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regarding her curiously.
    "If you're looking for Mrs. Funkhouser and Mr. Oswaldo," said the woman, "they've moved. All of a sudden, as ever was. And they do say," she went on, "that
he
's gone back into vaudeville."
    Susan thought of the round gentleman as she had last seen him and of Mrs. Funkhouser and her housewifely witchcraft.
    "Yes," she said slowly. "Yes, I guess you might say they
both
have. In a way."
    And she started walking home.

3. Taming It
    "This time no magic kingdoms," said Susan, "and no dragons." And the others (all but Fredericka, who, having survived one dragon, was ready to tackle another) agreed.
    It was the second day after the five children had found the book, and they were assembled on John and Susan's front porch.
    Sunday had been a day of rest, by Susan's decree.
    At first Fredericka had fretted and Abbie had sighed and even Barnaby had wanted to make plans. But Susan had been unusually strong-minded and had put a stop to it.
    "If we start all that, we'll be tempted and we might give way," she said. "Let's not even
think
about the magic."
    This didn't seem possible, but later it turned out that it was. Books were read and games were played and walks taken, and a few good deeds were even done, to be on the safe side, though nothing good enough or interesting enough to tell about. And the hours passed.
    And now at last it was Monday, and here the five children were with the dishes and other chores out of the way and Grannie established at the parlor table just inside the front window with a particularly hard jigsaw puzzle that should keep her out of harm's way for half an hour, at least.
    And the time was ripe, and it was Susan's turn.
    "No dragons," she repeated, "and no witches. I like it better in the Nesbit stories and those other ones where the magic's more sort of tame."
    "Tame is blah," said Fredericka.
    "Maybe tame isn't what I mean," said Susan, "but where at first everything starts out real and sort of
daily.
Then when the magic comes it's more..." She paused, seeking a word.
    "Of a contrast," supplied Barnaby.
    There was a silence.
    "Aren't you going to ask anything more?" said John.
    "I don't want to know any more," said Susan. "I want us just to go about our business and wait for whatever happens."
    "There are entirely too many blue pieces in this puzzle," said Grannie from inside the window. "They can't all be sky or if they are, it's monotonous."
    John and Susan went inside and got her started on another corner where some of the blue sky might be somebody's dress. With that settled, the five children left the porch and walked along the road to town as if it were any ordinary Monday.
    They passed Mrs. Funkhouser's empty house and discussed where its former occupants were now, and Fredericka wished she had Ozma's magic picture so she might see what they were doing at this moment.
    But she did not have the book in her hands; so the picture did not appear.
    On Main Street the five children compared finances. Susan had sixteen cents and Abbie had eleven. John had a dollar he'd earned cutting lawns, and Barnaby had fifty cents he'd made selling magazine subscriptions (he had sold one so far). But this money was to be saved toward their college educations.
    Still, twenty-seven cents divided by five gave everyone a nickel each with two cents over toward tomorrow. So the candy store was the next stop.
    But nothing magic happened there, either (save for the magic that lies in Turkish Taffy and Chocolate Almond-Butterscotch Delight).
    It was when they came out of the store and turned the corner that Susan noticed the strangeness first.
    "The street's different," she said. "Look."
    The others looked.
    Instead of short, friendly Cherry Street, with its white houses and big trees, blocks of drab apartment houses stretched far into the distance ahead.
    "It's like a city," said John.
    "We're somewhere else. It's the magic. It's beginning," said Susan, shivering delightedly. "I like it like this when it