"Masklin must have got it for her," said Dorcas, ignoring them. "Very literal-minded lad, that lad. Very active imagination."
He stared from the flower to the Cat, looking small and old under the humming shadow of the ship. And felt, suddenly, quite cheerful. He was still tired enough to go to sleep standing up, but he felt his mind fizzing with ideas. Of course there were a lot of questions, but right now the answers didn't matter; it was enough just to enjoy the questions, and know that the world was full of astonishing things, and that he wasn't a frog. Or at least he was the kind of frog who was interested in how flowers grew and whether you could get to other flowers if you jumped hard enough. And just when you'd got out of the flower, and were feeling really proud of yourself, you'd look at the new, big, wide endless world around you. And eventually you'd notice that it had petals around the horizon. Dorcas grinned. "I'd very much like to know," he said, "what Masklin has been doing these past few weeks."