“Deah me!” she said again, “how very imprudent! Here I have come all the way to the North Pole, and I’ve no chaperone.”
There’s no doubt about it, Maida was GROWN UP.
Chapter XXII
Well, of course, her plight was rather an odd one. It didn’t seem so out of the way for a little girl to be travelling about with all these strange creatures, but for a young lady, a grown-up young lady, to find herself at the North Pole in company with a couple of eccentric toys, without proper clothes, and with no chaperone—come to think of it this was rather a peculiar condition; so Maida walked away from her old friends, and sat down on the bench to think it over. Jack and the Candy Kid stared at each other in dismay. The change in Maida simply appalled them.
“Why she looks different, and acts different, and her voice isn’t at all the same,” said the Candy Kid. Jack-in-the-Box assented.
“Yes,” he said, “there certainly is a great difference. I liked her lots better the way she was. This Wishing Post is certainly a very powerful piece of magic. I think I’ll see what it can do for me,” and he stretched out his hand. But the Candy Kid leaped forward and pushed him away. “Don’t you touch it!” he said, “good gracious! just see what it did to Maida.” So they sat down to think over what should be done.
Now Kankakee and his daughter Kokomo and the Man with the Growly Voice had left the flying ship early in the morning, and had been wandering all around the City; so just after the sad transformation of Maida from a dear little girl to a very pokey young lady they came wandering into the square. The Man with the Growly Voice was perfectly easy in his mind, but Kankakee was nervous and anxious. He was afraid that something might happen.
“I will take my daughter and go back to my people,” he said; and taking Kokomo by the hand he started to walk away with her. “But why,” asked the Man with the Growly Voice, “why do you want to go away?”
“Because,” answered Kankakee, “I fear that something may happen.”