Book excerpt: Barry Evans: An oddball in the oddest land of all. A gray-suited accountant navigating colorful hair, crazy clothing, and questionable businesses. After three months in Little Five, nothing surprises Barry anymore. Until the day he meets a true stranger in town. What happens when numbers meet magic? An excerpt from Little Five: Barry turned the corner toward his next appointment, so focused on getting into the shaded alleyway and out of the sun that he nearly walked right into another person. Instead of dodging away and shaking his head, probably swearing under his breath, Barry stopped in his tracks without even checking to see what he might step in. He turned around. The man wasn’t wearing a woman’s dress or a black bodysuit or a shirt with some kind of obscene phrase on the front. He wasn’t nearly naked or dressed like a priest, or even another outsider in a business suit. Barry watched a tall, impossibly thin figure walking slowly away from him, dressed head to toe in gleaming copper. His insane idea that the man had been wearing a breathing device of some kind made more sense now that Barry could see the two small black tanks on his back. Barry also remembered a strangely bluish tint to the man’s pale skin, so pale that it was almost translucent. He could see from the back that he hadn’t imagined the man’s hair color. A spiky mane of every shade of purple stood up all over the stranger’s head. The damndest thing was that color didn’t look the least bit unnatural to Barry’s grumpy, judgmental eye.