Miss Temminnick, you are in receipt of the highest marks we have ever given in a six-month review. Your mind seems designed for espionage. Nevertheless, you veer away from perfect in matters of etiquette. Do not let these marks go to your head; there are many girls at this school who are better than you. Our biggest concern is what you get up to when we are not watching. Because, if nothing else, this test has told us you are probably spying on us, as well as everyone around you.

Biffy didn't like enigmas - they were out of fashion.

Which was why, some six hours later, Alexia Maccon's daughter was born inside the head of an octomaton in the presence of her husband, a comatose werewolf dandy, and a French inventor.

Acknowledgements With grateful thanks to the three least-appreciated and hardest-working proselytizers of the written word: independent bookstores, librarians, and teachers.

Alexia abhorred hypocrisy, especially when munitions were involved.

Why Alexia that is quite beautiful. It does ot reflect your customary taste at all approved Miss Hisselpenny with glee. Trust Ivy to like the hideous thing for it's looks.

Scotsmen, she had occasion to observe, often did have nice knees. Perhaps that was why they insisted upon kilts.