Duck shook her head. "Mr Cat made me stay after school and clean it, but that happens every day, so it wasn't so bad." She wasn't insulted by his laughter; she'd suffered worse at the hands of Pike and Lilie.

"I don't get it either," Duck said softly. "He really seems to want the story to end in tragedy. But I don't want that at all, because that would mean my friends would be sad and I'd never get to see Mytho's smile. I guess there's just some ways of thinking people like us will never ever get." She tilted her head to one side and continued, "And you never can tell what's an accident and what's not. Sometimes what seems to be on purpose really was just an accident."

She nodded and held up her plate, which was admittedly mostly bread. Duck liked bread. "Okay! I really hope I don't drop this..."