““One afternoon when the children were on their own, they saw that the macaws on the tree that guarded the entrance had flown up, squawking. But it was not Furo come to fetch Maia. It was Colonel da Silva with his second-in-command, come to take charge of Bernard Taverner’s posessions. “ Dios! ” he said, paddling up to the hut. “What is this?” So Finn explained, and when he had finished the colonel was laughing so much he looked as if he was going to fall into the water. The idea of the crows bringing a penniless actor to Westwood was the best thing he had heard in ages. “And you, senhorita ,” he said to Maia. “A heroine no less.””
