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. I wasn't even hungry anymore.
I walked a long time, but I didn't walk very fast. Part of
me wanted to keep on walking forever, but I got so numb
and tired that I found a rock under an oak tree by the road
and dropped my blanket and satchel and just sat down and
didn't move at all. I must have sat there a long time before I
noticed that a donkey cart had stopped in front of me and
the driver had come over and was asking me something.
The driver was shorter than I am and had wrinkled leathery
skin and a snow-white beard and eyes like the deep sky. He
wore a red and brown outfit covered with belts and pockets
and tools. It was Cotterpin, the tinker gnome.
Cotterpin has been visiting all the villages in a huge
circle around the coast of northern Ergoth for years, and
everyone knows him. When I was small, he let me play with
some of the toys he had in his cart, and he was always
careful to take most of them back from me so other kids
could play with them in other towns, but he always left
some toys behind. I think now that he did it on purpose, but
I used to think he was just forgetful.
"Obviously a newly generated social outcast," he was
saying to me as I sat under the oak tree. "Sociological
tragedy of the first magnitude. Disgraceful phenomenon."
I just looked at him, then looked at the dirt at my feet as
I had been doing for however long I'd been there. I thought
for a moment that I should ask him the question you wanted
Ark to ask, but I didn't want to ask anyone that question
ever again
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