I Shall Wear Midnight

Tiffany’s stick had been left to her by Miss Treason. It was uncomfortable and not very fast and had the occasional habit of going backwards when it rained, and when the dwarf who was in charge of the clanging, echoing workshop saw it, he shook his head and made a sucking noise through his teeth, as if the sight of the thing had really spoiled his day, and he might have to go away and have a little cry.

‘Well, it’s elm, isn’t it,’ he said to an uncaring world in general. ‘It’s a lowland wood, your elm, heavy and slow, and of course there’s your beetles to consider. Very prone to beetles, your elm. Struck by lightning, was it? Not a good wood for lightning, your elm. Attracts it, so they say. Tendency to owls as well.’

Tiffany nodded and tried to look knowledgeable; she had made up the lightning strike, because the truth, while a valuable thing, was just too stupid, embarrassing and unbelievable.

Another, and almost identical, dwarf materialized behind his colleague. ‘Should have gone for ash.’

‘Oh yes,’ said the first dwarf gloomily. ‘Can’t go wrong with ash.’ He prodded Tiffany’s broomstick and sighed again.

‘Looks like it’s got the start of bracket fungus in the base joint,’ the second dwarf suggested.

‘Wouldn’t be surprised at anything, with your elm,’ said the first dwarf.

‘Look, can you just patch it up enough to get me home?’ Tiffany asked.

‘Oh, we don’t “patch things up”,’ said the first dwarf loftily or, rather, metaphorically loftily. ‘We do a bespoke service.’

‘I just need a few bristles,’ said Tiffany desperately, and then, because she forgot she hadn’t been going to admit to the truth, ‘Please? It wasn’t my fault the Feegles set fire to the broomstick.’

Up until that point, there had been quite a lot of background noises in the dwarf workshop as dozens of dwarfs had been working away on their own benches and not taking much heed of the discussion, but now there was a silence, and in that silence a single hammer dropped to the floor.

The first dwarf said, ‘When you say Feegles, you don’t mean Nac Mac Feegles, do you, miss?’

‘That’s right.’

‘The wild ones? Do they say … Crivens?’ he asked very slowly.

‘Practically all the time,’ said Tiffany. She thought she ought to make things clear and added, ‘They are my friends.’

‘Oh, are they?’ said the dwarf. ‘And are any of your little friends here at this moment?’

‘Well, I told them to go and find a young man of my acquaintance,’ said Tiffany, ‘but they are probably in a pub by now. Are there many pubs in the city?’

The two dwarfs looked at one another. ‘About three hundred, I should say,’ said the second dwarf.

‘That many?’ said Tiffany. ‘Then I don’t expect they’ll come looking for me for at least half an hour.’

And suddenly the first dwarf was all frantic good humour. ‘Well, where are our manners?’ he said. ‘Anything for a friend of Mrs Proust! Tell you what: it will be our pleasure to give you our express service gratis and for nothing, including free bristles and creosote at no charge whatsoever!’

‘Express service meaning you leave straight away afterwards,’ said the second dwarf flatly. He took off his iron helmet, wiped the sweat off the inside with his handkerchief and put it back on his head quickly.

‘Oh yes, indeed,’ said the first dwarf. ‘Right away; that’s what express means.’

‘Friends with the Feegles, are you?’ said Mrs Proust as the dwarfs hurried to deal with Tiffany’s broomstick. ‘They don’t have many, I understand. But talking of friends,’ she continued in a suddenly chatty tone, ‘you did meet Derek, didn’t you? He’s my son, you know. I met his father in a dance hall with very bad lighting. Mr Proust was a very kind man who was always gracious enough to say that kissing a lady without warts was like eating an egg without salt. He passed on twenty-five years ago, of the crisms. I am very sorry I couldn’t help him.’ Her face brightened. ‘But I’m glad to say that young Derek is the joy of my’ — she hesitated — ‘middle age. A wonderful lad, my dear. It’s going to be some lucky girl who takes her chance on young Derek, I can tell you. He’s totally devoted to his work and pays such attention to detail. Do you know, he tunes all the whoopee cushions every morning and frets if any of them are wrong. And conscientious? When we were developing our forth-coming “Pearls of the Pavement” hilarious artificial dog poo collection, he must have spent weeks following just about every type of dog in the city with a notebook, a scoop and a colour chart, just to get everything exactly right. A very meticulous lad, clean in his ways, with all his own teeth. And very careful about his company …’ She gave Tiffany a hopeful but rather sheepish look. ‘This isn’t working, is it?’

‘Oh dear, did it show?’ said Tiffany.

‘I heard the spill words,’ said Mrs Proust.

‘What’s a spill word?’