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Fredericka's mother, coming out the door on her way to try to sell someone a split-level colonial ranch house. "You were quick."
    "I don't
feel
quick," said Abbie, when her mother had driven off. "I feel as if I'd been away for years. Do you suppose that place really was Oz?"
    "If it was," said Fredericka, "I'm disappointed. I'd have thought we'd meet famous people, Dorothy and the Scarecrow and all those."
    Barnaby shook his head. "I don't think that's how it works. I think it's more like this. Everybody has to go to Oz—or any other magic country—in his own way. The adventures that are written down in books have already
been.
If we tried to horn in on them, we'd be just tagging along. So we have to make our
own
adventures. It's as if there were different doors."
    "That's what the dragon said," said Fredericka dreamily.
    "It did?" said Barnaby, interested. "What else did it say?"
    "I forget," said Fredericka. "But it was interesting at the time. That dragon had a nice side, in a way. I'm kind of sorry it's gone."
    "Maybe it isn't," said John. "Maybe its better self will merge with the kitten."
    "Or maybe its
worse
self will," said Abbie. "Maybe the kitten will grow up with man-eating tendencies. They'll have to watch over it and curb it and mold its infant mind."
    "Only we'll never know whether they did or not, or what happened." Susan sighed.
    There was a silence.
    "Anyway, we're started now," said Barnaby. "It's your turn tomorrow."
    Susan shook her head. "Tomorrow's Sunday."
    "What of it?" said Fredericka. "It's summer. There's no Sunday school."
    "Even so," said Susan. "Magic's not a Sunday thing. Not that it's sinful or anything, I don't mean. But they just wouldn't mix."
    "How'll we get through a whole day?" said Abbie. "The thought might be father to the wish."
    "Better shut the book up somewhere safe," said Barnaby.
    "I'm going to," said Susan.
    "Without reading the chapter, now it's finished?" Fredericka wanted to know.
    "Dwell in the dead past if you want to," Barnaby told her. "I
know
what it says."
    "I'd kind of like to look," said John. And he took the book from Susan and began to read.
    "It's got illustrations," reported Fredericka, hanging over his shoulder. "Is that what I look like? That isn't what I look like!"
    And then the Good Humor man came driving along the road, ringing his bell, and everyone ran to catch up with him, and magic was forgotten in the cooling joy of sheer sherbet.
    But first Susan ran across the street to her own house and put the book away carefully in her top bureau drawer.
    And later that day, just before supper, without saying anything to the others, she took a walk along lower Weed Street.
    As she rounded the familiar bend, she wondered whether she would see a mere hole in the ground where Mrs. Funkhouser's house had been. But to her surprise the house was still there, the same as always. The sign by the driveway was still there, too.
    But when Susan came nearer, she saw that the sign didn't say, "Slow. Cats, et cetera" anymore.
    The sign said, "For Sale."
    And when she went up close to the house and peered through its windows, she saw that every stick of furniture inside was gone.
    It was nice to know that whatever the name of the magic kingdom where Mrs. Funkhouser now reigned, she apparently had her salt and her ammonia and other useful supplies for a respectable witch with her. She had prob'ly moved her possessions to the palace, thought Susan, and then prob'ly she hadn't wanted the house there to remind her of her humble origins; so she had prob'ly rubbed vanishing cream on it, too.
    And maybe some of the magic from the book had got
into
the vanishing cream so that it still worked. Or maybe Mrs. Funkhouser (unlike the late dragon) had started believing in her own power so much that she was beginning to be a real witch now, though Susan was sure she would always be a respectable one.
    While she was thinking these thoughts, a woman had come out on the porch next door and was