The World of Where

In the World of Where there lived a young princess named Erimentha. She lived high above the town in the Royal Cloud Palace.

Everyday she sat in her tower window. “Why must I live trapped in the sky,” she said, “when everyone else can wander wherever they please?”

Erimentha quickly clapped her hand over her mouth. She looked left, then right, to see if anyone had heard.

“Why” questions were not allowed in the World of Where. “Who,” “what,” “how,” and “when” questions were forbidden too. People there only cared about, well, “where.”

In the town below lived a boy named Thatcher. He was the son of the master roofer. Like Erimentha, he asked the wrong type of questions. “How can I make the roof stronger?” he would ask.

“No!” his father scolded. “We only ask where to make the repair!”