They were steaming out of the station before Maia asked, 'Was it books in the trunk?''It was books, admitted Miss Minton.And Maia said, 'Good.

If the medieval saints had gone to their deaths as to a wedding, the Earl of Westerholme, thought the kind and scholarly vicar, looked as if he was preparing to invert the trend.

He was just drifting off to sleep when it occurred to him that perhaps the dog was not so ordinary after all. Perhaps he was someone the ogre had changed, and Ivo was going to spend the night hugging a headmaster or a tax inspector

Ms. Wrack's mother, Mrs. Wrack, had been a mermaid: a proper one who lived on a rock and combed her hair and sang. But sailors had never been lured to their doom by her, partly because she looked like the back of a bus and partly because modern ships are so high out of the water that they never even saw her

The dowager rose and slipped from her pew. There was the sound of tearing silk as she threw up her arms to embrace her son. Then:"Oh, Rupert, darling," she exclaimed in tones of theatrical despair, "don't you see? The game's up!

This is worse than Hollywood, he thought. A girl comes in with a pork chop and I write a song for her.

Herr Altenburg, I can't; I have vertigo.' And Marek looked at him: 'All right - I'll get the chemist to fix me something.