light that they stuck out from the fat bodies of the
Pinkie women like the skirts of ballet-dancers, displaying their chubby
pink ankles and pink kid shoes. They wore rings and necklaces and
bracelets and brooches of rose-gold set with pink gems, and all four of
the new arrivals, both men and women, carried sharp-pointed sticks made
of rosewood for weapons.

They halted a little way from our adventurers, and one of the women
muttered in a horrified voice, "Blueskins!"

"Guess again! The more you guess
I rather think you'll know the less,"

retorted the parrot, and then he added grumblingly in Trot's ear, "Blue
feathers don't make bluebirds."

"Really," said the girl, standing up and bowing respectfully to the
Pinkies, "we are not Blueskins, although we are wearing the blue
uniforms of the Boolooroo and have just escaped from the Blue Country.
If you will look closely, you will see that our skins are white."

"There is some truth in what she says," remarked one of the men
thoughtfully. "Their skins are not blue, but neither are they white. To
be exact, I should call the skin of the girl and that of the boy a
muddy pink, rather faded, while the skin of the gigantic monster with
them is an unpleasant brown."

Cap'n Bill looked cross for a minute, for he did not like to be called
a "gigantic monster," although he realized he was much larger than the
pink people.

"What country did you come from" asked the woman who had first spoken.

"From the Earth," replied Button-Bright.

"The Earth! The Earth!" they repeated. "That is a country we have never
heard of. Where is it located?"

"Why, down below somewhere," said the boy, who did now know in which
direction the Earth lay. "It isn't just one country, but a good many
countries."

"We have three countries in Sky Island," returned the woman. "They are
the Blue Country, the Fog Country and the Pink Country. But of course
this end of the Island is the most important."

"How came you in the Blue Country, from whence you say you escaped?"
asked the man.

"We flew there by means of a Magic Umbrella," explained Button-Bright,
"but the wicked Boolooroo stole it from us."

"Stole it! How dreadful," they all cried in a chorus.

"And they made us slaves," said Trot.

"An' wanted fer to patch us," added Cap'n Bill indignantly.

"So we ran away and passed through the Fog Bank and came here," said
Button-Bright.

The Pinkies turned away and conversed together in l