. . .

For Tom Friedman as for Mr. Loggins it is already too late. He is already caught in it, already tangled into the sinister hair-net of his fate. It is already in him and within him, his child, his future, his life, his death, and his enemy: the hat that he shall make.

It looms vastly in his mind. It turns there, the vision of it. It regards him without eyes and a glint like the scissors-glint rides back and forth between them.

It lives in him.

He cannot stay at his academy; he calls on Mr. Gulley and transfers to the Lethal Magnet School for Wayward Youth.

There, to practice, he makes a hat. And another. And another, until finally he is ready.

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