[Kitty]

  She wasn’t sure where Moose had been disappearing to for quite a while now, but she was very ready for it to be done.

  It hadn’t mattered at first, she was happy enough to ignore the small things and stay near the lair for the first few sleeps after the strange small thing had tried to take Moose’s things. Moose had spent all that time in the strange room with all the small lights.

  ‘Those lights like to move a lot more than any others, is that why Moose likes them better?’

  She had gone to check once, but she didn’t much like that area. Especially when Moose wasn’t paying her any attention, like he had been when she went to check. It might have been the least lazy she had seen him.

  It made sense of course. She had seen all the words Moose had been making. They were such powerful magic that even with all the practice and learning she had been attempting, those words still escaped her. She didn’t even know how to begin understanding them.

  Where he had gone after that escaped her.

  She could never follow him because when she tried, Moose stopped going where he was going and paid her attention instead. They would go running about the tunnel or stay in the lair as Moose rumbled at her. Always something she could never complain about, as she wanted it to happen as well, but never her intended goal in following him.

  That did mean that he always disappeared when she wasn’t looking or had fallen asleep.

  When she didn’t or couldn’t keep an eye on him. She had even gotten concerned enough to ask Pup if she knew. Pup never did, doing whatever small thing activity that she was doing. Pup always insisted it was helping Moose but could never explain how.

  ‘How are the small things still so confusing? It’s like they try to be more confusing as I learn more.’

  Utterly failing to find Moose, she had spent some of that time trying to learn about the small things. She learned nothing, unsurprisingly, the small things on the ship not acting in a way that was possible to understand for a big thing like her and Moose. She would still spend a quiet time now and again watching them but had given up hope for now.

  Finding Moose staying not possible and the small things remaining mysterious, she had turned her attentions to magic. She still wanted to be able to get back to the Pages and the People in the Box, see what new things she might learn now that she had transformed so much.

  Getting into the wall that covered her room was proving just as daunting as making the disks. Both tasks that occupied whatever time she didn’t devote to Moose or other learning.

  She still failed at the disks.

  But the wall magic?

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  She touched her trinket for the first time in countless sleeps.

  Finding the right place to use the magic for moving the wall had taken her so long she wanted to scream at it. Why did it have to be so hard to find? The word was easy enough, once she managed to find it. A little different to the words that Moose used, but close enough for her to recognize it as a big thing word.

  ‘I can’t call it a moose word, I’m not a moose yet. Surely there are other big things as well. I wonder if monsters can use words?’

  She sat on the fluffy ground, only now seeing it as strange. Mooses lair had soft ground, but it was springy and felt good to lay on, like her old nest. Everywhere else that she had walked or been had a hard cold ground, fully unpleasant to walk or sit on. It was only her old home that had this fluffy ground.

  ‘Maybe it’s because the Pages are here? I haven’t seen anything like the pages either.’

  Whatever reason for it, she was happy enough. It meant she could look over and keep the Pages here. Maybe when she was fully a moose she would bring them to Moose for a trade. Or more likely she would bring pieces as she wanted things and couldn’t find other trades.

  ‘Maybe I can find out how to better tell where the wall magic is used from the pages. That would be so much nicer than what I had to do for here.’

  She followed the small things down the magic tunnel as usual.

  She hadn’t managed to find her answers in the Pages before the small things used it again.

  ‘Whoever made the Pages had a lot of magic, but it’s so hard to find anything specific.’

  She idly lamented on her lack of progress as the small things talked and then moved to another tunnel. One that was small enough to feel uncomfortable and had other small things moving around it.

  ‘I don’t want to deal with that. I would have to drop the magic to not see me or all of them would get in the way.’

  She sighed and watched them disappear down the tunnel. Looking around she wondered if any of the other small things might do something she could learn from.

  ‘That one doesn’t seem as bad.’

  Her curiosity was rewarded when she noticed another tunnel farther up the wall. It was pointed in the same direction as the tunnel Pup and the other small thing like her had taken, so she could just find them again when the tunnel stopped.

  ‘This step is too high for the small things. I wonder who it’s made for.’

  It was a hard bit with a lot of holes all around. Too high for a small thing, she could easily get on top and use it to get to the tunnel. The tunnel in question was very short though.

  ‘That looks like a wall with magic. I wonder…’

  She touched around the wall, attempting the wall magic she had learned. It worked marvelously, the wall melting out of her way. The tunnel going far in front of her before it hit another wall.

  She followed the tunnel to that wall, discovering that the tunnel had turned into two tunnels.

  ‘Or is it just one tunnel coming from another wall?’

  She contemplated that question for a while as she explored the tunnel and the various places she found with her new magic. One of them had a soft floor and a piece of a Pages, so she took it.

  ‘I can trade this with Moose. I wonder what I should ask for?’

  The possibilities excited her. She couldn’t even begin to think of all the things she wanted or wanted to try.

  She cocked her head.

  ‘That sounds like when Moose wanted to talk to Pup’s place.’

  She looked around and managed to find another magic spot. She wasn’t afraid of monsters, the tunnel too small for dangerous ones. She was curious if she could meet another moose.

  ‘Do other Monsters make that sound?’

  When she finally found the magic spot and the wall opened, something that looked like Pup fell out.

  ‘… Why was Pup making a moose sound?’