I think that I need to mention that, by this time, Lulu and Fleischman were quite late for school. But although, for several hours, they weren’t where they should have been, not one single person noticed they weren’t there. Not Lulu’s teacher. Not Fleischman’s teacher. Not any of their classmates. No one!

Plus, nobody walking down that street—and lots of people were—seemed to notice that Lulu was tied to a tree. And not just tied to a tree, but wriggling and yelling and making quite a remarkable fuss. (In actual life this almost never could happen. In the stories I write, things like this happen a lot. Deal with it.)

Oh, and I think I should mention that, by this time, Pookie had fallen sound asleep, let go of Lulu’s jacket, and dropped to the grass, where she curled in a tight white fuzzball and yawned a great big yawn and kept on sleeping. And that Cordelia, bored with hiding under the junk pile—with nobody trying to find her, it wasn’t much fun—waddled over to Pookie, flopped down right beside her, and soon was snoring very loudly, in German. And that Brutus, his heavy head drooping lower and lower, was just as deep asleep as the rest of them. Except for Lulu, of course, who was wide awake and still screaming, “Get back here, Fleischman! Now!”