I think she probably _can_ after all. And yes, I'll be glad to help."

Then the three of them were seen to hurry over to Aquamarie's windmill where they slipped in by the turning blades, one at a time. Meri's mouth flew open as Jethro disappeared inside, too, for she had a line of sight through the colorful homes. She wondered how he looked, with his huge size, inside that windmill?!!

A few of the dummies, running behind them to observe these strange happenings more closely, saw another familiar sight as they went in: Aquamarie pulling her tape measure out of her right front pocket. That evening everyone was curious about what was going on, but no one was able to find out.

Meri was happy to talk with Sylvestra again, and to her delight, Faye, the croapf, was still at Syl's windmill. She hadn't gone back yet, as she had stayed to help with the cleaning after contributing to so much trouble and suffering.

She was also reluctant to leave her friend Sylvestra, whom she always stayed with during the paper airplane festivals from the cliffs, and even at other times. (She was a championship partner with Sylvestra in one of the contests—the one in which a windmill, by sending up slight breezes toward a particular airplane, tries to keep it up in the air as long as possible.)

Meri's friends wanted to know all about the trip that day and especially how they had gotten so good at using the flying wands. Meri noticed that she still had hers. Wut had forgotten to get it, he had been so driven by the excitement of his powerful idea.

Going immediately from The Sliding Board to Jethro, and straight to Aquamarie, and then right over to Aquamarie's windmill, he had left the fastest wand of all with Meri and didn't realize the oversight until Perfit brought hers to Aquamarie's door. Since he was so interested in what was going on in the windmill, he decided to leave it with Meri, knowing it would be safe.

In Sylvestra's windmill Faye made her feel comfortable, even honored, about being allowed to protect something so valuable in The Lands.

"Don't worry about it," she replied when Meri sympathized with her because her land had lost the flying wands. "We'll get them back, sometime in the future. When whatever is wrong with us is finally fixed. Because I believe it will be fixed—it _has_ to be!—and I just hope it doesn't take too long," she added quite seriously, with pitiable concern and worry. "The Land of the Croapfs wouldn't be The Land of Creative Original Airplane (Paper) Fliers without our flying wands," she added. "How would we test our paper airplanes?"

Both Meri and Sylvestra agreed, but didn't say too much, not really knowing what to say. They hoped right along with Faye that something would happen to correct the land. But they also knew of nothing at the moment to build hope on. They were frustrated for their friend, who, clearly, was feeling considerable anxiety about her land. Deep down—and also not too deep down—she was quite unhappy.

Faye was a beautiful young woman dummy croapf, mostly white, but with hints of aqua, yellow, pink, and black here and there. Her hair, twisted in the back yet very neatly arranged, was yellow. She wore a short, slim, very attractive light green dress, with two tan and white buffalo unicorns, and one light blue one, at different places on the dress. There was also a very small picture of The Tree of Ticket Leaves in coffee and rose near the hem.

The more Meri talked to her, the more she liked her. They had a subject of interest in common: for Faye had gotten to know the Tackling Dummy, and, as Meri began to realize, was quite fond of him.

"You know what I think?" said Syl to her two guests, before they went to bed that night. "About all the mystery?"

The two looked at her in anticipation. They had already discussed the subject many times. Everyone was curious about what Wut, Aquamarie, Jethro, and the other dummies, who were helping, were up to. It was definitely something important, because of all the activity at Aquamarie's windmill, still going on, and all the secrecy.

Looking at both Meri and Faye, from one to the other, she said, "I think it's definitely about the owingstones." Looking at Meri, she continued, "You'll be starting out to return them tomorrow, and I think there's going to be something special about that! Something nobody would _ever_ expect—probably the _last_ thing we would ever expect!"

Meri and Faye nodded. They agreed. They had tried very hard to think of the fantastic idea, but it was just impossible to know or figure out how Wut's mind worked. The three of them looked at each other and grinned. They were enjoying their curiosity, even though they were dying to find out the truth the next day!

Meri had a lot to think about as she lay down in her round bed at the top of the windmill that night. She liked that she was wearing, once again, the light pink nightgown she had worn during her first night there—the one with the arms of the windmill elegantly traced in blue on the front.

As she lay on her back, hearing the windmill blades go unendingly by outside, she tried, even once again, to remember if Wut had given any clue to his fantastic idea when he had first mentioned getting it, up there on the trampoline. She thought back. They had been talking about how Perfit had flown straight into the cake. And then about Perfit zipping Ello through the air to help her get dry. But perhaps Wut had given some hints. When he had said not to fly into The Owingstone Target, he had then added, _"especially now_ ," and "especially not right now," in rather noticeable tones. What had those words and those tones meant?

But as hard as she thought, the fantastic idea would not come to her. Even though she predicted that when she found it out, she was going to think _that it had been obvious all along!_

Jethro had liked the idea at first, but Aquamarie had not. And then, after a lot of continuous talking by Wut, aided by Jethro, Aquamarie had finally agreed. For the rest of the evening, and even into the night, there had followed those mysterious comings and goings to and from Aquamarie's windmill. HER LIGHTS WERE STILL ON! It was all so mysterious!

Perhaps Faye had been right—that there was a good chance it had something to do with returning the owingstones. They were leaving in the morning, Wut had said, and Wut certainly had this important trip across The Lands on his mind. But now he seemed to have other things on it, too. Or did he?

Yes, it was time to take the owingstones to The Strawberry Patch, as Syl had mentioned—to finally fulfill and complete the favor she had promised to her friend Sticktight. And then she urgently needed to get back home or to England.

But before she did, she was eagerly looking forward to seeing _a few more of The Lands_. Actually she was nervous and excited.

What would they be like?! Would they be as unforgettable as all of the ones she had already seen?

But what _did_ Wut have in mind? Why did he need to talk to Jethro and Aquamarie, and to others? Why all the secrecy? Sleepily, she knew the lights were _still_ on in Aquamarie's windmill, because by lifting her head just a trifle she could see part of that windmill through the corner of one of her windows—all the way through all the windmills between here and there! WHAT WAS GOING ON?!

And whatever it was, what did it have to do with Perfit's and her trip earlier that afternoon?

Her mind was so full of thoughts like these, and her body was so full of emotions, that finally she stopped trying to go to sleep. She fully opened her eyes. It was then that she had her own daring idea. It was a _totally preposterous_ idea! But she couldn't sleep. So with her own outrageous idea in mind, she quietly got up, carefully picked up the flying wand that was lying on her dresser, and silently and slowly walked downstairs.

Soundlessly opening the door and stepping out, still in her nightgown she leapt through the ponderously turning windmill blades perfectly, even though it was in the dark. But the sky was starry, and there was light from the sky.

Pointing the wand above the cliffs at full speed, she soared above and over them at the fastest speed the wand would go. She now knew what she was doing!

It was beautiful to be up in the sky above The Lands in the dark! She had never felt so exhilarated! The stars were just overhead. And she was in her nightgown!

There was no falling down this time!

Flying over The Lands, changing her speed whenever she felt like it, she sped directly toward The Land of Lavender Thought, also known as The Land of Clinging Light. She had wanted to see it at night since Wut had first described its strange light.

Vaguely she could see the various lands rushing by below her. And then she saw the lightedness of the land in the distance. _She couldn't believe the enchanting colors coming through the night to her!_

And then she was above it!

_It was amazing_ , all the glowing cakes, the grass even on color, with so many flowers adding their actual colors to the night—like another sky below!

_This was the way to see this glowing land!_ The trees were dramatic!

She could see perfectly the lines of the homes in which so many of her dummy friends lived.

"Hi," she said to them silently but meaningfully overhead, even coming down close. "I'm here," she added, even though they couldn't hear her and had no idea she was there.

And then, having seen The Land of Clinging Light in a way that few ever had, she went back home again, enjoyably again, to The Land of Pink Windmills. Passing over The Land of Lost N Lightning, she saw the beautiful lightning at its most vivid, getting as close to it as she could in the air across it.

And then she was back, and Syl met her at the door.

"I knew something was going on," she told her young flesh and blood friend. "I just woke up and sat up in the bed without knowing exactly why. Where did you go?"

And Meri told her.

"You know, you are hard to believe," Syl replied, shaking her head goodnaturedly. "Go to bed," she ordered, giving her a good hug.

Back on her round bed, Meri fell fast asleep immediately this time. Her aquamarine eyes closed by themselves. She did decide one thing, however, before they did: _whatever was going to happen the next day_ certainly couldn't be as exciting as what had already happened since she had been in The Lands.

_It just couldn't be!!_

She bet she was going to find _that_ out on her trip. No, going across The Lands again just couldn't possibly be as exciting as so far!!

But it would be fun for herself, Wut, the Tackling Dummy, and Jethro to cross _the other half of The Lands together!_ As they had crossed the first half!

She could hardly wait!

She was sure they would all be going with her. She knew the Tackling Dummy would stay with her, just as she had chosen to stay with him until he got his new canvas. And of course she knew without thinking that Jethro wouldn't be left behind for anything! That was something that was certain! These thoughts were beginning to be so stimulating all over again, she probably _never_ would have gotten to sleep all over again if she hadn't been tired from her long adventurous day, and if she hadn't been so happy about her starry flight in the sky.

Every day in The Lands, it seemed, had one thing in common—every one tired her completely out!!

Outside, the windmill blades of her windmill, and those all over the village, turned slowly in the light cast by the stars Meri had just been beneath. The tops of the shiny windmills reflected some of these as they traveled across the sky. In several hours, the sun, rising on a very colorful parachute, would begin to light up the farthest edges of The Lands to the east of The Mistercald.

Wut's fantastic idea would certainly be revealed in the morning, or they wouldn't be working on it so late at night in Aquamarie's windmill. _And Meri was actually going to see additional lands!_ It was a good thing that Meri's lovely aqua eyes, with their colors that everyone seemed to like so much, immediately just closed by themselves, although her thoughts hadn't stopped. And then her body, completely tired on the round bed, followed her eyes to sleep.

She was going to need it, _A LOT MORE THAN SHE REALIZED_ , the next day!

# Chapter XII: A BIG SURPRISE FOR PERFIT

Early the next morning, Meri was awakened by many voices outside, down below. Jumping up and running to the window, she saw what looked like practically _everyone_ out on the grass, slowly walking toward The Sliding Board.

Her very full day the day before, and her event of the night, had caused her to sleep so long, she thought. Actually, she had slept so well because of _so many full days in a row!_ _And_ , the difficulty of getting enough sleep some of the nights!

She dressed quickly, in her same bib overall jeans shorts and coral top which Sylvestra had faithfully washed for her one more time the night before. Syl washed her clothes _every_ night and always left them folded neatly for her the next morning. Sleeping on the round bed, Meri had never once heard her slip into her upstairs room to leave them.

Running downstairs, Meri—too quickly—while looking at the dummies go by the windows outside—enjoyed more of the same breakfast of fruits and nuts that Sylvestra was now daily gathering for her. She liked the water glass with a cute vacuum cleaner and cord painted all the way around it by Syl.

When Syl had greeted her on this special morning, fondly as always—was Meri wrong, or did she have a look of _mysterious knowledge_ on her face, that she couldn't completely hide?

"What does she know now, that she didn't know last night," Meri wondered, becoming curious. "And that I don't know?"

She looked questioningly at her friend Syl, but the attractive dummy, approximately her age, didn't say a single thing. She only smiled. Her light turquoise eyes had _something_ in them, though!

Meri didn't say a word either—yet—because she was in such a hurry to eat and to see what this day would bring. She knew that she was just about to find out everything anyway, if she could only get outside where so many dummies were already passing by!

Syl said little so Meri could eat, but she kept that same mysterious look of pleasant knowledge on her face! _It was hard for Meri to sit still and eat with Syl looking like that!_

Quietly, the suspense was building inside her!

Syl knew _something!_

"Calm down," Syl did say once, patting her hand affectionately on Meri's wrist, but Meri could tell she was excited herself about something that she just wasn't telling her! Syl kept glancing outside. So did Meri, turning her head at different angles while she was eating, to see better through the small windows around the round room and the open door where the windmill blades were going by in blurs. Through these Meri could see glimpses of dummies everywhere on the grass all around them. Many were now just standing around, as if waiting for something.

Then Meri had a strange feeling, and she couldn't eat anymore! Because suddenly she understood that everyone outside was waiting for _her! And Sylvestra!_

She drank some more water, jumped up, and _at last_ was able to run outside, dodging with easy good timing between the first two blades that swung by. Sylvestra, accompanying her friend, followed right behind her through the very next opening.

Everyone in the land _was_ out there, filling in all the spaces between Syl's windmill and The Sliding Board.

The windmills all over the village were creating pleasant breezes that mingled with the morning ones dropping down from The Lands above. The cliffs rose their great distance nearby, spectacular with their Sliding Board coming down so far from The Tower Trees surprisingly small up on the edge.

The crowd murmured in glad anticipation when Meri appeared in her familiar clothes, with Syl. Above the many dummies, Meri and Syl could see part of Wut's head going up and down in the triangular area between Fico's windmill, the end of The Sliding Board, and the invisible Owingstone Target.

Meri's curiosity kept skyrocketing, and her heart began beating faster, as she and Syl walked through the colorful dummies toward the black question mark ascending and descending.

_Meri was going to find out the fantastic idea at last!_ She and Syl spoke to many dummies as they went by them. Each had a special look and greeting for the two.

_Everyone knew this was going to be another special day!_

In the middle of this triangular space, surrounded by everyone, Wut was now bouncing to a very low height while he tried to bend over at the same time to talk to Perfit.

The little one was dressed in a long dress, light rose with small yellow windmills attractively spaced all over it. Her light yellow curls were as light—and as long—as ever, but on each side of her head this morning, on top and just to each side, she had a pink ribbon tied dividing off a small bunch of her beautiful hair.

She looked especially enchanting.

There were still a few streaks of colors in the sky over the cliffs. Meri could feel the coolness of the early morning as well as the light breezes of the windmills against her bare legs as she walked along. She shivered for a moment, but it was getting warm fast. She didn't even notice.

_She was just too excited!_

When she walked up to Wut and Perfit, her heart began beating _even a little faster_. Briefly she recalled that her heart had begun beating faster _many times before_ while she had been in The Lands, because of all the things that had happened!

_And now something else was going to!_

"Oh, Hi! Are you ready to take the owingstones across The Lands, as you told Sticktight you would, in The Autumnforest?" Wut asked casually all at once, not wasting any time, going up. Meri noticed that his words had been spoken _a little too casually_ , for some reason which she didn't understand yet.

_She knew something was being kept from her!_ She kept searching his face carefully as he bounced up and down, but he was keeping it neutral _. She didn't know how hard a job that was for him, with the knowledge that he had!_

"We're just about set," he added casually, looking straight into her aquamarine eyes with practically no expression at all, except that the tiniest sparkle crept into his two green ones intelligently located out in the air on either side of his face.

_He did like to tease her!_

Perfit looked up at her just as innocently and smiled, taking Meri's hand in both of hers.

They were in the center of everyone—or practically. The only two who seemed to be missing, Meri noticed, were Jethro and Aquamarie. Meri wondered where they were.

The Tackling Dummy walked up from the edge of the crowd, where he had been talking to Faye. "I'm ready," he said, putting his right arm around Meri's shoulder and smiling down to her. They had come a long way together, and he was going now to the other side of The Lands with his best friend—who had at one time been his _only_ friend.

Now he had many. Meri also noticed that he too had the tiniest sparkle of knowledge and joy in his eyes that he was trying his best to hide, but couldn't completely.

_He too knew something!_

They—Syl, Wut, and the Tackling Dummy—all knew something, Meri perceived, but she couldn't figure out anything! She had been so patient! But finally, _in desperation_ , with a good-natured and affectionate look on her face, she asked them,

" _What_ are you all not telling me?! What is it!? Please tell me!! I can't _stand_ it any longer!!" The desperation in her voice was obvious.

She knew they were teasing her.

She gave Wut a pleading hug. She knew they were doing it because they liked her so much.

"Okay," he said, a great look of satisfaction on his face, because all of what was about to happen had been _his_ idea.

"Let's find out," he finally said.

So he bounced out to be all by himself in the clearing in the middle of the crowd, which was now obviously large, to address everyone. Realizing he was going to speak, all of the dummies, many of them now Meri's friends, stepped back a little more, quieted down and waited attentively.

"What a colorful sight," thought Meri.

"Friends," the question mark began, bouncing thoughtfully and looking out and all around, "I think you know that I arranged for Meri and Perfit to practice here, and up on The Yellow Trampoline yesterday, with the flying wands. I wanted them to have some fun and also to learn about the flying wands while the wands are still here in your land. I'm sure that was all right with you."

He looked at them silently for a few moments. The period at the bottom of his punctuation was bouncing softly on the green grass, springing him up again and again when he came down.

The crowd responded with murmurs of general agreement and definite approval.

"When we were up on The Yellow Trampoline, as you also know by now, I let both girls go on a little trip to The Land of Lavender Thought, as long as they went only there. I thought they'd be safe on just that little trip. And they were. But when Perfit was telling me about taking Ello up into the air to help dry her off, I thought of something.

"I already knew that a flying wand can take up more than one dummy at a time. I'm really not surprised, because dummies are so light, but I just hadn't thought directly about it.

"But when she told me that she took Ello up, when Ello was soaked with water from The Land of Lost N Lightning, and therefore was much heavier than usual, I was impressed with the fact that a flying wand can fly with a heavier weight than a dummy. All Perfit did was hold onto Ello's hand when she was soaked with water, and Ello went up with the wand. I think Perfit deserves a lot of credit for seeming to know intuitively what the wand would do."

Perfit smiled happily, without really looking at anyone—or actually looking at everyone all at one time—at this praise. She was so small, and Wut was suggesting she had done something important. The Tackling Dummy reached down and put his hand supportively on her tiny shoulder, and she looked up gladly at her friend.

In his mind the Tackling Dummy was also thinking, " _Intuitively_? I do like that word!"

"The flying wand apparently just lifted Ello up, effortlessly," Wut continued, bouncing continuously on the grass. "So you have to wonder: just how much weight can a flying wand lift up?" As he spoke these words, everyone noticed a faint quiver of excitement in his voice, and they themselves began to grow more excited. _What_ was he leading up to? A faint ripple of voices went through the crowd, for everyone had learned that a fantastic idea was going to be revealed, and they knew it was close!

So Wut, sensing their suspense, and feeling it himself—more than anyone realized—continued. But suddenly he seemed to change the subject as he continued to bounce. But everyone noticed that he was beginning to bounce just a little higher!

"We needed to help Meri take the owingstones to the other side of The Lands, as you know, and obviously the quickest and easiest way to go was to use the flying wands." The crowd gasped. "That would have taken very little time! But I also knew that Jethro wanted to go and _had_ to go—you all know Jethro!—and I wanted him to be able to go!" The crowd nodded, knowing the great and whimsical Buffalo Unicorn. "So I had a problem."

He hesitated, going up and down, to let everyone think for a moment about what he had already said. And then he continued.

"So it occurred to me, after Perfit talked about what happened with Ello, that _the quickest and easiest way to go would be for Jethro to fly, but with Perfit on his back holding a flying wand!"_

There it was!!

It _was_ a fantastic idea!

Jethro to be actually flying?!

Jethro up in the air!?

The dummies in the crowd began looking at each other with eyes that probably never had been that wide, on so many dummies all at the same time, before.

Perfit was speechless!!! She just stood there with her hand over her mouth, unbelieving. She was completely overwhelmed!

So she hadn't known either!!

By this time the sky was clear of colors overhead, except for the light blue which was usually seen over The Lands. The morning was already on its way.

"Wait a minute, here's Jethro and Aquamarie," announced Wut, as the huge Buffalo Unicorn and the well-known seamstress, who was steadily visited by many from all over The Lands when they needed special sewing, came walking through the crowd of dummies.

Many were dressed in the dizzy colors and creativity that flowed out of the needles, tape measures, and scissors of Aquamarie, for they were fortunate. She lived in _their_ land. Everyone moved aside just enough to let them pass through.

At first, all that the crowd noticed about Jethro was the large baseball style cap that Aquamarie had sewn especially for him. It was a large white one, with three holes, one for the large white unicorn emerging straight from the middle of his forehead, and two for his smaller black side horns—pointing more up, instead of out, and curving inward a little too. On the front Aquamarie had sewn a picture of Jethro himself, looking straight ahead, in light aqua, tan, and white thread, with a whimsical expression on his face sewn just right.

"Ooooh," said a number of dummies in the crowd at his hat, never having seen him in one before.

Jethro seemed to be looking around.

"Just wondering if anyone in the crowd has a mirror," the immense Buffalo Unicorn explained, not seeing one and obviously disappointed.

But Aquamarie, used to her friends wanting to know how they looked, pulled a large one out of the bag of sewing necessities that she almost always carried. She held it right in front of his large, whimsical, half-smiling eyes.

"That ought to look good up in the air," he commented approvingly, tilting his head at different angles to test the effect of the hat. It was the first one he had ever worn.

Aquamarie looked pleased, but a hint of a smile appeared in her own eyes, as she realized that no one was going to even see that hat up in the air. But she, probably better than anyone, knew how important it is for everyone to feel confident about themselves, so she was happy that he was pleased.

The crowd gasped then when they got an even better look at Jethro—who, they realized, also had on his back a beautiful western saddle of light green velvet.

The seat was resting high up in the middle of his back. In a few places it had quaint sewn decorations of colored thread, mixed in with a little silver.

The great skill of Aquamarie was evident in the simple yet elegant attractiveness of the western saddle looking perfect on Jethro's back.

He obviously was very proud of it. The end of his white unicorn was sparkling with the soft rays of the early morning. His two side horns, also glinting, looked especially black. His forehead was noticeably curly and white. The saddle, his horns, the golden tan and white and yellow and gold of his great back and legs, showing small marks of black and brown here and there, made him look enormously handsome.

The expression on his face showed that this creature could be none other than Jethro!

He walked around, completely splendid with his hat and saddle, showing everyone how he looked. While considerable excited murmuring was still going on among the crowd, Jethro, through his long lashes, looked at Meri with one of his most whimsical looks. Then he cocked his head to look up meaningfully into the sky with one of his playful eyes, as if he were imagining himself up there!

Meri got the message, but she was still stunned from first hearing Wut's idea. Jethro to fly with them!!? It was an amazing colorful crazy idea!!

She had to remind herself that she was in The Lands.

She hadn't even _thought about_ taking the flying wands, just because she had known Jethro would want to go with them!

Her thoughts were still whirling, but she noticed Faye join the Tackling Dummy just inside the clearing. They were both completely excited, as was everyone. Meri also managed to wave to Fico, standing further back, but easily seen because of his height. He was wearing a light maroon tank top that showed his especially well formed chest and shoulder muscles. He smiled especially to her.

She still couldn't believe the kind of trip they were going to take! And she had accepted, the night before, before drifting off to sleep, that what was ahead wouldn't be as exciting as what had already happened!! It now occurred to her that she had been—perhaps—just _a little too hasty_ with that conclusion!

She now also thought she had an understanding of why Wut had been so mysterious about his idea. For one thing, he probably needed to ask a few dummies in The Land of Pink Windmills, such as Aquamarie and Fico, if it would be all right for Perfit to take on such an important, and perhaps even dangerous, responsibility. After all, she was so small and everyone was so protective of her. He had been right to ask them first, she now knew.

He also had been right, Meri now realized, to ask them before telling Perfit. Even though he had unthinkingly raised such incredible curiosity in both the tiny dummy and herself by saying too much at first, up on The Yellow Trampoline—when the fantastic idea had first occurred to him.

She understood that lapse, because of his excitement! But if he had told Perfit, _and she had been unable to go_ , she would have been crushed flat with disappointment! And if Perfit had been crushed flat with disappointment, those who cared about her wouldn't have been happy either. _And that was everyone!_

Looking over at her bouncing friend Wut, Meri now understood—and she knew she appreciated—his wisdom.

Perfit was still calming down, after becoming so excited at hearing the idea in Wut's announcement, because it depended entirely on her! But her eyes were still unquestionably bright with all the thoughts now whirling through her head about going on the trip and the contribution she would make!

All that Wut had told her was that she would be surprised by his fantastic idea, _and he had never been so right!_

Jethro's great size dominated the entire scene. " _Now if I'm correct_ ," Wut continued to the crowd, now that Jethro was present and standing still, looking around and nodding with his hat on to various friends, "a flying wand can take Jethro up, too—if Perfit is on his back with one and is able to move the wand exactly right which I believe she can. And if so, there's really no reason we can't use the flying wands for this trip, and so Jethro should be able to go! Unless someone objects, of course. Aquamarie was kind enough to work all night long making this saddle and Jethro's new hat."

Wut waited quietly, and there wasn't a single objection. There was hardly a sound. Everyone was actually quite excited!

The suspense was becoming unbearable, because everyone knew what was just about to happen.

Wut said the memorable words:

_"Okay. Let's find out, then. Let's see if Jethro can fly with a flying wand too!"_

Everyone looked at their huge friend, continuing to marvel at the idea and still not quite believing it, because of his enormous size. _Jethro flying around up in the air?!_

What could be more preposterous?!

# Chapter XIII: THE FLYING BUFFALO UNICORN

There was only one way to find out.

"Perfit, will you get in the saddle on Jethro's back?" Wut said to the tiny dummy who looked unbelievably small beside the giant Buffalo Unicorn. Most of the dummies standing and watching in the large crowd couldn't even see her at all.

At Wut's words, the crowd grew almost perfectly still again. They were watching intently to see their little friend come into sight, as they knew she would in a moment. Other background sounds, such as the turning windmill blades, and the birds, suddenly became more noticeable. And then everyone forgot them again.

The Tackling Dummy gently lifted his tiny friend, who was smiling, up into the western saddle. She put a leg down each side, placed her feet carefully into the stirrups, and relaxed—as much as she could! She then moved with small settling motions to get comfortably seated—and then even more to become _securely_ seated.

The crowd was enjoying the drama.

Aquamarie, having made the saddle, was watching very carefully from nearby.

Perfit adjusted her beautiful long hair to fall down directly behind the saddle. Then she looked down at Wut and nodded her loveable head.

Wut, now quite excited himself, with a perfect bounce to the right height, carefully handed her the dangerous and able flying wand _with both hands_. And that was the way she took it, too. _She knew exactly what to do._

The dummies in the crowd were watching with concentration, immensely curious—they _all_ loved this tiny dummy. And they loved Jethro too.

Perfit was nervous. And who wouldn't be, that young, in the eyes of everyone, and with such an important job to do?! A straight intense look had appeared on her face, her mouth just slightly open, so that the crowd became a little worried and uncertain about her.

Holding the wand perfectly with both hands, she calmed herself by continuing to settle herself in the saddle made just for her, even more securely, and by fitting her small feet even more firmly into the stirrups. By these motions everyone could see she was wearing small beige-gold slippers.

For the moment, needing both hands for the wand, she wasn't able to grasp the saddle horn for more stability. But _if Wut's idea worked,_ she would be able to hold onto it with one hand when she was flying.

Jethro, with his large white hat—with the picture of himself in colored threads on the front—pulled down over his forehead—shook his great head and looked around at everyone as whimsically as he could, blinking his eyes with their large lashes a little faster than usual.

"This won't be bad," he stammered to everyone in his deep voice, using understatement, intensely excited because he, as big as he was, was about to fly right up into the air! It was a lifelong dream that he had always thought would be impossible! Who could ever have predicted that the flying wands would become available to _him_ , too?!

Yes, Wut had had a _fantastic_ idea!! Jethro was intoxicated, with a dream in his eyes. But everyone could also tell that, yes, he was nervous too. And who wouldn't be, in that situation, even if he weren't so tremendous??

"Now everyone," resumed Wut, with just a noticeable tremor in his voice, because of his whirling emotions. He was bouncing just a little bit too high and just a little bit too awkwardly—and at an odd angle—because he was full of excitement and nervousness both at the same time.

" _This_ is when we find out," he stuttered, unclearly.

He had left the test to the very last minute, but he was almost completely sure of the result. If it didn't work, if he wasn't right, of course he would be _forever_ embarrassed in The Lands. He would never know when anyone would be remembering and too kind to mention the thought. But he had committed himself to his idea— _at this very moment_ —with considerable boldness _. He was putting his whole future reputation in The Lands at risk._

" _This_ is the experiment," he continued, seeming to frown a little, and bouncing at even an odder angle. _"Is this idea a fantastic one?_ Or not? The moment has _come. Let's find out if the wand will lift Jethro up into the air, as I think it will!!"_

He was _sure_ it was going to work—but he was also sensitive, and intelligent enough to be just a little bit _unsure_ —to have just that one last nagging doubt. After all, look at how _heavy_ and _huge_ Jethro is! There isn't a weightier creature in all of The Lands! (Although, there is one _larger_ than he is, if one is to be perfectly truthful.) Who wouldn't have a doubt about that!!?? It was Wut's moment, and, to his credit, he had courageously put his idea to the test before a crowd. So he said,

"Perfit, will you go just one foot up into the air?"

Perfit shook her small head yes, her massive light yellow curls shaking too, including the two pink ribbons and the bunches they tied off, so that she looked especially adorable. She moved the wand as her experience and talent told her.

The huge Buffalo Unicorn, with his tiny rider on the light green decorated velvety western saddle, promptly rose into the air one foot and stayed there, with Perfit holding the wand just right.

"Well, I'll be semiphlogisticated," Meri heard the Tackling Dummy murmur to Faye as they watched on the other side of the clearing.

Jethro grinned, and the crowd clapped joyously and talked happily among themselves. Meri had never seen Wut look more relieved—-or happier.

Jethro floated right there in the air. It was a dazzling sight. Even if he was only one foot up.

"Now," continued Wut, much— _much_ —more confident now: "Perfit, would you please safely come down again?"

Perfit moved her hand in a perfect rhythm, and the feet of the Buffalo Unicorn descended ever so slowly, gently pressing firmly into the grass again. The crowd continued to be supportive, mostly now exchanging definite opinions among themselves about the upcoming flight to deliver the owingstones. Some doubt was still being expressed, however, here and there.

But Wut wasn't finished. The crowd next heard him say, "Perfit, dear, could you please rise _six feet_ into the air this time?"

It's a different story when _that large_ a creature ascends _that_ high up into the air, especially right above you. Once again, the crowd was awed and amazed, when they had thought they were getting used to the idea.

Jethro floated right there up in the air. "And now, would you settle down safely again, please?" said the now clearly confident black question mark with the green eyes that went up and down with him. Once again, Perfit with her surprising skill lowered herself and her enormous friend safely, almost delicately, to the grass.

"And finally, dear," concluded the softly—perfectly—bouncing question mark, with his confidently lit soft green eyes on either side of his face, and on his soft pink mouth a slight expression of pure achievement, "Would you please take Jethro up to the cliffs?"

Jethro's large eyes glowed a little, and he waited patiently. At least he _appeared_ to be patient, when viewed from the outside. But on the inside his heart was pumping fast and he was feeling more than his usual whimsical excitement as he prepared to experience _genuine flight._

He seemed to have absolute faith in his small but competent rider.

The crowd waited and watched expectantly, most of their mouths completely open and speechless at this last outrageous request.

Perfit moved her hand, and up Jethro soared into the air, up high, till he became small, if that can be imagined, up near the edge of the cliffs, and then he was taken up and above them, over The One Tree Forest, with its many different oaks one tree thick, disappearing behind it for a moment over The Yellow Trampoline. He re-appeared again a little further on, and, zigzagging, slowly and surely returned to the same spot above the crowd, from which Perfit settled the Buffalo Unicorn with starry eyes easily once again down to the grass.

"Well, I'll be completely dephlogisticated!" said the Tackling Dummy, with dazzled eyes, too: "And I'll also be aurific, pulsific, unific, and pictoric! And I'm also adding _splendidious_ , one of my favorite words, to those. I'm that too!" His immense enthusiasm, through his vocabulary, evidently was starting to get out of control, when Faye nudged him good-naturedly, and he quieted down again, grinning at his outburst.

Meanwhile those around him were shaking their heads at this fount of strange words that somehow expressed how they were all feeling too!

"Is there anyone here who thinks Perfit shouldn't help Jethro go with us on this trip to help Meri deliver the owingstones?" Wut asked everyone in The Land of Pink Windmills, by whom Perfit was always protected as much as she was valued.

But the tiny dummy's obvious mastery of the flying wand had convinced everyone _completely_ , and there was nothing but supportive silence as the answer to Wut's question.

"Whew!!" breathed out Jethro in great relief, and Perfit also, after looking alarmed for a few moments, while the question was up in the air, relaxed again.

"Ready to go?" Wut now asked Meri, Jethro, Perfit, and the Tackling Dummy. It was another important moment. For they were _all_ about to ascend up into the air at once.

As soon as they gave the Tackling Dummy some practice using a flying wand—and he learned more quickly than they would have imagined—they were ready and eager to start. Just by a lucky coincidence, he had recently asked Faye, his friend from The Land of the Creative Original Airplane (Paper) Flyers, to tell him about the wands.

He was quite a curious dummy, as shown by his learning so much from an unabridged dictionary all by himself. He could have been expected to ask Faye about the wands when they had unexpectedly become such good friends. And he had. For his curiosity she had demonstrated the tiny effective hand motions, and he had practiced them, just for fun, under her patient guidance, liking to learn.

_He had had no idea he would so soon have an opportunity to fly, himself, with one of them!_

Faye watched proudly from the grass as he acquired the real skills so easily, partly because of her. After all, she was the only truly experienced wand flyer there in The Land of Pink Windmills, and she had honestly tried to reveal to him all she knew about the most minute hand directions.

Observing Perfit and Jethro and the Tackling Dummy use the wands, however, she couldn't help but miss flying up into the air herself, above The Lands, as she had done so many times before. She truly believed, though, that her land would get the wands back some day, as she had told Meri and Syl. She was only sad because she didn't know when, and that thought reminded her of the still sadder thought that something was very wrong with her land and her people.

"Yep," Jethro kept saying, even though no one was asking him anything.

"We should be back today," Wut assured everyone, still assembled around them in suspense and anticipation, waiting for the takeoff of all five fliers at once.

"I'll see you," Faye told her friend the Tackling Dummy, taking his hand, and smiling at him appreciatively with her greygreen eyes. "Be careful."

"Thanks for the help with the wand," he reminded her. "It came in handy."

"Nice pun," she said, smiling at his wit.

"Goodbye!!!!!" the five of them called out to everyone, as they rose up into the air over The Lands, including the huge _flying_ Buffalo Unicorn.

"Yep! This is going to be fun! This is big!" Jethro called out to his friends in the crowd as he passed over their heads, swinging his hat around as he looked. He was having the time of his life, although, because of his unique do-everything personality, he had already had some unforgettable times! _But nothing could compare to this!_ Perfit turned him around in a complete circle and then lifted them both up.

The five friends, with the Tackling Dummy actually flying up into the air _for travel_ the first time, and Meri having the fastest of the wands, ascended away from the waving hands and all the good wishes trailing after them.

Rising at a steep angle, they leveled off and became three small dark objects in the sky and one large one to those still watching below. They rapidly approached The Mistercald River which had become small below them.

Aware of The many-colored and different-shaped Lands now appearing—beyond the river and to their left and right—the fliers were in unusually high spirits. Perfit and Meri, communicating an entire message in a glance, were glad to be up in the air with flying wands again, this time sailing in the _opposite_ direction across The Lands! The Tackling Dummy was gradually teaching himself more about hand movements. And Wut smiled at the opportunity to see so many of his beloved Lands _all at once._

The air was especially clear with the scent of morning.

"Yep!" Jethro kept repeating to himself mindlessly, unbelieving and also ecstatic that he was up in the sky.

Previously, he never would have guessed it was possible!

He, a Buffalo Unicorn.

Flying!

* * * * *

Meri visits The Lands Across The Mistercald in the next book, _Pumphrey The WaterSpout_. One of these lands is The Land of Buffalo Unicorns, where she and you meet Jethro's unforgettable mother.

# ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Larry Good has always been interested in creativity. At the University of Virginia, he majored in English, or in English and American Literature, which is essentially the creative use of words and sentences in our language. For his master's degree at the College of William and Mary, his thesis discussed reactions to students with "divergent thinking," another name for creative ability at that time.

This story is an illustration of his exploration of creativity, which brings together a variety of elements to form something new. The game Suddenly! that both Meri and Sticktight invent is a good example. They intentionally put words together suddenly---without thinking---and then examine the combination to see how interesting it may be. The activity expands the flexibility of one's mind so that Sticktight easily creates the idea of a Talking License---and eventually gets one!

This game can be used to demonstrate and encourage creativity. It can also be used with a dictionary with stimulating results.
