If no one will invite you over but you want go over then you have to find your own way over. The pretty Outside Girl gave me candy like eating a blue princess, and we went. But we didn’t go very far. We probably could have got there way quicker just by going through the woods instead of along the road but it was night and it was snowing and when we got there a woman turned the porch light on it was an old woman. The Outside Girl said, Come on, Perley, don’t be afraid. I won’t say I was afraid. I will say that I was alert. I will say that the Outside Girl held my hand and led me up onto the porch and she said, This is Grandma Barlow, and Grandma Barlow said, You’d better come in where it’s warm, my son, and the Outside Girl gave me a little push and she and I went into the house and Grandma Barlow came in after us and she shut the door and she blew her nose into her nightgown. She said, Welcome, and I looked at her better. She was a giant old woman with gray skin like an old magazine with writing on it that I couldn’t read, yellow hair like big tin cans, and silver flowers everywhere I mean all over her nightgown and the Outside Girl said to her, Sorry we got here so late we had some trouble over there took longer than I thought I’ll be back in the morning and we can do the paperwork and talk things over. Then the Outside Girl knelt down to me the way she liked to do and looked deep into my eyes like she saw in a movie which I am not allowed to watch and she said, For now, Perley, get some sleep. Then she squeezed me so that her smell would never leave me and she left through the front door, and when she left I knew I probably had made a mistake. I was not afraid, I was alert, but I would just as soon have been at home with my Mama L. I would just as soon have been giving Mama K my report. I would just as soon have been leeching acorns with the Mean Aunt, but instead I was in this weird house with Grandma Barlow and she said, Tonight it’s the pull-out bed ’cause Altemonte’s already asleep, and there’s no need to wake him. I didn’t ask who Altemonte was and she lifted the cushions on the sofa and like magic a bed sprang out and there was a blanket that smelled like flowers floating in soup and I climbed under the covers with all my clothes on and Grandma Barlow said, I’ll bring you some hot milk that will do you good, and she left the room and she came back with a plastic cup. I didn’t like the smell, I didn’t like the skin on top, but I drank it anyway because she was watching me and then she said, We’ll chat about it all in the morning, my son, just holler at me if you need any little thing, the bathroom is at the back, and she switched off the light and left the room and I was alert. I tried to orient myself. I sealed my eyes shut and imagined every turn the car had made on the ride over, just to make sure I could find my way back, and when I could see my way back to my women, I fell asleep. I didn’t dream about Mama L and I didn’t dream about the Mean Aunt. In my dream it was just me and my Mama K. She was the old wolf and I was the young wolf but we were also elves riding on wolves. We were on a quest. It was the quest we would one day go on together after we had been through all of our trials and tests, of which this was one. I was up to it. I was invincible. As far as anyone knew.