A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
It is my duty to inform you, before we meet again on Oliver and Celia’s next adventure, that some of what you have just experienced with the Navels is entirely true.
There really is an Explorers Club in New York City much like the one I have described, and although they are not the same, its banquets are perhaps more strange than this tale has revealed. The real one is not actually on Seventy-fourth Street and no one lives on the 4½th floor. They do, however, possess a stuffed bear.
There really is a group of Poison Witches somewhere in Tibet who prey on the unsuspecting traveler, though their criminal ways have nothing to do with the Bön religion. There really are oracles and sky burials in Tibet and the Lost Tablets of Alexandria did exist, though some have found their way into museums. The existence of the yeti has never been confirmed and I have not yet met a talking yak, nor visited Shangri-La, but since I do not have access to the secret files of the Explorers Club, I can’t state for certain that they do not exist.
I am leaving it to you, the daring reader, to determine the rest of what is true and what is false.
Please let us know as soon as possible what you discover.
Send old-fashioned letters to:
C. Alexander London
Care of: Philomel Books
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014 USA
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