Snow White and the Seven Samurai

Chapter 2

They called him the Dwarf With No Name.

Where he came from, nobody knew, although since the same was true of all dwarves that didn’t really signify. Nobody cared much, either. But when he swaggered into town and strolled in under the swinging doors of the Buttercup Tea Rooms, small cuddly animals dived for cover and pixies dashed back to their workshops and started roughing out tiny coffins.

‘Milk,’ the dwarf growled, flinging a handful of chocolate money on the bar top. ‘Gimme the bottle.’

Mrs Twinklenose, the elderly hedgehog who’d run the Buttercup since the first prospectors struck treacle south of the Rio Gordo, picked up one of the coins, bit it, swore, spat, took the gold foil off, bit it again and slid a pint bottle along the polished surface of the bar. Without looking, the dwarf reached a hand up above his head, caught the bottle just as it cleared the edge, stuck a thumb through the foil and drank messily.

‘Another,’ he muttered, wiping milk drops from his ginger beard. ‘Keep ‘em coming till I say when.’

Mrs Twinklenose shrugged. ‘You got it, mister,’ she said. ‘There’s a couple of pigs been in here looking for you.’

The dwarf looked up. ‘Pigs?’ he repeated. ‘I don’t know no pigs.’

‘Reckon they know you,’ the hedgehog said indifferently. ‘If you’re Dumpy the dwarf, that is.’

The dwarf reached up and balanced a half-empty milk bottle on the edge of the bar. ‘I ain’t heard that name in a long while,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘In fact, I ain’t never heard it this side of the Candyfloss Mountains. Who did you say these pigs were?’

‘Just pigs,’ Mrs Twinklenose answered, polishing a glass against the plush fur of her tummy. ‘Never could tell them critters apart, and that’s the truth.’

‘Gimme another milk.’

Business was quiet in the Buttercup that afternoon. Customers who drifted in — thirsty ladybirds with trail-dust caking their wing-cases, fluffy pink bunnies from the treacle mines, the occasional stoat and weasel newly arrived on the riverboats and looking for some action, all the regular extras you’d normally expect to find in an alphabet-spaghetti Western — tended to swallow their drinks quickly and leave as soon as they set eyes on the dwarf. The heaped plate of currant buns grew staler by the minute, and the ice-cream cake melted into a sticky pool. The dwarf didn’t take any notice; he stayed where he was, slumped under a bar stool, methodically gulping down the house semi-skimmed by the pint. Several times Mrs Twinklenose tried to suggest politely that since there weren’t any other customers, she’d quite like to close up for the day, but the dwarf proved resolutely hint-proof and silent. It was nearly dark when he looked up, pushed his hood back and said, ‘These pigs.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Did they happen to mention when they’d be back?’

Mrs Twinklenose shook her head, accidentally impaling a dozen sticky buns on her neck spines. ‘Never said nothing to me. You could maybe ask over at the hotel or the livery stable.’

‘Nope.’ The dwarf tilted back his head, drained the last drop out of the bottle and licked a few white globules out of his moustache. ‘Reckon I’ll stay here, in case I miss them. You got any better stuff than this? This ain’t fit to go on a pixie’s cornflakes.’

Reluctantly Mrs Twinklenose reached under the counter and produced a pint of gold-top, the condensation misting its sides. ‘Full cream’s extra,’ she said without hope. The dwarf nodded and tossed her some more coins, but she could tell by the thunk they made on the bar top that they were phoney; solid gold, not chocolate at all. She sighed and dropped them in the spittoon.

The dwarf sniffed, his nose wrinkling; then he drained his milk, wiped the tip of his nose and stood up. A moment later the door swung open. Trotters pecked tentatively at the floorboards. Someone snuffled and cleared his throat.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said the smaller of the two pigs, ‘but are you Dumpy the dwarf?’

The dwarf turned slowly round, his thumbs tucked inside his belt-buckle, ‘Maybe I am,’ he drawled, ‘and maybe I ain’t. Who wants to know?’

The two pigs exchanged nervous glances. ‘He’s taller than I thought he’d be,’ whispered the bigger pig.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ his colleague hissed back. ‘And for crying out loud don’t let him hear you say…’ The pig glanced up, then down, and realised that the dwarf was staring at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he stuttered, ‘you’ve got to excuse my brother, he’s only ever lived with pigs, he doesn’t know how to behave around regular people.’

‘Who’re you callin’ regular, friend?’

The pig became pinker than usual, until he looked like a ten-year-old girl’s idea of a chic colour-scheme. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘can’t we please start again? My name’s Julian, this is Desmond, we’ve got another brother called Eugene. We live out on the other side of the Big Forest. Can we buy you a drink?’

The dwarf leaned against the side of the bar and folded his arms. ‘Reckon you can, at that,’ he said affably. ‘Milk.’

Mrs Twinklenose produced another bottle and slid it across the counter. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Because they’re with you, it’s okay. But usually we don’t serve his kind in here. Except,’ she added meaningfully, ‘as scratchings. Just so as you know.’

‘They’re with me,’ the dwarf grunted, spearing his thumb through the foil and spurting milk up his nose. ‘All right, boys, what can I do for you?’

Julian swallowed. He felt as if he had an apple in his mouth. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s like this.’

‘Does anybody else live here,’ Sis asked, ‘or is it just you?’

The queen sniffed. ‘That, my young pest, is a good question. I suppose it mostly depends on when. Sometimes, you just can’t move for extras — you know, halberdiers, courtiers, pages, flunkies. Do you know what a flunky actually does, by the way? I’ve been trying to find out all my life, but nobody seems to know. The rest of the time, it’s deserted. Just little me. In fact, I’m not even sure it actually exists when I’m not here.’

‘Ah,’ Sis replied noncommittally. ‘It sort of depends on context, does it?’

The queen nodded. ‘Everything does, in these parts. Mostly, you see what you expect to see. I imagine that if I were to shout for the guards to come and drag you off to the dungeon, the door would fly open and there they’d be. But if we tiptoed out of this room and went looking for them, there wouldn’t be any. It’s just the way it works. Or worked,’ she added sourly, ‘before a bunch of young idiots…’

‘So we’re probably completely alone now,’ Sis said with a shudder. ‘I see.’

‘Not necessarily.’ The queen stood up and stretched, like a cat. ‘If I’m making any sense at all of what I can see in the pail there, all the usual functions haven’t been switched off or blown away. They’ve been jumbled up, any old fashion. Which is, of course, worse,’ she added. ‘Much worse.’

‘Oh.’

‘If it was simply a case of the mirror having been wiped, you see,’ the queen went on, ‘we could just reinstall it all from the bucket. But we can’t, because it’s all still there. Do you see?’

‘No,’ Sis admitted. ‘But it sounds awful.’

‘Doesn’t it ever,’ the queen said, grinning. ‘Still, it doesn’t do to sit around all day moping. There’s something I want to try, just in case it works.’

‘Ah,’ Sis replied hopefully. ‘Do you think it will?’

‘No. But I can’t think of anything else, so I’m going to do this. Ready?’

Sis nodded and took five steps back, until she bumped into a carved oak table. The wicked queen, meanwhile, had opened a cupboard and taken out a broom.

‘Not my prop, really,’ she said. ‘More your sort of witch’s broom, hence the little sticker on the back that says My other broomstick an Addis. Personally I think this whole escapade’s doomed to failure from the outset, but we’ll soon see.’

She sat down on the floor, the broom in one hand, the other resting on the rim of the pail. ‘Mirror,’ she said.

The usual ripples; and then the beard-and-glasses face appeared. Before it had a chance to get further than ‘Ba—’, the wicked queen lifted the broom up over her head and dipped its bristles in the water. There was a sizzle, like frying sausages, and a puff of hot steam.

‘I think this is going to be a disaster,’ said the queen cheerfully. ‘Oh well, never mind.’

‘What are you trying to do?’ whispered Sis, from behind a footstool.

‘The idea is to slave the broom to the bucket,’ said the queen, who was now almost entirely hidden by the cloud of steam. ‘The bucket takes control of the broom, the broom scoots off and finds Carl, Carl fixes the mess, job done. It’d be a good idea if only there was a hope in hell of it working.’

Sis peeped round the edge of the stool. ‘It’s doing something,’ she said.

‘Very true,’ the queen replied. ‘But doing something and doing anything useful, or even not actively harmful, ain’t always the same thing. Ask any government. Oh dear, I think it’s starting to go terribly, terribly wrong.’

The broomstick had pulled itself out of the queen’s hands and was balancing itself on the surface of the water, like the Messiah of All Brooms, and glowing cobalt blue. There was also a humming noise that Sis didn’t like the sound of one little bit, and a faint but obnoxious smell.

‘At this point,’ said the queen, ‘I ought to grab the broom and try to pull it out before things get out of hand. But I won’t, because I know full well it’ll only shoot sparks at me and throw me across the room.’

‘It’d do that?’

‘That’s what it usually does. I told you this idea was doomed from the start.’

The broom sank an inch or so into the water. Then it began to twitch slowly from side to side, in the manner of a loose tooth when you jiggle it about with your finger.

‘Here we go,’ said the queen. ‘If I were you I’d climb up on something, quick.’

With a sharp, hard-to-follow movement, like speeded-up film of a roving triffid, the broom hopped out of the bucket and started waddling across the floor, leaving behind it a trail of what looked strangely like soap-suds. The queen jumped clear just in time to stop her shoes from getting soaked, and pitched on a low chair.

‘What on earth is it doing?’ Sis whispered.

‘Ah,’ replied the queen. ‘Looks like the broom’s slaved itself to the bucket okay, but the bucket’s failed to override the broom’s default programming. Which means,’ she continued, as the broom started shuffling backwards and forwards across the floor in a pool of suddy water, ‘the broom’s reverting to doing what it was primarily designed for, namely cleaning floors. Like I said,’ she added glumly. ‘Disaster.’

‘Is it? Surely it can’t do any harm just…’

‘Are you ignorant or just plain stupid? Think, girl. It’s going to carry on doing that indefinitely, and there’s absolutely no way of switching the wretched thing off.’

‘Oh.’ Sis’s eyes became very round. ‘You mean like the Sorcerer’s—’

‘Yes.’ The queen had become rather red in the face. ‘Exactly like that. Again. Other people learn from their mistakes, but not, apparently, me.’

‘You mean you were the—’ Sis stopped, swallowed a giggle and went on. ‘But I thought the um, apprentice, was a boy.’

‘Some kind of chauvinist bigot, are you, as well as everything else? Let me give you a tiny scrap of advice. If you were planning on making a career for yourself in the diplomatic service, now would be a good time to explore other options.

The broom had already covered half the floor in an ankle-deep carpet of suds. Sis hopped up on to the footstool and swayed out of the way to avoid the waving broom handle. ‘So now what do we do?’ she shouted.

‘Stop asking me that.’

‘But what did you do the — the last time?’

‘Waited for the sorcerer to come home and turn it off. Unfortunately he’s dead—’ A strange look passed over the wicked queen’s face ‘—Sort of; so that’s not a realistic option. Have you got any ideas?’

‘No,’ Sis replied, ‘none at all. But then, I wouldn’t have set the horrid thing off in the first place.’

The queen hitched her skirts up to her knees as the suds flecked her legs. ‘The only thing I can think of is knocking over the bucket,’ she said. ‘That’d probably stop the broom, but we’d lose all the stuff saved in it.’

‘What, the water?’

‘The backup from the mirror. All gone, for ever. And without that—’

‘We’d never find Carl.’

‘We’d never fix my system, more to the point.’ She looked down at the rising tide of suds, then very cautiously started to clamber out on to the arms of the chair. ‘In the words of the late Oliver Hardy—’

‘Why don’t we just run away?’ Sis interrupted.

‘Another fine me— What did you say?’

‘Run away. Just leave it and go. We could take the bucket with us.’

The wicked queen thought for a moment. ‘You mean, buzz off and leave someone else to clear up the mess?’ she said.

‘It’s always worked for me.’

The chair wobbled, and the queen made a yelping noise. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘why not? Instead of being responsible for all this chaos, let’s be irresponsible for it.’ She hopped off the chair, which fell over, and landed on the floor with a splash and an explosion of soapy spray; then she grabbed the bucket, yelled, ‘Come on!’ and headed for the door. The two of them just made it through the door before the broom could catch them.

‘Rivet,’ said the big bad wolf. ‘Rivet rivet rivet.’

The owl, seconded to Wolfpack by Avian Intelligence, translated. ‘What he’s trying to say,’ she chirped, ‘is that he’s going to, um, croak and wobble his cheeks in and out and then he’s going to blow your house down.’ She paused and pecked at her pin-feathers with her beak. ‘At least, I think that’s what he said,’ she added doubtfully. ‘Look, you in the bunker. Is any of this making sense to you guys? My frog’s a bit rusty.’

Inside the bunker’s command centre, Eugene made a great effort and forbore from making the obvious reply. ‘I get the message,’ he said. ‘You tell him from me he can save his breath.’ He frowned, reflecting that under the circumstances, he could have phrased that a whole lot better. ‘Frogs don’t frighten me,’ he went on firmly. ‘Who ever heard of a frog who—?’

Later, in hospital, once he’d come round from the coma, Eugene reckoned that the method the frog had used must have been something like blowing the yolk of an egg through a pinhole in the opposite end of the shell. He explained it to his brothers in those terms.

Julian closed his mouth, which had flopped open like the tailgate of one of those lorries they transport cheap televisions on. ‘A frog did that?’ he whispered.

Eugene nodded, as far as the neck restraint would allow. ‘Small green frog, about the size of an apple. Julian, what’s going on? This is all beginning to get out of trotter.’

Julian sat for a while, fidgeting with his nose-ring. ‘I don’t know,’ he finally admitted. ‘From time to time I think I’m starting to see a bit of the big picture, and then it all goes fuzzy on me again. Rather than understand it, let’s try doing something about it instead. I tracked down that dwarf.’

Eugene raised his eyebrow, the one that wasn’t trussed up in splints. ‘You mean the dwarf with no name?’

Julian nodded. ‘Actually, his name’s Dumpy. Anyway, he’s agreed to help us out, and he’s recruiting the other dwarves he says he’ll need.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Eugene sighed. ‘This is going to be expensive,’ he said.

‘Probably. But don’t worry, we’ll cope. You concentrate on getting better. You got any idea how much it’s costing us per day having you in here?’

‘It’s not exactly a fun place to be,’ Eugene replied bitterly. ‘It’s full of horribly mutilated people. One guy they brought in yesterday, he was so badly smashed up he came in six separate carrier bags.’

‘Jeez,’ Desmond muttered. ‘So what happened to him?’

‘Fell off a wall, so I heard. It was so bad they had to call in a specialist team of surgeons from the military. They got him fixed up, though, eventually.’

Julian looked up sharply. ‘They did?’ he asked.

‘That’s right. Wonderful job, by all accounts. That’s him, look, over there at the end by the wall. Big egg-shaped guy with no head.’

‘The one having his temperature taken by the polo pony?’

‘That’s the one. You know him?’

‘Heard of him,’ Julian replied. ‘I think.’ Doing his best not to be too obvious about it, he turned his head and took a long look. ‘Certainly seems to be in one piece now,’ he conceded, and the edge to his voice was sharp enough to cut rubber. ‘How about that?’

The patient in the next bed, who’d noticed Julian’s interest, grinned. ‘One hell of a show,’ she whispered. ‘He was in the theatre sixteen hours, so Sister told me. At one point they had a whole battalion of the Royal Engineers and seventy polo ponies in there working on him with rubber bands and glue. Wonderful, the things they can do now.’

Julian nodded, frowning. ‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘Excuse me, but don’t I know you from somewhere?’

‘I doubt it,’ the patient replied, ‘unless your line of work brings you in contact with hydraulic engineers, because that’s what I do. The name’s Jill, by the way. Pleased to meet you.’

‘Likewise.’ The pig looked away, then swivelled back sharply. Jill’s head was heavily bandaged. ‘Sorry if this sounds a bit personal,’ he said, ‘but do you work with somebody called Jack?’

‘My business partner. You’ve heard of us?’

‘I think so. Looks like a pretty nasty knock you’ve got there,’ he observed neutrally. ‘How d’you do it?’

Jill pulled a wry face. ‘Fell down a hill, of all the silly things to do. Jack was all right, but I wasn’t so lucky.’

‘Jack was all right…’

‘Oh yes. As in “I’m all right, Jack”, only the other way round. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, no reason,’ Julian answered unconvincingly. ‘Just curious, that’s all.’

Not long afterwards, Sister came and slung the visitors out. As they walked home, Julian was unusually silent. Desmond, who’d been outlining his plan for a mobile home slung from the underside of a helium-filled airship (‘Away, yes. Away we can handle. Down, no.’) stopped dead in his tracks and waved a foreleg in front of Julian’s snout.

‘Julian?’ he said. ‘Snap out of it. You look like Uncle Claude just after they’d finished inserting the sage and onion.’

‘Sorry.’ Julian sighed. ‘I was just thinking about what Eugene said; you know, about things getting out of trotter. He’s right. Something very odd’s going on.’

‘So? Around here, it sort of goes with the territory.’

‘Maybe. I guess I need to think it through a bit more.’ He twitched his nose and sniffed, as if he’d just sensed truffles. ‘Suddenly I’m beginning to see things that probably aren’t there. You know, conspiracies and paranormal phenomena and cover-ups and everybody acting as if everything’s perfectly normal. There’s a word for it when you start doing that.’

‘American?’

‘Paranoid. Maybe I’m getting paranoid.’ He shook his shoulders. ‘The hell with it,’ he said. ‘Come on, I’ll buy us each a turnip down the Swill and Bucket.’

There was a new note on the front door of Avenging Dragon Cottage. It was written on scented pink notepaper, and it read:

‘Marvellous way with words she’s got,’ observed Mr Hiroshige, idly straightening the petals of a wind-blown flower with his mailed fingers.

Beside him, Mr Miroku nodded. ‘I particularly liked the way she used the image of spring, the time of renewal in nature, to suggest the need for a new dustbin bag. Whose turn is it?’

‘I did it last time,’ young Mr Akira pointed out. ‘And the time before that.’

The other two considered this. ‘In fact,’ pointed out Mr Miroku, ‘you already have considerable experience in emptying dustbins.’

‘True,’ said Mr Akira.

‘Expertise, even.’

‘I suppose so. Not that it’s all that difficult.’

‘To you, maybe not,’ said Mr Miroku gracefully. ‘Likewise, the trained ivory-carver has no difficulty creating a perfect netsuke out of a tiny scrap of waste bone, whereas you and I wouldn’t know where to start. I expect your children will find it easier still, and so on down the generations.’ He smiled. ‘You carry on,’ he said. ‘You don’t mind if we watch, do you? It’s always inspiring to watch a craftsman at work.’

Mr Akira shrugged and went off round the side of the cottage. A little later he came back holding two densely stuffed black plastic bags.

‘Observe,’ said Mr Hiroshige thoughtfully, ‘how he’s holding one in each hand, so as to equalise the weight distribution. The boy’s clearly got a flair for it.’

Mr Akira couldn’t help simpering a little with pride. They were, after all, fully accredited adepts in the Way, whereas he was little more than a novice. As he shifted his grip on the left-hand bag a little, there was more than a touch of conscious élan about the movement.

‘Correct me if I’m mistaken,’ said Mr Miroku, stopping him with a courteous gesture, ‘but isn’t this the point where you put the plastic bags in the big PVC dustbin up by the garden gate?’

‘That’s right,’ the young man replied.

‘How do you do that, exactly? It must be ever so difficult.’

‘I wouldn’t say that,’ replied Mr Akira, frowning a little. ‘At least, I’ve never had a problem with it. I just lift the lid and put them in.’

The two older men exchanged glances. ‘He’s just lifts the lid and puts them in,’ Mr Hiroshige repeated. ‘Like the archer who, on the point of releasing the arrow, closes his eyes and entrusts its flight to the harmonies of the universe. It’s like what I’ve always said: the more apparently complex an act, the more vital it is to search until you find its inner simplicity. May we watch? We promise not to make a noise.’

‘Feel free,’ said Mr Akira, with a slight bow. ‘This way.’

They followed him up the path and stood at a respectful distance while he dumped the bags in the bin and put back the lid. The other two dipped their heads in respectful admiration.

‘Likewise,’ said Mr Hiroshige, ‘whereas even the most skilled worker in jade could never produce a really convincing facsimile of a leaf, with all its endlessly complex veins and textures, a tree puts forth new leaves without a conscious thought. Thank you. That was—’ He paused, took a deep breath, and let it out again slowly. ‘Beautiful.’

‘Oh. Good.’

‘And yet,’ interrupted Mr Miroku gently, ‘it would be presumptuous to congratulate him on a skill that comes not from within himself but from the essential forces of the cosmos. After all, one compliments the painter, not the brush.’ He turned and gestured politely towards the bin. ‘Would you mind terribly doing it again?’

Mr Akira raised both eyebrows. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If you like.’ His brows furrowed for a moment like trysting ear-wigs. ‘This is a Zen thing, isn’t it? Like doing the ironing or unblocking the sink trap.’

Mr Miroku’s smile was beatific. ‘All things are Zen, my son,’ he said. ‘When you’ve truly grasped that, you will at last be one of us.’

‘Oh. Gosh.’ Mr Akira took the lid off the dustbin, pulled out the bags, put them back again and replaced the lid. ‘Did I do that all right?’ he said.

The other two nodded. ‘Remarkable,’ said Mr Hiroshige.

‘You put those bags in almost exactly the same place as you did the last time. Now if you’d tried to do that on purpose, measuring the clearances and the distances and measuring the angle at which the bags were inserted, I’ll wager you wouldn’t have achieved anything like the same level of precision.’

‘Quite so,’ Mr Miroku agreed. ‘But by subordinating your conscious self to the forces of the natural order—’

‘Ah.’ Mr Akira beamed with pleasure. ‘Now I see. There’s just one thing, though,’ he added apprehensively. ‘With the very greatest respect—’

‘Feel free to speak, my son.’

‘All right. It’s just,’ Mr Akira went on, ‘I’m probably being very dense here, but how exactly is putting out the dustbin bags and all the other housework you kindly let me do going to help me to become a superbly trained master swordsman?’

The other two exchanged a gentle smile. ‘Show him,’ said Mr Miroku.

‘No, no. You do it so much better.’

‘You’re very kind.’ Mr Miroku composed himself and closed his eyes; then, in a single fluid movement, so swift and smooth that it was almost impossible to follow, he reached to his left side, drew the great two-handed katana broadsword and brought it down with devastating force on the dustbin, slicing it into two exactly symmetrical halves without even disturbing the lid. There was a moment of sublimely perfect stillness; then he opened his eyes and gave the blade a little twitch, whereupon the two halves of the bin and the precisely bisected bags within opened like the pages of a book, slowly toppled over and slumped on to the grass.

‘Gosh,’ said Mr Akira.

‘It was nothing,’ Mr Miroku replied. ‘Or rather, it was a power so great, so universal, as to be far too vast for our weak minds to grasp. One might as well try to contain the sea in a teacup.’ He performed chiburi, the seemingly effortless flick of the wrist that shakes the blade clean, and sheathed the sword with a graceful flowing movement. ‘But please observe this, because it’s very important.’ His face suddenly became grave. ‘Because within the Way all is as one, your act of putting the bags in the bin and my act of cutting the bin in half were fundamentally one and the same act.’

‘So if anyone asks…’ Mr Hiroshige added.

Mr Akira nodded twice, very slowly. ‘I think I’m beginning to understand,’ he said, as the wind gently ruffled the pages of a precision-sliced newspaper. ‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’

Mr Miroku made a tiny gesture with his hands. ‘Think nothing of it,’ he said. ‘What nobler calling could there be than to guide another’s footsteps along the Way?’ He started to walk towards the cottage, then looked back. ‘One last thing, though.’

‘Yes?’

With the merest quiver of a single finger, Mr Miroku indicated the sprawl of garbage, which was being gradually dispersed by the gentle breeze. ‘Get that mess cleared up, would you?’

‘I don’t think it’s following us,’ the wicked queen panted, leaning against an apple tree as she caught her breath.

They looked back at the castle. There was something white and fluffy oozing out of all the upper storey arrow slits, and the moat looked like a bubble-bath. The queen breathed a sigh of relief and rested the bucket carefully on the ground.

‘I spilt some,’ she said, ‘but not too much, I don’t think.’ She peered at the surface of the water and nodded. ‘Looks like all we’ve lost is some of the naff graphics and the Spell Check.’

‘Spell—?’

‘Don’t ask. It never worked anyway. Well now,’ she went on, ‘here we both are, with the bucket and the clothes we stand up in and not a lot else. Any ideas?’

Sis just shrugged.

‘It wouldn’t be a problem if the system was still running,’ the queen went on, taking off her shoes and sitting down. ‘Normally, we’d have just enough time to catch our breath before a wizened old crone or quaintly humorous hunchback came by offering to tell us everything we need to know. Marvellous feature of the program, that was, when it was working okay.’

‘Don’t look now,’ Sis muttered, ‘but there’s two men under that tree over there staring at us.’

‘Are there?’ The queen lifted her head. ‘That’s interesting. You never know, maybe that part of the system’s still running. Let’s give it a try, shall we?’

Sis looked doubtful. ‘They don’t look terribly nice,’ she whispered. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we—?’

‘No.’ The wicked queen stood up and waved her shoe. ‘Hello! Yes, you there. Are you Help?’

The men who’d been watching them started guiltily, looked round just in case the queen had been talking to somebody else, then slowly walked towards them. It was easy to see why Sis hadn’t liked the look of them. Where she came from their sombre grey suits, sunglasses and bulging left armpits could only mean one thing: they were some sort of Them.

‘Sorry?’ one of them said. ‘Can we help you?’

‘That depends,’ replied the queen briskly. ‘By rights, you should be a little old man with a long white beard or a gnarled old peasant woman bent double under a heavy load of firewood, which we would proceed to carry for you.’ She paused for a moment, then continued. ‘If this is making absolutely no sense to you, then you aren’t who I think you are.’

The elder of the two cleared his throat. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘we know what you’re driving at, but we aren’t who you think we are.’

‘We aren’t even here,’ added his colleague, with a rather mimsy grin.

‘Not officially, anyhow,’ the elder man said. ‘This is supposed to be covert surveillance.’

‘Then you’re not very good at it, are you?’ the queen replied. ‘Come to think of it, I do know who you are. You’re the Grimm boys, aren’t you?’

The Brothers Grimm smiled sheepishly. ‘So much for blending into the crowd,’ said the elder. He elbowed his brother in the ribs. ‘Told you we should have dressed the part.’

‘We’d still have stuck out like sore thumbs,’ the younger Grimm replied. ‘And it’s bad enough having to tell people you collect fairytales for a living without having to dress up in all that ridiculous schmutter.’

‘I know you,’ the queen repeated. ‘You’re the official observers, aren’t you? From where she comes from.’

The Grimms noticed Sis for the first time. The younger specimen hauled out a complicated-looking scanning device, waved it in Sis’s direction and looked down at the readout. ‘Gawd, she’s right,’ he said, ‘she’s one of ours. How in hell’s name did she get here?’

‘Good question,’ the queen growled. ‘Anyway, wasn’t it lucky I bumped into you two creeps when I did? You can take her back with you.’

Sis was about to protest, but the Grimms did it for her. ‘No can do,’ said the elder Grimm, shaking his head. ‘Not our pigeon, repatriations. We’re just—’

‘Observers,’ the queen finished for him. ‘All right, observe this. Either you can get her out of here, now, no pack drill, or else your bureau is going to be hearing from my lawyers about a claim for massive disruption to my systems caused by one of your strays hacking into it and crashing the damn thing. Now, shall I wrap her or will you take her as she is?’

But the Grimms shook their heads again; this time, more or less in unison. ‘Still not our pigeon,’ the elder replied. ‘Cost us our badges, that would. Of course, we’ll report back to Immigration soon as we get back, but that’s all we can do. Sorry.’

‘But you’ve got to help,’ Sis burst out. ‘My brother’s lost in here, somewhere, and she’s not doing anything to find him.’

The Grimms exchanged glances. ‘Awkward,’ said the younger specimen.

‘Very awkward,’ agreed his brother. ‘Don’t know what we’re going to do about that. I mean, it could be abduction, which’d be State Department business—’

‘Or mythological asylum,’ put in the younger Grimm. ‘That’d come under Political.’

‘Might even constitute an act of war,’ added the elder, ‘which’d mean bringing in the military. Sorry, no, can’t touch that with a ten-foot pole.’ He shook his head once more, just in case Sis and the queen hadn’t been looking the first couple of times. ‘While we’re on the subject, though; when you say crashed the system, what exactly…’

The queen gave him a stare you could have put in a gin and tonic. ‘Oh no you don’t,’ she said.

‘But if you’re having, um, technical difficulties,’ the elder Grimm said solicitously, ‘I’m sure our people would be only too pleased to offer technological support and backup. It’d be the least.’

‘You want me to let your spooks come poking their noses into the workings of my system,’ the queen translated. ‘Whereupon you’d download everything you think you’d be able to use back where you come from, and then bugger off. Probably,’ she added, ‘leaving behind a few little mementoes of your visit buried deep down among the cogs and wheels, all ready to go bang! and blow a hole in the operating system whenever the bunch of paranoid psychotics you work for decide we constitute a threat to your dimensional security. Oh, come on, boys, I wasn’t written yesterday.’

‘You’re being very unfair,’ muttered the elder Grimm. ‘And that’s just going to make it harder for us to repatriate our, um, errant citizen here.’ He stripped all vestige of expression from his face, and went on: ‘I do take it you want rid of her?’

The queen snarled. ‘You’re calling me unfair,’ she said. ‘And somehow I don’t believe you’d actually do that, abandon one of your own in an alien dimension. If word ever got out, you’d be flayed alive. And, unlikely as it seems, sooner or later someone’s going to wonder what’s become of this one and her two noxious siblings.’

The Grimms grinned. ‘Quite so,’ said the junior partner. ‘And guess what. Anybody who so much as suggests that the reason for their disappearance is that they’ve been kidnapped by the fairies is going to end up wearing one of those funny jackets with sleeves that don’t let you look at your watch. Forget it, your Majesty. We’ve extended the hand of friendship and you’ve thrown it back in our face—’

‘Interesting mental picture,’ the queen interrupted. ‘Sorry, do go on.’

‘You want our help with one problem,’ the elder Grimm said, ‘you’ve got to accept our help with the other. Simple as that. You think it over, and in the meantime we’ll just go about our business.’

‘Observing,’ added Junior.

‘I know, anything that isn’t nailed down., The queen breathed out through her nose in a manner that suggested a dragon or two in the back lots of her genetic matrix. ‘I’ll have you for this, don’t you worry. Not immediately, perhaps, but eventually. And when I do—’

The elder Grimm smiled placidly. ‘Tell it to the hobbits,’ he said. ‘Remember, our people know we’re here. And when we’re expected back. And right now, it doesn’t look to me like those automated defence systems of yours we’ve heard so much about are in any fit state to cope with a sudden dose of Reality. Think on, Highness. Ciao.’

The queen snorted; fortunate for her that some things don’t run in families, or she’d have roasted her own toes. But the Grimms turned their backs and walked away. When they’d gone fifty yards or so, the queen distinctly heard a snigger.

‘Wonderful,’ she said. ‘Now it looks as if I’m stuck with you long-term. All this is beginning to get on my nerves.’

Sis glowered at her. ‘That’s right,’ she said, ‘blame me for everything. If you hadn’t been so rude to those men, they might have helped us to fix your rotten system and find Carl and Damien.’

‘Oh, be quiet.’ The queen sat down again and pulled on her shoes. ‘Well, I don’t think we’re going to meet any funny old men or informative wizened crones, so we might as well make a move before those idiots think of something else to threaten me with and come back. I think I might have difficulty staying serenely regal if they were to do that.’

‘So where are we going to go? Or are we just going to drift about aimlessly carrying this stupid bucket and getting our shoes wet?’

The wicked queen scratched an itch at the very tip of her perfect nose. ‘You clearly haven’t understood how things work here,’ she said. ‘It’s a whole different attitude to cause and effect. If you’ve got a problem, you don’t go out and look for an answer. Heaven forbid. You might find the wrong one, and then where’d you be? No, you keep going till the answer finds you. It will.’

Sis wrinkled her nose in distaste. ‘Oh, really?’ she said. ‘You mean, you’ll just happen to bump into an adventure that’ll put everything right. And in the meantime, you just roam about the place smelling the flowers.’

‘More or less,’ the wicked queen replied. ‘After all, if someone’s been to all the trouble of putting us into a story, it stands to reason they’ve got work for us to do.’

‘And suppose we wander off in the wrong direction and the right adventure can’t find us? Or is there a convention, like you always wander North or something?’

The queen smiled indulgently. ‘Oh, the adventure finds you all right, don’t you worry, just like a cat can usually be relied on to find a mouse inside a small cardboard box. That’s what the system’s…’ She tailed off. ‘Was for,’ she added.

‘Exactly.’