Mandy stopped using pencils when she was six, except for math. She moved beyond wide-ruled paper when she was seven, and they sent her to Special Education to learn cursive because the Advanced Reading workbook had bits of cursive in it. She likes writing in cursive, but some things have to be printed.

These doors don’t have the kind of locks that rattle, but if we’re sitting in the living room, just reading by the fire or maybe watching television (I admit, we watch far too much television) we sometimes feel a faint breeze, as if the seal between the two doors has been tested and found to be slightly lacking.

Once I’d managed to walk between raindrops, I decided it was time to dive into puddles. That took a bit longer to master. I mean, flying may be as simple as – how did Douglas Adams put it? – throwing yourself at the ground and missing, but puddle diving requires a bit more… nuance.

She’d roast him first, of course. Dragon fire killed the pain and added a crispy outer shell that was just so… She was distracted from her search for the perfect word by another infernal itch. This time it was right above her left ear-slit.