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questions about the Tin Book, but she wasn't really interested in the answers. She gave the thing back as soon as she could and left Miss Freya to her gardening, promising to come back soon and talk about becoming a teacher.
    The day was passing quickly, the shadow of the Winter Palace sweeping across the city's rusty deck plates as the sun climbed the sky. Soon it would be time for Wren to keep her rendezvous with Gargle. She was starting to feel more and more nervous about it. However dashing and brave and handsome he was, however much she liked the idea of helping the Lost Boys, she could not steal from people she had known all her life. Sooner or later the Tin Book was sure to be missed, and when it was, Miss Freya would remember the interest Wren had shown in it and know who was responsible.
    And what was the Tin Book, anyway? What made Gargle want it so? Wren was not stupid. She knew that documents from the Ancient Era sometimes held clues to things that were very dangerous indeed: Dad had told her once that London, the city he grew up in, had been blown entirely to pieces by a machine called MEDUSA. What if the Tin Book contained instructions for building something like that and Gargle had found a way of reading it?
    She wandered to the south side of Anchorage and down
    the well-worn fishermen's stairs to the mooring beach, where she sat in the shade of an old, rusted-up caterpillar unit and tried to work out what to do. Her huge secret, which had seemed so exciting, was beginning to feel like a bit of a burden. She wished there was someone she could share it with. But who? Certainly not Mum or Dad or Miss Freya; they would be horrified at the thought of Lost Boys in Vineland. Tildy would probably panic too. She imagined telling Nate Sastrugi and asking him to help her, but somehow, now that she knew Gargle, Nate Sastrugi seemed not nearly so handsome: just a boy, rather dull and slow, who didn't know much about anything except fishing.
    She didn't notice the rowboat nosing in toward the beach until her mother got out of it and shouted, "Wren? What are you doing? Come and help me with this."
    "This" was a poor little deer, stone dead with a hole in its chest, and Mum was dragging it out of the boat and getting ready to take it up to Dog Star Court, where she would butcher it and salt the meat for winter. Wren stood up and went toward her, then noticed how high the sun was. "I can't!" she said.
    "What?"
    "I've got to meet someone."
    Hester put the deer down and stared at her. "Who? That Sastrugi boy, I suppose?"
    Wren had been trying not to start another argument, but the tone of Mum's voice was enough to make her temper flare. "Well, why not?" she asked. "Why shouldn't I? I don't have to be as miserable as you all the time. I'm not a child
    anymore. Just because no boys ever liked you when you were my age--"
    "When I was your age' Mum said, low and dangerous, "I saw things you wouldn't believe. I know what people are capable of. That's why we've always tried to protect you and keep you close and safe, your dad and me."
    "Oh, I'm safe, all right," said Wren bitterly. "What do you think is going to happen to me in Vineland? Nothing ever happens to anybody here. You're always hinting about what a terrible time you had and saying how lucky I am compared with you, but I bet your old life was more exciting than this! I bet Dad thinks so! I've seen the way he looks at that picture of your old ship. He loved being out in the world, flying about, and I bet he would still be if he hadn't got himself stuck here with you."
    Mum hit her. It was a hard, sudden slap, with the flat of Mum's open hand, and as Wren jerked her head backward, away from the blow, Mum's wedding bracelet grazed her cheek. Wren had not been slapped since she was small. She felt her face burning, and when she touched it, little bright specks of blood came away on her fingers from where the bracelet had caught her. She tried to speak, but she could only