The story in three lines. Lan and Inkling arrive at the turquoise mines in the Sinai desert, where a rockfall has blocked the low path and the water caravan arrives at dawn. A picture of rocks on a path is read the wrong way, and a picture for every word fills the rock and still confuses. Lan asks what sound the word for house starts with, and Inkling asks whether a picture could stand for just that sound. The girl writes "up" with two sound-pictures, and the caravan reads it.

One question to ask. "Why did a picture for every word not work?" Then: "What sound does your name start with?"

One thing to do at the table. Draw a quick picture for a few things in the room: a cup, a ball, a dog. Say the first sound of each one. Then try to spell a short word, like "cab" or "bad", using only the pictures, one per sound.

The grown-up layer. This is the idea behind an alphabet: a few signs, one for each sound, can write any word in a language, so anyone who knows the sounds can read. Workers at the Sinai mines borrowed Egyptian pictures this way about 3,800 years ago, and most alphabets today, including ours, are thought to come from theirs. The Honest Page says what is known and what nobody knows, and that only a few words of their messages can be read. This time Inkling names it too soon and it buzzes. A third word begins under DOOR and OPEN: W.