Minna was particularly regal the next morning. She comes by it honestly, being the sole living descendant of Mindaugas, the last (and only) king of independent Lithuania. Mindaugas shuffled off this mortal coil some seven centuries ago, and with Lithuania incorporated in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, there’s no overwhelming demand for Lithuanian queens. When I first found her in Lithuania, Minna was being kept in a cheerless basement room by a pair of old maids who calmly awaited the restoration of the monarchy. I smuggled her home with me, and since then she’s been queening it in my apartment. She refuses to go to school, turns aside all thoughts of placing her in a foster home, chatters now and then in Lithuanian or New York English or Puerto Rican Spanish, and is generally fun to have around.

“I’m glad you’re going to live with us,” she told Tuppence gravely. “Evan says that a child needs both a mother and a father. Can you cook?”

“Not very well.”

“I suppose you can learn, though. Where are you from?”

“ Kenya.”

“That’s in Africa,” Minna said. “I learned that from Evan’s books. He has thousands of books and he said I can read as many as I want. I learn a lot of things from them. More than I would learn in school. Mikey says that school is a crock of shit, but I’m not supposed to say that. Mikey lives downstairs. I don’t have to go to school.”

“You’ll start school in the fall,” I said.

She ignored me. “This is a good place to live,” she told Tuppence. “I’m sure you’ll like it here. Can’t you cook anything?”

“Just human flesh.”

“Human flesh?”

“That’s all we eat in Africa. Human flesh.”

“I think,” Minna said carefully, “that you’re putting me on.”

Tuppence laughed.

“ Central Park is only a few blocks from here,” Minna went on. “There’s a zoo there, but you can’t go by yourself. It’s not allowed. It’s a children’s zoo, you see, and adults are not allowed.”