Ariel bounded ahead of her, running on a few yards, then doubling back to make sure she was following. Soon she saw grey slate roof-tops through the trees and as Ariel led her closer she saw that the roof-tops belonged to a chateau. When the trees cleared and Ariel began to crash through the heavy undergrowth she realized that the chateau was old and deserted, for the shutters hung crazily by their hinges; some of the windows were boarded up; and at others the boards had come off and the glass was broken and jagged. Grass and weeds grew wild and high and late autumn flowers bloomed in undisciplined profusion. Birds flew in and out of the broken windows and as she pushed through the weeds they began calling to each other, screaming, someone is coming! Someone is coming! Her heart beating with excitement Flip pressed forward, following Ariel, who suddenly leaped ahead of her, bounded across the remaining distance to the chateau, and disappeared. Flip pushed after him, calling, "Ariel! Ariel! Wait!" but there was no sound, no sign of life about the chateau except for the birds and the banging of a shutter against the gray stones. She crossed what had once been a flag-stoned terrace to a row of shuttered French windows. One of the shutters was open and hung by one hinge, and all the glass in the window was gone. It was through this opening that Ariel had disappeared. Flip peered in but could see nothing through the obscurity inside. "Ariel!" she called, then "Paul! Paul!" There was no answer and her words came faintly echoing back to her. "Ariel! Paul! Paul!" At last she turned and started back to school. CHAPTER TWO _The Page and the Unicorn_ She studied French verbs in study hall that night, but because of her afternoon's adventure school seemed different and she seemed different, and even while she was dutifully memorizing a difficult subjunctive she was thinking about the chateau and about Ariel and Paul, and when she thought about them her heart would lift suddenly and begin to beat rapidly inside her chest so that it seemed like one of the wild excited birds flying in and out of the broken windows of the chateau. She sat at her desk and said, "Please, God, let me see Paul again. Please. Please let me see Paul again." That night she and Gloria were already in bed, and she was lying there thinking that the next time she could escape from the school she would go back and look for Ariel and Paul again, when Erna and Jackie came in from the lavatory in their pajamas and bathrobes. Gloria was staring critically at Flip's cotton underthings folded over her chair at the foot of her bed. "I can't stand anything but silk next to my skin," Gloria said. "Mummy's always dressed me in silk. She says she's going to send me some new silk undies from Paris." "You and Wagner," Flip said. Jackie laughed.