reeable because he was not
happy, and he was not happy because he wanted to go down the mountain
and visit the big world below and his father would not let him. No one
paid any attention to Kiki Aru, because he didn't amount to anything,
anyway.

Once a year there was a festival on Mount Munch which all the Hyups
attended. It was held in the center of the saucer-shaped country, and
the day was given over to feasting and merry-making. The young folks
danced and sang songs; the women spread the tables with good things to
eat, and the men played on musical instruments and told fairy tales.

Kiki Aru usually went to these festivals with his parents, and then sat
sullenly outside the circle and would not dance or sing or even talk to
the other young people. So the festival did not make him any happier
than other days, and this time he told Bini Aru and Mopsi Aru that he
would not go. He would rather stay at home and be unhappy all by
himself, he said, and so they gladly let him stay.

But after he was left alone Kiki decided to enter his father's private
room, where he was forbidden to go, and see if he could find any of the
magic tools Bini Aru used to work with when he practiced sorcery. As
he went in Kiki stubbed his toe on one of the floor boards. He
searched everywhere but found no trace of his father's magic. All had
been destroyed.

Much disappointed, he started to go out again when he stubbed his toe
on the same floor board. That set him thinking. Examining the board
more closely, Kiki found it had been pried up and then nailed down
again in such a manner that it was a little higher than the other
boards. But why had his father taken up the board? Had he hidden some
of his magic tools underneath the floor?

Kiki got a chisel and pried up the board, but found nothing under it.
He was just about to replace the board when it slipped from his hand
and turned over, and he saw something written on the underside of it.
The light was rather dim, so he took the board to the window and
examined it, and found that the writing described exactly how to
pronounce the magic word Pyrzqxgl, which would transform anyone into
anything instantly, and back again when the word was repeated.

Now, at first, Kiki Aru didn't realize what a wonderful secret he had
discovered; but he thought it might be of use to him and so he took a
piece of paper and made on it an exact copy of the instructions for
pronouncing Pyrzqxgl. T