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the creature announced. Its voice was a mixture of buzz and snarl. “I am the lubbock and I own this land.”
    Charmain had heard of lubbocks. People at school had whispered of lubbocks, and none of it was pleasant. The only thing to do, so they said, was to be very polite and hope to get away without being stung and then eaten. “I’m very sorry,” Charmain said. “I didn’t realize I was trespassing in your meadow.”
    “You are trespassing wherever you tread,” the lubbock snarled. “All the land you can see is mine.”
    “What? All of High Norland?” Charmain said. “Don’t talk nonsense!”
    “I never talk nonsense.” the creature said. “All is mine. You are mine.” Wings whirring, it began to stalk toward her on most unnatural-looking wiry blobs of feet. “I shall come to claim my own verysoon now. I claim you first.” It took a whirring stride toward Charmain. Its arms came out. So did a pronged sting on the lower part of its face. Charmain screamed, dodged, and fell off the edge, scattering flowers as she fell.

Chapter Four
I NTRODUCES R OLLO , P ETER, AND MYSTERIOUS CHANGES TO W AIF
    Charmain heard the lubbock give a whirring shout of rage, though not clearly for the rushing wind of her fall. She saw the huge cliff streaking past her face. She went on screaming. “Ylf, YLF!” she bellowed. “Oh, for goodness’ sake! Ylf! I just did a flying spell. Why doesn’t it work ?”
    It was working. Charmain realized it must be when the upward rush of the rocks in front of her slowed to a crawl, then to a glide, and then to a dawdle. For a moment, she hung in space, bobbing just above some gigantic spikes of rock in the crags below the cliff.
    Perhaps I’m dead now, she thought.
    Then she said, “This is ridiculous!” and managed, by means of a lot of ungainly kicking and arm waving, to turn herself over. And there was Great-Uncle William’s house, still a long way below her in the gloaming and about a quarter of a mile off. “And it’s all very well floating,” Charmain said, “but how do I move ?” At this point, she remembered that the lubbock had wings and was probably at that moment whirring down from the heights toward her. After that, there was no need to ask how to move. Charmain found herself kicking her legs mightily and positively surging toward Great-Uncle William’s house. She shot in over its roof and across the front garden, where the spell seemed to leave her. She just had time to jerk herself sideways so that she was above the path, before she came down with a thump and sat on the neat crazy-paving, shaking all over.
    Safe! she thought. Somehow there seemed to be no doubt that inside Great-Uncle William’s boundaries, it was safe. She could feel it was.
    After a bit, she said, “Oh, goodness! What a day! When I think that all I ever asked for was a good book and a bit of peace to read it in…! Bother Aunt Sempronia!”
    The bushes beside her rustled. Charmain flinched away and nearly screamed again when the hydrangeas bent aside to let a small blue man hop out onto the path. “Are you in charge here now?” this small blue person demanded in a small hoarse voice.
    Even in the twilight the little man was definitely blue, not purple, and he had no wings. His face was crumpled with bad-tempered wrinkles and almost filled with a mighty nose, but it was not an insect’s face. Charmain’s panic vanished. “What are you?” she said.
    “Kobold, of course,” said the little man. “High Norland is all kobold country. I do the garden here.”
    “At night ?” Charmain said.
    “Us kobolds mostly come out at night,” said the small blue man. “What I said— are you in charge?”
    “Well,” Charmain said. “Sort of.”
    “Thought so,” the kobold said, satisfied. “Saw the wizard carried off by the Tall Ones. So you’ll be wanting all these hydrangeas chopped down, then?”
    “Whatever for?” Charmain said.
    “I like to chop things down,” the kobold explained.