Page 34 of Geoffrey the Very Strange
"Oh. I don't think I've met him yet."
"No, he's long gone. Stayed about a year, and then he was off again."
Aspic stopped with a biscuit half raised. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"
Aunt Frida waved him off. "It's fine. You can't expect djinn to stay in one place. I was surprised he stuck around that long. Besides, he was a high-handed bastard some days." Hands on her hips, she turned to Geoffrey. "All right, nephew. What do you need immediately?"
"Tweezers." Geoffrey clutched his grandmother's magnifying glass as if afraid it might try to escape. "Two pairs."
"Tweezers?" Aunt Frida's brows drew down, and Aspic sensed a ritual of verification that probably made Geoffrey tired some days.
Still, he nodded. "Yes. And… someone to write. Maybe."
Aspic tried to offer to write for Geoffrey, but every witch present soundly overruled him and told him to eat. When Geoffrey had his tweezers and his scribe—Lila—he set the magnifier across a measuring cup with the lens over the book, and with a tweezer in each hand, carefully opened the cover. He turned a page, then two more, put the tweezers down and thumped his head on the table.
"What is it?" Grandma Tutti asked anxiously. "Geoffrey?"
"There's a single letter." Geoffrey sighed. "On each pane.Page."
"So tell me one letter at a time, Geoff." Lila tapped him with her quill. "They have to spell something."
With tweezers, glass and extra lamps, Geoffrey began the painstaking task of deciphering the book, one letter at a time. "V… I… N… E…"
"That's easy enough. Vine." Marta flapped a hand at him. "Go on."
Geoffrey took time for a jaundiced glare at his cousin before he went on, "G… A… R…"
"Oh, it'll be D next. Vine garden," Lila interrupted, waving her hands wildly, endangering everyone with ink drops from her quill.
"R…" Geoffrey said in a tight voice.
Marta frowned at him. "You said R."
"I think it's a second R," Aspic offered gently before the cousins could throw any more glares at each other.
"Oops. Sorry." Lila tapped the paper. "So I have Vine and then G, A, R, R so far."
"Yes." Geoffrey bent over the book again. "A… I… N…"
After thatN, he turned page after page without offering another letter.
"Well? What's next?" Marta snapped.
"Nothing." Geoffrey sat up with an irritated sound. "The rest are blank."
"They can't be. Vine Garrain makes no sense."
Geoffrey got up from the table, tugging fretfully at his braid. "You can look yourself."
Because cousins apparently couldn't just let things lie, Lila did just that. "He's right.Nis the last letter. What could it mean?"
"Vine Garra In? Maybe Garra is a name?" Marta offered.
Aunt Frida shook her head. "It's probably an anagram. You have to rearrange the letters."
Lila frowned at her paper. "Like Give Innarra?"
"It has to make sense, pudding head," Marta snapped
