Oh, thank goodness! he babbled. I didn't mean it - at least I did, but I don't mean it now, not any more! He flung one arm around Yam and twisted the… - Diana Wynne Jones

It is of course a magic carpet. Abdullah had heard that one before. He bowed over his tucked-up hands. Many and various are the virtues said to reside in carpets, he agreed. Which one does the poet of the sands claim for this? Does it welcome a man home to his tent? Does it bring peace to the hearth? Or maybe, he said, poking the frayed edge suggestively with one toe, it is said to never wear out?

I have been with the Court all my life, travelling with the King's Progress. I didn't know how to go on. I sat and stared at this sentence, until Grundo said, "If you can't do it, I will." If you didn't know Grundo, you'd think this was a generous offer, but it was a threat really. Grundo is dyslexic. Unless he thinks hard, he writes inside out and backwards. He was threatening me with half a page of crooked writing with words like "inside" turning up as "sindie" and "story" as "otsyr".

That was the trouble with Joris. He was nice. You ended up liking him, whatever you did. Even when you wanted to shake him till his head fell off.