Cat muttered, "I think I'm going to be sick."

They were standing on top of a floating I-beam that seemed to have no support except a few elegant curliques of metal. Far below schoolrooms shifted smoothly from one to another - it seemed like hundreds of feet down to Cat, who was tired, cranky, and wasn't entirely sure why Chrestomanci had brought him anyway.

The Chrestomanci was dressed tonight in a rather nice dressing gown of gold and orange, around which strange scaled horses twisted. Underneath, he wore his pyjamas, the call for him having caught him, yet again, while he was in bed. He claimed to not have time to have changed. /He had time to wake *me* up, though,/ Cat thought grumpily.

The girl who had called him stood at the end of the I-beam in a decidedly unsafe manner, the frills on her horribly ugly school uniform caught in the breeze and occassionally giving Cat a glimpse of pink underwear that, in retrospect, he'd really rather *not* have seen. "Oh, Great Chrestomanci," the girl cried in a saccharine voice, "I saw someone *turn into a car!* But I won't let her have that power! I won't let her have it alone! My Prince has failed me too many times, so *I* have to act! Teach me to turn into a car too!"

"You see, Cat," Chrestomanci told him, smoothing his hair with one hand, "Occassionally someone will get ahold of your name, you're not sure how, and call you over trivialities. It's a true but unfortunate fact of being the Chrestomanci, and one I have decided to help you adjust to as early as possible."

Cat gave Chrestomanci a look he couldn't quite keep from being dirty. /This isn't training,/ he thought. /It's just a way to share his misery./

"Don't ignore me!" the girl shrieked. "The Rose Bride is leaving! This is all HER fault! Her and that UTENA girl! You must teach me to change into a car!"

"Moreover," Chrestomanci told Cat, "Often the people who summon you over trivialities are ones who believe that what they're doing is important, where it's not, and *avoiding* teaching them what they ask for is something that may indeed improve the world you're called to. Of course, sometimes teaching it to them *will* help, despite appearing not to."

"Oh," Cat said. He risked another look down and swallowed, hard. He didn't have enough lives left that he wanted to risk one by, well, moving.

Not so the girl, however, who flung her arms out to the side. "I don't have much time! She'll be GONE soon!"

Chrestomanci arched one sarcastic brow at the girl. "Well, actually, you have all the time in the world. Haven't you noticed the lack of clocks? Time only exists when you let it. Nothing here is real."

"Just tell me how to become a car!"

Cat thought he hadn't heard anything quite this surreal since last week. He shifted a little so that his feet were closer to the middle of the I-beam.

"I told you," Chrestomanci said crossly. "Nothing here's real. Decide to be one and you will be."

The girl giggled, then laughed, a sharp sound that managed to just fall short of coy. "Then I'll get you! I'll make you stay here in my place, Anthy! I'LL be the cool one to leave this world!" She jumped off the I-beam.

Cat winced and looked away.

"It's quite all right," Chrestomanci said dryly. Cat opened his eyes, then looked where Chrestomanci was pointing. There was a dark car heading off below.

"Oh," Cat said. "Can I go back to bed now?"

"Well," Chrestomanci began, "Time is an unreality, as this world is a fractured imension of a young god's mind. As such, the 'now' of your bedtime is a statistical impossibility, at least in this world-"

Things shifted, and they were standing outside Cat's bedroom, back at the house.

"-Which is why we're here. Goodnight, Cat. Sleep well."