The hammer rang once. A spark jumped off the anvil and did not go out. It waited. They followed.

It rolled into the library and up onto a fat book of fairy tales, lying open on a table. It stopped on the white margin. The margin opened like a path.

Beto stepped onto it, and Inkling followed. The words stood beside them like a tall black fence.

Near the top, the page had a little tear, mended with tape gone yellow. Beside the tape was a tiny hammer, drawn in pencil.

Yonder, the alert young hare, was already waiting with his ears up.

"Guess first, then read on," said Yonder. "The title is a clue."

The title said: THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES.

"An emperor gets new clothes," said Beto. "I bet he shows them off at a big party. Then something goes wrong. Maybe they rip."

"Let's see," said Yonder.

Beto read the first part out loud, fast.

There was once an emperor who loved new clothes more than anything. One day two swindlers came to the city. They said they could weave the finest cloth in the world, and that it had a magic power: it could not be seen by anyone who was foolish or not fit for their job.

"Two swin-something came to the city," said Beto, and kept going.

A round coconut with a bristly husk rolled into his path. It was Pith.

"Don't skip the hard words," said Pith. "Look at the words around it."

Beto went back. "Swindlers. They came to the city. They said they could weave."

"Keep going," said Pith. "Little by little."

The emperor gave the swindlers gold and silk. They set up two looms and pretended to weave all night. But the looms were empty. They kept the gold and the silk for themselves.

"They take the gold," said Beto. "They weave nothing. They're cheats. A swindler is a cheat who tricks people out of money."

"Crack it open and find the meat," said Pith, pleased.

The emperor sent his oldest minister to look at the cloth. The minister saw nothing at all. But he did not want to seem foolish. So he said it was beautiful. Everyone who came said the same. At last the emperor went to see it. He saw nothing either. But he said, "It is magnificent!"

A small hedgehog with question-shaped quills popped up from the gutter of the book. It was Nettle.

"Wait, why that?" said Nettle. "Poke it with a question. Why does nobody say there is nothing there?"

"Because they'd look foolish," said Inkling. "The swindlers said only fools couldn't see it."

"So everyone is scared of the same thing," said Beto. "And the scared thing keeps them all quiet."

"How does that help the swindlers?" asked Nettle.

Beto thought. "Every person who says 'beautiful' makes it harder for the next person to say 'nothing'."

The emperor put on his new clothes, which were nothing, and walked through the city in a grand parade. Everyone cheered and praised the clothes. Then a small child in the crowd said, "But he hasn't got anything on!" The child's father whispered it to the person next to him. Soon the whole crowd was saying it. The emperor shivered. He thought they were right. But he held his head high and walked on to the end.

At the end of the margin stood Sheaf, the sturdy harvester, with an armful of wheat.

"One armful, not every stalk," said Sheaf. "What did they want, what did they do, what happened? Let the loose bits fall."

Beto closed his eyes.

"Two cheats sold an emperor clothes that weren't there," said Beto. "Everyone pretended to see them, because nobody wanted to look foolish. Then a child said what was true, and everyone else said it too."

Sheaf tied the wheat with one stalk. Nettle said, "Oh, that's it." A paper bookmark slid out of the binding. It had a hedgehog on it.

Back on the Green

The spark dimmed to a warm dot and settled back on the anvil. The Green was just the Green again.

At school, the whole class laughed at a joke Beto didn't get. He nearly laughed too.

Then he put up his hand. "I don't get it," he said. "Can someone explain?"