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spinning anyway, at the end of the kite string.
    The owner of the voice was this enormously fat man, like Tweedledee and Tweedledum rolled into one, with the tiniest little dog you ever saw yapping along at his feet. He wasn’t wobbly fat, the Tweedle character. He was just a walking mountain. His feet were quite small. I couldn’t imagine how his ankles didn’t buckle under the weight of his body. Also, I wondered where he found clothes to fit him. If you took off his belt and laid it out along the ground, it’d reach from here to Limerick. No, that’s an
exaggeration, and I am trying to break my exaggeration habit. From my house to Hal’s house, then.
    â€œOi!” he yelled again, and he was beckoning toward us with an arm as big as a branch. His voice sounded English, though it was hard to tell from a single syllable.
    There was something irresistible about this huge person in unbelievably enormous trousers with his teeny little dog frisking about his ankles, so I went and stood in front of Tweedledeedum and said “Yes?” with as much dignity as I could muster, considering most of my hair was in my mouth.
    The little dog started to lick my toes excitedly, with his hot, damp tongue. It was quite nice for just about a second, but then it got cold almost immediately. I wondered if my skin tasted salty.
    Tweedledeedum looked down at me and shouted, “Will you tell your foolish young friend there to bring down that kite at once, like a good girl? This is no weather for kiting. Look sharp now, chop-chop, no time to lose, we don’t want to be fishing him out of the sea, do we?”
    He was English, all right, but not like a real English person who you might see on the telly having a beer and telling a joke—more like a person out of one of those musty old books Larry used to read when he was my age, which he got from my dad, who also used to read them when he was my age. I read one or two of them myself, and they are not too bad, though they are mainly for boys and
have more shipwrecks in them than you’d really want to read about.
    He was right, Mr. TD. We did not want to be fishing Hal out of the sea, and I was kind of relieved that a grown-up person was being bossy about it.
    I turned my head and looked at Hal, who was still racing along in pursuit of the kite.
    â€œI don’t think he can,” I said to TD. “I think it’s out of control.”
    He sighed a great fat sigh and then he lumbered steadily toward Hal, and I trotted along after him.
    Hal had stopped running. He seemed to have worked out that running after the kite was only encouraging it, so now he was standing still and hanging on for dear life. When Tweedledeedum got to within a foot or two of Hal, he boomed out, “May I?” and at the same time he reached over Hal’s shoulder toward the kite.
    Hal was still hanging on to the bobbin, or whatever you call the thing you wind the string around, but he stepped back to make space (a lot of space) for TD, who caught hold of the kite string rather awkwardly between his huge flat thumb and his equally huge index finger, like an elephant getting hold of a lollipop. The kite bucked and tossed like a mad bird over his head, but he just stood placidly watching it for a moment, like a great, thoughtful human anchor. After a minute or two, he signaled to Hal to pass him the bobbin, and then, slowly, unconcernedly, as if he
were landing a small and unchallenging sprat, he wound in the line and brought the kite down.
    â€œEr, thanks,” muttered Hal, half-resentful and halfgrateful. His face was bright red and streaming with perspiration, and his chest was heaving with the effort of controlling the mad kite.
    â€œMy pleasure,” said the large gentleman, with a small inclination of his head, and I declare to goodness, it was almost a bow. “Now, my advice to you young’uns is to fly this kite in a brisk breeze—a breeze, mind, not