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I can't take you till you're in bed. Besides, I have much to do to get everything ready."

When Diamond went home, his mother looked at him and stopped what she was doing at the stove. "You don't look very well, Diamond," she said. She came to him, knelt down, and took his face gently in her hands.

She continued to stare up at the loft opening for several moments after Diamond had climbed up.

Diamond woke suddenly to the sound of a great rumbling in the sky, like giant bass drums echoing through a hugh metal vault. In a moment Diamond realized it was thunder. Then he heard a voice. "Come up, Diamond. It's all ready. i'm waiting for you."

The tiles of the roof were shifted aside and a gigantic but very lovely arm reached down to Diamond. He put his hand in the huge palm and it closed gently on his arm. Suddenly he was being lifted up through the roof. Outside the sky was chaos. Lightning crackled, the wind howled, and thick black clouds shifted heavily.

North Wind was now only a tall lady again, cradling Diamond in her arms. "I'm afraid you will feel the wind in front of me, Diamond," she said. "You had better climb into my hair."

"I don't mind," he said. "It's so nice to feel your arms around me."

"Well, then, I'll keep you in front. I'll need only one arm to take care of you, though I'll need the other to sink the ship."

Diamond shuddered. "Then you do mean to sink the ship?"

"Yes," she said.

"How can you take care of a poor little boy with one arm and sink a ship with the other? It's not like you."

"What am I like, Diamond?"

"You don't look very well, Diamond."

"A gigantic but very lovely arm reached down

"The kindest, goodest, best person in the world," he said, clinging tighter to her.

"Why am I good to you?" she asked. "Have you ever done anything for me?"

"No," he said.

"Then I must be good to you because I choose to be good to you?"

"Yes."

"That's it. I am good to you because I like to be good."

"But why shouldn't you be as good to other people as you are to me?"

"But I am, Diamond."

"You say the arm that holds you is good. Do you think the other arm I sink a ship with is bad? Don't you think the part of me that you don't know must be as good as the part of me that you do know?"

"That's another matter," said North Wind. It may not seem so to you. I will just tell you that is so, and you must just believe me.

Diamond snuggled closer to North Wind. "I do believe in you," he said. "But I won't like to see the ship sunk, you know."

"And that's another matter too," she said, smiling, "Doing something is not always the same as liking it."

North Wind rose into the sky. Her hair flew out all around her, seeming to fall all the way to the ground, far below. "I'm going to let you rest in a special place while I do my work," came her great voice. "I will come back for you."

They were among the storm clouds. The wind stung into Diamond's face. He couldn't tell which was north Wind's hair and which were clouds writhing past them. All was black. In the bursts of white light from the flashes of lightning Diamond could see the tiny whitecaps of the black sea far, far below.