A story so cherished it has to be dressed in casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be unsympathetic.

All morning I struggled with the sensation of stray wisps of one world seeping through the cracks of another. Do you know the feeling when you start reading a new book before the membrane of the last one has had time to close behind you? You leave the previous book with ideas and themes -- characters even -- caught in the fibers of your clothes, and when you open the new book, they are still with you.

What better way to get to know someone than through her choice and treatment of books?

A story so cherished it has to be dressed in casualness to disguise its significance in case the listener turned out to be unsympathetic.

But there can be no secrets in a house where there are children.

In this cruel world kindness should always be repaid.

Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother, but the rest of the time there was none. This story is about one of those other times.