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you eat?”
    “Lefty brought me food,” Bella said, laughing, as though it was obvious, and just then Mo’s cat streaked by, a blur of fur.
    “Look, I’ll show you.” She tugged his hand and made him kneel down and peer under the bed. He felt awkward—he was so much bigger than her now! They had been almost exactly the same size before she had disappeared. He felt he must seem like a clumsy giant to her.
    “Come on.” Bella scampered into the space under the bed, then turned around and held out a hand. “There’s plenty of room.”
    “I’ll never fit,” Mo said shyly. Bella’s eyes winked out at him from the dark space under the bed. “You were really here all this time?”
    At that moment, Mo began to hear muffled shouts from below. His parents. His mother and father were calling them down to dinner.
    “It wasn’t that bad.” Bella shrugged. “The only problem was how cold it got.” The shouting grew louder, more insistent. They must hurry. His mother hated it when they were late to dinner.
    “You were cold?” Mo asked.
    “So cold,” Bella said, and now her breath came out in little clouds, and Mo could see she was shivering. It was cold under the bed, he realized: It was absolutely freezing. Bella’s teeth were clattering together.
    The voices from below, sharper, sounding angry: “Where are you? Where have you gone? We need you for dinner!”
    “You should have a hat, Bella-Bee,” Mo said, and just then he woke up, and found himself staring not at the darkness under the bed of his dream, but into the darkness of the space under his desk, and into the pale and terrified face of the hatless boy from earlier that night. His teeth were clattering together, just as Bella’s had been in the dream.
    Still groggy from his nap, Mo could not even be surprised. “Why, hello,” he said, rubbing his eyes and yawning. “What on earth are you—”
    The boy made a frantic no-no-no gesture with his head and then lifted his fingers to his lips. At that moment Mo realized that the shouting he had heard in his dreams was, in fact, real shouting from outside.
    From the courtyard he heard a man calling out, “Where are you, you useless, worthless shrivel-head? When I find you, I swear, I’ll cook you for dinner and turn your innards to meat loaf!” He recognized the man’s voice: It was the one with the dripping nose, the man who had introduced himself as the alchemist.
    Hmph , thought Mo. Not nearly so nice as being called down for dinner—being turned into dinner.
    “He won’t come out if you threaten him,” he heard the Lady Premiere say sharply. Then her voice, crooning softly, “Come on, dear. It’s all right. Everybody makes mistakes. Just come on out and tell us where the real magic is, and we’ll give you a nice present. Maybe something hot to drink, or a new pair of mittens.”
    There was something very disturbing about hearing the Lady Premiere’s voice so soft and slippery sounding. It was off, somehow, like seeing a bunch of roses laid over a rotting corpse.
    “I’ll give him a poker in his stomach,” the alchemist ranted. “I’ll give him slugs in his eye sockets!”
    “Would you shut up!” the Lady Premiere snapped.
    Mo swung his legs off the desk and stood up, smashing his hat down on his forehead.
    “You see?” he whispered to the boy, pointing to his head. “You need one of these. Would keep you nice and toasty, that’s for sure. Heat goes right out your head, see, if you don’t have a hat to keep it all swirly and whirly warm.”
    The boy pointed toward the courtyard, then pointed to himself, then made another frantic no-no-no gesture.
    “Don’t worry,” Mo said, winking. “Your secret’s safe with me.” He made a little X over his chest, directly above the place where his enormous heart was thumping, and clomped out into the courtyard to see what all the fuss was about.
    The Lady Premiere and the alchemist were standing in the middle of the swirling mist. Mo felt