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Charmain was just about to tap the mantelpiece and ask for breakfast, when she saw Waif 's problem. Waif was now too small to get her tail anywhere near the fireplace. So Charmain tapped and said, "Dog food, please," before asking for breakfast for herself.

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Perhaps because she was putting on the jacket as she ran, she somehow turned the wrong way through the door and found herself in a very peculiar place. It was a long thin room with pipes running everywhere around it and, in the middle, a large, trickling tank, mystifyingly covered in blue fur.

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Outside, she nearly tripped over a crock of milk which must have been meant for Rollo. "And he doesn't deserve it!" she said, as she shut the front door with a slam.

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"Home!"

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She shut the gate on Waif's reproachful face and strode off down the road again. As she went, she tapped her wrist anxiously and said, "Time?" But she was outside Great-Uncle William's grounds then and the spell did not work. All Charmain knew was that it was getting later. She broke into a trot.

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"Grrr!" Charmain said as she hurried on.

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Charmain told her, as they began to come among wider streets and smarter houses. "You're a bully and a blackmailer, and if you've made me late I shall never forgive you."

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