"My … My … My goodness!" she said. "I really am something, aren't
I?" She smiled a hideous grin. "Just looky there! I am beautiful!"
Graham's anxiety quickly subsided. Telly's clever ploy had worked. "You are a vision of loveliness," said the boy.
"I am, aren't I? I'm gorgeous!" She then began to dance and flitted around like a young girl as she broke into a rendering of a song from the musical play West Side Story:
"I feel pretty … Oh so pretty
I feel pretty and witty and gay
And I pity
Any girl who isn't me today
I feel charming
Oh so charming
It's alarming how charming I feel
And so pretty
That I hardly can believe I'm real!"
After she finished the song, she closed her eyes in sheer ecstasy and heaved a long, contented sigh. She stood there like that for the longest time. Graham and Telly quickly seized the moment and tiptoed behind a hedgerow and, as soon as they were out of earshot, they ran like the wind as far as they could go. As soon as they felt they were safe, they collapsed in a heap in uncontrollable laughter.
CHAPTER TEN:
A MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE
It had been quite some time since escaping from the Witch again, and the two friends walked along the road lost in thought. Well, that is to say, Graham was lost in thought, whereas Telly was absent-mindedly playing an old commercial:
Double your pleasure, double your fun, Get double ev'rything rolled into one, Oh, double your pleasure, double your fun, with double good, double good, Double-mint gum.
Suddenly, the pair came across a sign at the side of the road which read: