Thrice Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris Page B

astonished. “
My
mother disappeared, too. When I was not quite one.”
    â€œMaybe it’s not so surprising,” Sebastian said, “considering who they were married to. Wouldn’t
you
want to walk away from them?”
    â€œBut our mothers walked away from us, too. Why didn’t they take us with them?”
    â€œI’ve thought about that a lot. And asked my father, too, but he only said he was glad she was gone because she treated me too nicely. So I don’t know the answer. There could be lots of reasons. Maybe . . . maybe they didn’t go voluntarily. Maybe something befell them. I just don’t know.”
    â€œWhat I think about is maybe they didn’t want us,” Phoebe said in a small voice.
    â€œThat could be,” Sebastian said. “But I don’t want to believe it.” For some reason, he felt like comforting her.
    â€œStill. It might be true.”
    â€œHere’s what I say—when you don’t know or can’t know the answer to a question, why not believe the answer that you like best? It’s as valid as any of the others—and it might be right.”
    She thought for a moment and then said, “That’s brilliant.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œDid you know that the eye of a duck has three eyelids?”
    Every time she told him one of her odd facts, he felt as if she had given him a little present. The only gift he had to give her was his appreciation of the meaning of words. “I did not. You have enlightened me. My interest is always piqued by your pedagogy.”
    â€œReally?” she asked, pretty sure she knew what he meant.
    â€œAssuredly.”
    She flushed with pleasure. “The average cat has twenty-five to thirty whiskers,” she murmured.
    â€œThat is very good to know,” he said.
    Â 
    Wendell joggled along on top of his elephant. He didn’t know what Bub thought Hannibal could do, but he didn’t question that animals understood each other in ways that people did not, and he trusted Bub’s instincts.
    He’d been trying to convince Mrs. Clover to take a ride with him on Hannibal, but so far she’d declined the invitation. Come to think of it, he considered, adjusting his awkward seating, it probably wasn’t the most comfortable ride in the world. But Hannibal was an advantage he had over Swithbert in the pursuit of Mrs. Clover and he wanted to use all the tricks he had. How else could a washed-up wizard compete with an ex-king?
    As they neared the hunter’s cabin, Hannibal led them away from it, farther into the forest.
    â€œIsn’t this the way to the dragon’s lair?” Marigold asked apprehensively. “Why isn’t he going to the cabin?”
    Here, all the trees had singed leaves and certain sections were beginning to show new growth after being burned to the ground.
    â€œIt is indeed,” Christian said. A leaden hand seemed to clutch his heart at the idea of his child being anywhere near the dragon. But he knew how the Terrible Twos felt about dragons, so he did what he could to prepare himself for something awful—even though there’s actually very little one can do in such a circumstance. There is no such thing as truly being prepared for something awful.
    Just then a roar echoed through the forest, followed by a tongue of flame that flickered through the trees ahead of them.
    â€œUh-oh,” Wendell said. He pulled hard on Hannibal’s harness, but Hannibal kept going, toward the flames. Wendell pulled harder and yelled, “Stop!” But Hannibal was huge and purposeful, and Wendell had no choice but to go along for the ride.
    The rest of the party had halted, and they watched as Hannibal and Wendell headed away. As humorous as the back end of an elephant can be—what with the gigantic rear haunches and the little stringy tail—there was nothing funny about watching their friend being carried helplessly