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  “We came here to find him, didn’t we?” said Gurder.

  “Yes! But what do we actually do?”

  “Well, of course, we . . . we . . . that is, we’ll . . .”

  “We don’t even know what a departure lounge is.”

  “The Thing said it’s a room where humans wait to get on an airplane,” said Masklin.

  Gurder prodded Angalo with an accusing finger.

  “You’re frightened, aren’t you,” he said. “You’re frightened that if we see Grandson Richard, 39, it’ll mean there really is an Arnold Bros and you’ll have been wrong! You’re just like your father. He could never stand being wrong either!”

  “I’m frightened about you,” said Angalo. “Because you’ll see that Grandson Richard is just a human. Arnold Bros was just a human, too. Or two humans. They just built the Store for humans. They didn’t even know about nomes! And you can leave my father out of this, too.”

  The Thing opened a small hatch on its top. It did that sometimes. When the hatches were shut, you couldn’t see where they were, but whenever the Thing was really interested in something, it opened up and extended a small silver dish on a pole, or a complicated arrangement of pipes.

  This time it was a piece of wire mesh on a metal rod. It started to turn slowly.

  Masklin picked up the box.

  While the other two argued, he asked, quietly, “Do you know where this lounge thing is?”

  “Yes,” said the Thing.

  “Let’s go, then.”

  Angalo looked round.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” he said.

  Masklin ignored him. He said to the Thing: “And do you know how much time we have before he starts going to Florida?”

  “About half an hour.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TERRY PRATCHETT’s novels have sold more than thirty-two million copies and have inspired a devoted worldwide following. In addition to his best-selling adult books about Discworld, Mr. Pratchett has also written several books for young readers, including THE WEE FREE MEN and the Johnny Maxwell trilogy: ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND, JOHNNY AND THE DEAD, and JOHNNY AND THE BOMB. Mr. Pratchett was awarded Britain’s highest honor for a children’s novel, the Carnegie Medal, for THE AMAZING MAURICE AND HIS EDUCATED RODENTS.

  Visit him online at www.terrypratchettbooks.com

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  OTHER WORKS

  The Wee Free Men

  A Hat Full of Sky

  The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents

  The Carpet People

  The Dark Side of the Sun

  Strata

  THE JOHNNY MAXWELL TRILOGY

  Only You Can Save Mankind

  Johnny and the Dead

  Johnny and the Bomb

  The Unadulterated Cat (illustrated by Gray Jolliffe)

  Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)

  THE DISCWORLD SERIES

  The Color of Magic

  The Light Fantastic

  Equal Rites

  Mort

  Sourcery

  Wyrd Sisters

  Pyramids

  Guards! Guards!

  Eric

  Moving Pictures

  Reaper Man

  Witches Abroad

  Small Gods

  Lords and Ladies

  Men at Arms

  Soul Music

  Feet of Clay

  Interesting Times

  Maskerade

  Hogfather

  Jingo

  The Last Continent

  Carpe Jugulum

  The Fifth Elephant

  The Truth

  The Thief of Time

  Night Watch

  Monstrous Regiment

  The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable

  (illustrated by Paul Kidby)

  CREDITS

  Cover art © 2004 by S. Saelig Gallagher

  Cover design by Bradford Foltz

  COPYRIGHT

  HarperTrophy® is a registered trademark of

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  The Bromeliad Trilogy

  Copyright © 1998 by Terry and Lyn Pratchett including

  Diggers

  THE BROMELIAD TRILOGY Copyright © 1998 by Terry and Lyn Pratchett including

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  * * *

  First Harper Trophy edition, 2004

  Visit us on the World Wide Web!

  www.harperchildrens.com

  EPub Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN 9780062193810

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  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

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  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk

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  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com

  * Nome generations, that is. Nomes live ten times faster than humans. To them, ten years is a long time.