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    "Fill six hundred bottles with soapy water."
    "You could just forget it. Often people order things that never arrive."
    The hair product spy considered that. Then he sighed. "Have you ever visited the dungeon?"
    "Oh. Yes. I see what you mean."
    "Filled with people who did not fulfill promises."
    "Yes."
    "Dark and cold and lonely."
    "Yes."
    "I'll use funnels. And you?"
    "I got lucky. I'll tell the duke he has to send someone to find and buy that butterfly"—he took out his notepad and read the name of the missing specimen—"whatever the cost."
    Back in his bedchamber, Duke Desmond was examining his clothing and deciding what to wear to the Birthday Ball. Green was good on him, he thought. Seductive. Maybe Spandex, which would outline his rounded stomach in an attractive way. Tights, probably. And pointed shoes. Yes, definitely: pointed shoes.

8. The Schoolhouse
    Her second day of school was less strange than the first, because the princess was part of the class now—she was the pupil Pat—and the other students accepted her as one of them.
    They were all ages. She was probably the oldest, though two of the boys were as tall and had deepening voices. Most of the girls were middle-size, the age at which girls played with dolls and jump ropes (she had watched them at recess, and had held the frayed rope at one end when they asked her to help turn it), and one girl, Liz, the tiniest in the school, was no more than five, with large blue eyes, an infectious giggle, and a runny nose.
    Liz's desk was next to Pat's. The little girl held her tongue between her lips in concentration, and she was practicing making letters on her paper. Her bare feet dangled, her legs too short to reach the floor, and she frequently pulled her skirt up to scratch a mosquito bite on her leg.
    "You should put some lotion on that bite," Pat whispered to her.
    The child wrinkled her nose and thought about it. "Dunno what lotion is," she said. "Never heared of such a thing."
    In the castle an entire room was devoted to remedies, everything from headache potions to snakebite salves. A gray-haired apothecary was always there to dispense what one might need, and he could also apply leeches and pull teeth if necessary.
    But of course, the princess realized, a poor peasant had no room of remedies, no apothecary, no lotions.

    "Oh, dear," she replied to the little girl. "I happen to have some, though I am a very humble and needy peasant myself. Tell your ma I'll bring something for you tomorrow, and you won't have to scratch so frequently."
    Liz looked up from her misshapen As and Bs. "Got no ma," she said matter-of-factly.
    "Oh, my! Pity! Well, your pa, then. Tell him."
    "Got no pa neither."
    "But—"
    "I be a norphan," Liz explained.
    An orphan! The princess knew of such people—she had heard stories about them. They frequently appeared in fairy tales. But here was one in person!
    "But where do you live? Who takes care of you?" The princess couldn't imagine being so small and having no one.
    "Oh," the little girl explained matter-of-factly, "I stay wif whoever wants me, 'cause they fink mebbe I can help out. Then, when they don't want me no more, I go live wif sumbody else."
    "You must be very forsaken and pathetic," the princess said sympathetically. "I'm actually quite interested in orphans, and—"
    She felt a sharp tap upon her shoulder and realized that a shadow had fallen across her desk. The schoolmaster was standing beside her and had used his pointing stick to tap her into attention.
    "Sorry, sir," she said quickly, and looked down at the geography book she was supposed to be studying. An outline map showed all the domains, and beyond them the seas, which were dotted with small, intricately rendered drawings of serpents and whales rising from the foam.
    ***
    The other children laughed at her lunch. On her first day, the day before, she had brought none, and they had nicely shared torn-off bits of their own thick bread. One, the pudgy boy