Kim was more than a little inclined to snarl at him, but in the past few days she had learned that snarling at Mairelon did little good. He simply smiled and corrected her grammar.

No proper princess would come out looking for dragons," Woraug objected. "Well I'm not a proper princess then!" Cimorene snapped. "I make cherries jubillee and I volunteer for dragons, and I conjugate Latin verbs-- or at least I would if anyone would let me. So there!

It took us most of the morning to put together the letter she sent to the Frontier Management Department, and I learned a lot about how to be frigidly polite and still leave somebody feeling like they'd been spanked.

Well, of all the bacon-brained, sapskulled, squirish, buffle-headed nodcocks!

Sometimes, though, you have to do things for family, even if you'd rather not.

He pushed his glasses up on his nose and gave me a sidelong look, the one that meant he was so sure you were wrong that he could just wait and let you find out for yourself the hard way.

Of course it doesn't make sense." Lady Wendall said. "The rules of society rarely do.