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Authors: Kelly Link

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BOOK: Stranger Things Happen
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They all turn and look back at me. I'm dizzy with all of that
looking. I fall out of my tree. I hit the ground. Really, that's
all I remember.

When I woke up.

Someone had carried me back to my tree and tucked me in. I was
snug as a bug. I was back in the tree across the street from the
girl detective's window. This time the blind was down. I couldn't
see a thing.

The end of the girl detective?

Some people say that she never came back from the
underworld.

The return of the girl detective.

I had to go to the airport for some reason. It's a long story.
It was an important case. This wasn't that long ago. I hadn't been
down out of the tree for very long. I was missing the tree.

I thought I saw the girl detective in the bar in Terminal B. She
was sitting in one of the back booths, disguised as a fat old man.
There was a napkin in front of her, folded into a giraffe. She was
crying but there was the napkin folded into a giraffe—she had
nothing to wipe her nose on. I would have gone over and given her
my handkerchief, but someone sat down next to her. It was a kid
about twelve years old. She had red hair. She was wearing overalls.
She just sat next to him, and she put down another napkin. She
didn't say a word to him. The old man blew his nose on it and I
realized that he wasn't the girl detective at all. He was just an
old man. It was the kid in the overalls—what a great disguise! Then
the waitress came over to take their order. I wasn't sure about the
waitress. Maybe 
she 
was the girl detective. But
she gave me such a look—I had to get up and leave.

Why I got down out of the tree.

She came over and stood under the tree. She looked a lot like my
mother. Get down out of that tree this instant! she said. Don't you
know it's time for dinner?

Publication History

These stories were previously published as follows:

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, 
Fence
, 1998 

Water Off a Black Dog's Back, 
Century
,
1995 

The Specialist's Hat, 
Event Horizon
,
1998 

Flying Lessons, 
Asimov's
, 1995 

Travels with the Snow Queen, 
Lady Churchill's Rosebud
Wristlet
, winter 1996/7 

Vanishing Act, 
Realms of Fantasy
, 1996 

Survivor's Ball, or, The Donner Party, 
Lady Churchill's
Rosebud Wristlet
, 1998 

Shoe and Marriage, 
4 Stories
, 2000 

The Girl Detective, 
Event Horizon
, 1999 

Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful to the following people. Some of them
are relatives, some are friends, some are writers or editors. All
of them have been incredibly kind encouraging. Some of them have
cooked meals for me, or taught me various card games, or pointed me
towards necessary books, or read my stories when I needed readers.
I was a member of various workshops while writing these stories: I
owe a lot to the instructors and members of the MFA workshop at
UNC-G, Clarion East, Sycamore Hill, the Cambridge Auxiliary Women's
Workshop, CSFW, and Rio Hondo. Partial inspiration for "The
Specialist's Hat" came from an exhibit at the Peabody Museum in
Cambridge, MA. I borrowed part of a passage (stuck up beside an
empty exhibit case) to begin the longest poem in that story. Also
adapted, for that same story, is a passage about snake whiskey from
a folklore exhibit in Raleigh, NC. I would like to thank my mother,
Annabel J. Link, who read to me until her voice gave out; my
father, Bill Link, who read me books when my mother was too hoarse;
my sister, Holly; my brother, Ben; Sam, Babs, Bryan and Laurie
Jones, my grandparents, Edwin and Lou Jones; my wicked stepmother,
Linda. I am indebted to Joyce Nissim, Michele Harley, Barb Gilly,
Lynne and Tom Casey, Fleur Penman, Ada Vassilovski, Pete Cramer,
Jack Cheng, Margaret Muirhead, Jim Clarke, Cassandra Silvia,
Vincent McCaffrey, the fabulous Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop, Bill
Desmond, K. Wyndham, Mimi Levin, Janis Fields, Lea and Anna (girl
sleuths), Christopher Hammond, Jim Clark, Fred Chappell, Lee
Zacharias, Michael Parker, Raymond Kennedy, RAchele Taylor, Hadas
Steiner, Melissa DeJong, John Golz, Lauren Stearns, Justine
Larbalestier, Jenna A. Felice, Vanessa Felice, Veronica Shanoes,
William Smith, Anna Genoese, Steve Pasechnick, Bryan Cholfin, Terra
Cholfin, Ian McDowell, Anne Abrams, Mr. Jeremy Cavin, Ellen Datlow,
Terri Windling, Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, Gwenda Bond, Neil
Gaiman, Nalo Hopkinson, Dora Knez, Jim Patrick Kelly, Sarah Smith,
John Kessel, Richard Butner, Walter Jon Williams, Greg Frost, Sean
Stewart, Tim and Serena Powers, Jonathan Lethem, Shelley Jackson,
and Karen Joy Fowler. (Especially Karen J. Fowler.) I am so very
grateful for the hard work and patience and generosity of Gavin J.
Grant, who has given me, among other things, a pair of shoes, a
glass eye (I broke it), CDs by Mayumi Kojima and Super Butter Dog,
a kimono, and, on my thirtieth birthday, thirty books, wrapped up
in paper.

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