TERRY
PRATCHETT

DIGGERS

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Prologue

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Excerpt from The Bromeliad Trilogy: Wings

About the Author

Other Works

Credits

Copyright

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About the Publisher

Prologue

IN THE BEGINNING . . .

. . . Arnold Bros (est. 1905) created the Store.

At least, that was the belief of thousands of nomes who for many generations* had lived under the floorboards of Arnold Bros (est. 1905), an old and respected department store.

The Store had become their world. A world with a roof and walls.

Wind and Rain were ancient legends. So were Day and Night. Now there were sprinkler systems and air conditioners, and their small crowded lives ticked to the clock of Opening Time and Closing Time. The seasons of their year were January Sales, Spring Into Spring Fashions, Summer Bargains, and Christmas Fayre. Led by the Abbot and priesthood of the Stationeri, they worshippedâ€”in a polite, easy-going sort of way, so as not to upset himâ€”Arnold Bros (est. 1905), who they believed had created everything, i.e. the Store and all the contents therein.

Some families of nomes had grown rich and powerful and took the namesâ€”more or lessâ€”of the Store departments they lived under . . . the Del Icatessen, the Ironmongri, the Haberdasheri.

And into the Store, on the back of a truck, came the last nomes to live Outside. They knew what wind and rain were, all right. Thatâ€™s why theyâ€™d tried to leave them behind.

Among them was Masklin, rat-hunter, and Granny Morkie and Grimma, although they were women and didnâ€™t really count. And, of course, there was the Thing.

No one quite understood the Thing. Masklinâ€™s people had handed it down for centuries; it was very important, that was all they knew. When it came near the electricity in the Store it was able to talk. It said it was a thinking machine from a ship which, thousands of years before, had brought the nomes from a far Store, or possibly star. It also said it could hear electricity talk, and one of the things the electricity was saying was that the Store would be demolished in three weeks.

It was Masklin who suggested that the nomes leave the Store on a truck. He found, oddly enough, that actually working out how you could drive a giant truck was the easiest part. The hardest part was getting people to believe that they could do it.

He wasnâ€™t the leader. Heâ€™d have liked to be a leader. A leader could stick his chin out and do brave things. What Masklin had to do was argue and persuade and, sometimes, lie very slightly. He found it was often easier to get people to do things if you let them think it was their idea.

Ideas! That was the tricky bit, all right. And there were lots of ideas that they needed. They needed to learn to work together. They needed to learn to read. They needed to think that female nomes were, well, nearly as intelligent as males (although everyone knew that really this was ridiculous and that if females were encouraged to think too much their brains overheated).

Anyway, it all worked. The truck did leave the Store just before it mysteriously burned down and, hardly damaging anything very much, was driven out into the country.

The nomes found an abandoned quarry tucked into a hillside, and moved into the ruined buildings. And then, they knew, everything was going to be All Right. There was going to be, theyâ€™d heard, a Bright New Dawn.

Of course, most nomes had never seen a dawn, bright or otherwise, and if they had they would have known that the trouble with bright new dawns is that theyâ€™re usually followed by cloudy days. With scattered showers.

Six months passed. . . .

This is the story of the Winter.

This is the Great Battle.

This is the story of the awakening of Big John, the Dragon in the Hill, with eyes like great eyes and a voice like a great voice and teeth like great teeth.

But the story didnâ€™t end there.

It didnâ€™t start there, either.

The sky blew a gale. The sky blew a fury. The wind became a wall sweeping across the country, a giant stamping on the land. Small trees bent, big trees broke. The last leaves of autumn whirred through the air like lost bullets.

The trash heap by the gravel pits was deserted. The seagulls that patrolled it had found shelter somewhere, but it was still full of movement.

The wind tore into the heap as though it had something particular against old detergent boxes and leftover shoes. Cans rolled into the ruts and clanked miserably, while lighter bits of rubbish flew up and joined the riot in the sky.

Still the wind burrowed. Papers rustled for a while, then got caught and blasted away.

Finally, one piece that had been flapping for hours tore free and flew up into the booming air. It looked like a large white bird with oblong wings.

Watch it tumble. . . .

It gets caught on a fence, but very briefly. Half of it tears off and now, that much lighter, it pinwheels across the furrows of the field beyond. . . .

It is just gathering speed when a hedge looms up and snaps it out of the air like a fly.

1

I. And in that time were Strange Happenings: the Air moved harshly, the Warmth of the Sky grew Less, on some mornings the tops of puddles grew Hard and Cold.

II. And the nomes said unto one another, What is this Thing?

From The Book of Nome,
Quarries Chap. 1, v. Iâ€“II

â€œWINTER,â€ SAID MASKLIN firmly. â€œItâ€™s called winter.â€

Abbot Gurder frowned at him.

â€œYou never said it would be like this,â€ he said. â€œItâ€™s so cold.â€

â€œCall this cold?â€ said Granny Morkie. â€œCold? This ainâ€™t cold. You think this is cold? You wait till it gets really cold!â€ She was enjoying this, Masklin noticed; Granny Morkie always enjoyed doomâ€”it was what kept her going. â€œItâ€™ll be really cold then, when it gets cold. You get real frosts and, and water comes down out of the sky in frozen bits!â€ She leaned back triumphantly. â€œWhat dâ€™you think to that, then? Eh?â€

â€œYou donâ€™t have to use baby talk to us.â€ Gurder sighed. â€œWe can read, you know. We know what snow is.â€

â€œYes,â€ said Dorcas. â€œThere used to be cards with pictures on, back in the Store. Every time Christmas Fayre came around. We know about snow. Itâ€™s glittery.â€

â€œYou get robins,â€ agreed Gurder.

â€œThereâ€™s, er, actually thereâ€™s a bit more to it than that,â€ Masklin began.

Dorcas waved him into silence. â€œI donâ€™t think we need to worry,â€ he said. â€œWeâ€™re well dug in, the food stores are looking satisfactory, and we know where to go to get more if we need it. Unless anyoneâ€™s got anything else to raise, why donâ€™t we close the meeting?â€

Everything was going well. Or, at least, not very badly.

Oh, there was still plenty of squabbling and rows between the various families, but that was nomish nature for you. Thatâ€™s why theyâ€™d set up the Council, which seemed to be working.

Nomes liked arguing. At least the Council of Drivers meant they could argue without hitting one anotherâ€”or hardly ever.

Funny thing, though. Back in the Store, the great departmental families had run things. But now all the families were mixed up and, anyway, there were no departments in a quarry. But by instinct, almost, nomes liked hierarchies. The world had always been neatly divided between those who told people what to do and those who did it. So, in a strange way, a new set of leaders was emerging.

The Drivers.

It depended on where you had been during the Long Drive. If you were one of the ones who had been in the truck cab, then you were a Driver. All the rest were just Passengers. No one talked about it much. It wasnâ€™t official or anything. It was just that the bulk of nomekind felt that anyone who could get the Truck all the way here was the sort of person who knew what they were doing.

Being a Driver wasnâ€™t necessarily much fun.

Last year, before theyâ€™d found the Store, Masklin had to hunt all day. Now he hunted only when he felt like it; the younger Store nomes liked hunting, and apparently it wasnâ€™t right for a Driver to do it. They mined potatoes, and thereâ€™d been a big harvest of corn from a nearby field, even after the machines had been round. Masklin would have preferred them to grow their own food, but the nomes didnâ€™t seem to have the knack of making seeds grow in the rock-hard ground of the quarry. But they were getting fed, that was the main thing.

Around him he could feel thousands of nomes living their lives. Raising families. Settling down.

He wandered back to his own burrow, down under one of the derelict quarry sheds. After a while he reached a decision and pulled the Thing out of its own hole in the wall.

None of its lights were on. They wouldnâ€™t go on until it was close to electricity wires, when it would light up and be able to talk. There were some in the quarry, and Dorcas had got them working. Masklin hadnâ€™t taken the Thing to them, though. The solid black box had a way of talking that always made him unsettled.

He was pretty certain it could hear, though.

â€œOld Torrit died last week,â€ he said after a while. â€œWe were a bit sad but, after all, he was very old and he just died. I mean, nothing ate him first or ran him over or anything.â€

Masklinâ€™s little tribe had once lived in a highway embankment beside rolling countryside that was full of things that were hungry for fresh nome. The idea that you could die simply of not being alive anymore was a new one to them.

â€œSo we buried him up on the edge of the potato field, too deep for the plow. The Store nomes havenâ€™t got the hang of burial yet, I think. They think heâ€™s going to sprout, or something. I think theyâ€™re mixing it up with what you do with seeds. Of course, they donâ€™t know about growing things. Because of living in the Store, you see. Itâ€™s all new to them. Theyâ€™re always complaining about eating food that comes out of the ground; they think itâ€™s not natural. And they think the rain is a sprinkler system. I think they think the whole world is just a bigger store. Um.â€

He stared at the unresponsive cube for a while, scraping his mind for other things to say.

â€œAnyway, that means Granny Morkie is the oldest nome,â€ he said eventually. â€œAnd that means sheâ€™s entitled to a place on the Council even though sheâ€™s a woman. Abbot Gurder objected to that, but we said, All right, you tell her, and he wouldnâ€™t, so she is. Um.â€

He looked at his fingernails. The Thing had a way of listening that was quite off-putting.

â€œEveryoneâ€™s worried about the winter. Um. But weâ€™ve got masses of potatoes stored up, and itâ€™s quite warm down here. Theyâ€™ve got some funny ideas, though. In the Store they said that when it was Christmas Fayre time, there was this thing that came called Santer Claws. I just hope it hasnâ€™t followed us, thatâ€™s all. Um.â€

He scratched an ear.

â€œAll in all, everythingâ€™s going right. Um.â€

He leaned closer.

â€œYou know what that means? If you think everythingâ€™s going right, somethingâ€™s going wrong that you havenâ€™t heard about yet. Thatâ€™s what I say. Um.â€

The black cube managed to look sympathetic.

â€œEveryone says I worry too much. I donâ€™t think itâ€™s possible to worry too much. Um.â€

He thought some more.

â€œUm. I think thatâ€™s about all the news for now.â€ He lifted the Thing up and put it back in its hole.

Heâ€™d wondered whether to tell it about his argument with Grimma, but that was, well, personal.

It was all that reading books, that was what it was. He shouldnâ€™t have let her learn to read, filling her head with stuff she didnâ€™t need to know. Gurder was rightâ€”womenâ€™s brains did overheat. Grimmaâ€™s seemed to be boiling hot the whole time, these days.

Heâ€™d gone and said, Look, now everything was settled down more, it was time they got married like the Store nomes did, with the Abbot muttering words and everything.

And sheâ€™d said she wasnâ€™t sure.

So heâ€™d said, It doesnâ€™t work like thatâ€”you get told, you get married, thatâ€™s how itâ€™s done.

And sheâ€™d said, Not anymore.

Heâ€™d complained to Granny Morkie. Youâ€™d have expected some support there, he thought. She was a great one for tradition, was Granny. Heâ€™d said: Granny, Grimma isnâ€™t doing what I tell her.

And sheâ€™d said: Good luck to her. Wish Iâ€™d thought of not doinâ€™ what I was told when I was a girl.

Then heâ€™d complained to Gurder, whoâ€™d said, Yes, it was very wrong, girls should do what they were instructed. And Masklin had said, Right then, you tell her. And Gurder had said, Well, er, sheâ€™s got a real temper on her, perhaps it would be better to leave it a bit and these were, after all, changing times. . . .

Changing times. Well, that was true enough. Masklin had done most of the changing. Heâ€™d had to make people think in different ways to leave the Store. Changing was necessary. Change was right. He was all in favor of change.

What he was dead set against was things not staying the same.

His spear was leaning in the corner. What a pathetic thing it was . . . now. Just a bit of flint held onto the shaft with a twist of binder twine. Theyâ€™d brought saws and things from the Store. They could use metal these days.

He stared at the spear for some time. Then he picked it up and went out for a long, serious think about things and his position in them. Or, as other people would have put it, a good sulk.

The old quarry was about halfway up the hillside. There was a steep turf slope above it, which in turn became a riot of bramble and hawthorn thicket. There were fields beyond.

Below the quarry, a lane wound down through scrubby hedges and joined the main road. Beyond that there was the railway, another name for two long lines of metal on big wooden blocks. Things like very long trucks went along it sometimes, all joined together.

The nomes had not got the railway fully worked out yet. But it was obviously dangerous, because they could see a lane that crossed it, and whenever the railway moving thing was coming, two gates came down over the road.

The nomes knew what gates were for. You saw them on fields, to stop things getting out. It stood to reason, therefore, that the gates were to stop the railway from escaping from its rails and rushing around on the roads.

Then there were more fields, some gravel pitsâ€”good for fishing, for the nomes who wanted fishâ€”and then there was the airport.

Masklin had spent hours in the summer watching the planes. They drove along the ground, he noticed, and then went up sharply, like birds, and got smaller and smaller and disappeared.

That was the big worry. Masklin sat on his favorite stone, in the rain that was starting to fall, and started to worry about it. So many things were worrying him these days, he had to stack them up, but below all of them was this big one.

They should be going where the planes went. That was what the Thing had told him, when it was still speaking to him. The nomes had come from the sky. Up above the sky, in fact, which was a bit hard to understand, because surely the only thing above the sky was more sky. And they should go back. It was their . . . something beginning with D. Density. Their density. Worlds of their own, they once had. And somehow theyâ€™d got stuck here. Butâ€”this was the worrying partâ€”the Ship thing, the airplane that flew through the really high sky, between the stars, was still up there somewhere. The first nomes had left it behind when they came down here in a smaller ship, and it had crashed, and they hadnâ€™t been able to get back.

And he was the only one who knew.

The old Abbot, the one before Gurder, he had known. Grimma and Dorcas and Gurder all knew some of it, but they had busy minds and they were practical people, and there was so much to organize these days.

It was just that everyone was settling down. Weâ€™re going to turn this into our little world, just like in the Store, Masklin realized. They thought the roof was the sky, and we think the sky is the roof.

Weâ€™ll just stay and . . .

There was a truck coming up the quarry road. It was such an unusual sight that Masklin realized he had been watching it for a while without really seeing it at all.

â€œThere was no one on watch! Why wasnâ€™t there anyone on watch? I said there should always be someone on watch!â€

Half a dozen nomes scurried through the dying bracken toward the quarry gate.

â€œIt was Saccoâ€™s turn,â€ muttered Angalo.

â€œNo, it wasnâ€™t!â€ hissed Sacco. â€œYou remember, yesterday you asked me to swap becauseâ€”â€

â€œI donâ€™t care whose turn it was!â€ shouted Masklin. â€œThere was no one there! And there should have been! Right?â€

â€œSorry, Masklin.â€

â€œYeah. Sorry, Masklin.â€

They scrambled up a bank and flattened themselves behind a tuft of dried grass.

It was a small truck, as far as trucks went. A human had already climbed out of it and was doing something to the gates leading into the quarry.

â€œItâ€™s a Land Rover,â€ said Angalo smugly. Heâ€™d spent a long time in the Store reading everything he could about vehicles, before the Long Drive. He liked them. â€œItâ€™s not really a truck, itâ€™s more to carry humans overâ€”â€

â€œThat human is sticking something on the gate,â€ said Masklin.

â€œOn our gate,â€ said Sacco disapprovingly.

â€œBit odd,â€ said Angalo. The man sleepwalked, in the slow, ponderous way that humans did, back to the vehicle. Eventually it backed around and roared off.

â€œAll the way up here just to stick a bit of paper on the gate,â€ said Angalo, as the nomes stood up. â€œThatâ€™s humans for you.â€

Masklin frowned. Humans were big and stupid, that was true enough, but there was something unstoppable about them, and they seemed to be controlled by bits of paper. Back in the Store, a piece of paper had said the Store was going to be demolished and, sure enough, it had been demolished. You couldnâ€™t trust humans with bits of paper.

He pointed to the rusty wire netting, an easy climb for an agile nome.

â€œSacco,â€ he said, â€œyouâ€™d better fetch it down.â€

Miles away, another piece of paper fluttered on the hedge. Spots of rain pattered across its sun-bleached words, soaking the paper until it was heavy and soggy and . . .

. . . tore.

It flopped onto the grass, free. A breeze made it rustle.

2

III. But there came a Sign, and people said, What is it that this means?

IV. And it was not good.

From The Book of Nome,
Signs Chap. 1, v. IIIâ€“IV

GURDER SHUFFLED ON hands and knees across the paper that had been taken down from the gate.

â€œOf course I can read it,â€ he said. â€œI know what every word means.â€

â€œWell, then?â€ said Masklin.

Gurder looked embarrassed. â€œItâ€™s what every sentence means thatâ€™s giving me trouble,â€ he said. â€œIt says here . . . where was it . . . yes, it says here the quarry is going to be reopened. What does that mean? Itâ€™s open alreadyâ€”any fool knows that. You can see for miles.â€

The other nomes crowded around. You certainly could see for miles. That was the terrible part. On three sides the quarry had decent high cliff walls, but on the fourth side . . . well, you got into the habit of not looking in that direction. There was too much of nothing, which made you feel even smaller and more vulnerable than you were already.

Even if the meaning of the paper wasnâ€™t clear, it certainly looked unpleasant.

â€œThe quarryâ€™s a hole in the ground,â€ said Dorcas. â€œYou canâ€™t open a hole unless itâ€™s been filled in. Stands to reason.â€

â€œA quarryâ€™s a place you get stone from,â€ said Grimma. â€œHumans do it. They dig a hole and they use the stone for making, well, roads and things.â€

â€œI expect you read that, did you?â€ said Gurder sourly. He suspected Grimma of lack of respect for authority. It was also incredibly annoying that, against all the obvious deficiencies of her sex, she was better at reading than he was.

â€œI did, actually,â€ said Grimma, tossing her head.

â€œBut, you see,â€ said Masklin patiently, â€œthere arenâ€™t any more stones here, Grimma. Thatâ€™s why thereâ€™s a hole.â€

â€œGood point,â€ said Gurder sternly.

â€œThen heâ€™ll make the hole bigger!â€ snapped Grimma. â€œLook at those cliffs up thereâ€â€”they obediently lookedâ€”â€œtheyâ€™re made of stone! Look hereâ€â€”every head swiveled down to where her foot was tapping impatiently at the paperâ€”â€œit says itâ€™s for a highway extension! Thatâ€™s a road! Heâ€™s going to make the quarry bigger! Our quarry! Thatâ€™s what it says heâ€™s going to do!â€

There was a long silence.

Then Dorcas said: â€œWho is?â€

â€œOrder! Heâ€™s put his name on it,â€ said Grimma.

â€œSheâ€™s right, you know,â€ said Masklin. â€œLook. It says: â€˜To be reopened, by Order.â€™â€

The nomes shuffled their feet. Order. It didnâ€™t sound like a promising name. Anyone called Order would probably be capable of anything.

Gurder stood up and brushed the dust off his robe.

â€œItâ€™s only a piece of paper, when allâ€™s said and done,â€ he said sullenly.

â€œBut the human came up here,â€ said Masklin. â€œTheyâ€™ve never come up here before.â€

â€œDunno about that,â€ said Dorcas. â€œI mean, all the quarry buildings. The old workshops. The doorways and so on. I mean, theyâ€™re for humans. Always worried me, that has. Where humans have been before, they tend to go again. Theyâ€™re rascals for that.â€

There was another crowded silence, the kind that gets made by lots of people thinking unhappy thoughts.

â€œDo you mean,â€ said a nome slowly, â€œthat weâ€™ve come all this way, weâ€™ve worked so hard to make a place to live in, and now itâ€™s going to be taken away?â€

â€œI donâ€™t think we should get too disturbed right at this timeâ€”â€ Gurder began.

â€œWeâ€™ve got families here,â€ said another nome. Masklin realized that it was Angalo. Heâ€™d been married in the spring to a young lady from the del Icatessen family, and theyâ€™d already got a fine pair of youngsters, two months old and talking already.

â€œAnd we were going to have another go at planting seeds,â€ said another nome. â€œWeâ€™ve spent ages clearing that ground behind the big sheds. You know that.â€

Gurder raised his hand imploringly.

â€œWe donâ€™t know anything,â€ he said. â€œWe mustnâ€™t start getting upset until weâ€™ve found out whatâ€™s going on.â€

â€œAnd then can we get upset?â€ said another nome sourly. Masklin recognized Nisodemus, one of the Stationeri and Gurderâ€™s own assistant. Heâ€™d never liked the young nome, and the young nome had never liked anyone, as far as Masklin could see.

â€œIâ€™ve never, um, been happy with the feel of this place, um, I knew there was going to be troubleâ€”â€ Nisodemus complained.

â€œNow, now, Nisodemus,â€ said Gurder. â€œThereâ€™s no cause to go talking like that. Weâ€™ll have another meeting of the Council,â€ he added. â€œThatâ€™s what weâ€™ll do.â€

The crumpled newspaper lay beside the road. Occasionally a breeze would blow it randomly along the shoulder while, a few inches away, the traffic thundered past.

A stronger gust hit it at the same time as a particularly large truck roared by, dragging a tail of whirling air. The paper shot up over the road, spread out like a sail, and rose on the wind.

The Quarry Council was in session, in the space under the floor of the old quarry office.

Other nomes had crowded in, and the rest of the tribe milled around outside.

â€œLook,â€ said Angalo, â€œthereâ€™s a big old barn up on the hill, the other side of the potato field. It wouldnâ€™t hurt to take some stores up there. Make it ready, you know. Just in case. Then if anything does happen, weâ€™ve got somewhere to go.â€

â€œThe quarry buildings donâ€™t have spaces under the floors, except in the canteen and the office,â€ said Dorcas gloomily. â€œItâ€™s not like the Store. There arenâ€™t many places to hide. We need the sheds. If humans come here, weâ€™ll have to leave.â€

â€œSo the barn will be a good idea, wonâ€™t it?â€ repeated Angalo.

â€œThereâ€™s a man on a tractor who goes up there sometimes,â€ said Masklin.

â€œWe could keep out of his way. Anyway,â€ said Angalo, looking around at the rows of faces, â€œmaybe the humans will go away again. Perhaps theyâ€™ll just take their stone and go. And we can come back. We could send someone to spy on them every day.â€

â€œIt seems to me youâ€™ve been thinking about this barn for some time,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œMe and Masklin talked about it one day when we were hunting up there,â€ said Angalo. â€œDidnâ€™t we, Masklin?â€

â€œHmm?â€ said Masklin, who was staring into space.

â€œYou remember, we went up there and I said thatâ€™d be a useful place if ever we needed it, and you said yes.â€

â€œHmm,â€ said Masklin.

â€œYes, but thereâ€™s this Winter thing coming,â€ said one of the nomes. â€œYou know. Cold. Glitter on everythinâ€™.â€

â€œRobins,â€ another nome put in.

â€œYeah,â€ said the first nome uncertainly. â€œThem, too. Not a good time to go movinâ€™ around, with robins zoominâ€™ about.â€

â€œNothing wrong with robins,â€ said Granny Morkie, who had nodded off for a moment. â€œMy dad used to say thereâ€™s good eatinâ€™ on a robin, if you catched one.â€ She beamed at them proudly.

This comment had the same effect on everyoneâ€™s train of thought as a brick wall built across the line. Eventually Gurder said: â€œI still say we shouldnâ€™t get too excited right at this moment. We should wait and trust in Arnold Bros (est. 1905)â€™s guidance.â€

There was more silence. Then Angalo said, very quietly: â€œFat lot of good thatâ€™ll do us.â€

There was silence again. But this time it was a thick, heavy silence, and it got thicker and heavier and more menacing, like a storm cloud building up over a mountain, until the first flash of lightning would come as a relief.

It came.

â€œWhat did you say?â€ said Gurder, slowly.

â€œOnly what everyoneâ€™s been thinking,â€ said Angalo. Many of the nomes started to stare at their feet.

â€œAnd what do you mean by that?â€ said Gurder.

â€œWhere is Arnold Bros (est. 1905), then?â€ said Angalo. â€œHow did he help us get out of the Store? Exactly, I mean? He didnâ€™t, did he?â€ Angaloâ€™s voice shook a bit, as if even he was terrified to hear himself talking like this. â€œWe did it. By learning things. We did it all ourselves. We learned to read books, your books, and we found things out and we did things for ourselves. . . .â€

Gurder jumped to his feet, white with fury. Beside him Nisodemus put his hand over his mouth and looked too shocked to speak.

â€œArnold Bros (est. 1905) goes wherever nomes go!â€ Gurder shouted.

Angalo swayed backward, but his father had been one of the toughest nomes in the Store, and he didnâ€™t give in easily.

â€œYou just made that up!â€ he snorted. â€œIâ€™m not saying that there wasnâ€™t, well, something in the Store, but that was the Store and this is here, and all weâ€™ve got is us! The trouble is, you Stationeri were so powerful in the Store, you just canâ€™t bear to give it up!â€

Now Masklin stood up.

â€œJust a moment, you twoâ€”â€ he began.

â€œSo thatâ€™s all it is, is it?â€ growled Gurder, ignoring him. â€œThatâ€™s the Haberdasheri for you! You always were too proud! Too arrogant by half! Drive a truck a little way and we think we know it all, do we? Perhaps weâ€™re getting what we deserve, eh?â€

â€œâ€”this isnâ€™t the time or place for this sort of thingâ€”â€ Masklin went on.

â€œThatâ€™s just a silly threat! Why canâ€™t you accept it, you old fool. Arnold Bros doesnâ€™t exist! Use the brains Arnold Bros gave you, why donâ€™t you?â€

â€œIf you donâ€™t both shut up Iâ€™ll bang your heads together!â€

That seemed to work.

â€œRight,â€ said Masklin, in a more normal voice. â€œNow, I think it would be a very good idea if everyone went and got on withâ€”with whatever it was they were getting on with. Because this is no way to make complicated decisions. We all need to think for a bit.â€

The nomes filed out, relieved that it was over. Masklin could hear Gurder and Angalo still arguing.

â€œNot you two,â€ he warned.

â€œNow lookâ€”â€ said Gurder.

â€œNo, you look, the pair of you!â€ said Masklin. â€œHere we are, maybe a big problem looming up, and you start arguing! You both ought to know better! Canâ€™t you see youâ€™re upsetting people?â€

â€œWell, itâ€™s important,â€ muttered Angalo.

â€œWhat we should do now,â€ said Masklin sharply, â€œis have another look at this barn. Canâ€™t say Iâ€™m happy with the idea, but it might be useful to have a bolt-hole. Anyway, itâ€™ll keep people occupied, and thatâ€™ll stop them worrying. How about it?â€

â€œI suppose so,â€ said Gurder, with bad grace. â€œButâ€”â€

â€œNo more buts,â€ said Masklin. â€œYouâ€™re acting like idiots. People look up to the pair of you, so youâ€™ll set an example, do you hear?â€

They glowered at each other, but they both nodded.

â€œRight, then,â€ said Masklin. â€œNow, weâ€™ll all go out, and peopleâ€™ll see youâ€™ve made up, and thatâ€™ll stop them fretting. Then we can start planning.â€

â€œBut Arnold Bros (est. 1905) is important,â€ said Gurder.

â€œI daresay,â€ said Masklin, as they came out into the daylight of the quarry. The wind was dropping again, leaving the sky a deep cold blue.

â€œThereâ€™s no â€˜daresayâ€™ about it,â€ said Gurder.

â€œListen,â€ said Masklin, â€œI donâ€™t know whether Arnold Bros exists, or was in the Store, or just lives in our heads or whatever. What I do know is that he isnâ€™t just going to drop out of the sky.â€

All three of them glanced up when he said this. The Store nomes shuddered just a bit. It still took a certain courage to look up at the endless sky when youâ€™d been used to nice friendly floorboards, but it was traditional, when you referred to Arnold Bros, to look up. Up was where Management and Accounts had been, back in the Store.

â€œFunny you should say that. Thereâ€™s something up there,â€ said Angalo.

Something white and vaguely rectangular was drifting gently through the air, and growing bigger.

â€œItâ€™s just a bit of paper,â€ said Gurder. â€œSomething the windâ€™s blown off the dump.â€

It was definitely a lot bigger now, and turned gently in the air as it tumbled into the quarry.

â€œI think,â€ said Masklin slowly, as its shadow raced toward him across the ground, â€œthat weâ€™d better stand back a bitâ€”â€

It dropped on him.

It was, of course, only paper. But nomes are small and it had fallen quite some way, so the force was enough to knock him over.

What was more surprising were the words he saw as he fell backward. They were: Arnold Bros.

3

I. And they Sought for a Better Sign from Arnold Bros (est. 1905), and there was a Sign;

II. And some spake up saying, Well, all right, but it is really nothing but a Co incidence;

III. But others said, Even a Co incidence can be a Sign.

From The Book of Nome,
Signs Chap. 2, v. Iâ€“III

MASKLIN HAD ALWAYS kept an open mind on the subject of Arnold Bros (est. 1905). When you thought about it, the Store had been pretty impressive, what with the moving staircases and so on, and if Arnold Bros (est. 1905) hadnâ€™t created it, who had? After all, that left only humans. Not that he considered humans to be as stupid as most nomes thought. They might be big and slow, but there was a sort of unstoppability about them. They could certainly be taught to do simple tasks.

On the other hand, the world was miles across and full of complicated things. It seemed to be asking a lot of Arnold Bros (est. 1905) to create the whole thing.

So Masklin had decided not to decide anything about Arnold Bros (est. 1905), in the hope that if there was an Arnold Bros (est. 1905) and he found out about Masklin, he wouldnâ€™t mind much.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

The faded newspaper from the sky had been carefully spread out on the floor of one of the old sheds.

It was covered with words. Most of them even Masklin could understand, but even Grimma had to admit she couldnâ€™t guess at what they were supposed to mean when you read them all in one go. SCHOOL SLAMS SHOCK PROBE, for example, was a bit of a mystery. So was FURY OVER RATES REBEL. So was PLAY SUPER BINGO IN YOUR SOARAWAY BLACKBURY EVENING POST & GAZETTE. But they were mysteries that would have to wait.

What all eyes were staring at was the quite small area of words, about nome sized, under the word PEOPLE.

â€œThat means people,â€ said Grimma.

â€œReally?â€ said Masklin.

â€œAnd the lettering underneath it says: â€˜Fun-loving, globe-trotting millionaire playboy Richard Arnold will be jetting to the Florida sunshine next week to witness the launch of Arnsat 1, the first communiâ€™â€â€”she hesitatedâ€”â€œâ€˜cations sat . . . ellite built by Arnco Inter . . . national Group. This leap into the future comes only a few months after the dest . . . ruction by fire ofâ€”â€™â€

The nomes, whoâ€™d been silently reading along with her, shivered.

â€œArnold Bros, the store here in Blackbury that was the first of the Arnold chain and the basis of the multimillion trad . . . ing group. It was founded in 1905 by Alderman Frank W. Arnold and his brother Arthur. Grand . . . son Richard, 39, who willâ€”â€ Her voice faded to a whisper.

â€œGrandson Richard, 39,â€ repeated Gurder, his face bright with triumph. â€œWhat dâ€™you think of that, eh?â€

â€œWhat does globe-trotting mean?â€ said Masklin.

â€œWell, globe means ball, and trotting is a sort of slow running,â€ said Grimma. â€œSo he runs slowly on a ball. Globe-trotting.â€

â€œThis is a message from Arnold Bros,â€ said Gurder ponderously. â€œItâ€™s been sent to us. A message.â€

â€œA message meant, um, for us!â€ said Nisodemus, who was standing just behind Gurder. He held up his hands. â€œYea, all the way fromâ€”â€

â€œYes, yes, Nisodemus,â€ said Gurder. â€œDo be quiet, thereâ€™s a good chap.â€ He gave Masklin an embarrassed look.

â€œDoesnâ€™t sound very likely, running slowly. I mean, youâ€™d fall off. If it was a ball, is what Iâ€™m saying,â€ said Masklin.

They stared at The Picture again. It was made up of tiny dots. They showed a smiling face. It had teeth and a beard.

â€œIt stands to reason,â€ said Gurder, more confidently. â€œArnold Bros (est. 1905) has sent Grandson Richard, 39, toâ€”toâ€”â€

â€œAnd these two names who founded the Store,â€ said Masklin. â€œI donâ€™t understand that. I thought Arnold Bros (est. 1905) created the Store.â€

â€œThen these two people founded it,â€ said Gurder. â€œThat makes sense. It was a big Store. Itâ€™d be easy to find, even if you werenâ€™t looking for it.â€ He looked slightly uneasy. â€œLosted and founded,â€ he said, half to himself. â€œThat makes sense. Yes.â€

â€œO-kay,â€ said Dorcas. â€œSo letâ€™s just see where weâ€™ve got to. The message is, isnâ€™t it, that Grandson Richard, 39, is in Florida, wherever that isâ€”â€

â€œGoing to be in Florida,â€ said Grimma.

â€œItâ€™s a type of colored juice,â€ volunteered a nome. â€œI know, â€™cause one day when we went over to the dump, there was this old carton, and it said â€˜Florida Orange Juice.â€™ I read it,â€ he added proudly.

â€œGoing to be in this orange-colored juice, so Iâ€™m given to understand,â€ said Dorcas doubtfully, â€œrunning slowly on a ball and jetting, whatever that is. And liking it, apparently.â€

The nomes fell silent while they thought about this.

â€œHoly utterances are often difficult to understand,â€ said Gurder gravely.

â€œThis must be a powerful holy one,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œI think itâ€™s just a coincidence,â€ said Angalo loftily. â€œThis is just a story about a human being, like in some of the books we read.â€

â€œAnd how many humans could even stand on a ball, let alone run slowly on it?â€ demanded Gurder.

â€œAll right,â€ said Angalo, â€œbut what are we going to do, then?â€

Gurderâ€™s mouth opened and shut a few times. â€œWhy, itâ€™s obvious,â€ he said uncertainly.

â€œTell us, then,â€ said Angalo sourly.

â€œWell, er. Itâ€™s, er, obvious. We must go to, er, the place where the orange juice isâ€”â€

â€œYes?â€ said Angalo.

â€œAnd, er, and find Grandson Richard, 39, which should be easy, you see, because weâ€™ve got this pictureâ€”â€

â€œYes?â€ said Angalo.

Gurder gave him a haughty look. â€œRemember the commandment that Arnold Bros (est. 1905) put up in the Store,â€ he said. â€œDid it not say, If You Do Not See What You Require, Please Ask?â€

The nomes nodded. Many of them had seen it. And the other commandments: Everything Must Go, and, by the Moving Stairs, Dogs and Strollers Must be Carried. They were the words of Arnold Bros (est. 1905). You couldnâ€™t really argue with them. . . . But on the other hand, well, that had been the Store, and this was here.

â€œAnd?â€ said Angalo.

Gurder began to sweat. â€œWell, er, and then we ask him to let us be left alone in the quarry.â€

There was an awkward silence.

Then Angalo said, â€œThat sounds like about the most half-bakedâ€”â€

â€œWhat does jetting mean?â€ said Grimma. â€œIs it anything to do with jet?â€

â€œA jet is a kind of aircraft,â€ said Angalo, the transport expert.

â€œSo jetting means to go like an aircraft. Or in an aircraft?â€ said Grimma.

Everyone turned to Masklin, whose fascination with the airport was well known to one and all.

He wasnâ€™t there.

Masklin pulled the Thing from its niche in the wall and padded back out into the open. The Thing didnâ€™t have to be attached to any wires. It was enough to put it near them.

There was electricity in the old managerâ€™s office. He ran across the empty alley between the tumbledown buildings and squeezed his way in through a crack in the sagging door.

Then he placed the box in the middle of the floor and waited.

It took some time for the Thing to wake up. Its lights flickered at random and it made odd beeping noises. Masklin supposed it was the machineâ€™s equivalent of a nome getting up in the morning.

Eventually it said, â€œWho is there?â€

â€œItâ€™s me,â€ said Masklin, â€œMasklin. Look, I need to know what the words â€˜communications satelliteâ€™ mean. Iâ€™ve heard you use the word â€˜satelliteâ€™ before. You said the moon is one, didnâ€™t you?â€

â€œYes. But communications satellites are artificial moons. They are used for communications. Communications means the transferring of information. In this case, by radio and television.â€

â€œWhatâ€™s television?â€ said Masklin.

â€œA means of sending pictures through the air.â€

â€œDoes this happen a lot?â€

â€œAll the time.â€

Masklin made a mental note to look out for any pictures in the air.

â€œI see,â€ he lied. â€œSo these satellitesâ€”where are they, exactly?â€

â€œIn the sky.â€

â€œI donâ€™t think Iâ€™ve ever seen one,â€ said Masklin doubtfully. There was an idea forming in his mind. He wasnâ€™t quite sure yet. Bits and pieces of things heâ€™d read and heard were coming together. The important thing was to let them take their own time, and not frighten them away.

â€œThey are in orbit, many miles up. There are a great many above this planet,â€ said the Thing.

â€œHow do you know that?â€

â€œI can detect them.â€

â€œOh.â€

Masklin stared at the flickering lights.

â€œIf they are artificial, does that mean theyâ€™re not real?â€ he said.

â€œThey are machines. They are usually built on the planet and then launched into space.â€

The idea was nearly there now. It was rising like a bubble. . . .

â€œSpace is where our Ship is, you said.â€

â€œThat is correct.â€

Masklin felt the idea explode quietly, like a dandelion. â€œIf we knew where one of these things was going to be flown into space,â€ he said, speaking quickly before the words had time to escape, â€œand we could sort of hang on to the sides or whatever, or maybe drive it like the Truck, and we took you with us, then we could jump off when we got up there and go and find this Ship of ours, couldnâ€™t we?â€

The lights on top of the Thing moved oddly, into patterns Masklin had never seen before. This went on for quite a while before it spoke again. When it did, it sounded almost sad.

â€œDo you know how big space is?â€ it said.

â€œNo,â€ said Masklin politely. â€œItâ€™s pretty big, is it?â€

â€œYes. However, it might be possible for me to detect and summon the Ship if I were taken above the atmosphere. But do you know what the words â€˜oxygen supplyâ€™ mean?â€

â€œNo.â€

â€œâ€˜Space suitâ€™?â€

â€œNo.â€

â€œIt is very cold in space.â€

â€œWell, couldnâ€™t we sort of jump around a bit to keep warm?â€ said Masklin desperately.

â€œI think you do not appreciate what it is that space contains.â€

â€œWhatâ€™s that, then?â€

â€œNothing. It contains nothing. And everything. But there is very little everything and more nothing than you could imagine.â€

â€œItâ€™s still worth a try, though, isnâ€™t it?â€

â€œWhat you are proposing is an extremely unwise endeavor,â€ said the Thing.

â€œYes, but, you see,â€ said Masklin firmly, â€œif I donâ€™t try, then itâ€™s always going to be like this. Weâ€™re always going to escape, and find somewhere new, and just when weâ€™re getting the hang of it all, weâ€™ll have to go again. Sooner or later we must find somewhere that we can know really belongs to us. Dorcas is right. Humans get everywhere. Anyway, you were the one who told me that our Home was . . . up there somewhere.â€

â€œThis is not the right time. You are ill prepared.â€

Masklin clenched his fists. â€œIâ€™ll never be well prepared! I was born in a hole, Thing! A muddy hole in the ground! How can I ever be well prepared for anything? Thatâ€™s what being alive is, Thing! Itâ€™s being badly prepared for everything! Because you only get one chance, Thing! You only get one chance and then you die and they donâ€™t let you go round again after youâ€™ve got the hang of it! Do you understand, Thing! So weâ€™ll try it now! I order you to help! Youâ€™re a machine and you must do what youâ€™re told!â€

The lights formed a spiral.

â€œYouâ€™re learning fast,â€ said the Thing.

4

III. And in a voice like Thunder, the Great Masklin said unto the Thing, Now is the Time to go back to our Home in the Sky;

IV. Or we will Forever be Running from Place to Place.

V. But None must know what I Intend, or they will say, Ridiculous, Why go to the Sky when we Have Problems Right Here?

VI. Because that is how People are.

From The Book of Nome,
Quarries Chap. 2, v. IIIâ€“VI

GURDER AND ANGALO were having a blazing row when Masklin got back.

He didnâ€™t try to interrupt. He just put the Thing down on the floor and sat down next to it, and watched them.

Funny how people needed to argue. The whole secret was not to listen to what the other person was saying, Masklin had noticed.

Gurder and Angalo had really got the hang of that. The trouble was that neither of them was entirely certain he was right, and the funny thing was that people who werenâ€™t entirely certain they were right always argued much louder than other people, as if the main person they were trying to convince were themselves. Gurder was not certain, not entirely certain, that Arnold Bros (est. 1905) really existed, and Angalo wasnâ€™t entirely certain that he didnâ€™t.

Eventually Angalo noticed Masklin.

â€œYou tell him, Masklin,â€ he said. â€œHe wants to go and find Grandson Richard, 39!â€

â€œDo you? Where do you think we should look?â€ Masklin asked Gurder.

â€œThe airport,â€ said Gurder. â€œYou know that. Jetting. In a jet. Thatâ€™s what heâ€™ll do.â€

â€œBut we know the airport!â€ said Angalo. â€œIâ€™ve been right up to the fence several times! Humans go in and out of it all day! Grandson Richard, 39, looks just like them! He could have gone already. He could be in the juice by now! You canâ€™t believe words that just drop out of the sky!â€ He turned to Masklin again. â€œMasklinâ€™s a steady lad,â€ he said. â€œHeâ€™ll tell you. You tell him, Masklin,â€ he said. â€œYou listen to him, Gurder. He thinks about things, Masklin does. At a time like thisâ€”â€

â€œLetâ€™s go to the airport,â€ said Masklin.

â€œThere,â€ said Angalo, â€œI told you, Masklin isnâ€™t the kind of nomeâ€”what?â€

â€œLetâ€™s go to the airport and watch.â€

Angaloâ€™s mouth opened and shut silently.

â€œBut . . . but . . .â€ he managed.

â€œIt must be worth a try,â€ said Masklin.

â€œBut itâ€™s all just a coincidence!â€ said Angalo.

Masklin shrugged. â€œThen weâ€™ll come back. Iâ€™m not suggesting we all go. Just a few of us.â€

â€œBut supposing something happens while weâ€™re gone?â€

â€œItâ€™ll happen anyway, then. Thereâ€™s thousands of us. Getting people to the old barn wonâ€™t be difficult, if we need to do it. Itâ€™s not like the Long Drive.â€

Angalo hesitated. â€œThen Iâ€™ll go,â€ he said. â€œJust to prove to you how, how superstitious youâ€™re being.â€

â€œGood,â€ said Masklin.

â€œProvided Gurder comes, of course,â€ Angalo added.

â€œWhat?â€ said Gurder.

â€œWell, you are the Abbot,â€ said Angalo sarcastically. â€œIf weâ€™re going to talk to Grandson Richard, 39, then itâ€™d better be you who does it. I mean, he probably wonâ€™t want to listen to anyone else.â€

â€œAha!â€ shouted Gurder. â€œYou think I wonâ€™t come! Itâ€™d be worth it just to see your faceâ€”â€

â€œThatâ€™s settled, then,â€ said Masklin calmly. â€œAnd now, I think weâ€™d better see about keeping a special watch on the road. And some teams had better go to the old barn. And it would be a good idea to see what people can carry. Just in case, you know.â€

Grimma was waiting for him outside. She didnâ€™t look happy.

â€œI know you,â€ she said. â€œI know the kind of expression you have when youâ€™re getting people to do things they donâ€™t want to do. What are you planning?â€

They strolled into the shadow of a rusting sheet of corrugated iron. Masklin occasionally squinted upward. This morning heâ€™d thought the sky was just a blue thing with clouds. Now it was something that was full of words and invisible pictures and machines whizzing around. Why was it that the more you found out, the less you really knew?

Eventually he said, â€œI canâ€™t tell you. Iâ€™m not quite sure myself.â€

â€œItâ€™s to do with the Thing, isnâ€™t it?â€

â€œYes. Look, if Iâ€™m away for, er, a little bit longer thanâ€”â€

She stuck her hands on her hips. â€œIâ€™m not stupid, you know,â€ she said. â€œOrange-colored juice indeed! Iâ€™ve read nearly every book we brought out of the Store. Florida is a, a place. Just like the quarry. Probably even bigger. And itâ€™s a long way away. You have to go across a lot of water to get there.â€

â€œI think it might even be farther away than we came on the Long Drive,â€ said Masklin quietly. â€œI know, because one day when we went to look at the airport, I saw water on the other side, by the road. It looked as though it went on forever.â€

â€œI told you,â€ said Grimma smugly. â€œIt was probably an ocean.â€

â€œThere was a sign by it,â€ said Masklin. â€œCanâ€™t remember everything on itâ€”Iâ€™m not as good at the reading as you. One of the words was res . . . er . . . voir, I think.â€

â€œThere you are, then.â€

â€œBut it must be worth a try.â€ Masklin scowled. â€œThereâ€™s only one place where we can ever be safe, and thatâ€™s where we belong,â€ he said. â€œOtherwise weâ€™ll always have to keep running away.â€

â€œWell, I donâ€™t like it,â€ said Grimma.

â€œBut you said you didnâ€™t like running away,â€ said Masklin. â€œThere isnâ€™t an alternative, is there? Let me just try something. If it doesnâ€™t work, then weâ€™ll come back.â€

â€œBut supposing something goes wrong? Supposing you donâ€™t come back? Iâ€™ll . . .â€ Grimma hesitated.

â€œYes?â€ said Masklin hopefully.

â€œIâ€™ll have a terrible time explaining things to people,â€ she said firmly. â€œItâ€™s a silly idea. I donâ€™t want to have anything to do with it.â€

â€œOh.â€ Masklin looked disappointed but defiant. â€œWell, Iâ€™m going to try anyway. Sorry.â€

5

V. And he said, What are these frogs of which you speak?

VI. And she said, You wouldnâ€™t understand.

VII. And he said, You are right.

From The Book of Nome,
Strange Frogs Chap. 1, v. Vâ€“VII

THERE WAS A busy night. . . .

It would be a journey of several hours to the barn. Parties went on to mark the path and generally prepare the way, besides watching out for foxes. Not that they were often seen, these days; a fox might be quite happy to attack a solitary nome, but thirty well-armed, enthusiastic hunters were a different proposition, and it would be a very stupid fox indeed that even showed an interest. The few that did live near the quarry tended to wander off hurriedly in the opposite direction whenever they saw a nome. Theyâ€™d learned that nomes meant trouble.

It had been a hard lesson for some of them. Not long after the nomes moved into the quarry, a fox was surprised and delighted to come across a couple of unwary berry gatherers, which it ate. It was even more surprised that night when two hundred grim-faced nomes tracked it to its lair, lit a fire in the entrance, and speared it to death when it ran out, eyes streaming.

There are a lot of animals that would like to dine off nome, Masklin had said. Theyâ€™d better learn: Itâ€™s us or them. And theyâ€™d better learn right now that itâ€™s going to be them. No animal is going to get a taste for nome. Not anymore.

Cats were a lot brighter. No cats came anywhere near the quarry.

â€œOf course, it might all be nothing to worry about,â€ said Angalo nervously, around dawn. â€œWe might never have to do it.â€

â€œJust when we were beginning to get settled down, too,â€ said Dorcas. â€œStill, I reckon that if we keep a proper lookout, we can have everyone on the move in five minutes. And weâ€™ll start moving some food stores up there this morning. No harm in that. Then theyâ€™ll be there if we need them.â€

Nomes sometimes went as far as the airport. There was a trash dump on the way, which was a prime source of bits of cloth and wire, and the flooded gravel pits farther on were handy if anyone had the patience to fish. It was a pleasant enough journey, largely along badger tracks. There was a main road to be crossed, or rather, to be burrowed under; for some reason pipes had been carefully put underneath it just where the track needed to cross it. Presumably the badgers had done it. They certainly used it a lot.

Masklin found Grimma in her school hole under one of the old sheds, supervising a class in writing. She glared at him, told the children to get on with itâ€”and would Nicco Haberdasheri like to share the joke with the rest of the class? No? Then he could jolly well get on with thingsâ€”and came out into the passage.

â€œIâ€™ve just come to say weâ€™re off,â€ said Masklin, twiddling his hat in his hands. â€œThereâ€™s a load of nomes going over to the dump, so weâ€™ll have company the rest of the way. Er.â€

â€œElectricity,â€ said Grimma, vaguely.

â€œWhat?â€

â€œThereâ€™s no electricity at the old barn,â€ said Grimma. â€œYou remember what that meant? On moonless nights, there was nothing to do but stay in the burrow. I donâ€™t want to go back to that.â€

â€œWell, maybe we were better nomes for it,â€ mumbled Masklin. â€œWe didnâ€™t have all the things weâ€™ve got today, but we wereâ€”â€

â€œCold, frightened, ignorant, and hungry!â€ snapped Grimma. â€œYou know that. You try telling Granny Morkie about the Good Old Days and see what she says.â€

â€œWe had each other,â€ said Masklin.

Grimma examined her hands.

â€œWe were just the same age and living in the same hole,â€ she said vaguely. She looked up. â€œBut itâ€™s all different now! Thereâ€™s . . . well, thereâ€™s the frogs, for one thing.â€

Masklin looked blank. And, for once, Grimma looked unsure.

â€œI read about them in a book,â€ she said. â€œThereâ€™s this place, you see. Called Southamerica. And thereâ€™s these hills where itâ€™s hot and rains all the time, and in the rainforests there are these very tall trees and right in the top branches of the trees there are these like great big flowers called bromeliads and water gets into the flowers and makes little pools and thereâ€™s a type of frog that lays eggs in the pools and tadpoles hatch and grow into new frogs and these little frogs live their whole lives in the flowers right at the top of the trees and donâ€™t even know about the ground and the world is full of things like that and now I know about them and Iâ€™m never ever going to be able to see them and then you,â€ she gulped for breath, â€œwant me to come and live with you in a hole and wash your socks!â€

Masklin ran this sentence through his head again, in case it made any sense when you listened to it a second time.

â€œBut I donâ€™t wear socks,â€ he pointed out.

This was apparently not the right thing to say. Grimma prodded him in the stomach.

â€œMasklin,â€ she said, â€œyouâ€™re a good nome and bright enough in your way, but there arenâ€™t any answers up in the sky. You need to have your feet on the ground, not your head in the air!â€

She swept away and shut the door behind her.

Masklin felt his ears growing hot.

â€œI can do both!â€ Masklin shouted after her. â€œAt the same time!â€

He thought about it and added, â€œSo can everyone!â€

He stamped off along the tunnel. Bright enough in his way! Gurder was right, universal education was not a good idea. Heâ€™d never understand women, he thought. Even if he lived to be ten.

Gurder had turned over the leadership of the Stationeri to Nisodemus. Masklin felt less than happy about this. It wasnâ€™t that Nisodemus was stupid. Quite the reverse. He was clever in a bubbling, sideways way that Masklin distrusted; he always seemed to be bottling up excitement about something, and when he spoke, the words always rushed out, with Nisodemus putting â€œumsâ€ in the flow of words so that he could catch his breath without anyone having the chance to interrupt him. He made Masklin uneasy. He mentioned this to Gurder.

â€œNisodemus might be a bit overenthusiastic,â€ said Gurder, â€œbut his heartâ€™s in the right place.â€

â€œWhat about his head?â€

â€œListen,â€ said Gurder. â€œWe know each other well enough, donâ€™t we? We understand one another, wouldnâ€™t you say?â€

â€œYes. Why?â€

â€œThen Iâ€™ll let you make the decisions that affect all nomesâ€™ bodies,â€ said Gurder, his voice just one step away from being threatening, â€œand youâ€™ll let me make the decisions that affect all nomesâ€™ souls. Fair enough?â€

And so they set off.

The good-byes, the last-minute messages, the organization, and, because they were nomes, the hundred little arguments, are not important.

They set off.

Life at the quarry began to get back to something like normal. No more trucks came up to the gate. Dorcas sent a couple of his more agile young assistant engineers up the wire netting, just in case, to stuff the rusty padlock full of mud. He also ordered a team of nomes to twist wire round and round the gates as well.

â€œNot that itâ€™d hold them very long,â€ he said. â€œNot if they were determined.â€

The Council, or what was left of it now, nodded wisely although frankly none of them understood or cared much about mechanical things.

The truck came back the same afternoon. The two nomes watching the lane hurried back into the quarry to report. The driver had fiddled with the padlock for a while, pulled at the wire, and then driven off.

â€œAnd it said something,â€ said Sacco.

â€œYes, it said something. Sacco heard it,â€ said his partner, Nooty Kiddies Klothes. She was a plump young nome who wore trousers and was good at engineering and had actually volunteered to be a guard instead of staying at home learning how to cook; things were really changing in the quarry.

â€œI heard it say something,â€ said Sacco helpfully, in case the point hadnâ€™t sunk in.

â€œThatâ€™s right,â€ said Nooty. â€œWe both heard it, didnâ€™t we, Sacco?â€

â€œAnd what was it?â€ said Dorcas encouragingly. I donâ€™t really deserve this sort of thing, he thought. Not at my time of life. Iâ€™d rather be in my workshop, trying to invent radio.

â€œIt saidâ€â€”Sacco took a deep breath, his eyes bulged, and he attempted the foghorn mooing that was human soundâ€”â€œâ€˜Bbbllllooooooooddddyyyee kkiiiddddddssss!â€™â€

Dorcas looked at the others.

â€œAnyone got any ideas?â€ he said. â€œIt almost seems to mean something, doesnâ€™t it? I tell you, if only we could understand them. . . .â€

â€œThis must have been one of the stupid ones,â€ said Nooty. â€œIt was trying to get in!â€

â€œThen itâ€™ll come back,â€ said Dorcas gloomily. He shook his head.

â€œAll right, you two,â€ he said. â€œWell done. Get back on watch. Thank you.â€

He watched them go off hand in hand, and then he wandered away across the quarry, heading for the old managerâ€™s office.

Iâ€™ve seen Christmas Fayre come around six times, he thought. Six whatdâ€™youcallemsâ€”years. And almost one more, I think, although itâ€™s hard to be sure out here. No one puts up any signs to say whatâ€™s happening, and the heating just gets turned down. Seven years old. Just about the time when a nome ought to be taking it easy. And Iâ€™m out here, where there arenâ€™t any proper walls to the world, and the water goes cold and hard as glass some mornings, and the ventilation and heating systems are quite shockingly out of control. Of courseâ€”he pulled himself together a bitâ€”as a scientist I find all these phenomena extremely interesting. It would just be nicer to find them extremely interesting from somewhere nice and snug, inside.

Ah, inside. That was the place to be. Most of the older nomes suffered from the fear of the Outside, but no one liked to talk about it much. It wasnâ€™t too bad in the quarry, with its great walls of rock. If you didnâ€™t look up too much, and avoided the fourth side with its terribly huge views across the countryside, you could almost believe you were back in the Store. Even so, most of the older nomes preferred to stay in the sheds, or in the cozy gloom under the floorboards. That way you avoided this horrible exposed feeling, the dreadful sensation that the sky was watching you.

The children seemed to quite like the Outside, though. They werenâ€™t really used to anything else. They could just about remember the Store, but it didnâ€™t mean much to them. They belonged Outside. They were used to it. And the young men who went out hunting and gathering . . . well, young men liked to show how brave they were, didnâ€™t they? Especially in front of other young men. And young women.

Of course, Dorcas thought, as a scientist and rational-thinking nome, I know we werenâ€™t really intended to live under floorboards the whole time. Itâ€™s just that, as a nome who is probably seven years old and feeling a bit creaky, Iâ€™ve got to admit Iâ€™d find it sort of comforting to have a few of the good old signs around the place. Amazing Reductions, perhaps, or just a little sign saying Mammoth Sale Starts Tomorrow. It wouldnâ€™t hurt, and Iâ€™m sure Iâ€™d feel happier. Which is, of course, totally ridiculous, when you look at it rationally.

Itâ€™s just like Arnold Bros (est. 1905), he thought sadly. Iâ€™m pretty sure he doesnâ€™t exist in the way I was taught he did, when I was young. But when you saw things like If You Do Not See What You Require, Please Ask on the walls, you felt that everything was somehow All Right.

He thought: These are very wrong thoughts for a rational-thinking nome.

There was a crack in the woodwork by the door of the managerâ€™s office. Dorcas slipped into the familiar gloom under the floor and padded along until he found the switch.

He was rather proud of this idea. There was a big red bell on the outside wall of the office, presumably so that humans could hear the telephone ring when the quarry was noisy. Dorcas had changed the wiring so that he could make it ring whenever he liked.

He pressed the switch.

Nomes came running from all corners of the quarry. Dorcas waited as the underfloor space filled up and then dragged up an empty matchbox to stand on.

â€œThe human has been back,â€ he announced. â€œIt didnâ€™t get in, but itâ€™ll keep trying.â€

â€œWhat about your wire?â€ said one of the nomes.

â€œIâ€™m afraid there are such things as wire cutters.â€

â€œSo much for your theory about, um, humans being intelligent. An intelligent human would know enough not to go, um, where it wasnâ€™t wanted,â€ said Nisodemus sourly.

Dorcas liked to see eagerness in a young nome, but Nisodemus vibrated with a peculiarly hungry kind of eagerness that was unpleasant to see. He gave him as sharp a look as he dared.

â€œHumans out here might be different from the ones in the Store,â€ he snapped. â€œAnywayâ€”â€

â€œOrder must have sent it,â€ said Nisodemus. â€œItâ€™s a judgment, um, on us!â€

â€œNone of that. Itâ€™s just a human,â€ said Dorcas. Nisodemus glared at him as he went on. â€œNow, we really should be sending some of the women and children to theâ€”â€

There was the sound of running feet outside, and the gate guards piled in through the crack.

â€œItâ€™s back! Itâ€™s back!â€ panted Sacco. â€œThe humanâ€™s back!â€

â€œAll right, all right,â€ said Dorcas. â€œDonâ€™t worry about it, it canâ€™tâ€”â€

â€œNo! No! No!â€ yelled Sacco, jumping up and down. â€œItâ€™s got a pair of cutter things! Itâ€™s cut the wire and the chain that holds the gates shut, and itâ€”!â€

They didnâ€™t hear the rest of it.

They didnâ€™t need to.

The sound of an engine coming closer said it all.

It grew so loud that the shed shook, and then it stopped suddenly, leaving a nasty kind of silence that was worse than the noise. There was the crump of a metal door slamming. Then the rattle and squeak of the shed door.

Then footsteps. The boards overhead buckled and dropped little clouds of dust as great thumping steps wandered around the office.

The nomes stood in absolute silence. They moved nothing except their eyes, but they moved in perfect time to the footsteps, marking the position, flicking backward and forward as the human crossed the room above. A baby started to whimper.

There was some clicking, and then the muffled sound of a human voice making its usual incomprehensible noises. This went on for some time.

Then the footsteps left the office again. The nomes could hear them crunching around outside, and then more noises. Nasty, clinking metal noises.

A small nome said, â€œMum, I want the lavatory, Mumâ€”â€

â€œShh!â€

â€œI really mean it, Mum!â€

â€œWill you be quiet!â€

All the nomes stood stock-still as the noises went on around them. Well, nearly all. One small nome hopped from one foot to the other, going very red in the face.

Eventually the noise stopped. There was the thunk of a truck door closing, the growl of its engine, and the motor noise died away.

Dorcas said, very quietly, â€œI think perhaps we can relax now.â€

Hundreds of nomes breathed a sigh of relief.

â€œMum!â€

â€œYes, all right, off you go.â€

And after the sigh of relief, the outbreak of babble. One voice rose above the rest.

â€œIt was never like this in the Store!â€ said Nisodemus, climbing onto a half brick. â€œI ask you, fellow nomes, is this what we were led, um, to expect?â€

There was a mumble chorus of â€œnoesâ€ and â€œyesesâ€ as Nisodemus went on: â€œA year ago we were safe in the Store. Do you remember what it was like at Christmas Fayre? Do you remember what it was like in the Food Hall? Anyone remember, um, roast beef and turkey?â€

There were one or two embarrassed cheers. Nisodemus looked triumphant. â€œAnd here we are at the same time of yearâ€”well, they tell us itâ€™s the same time of year,â€ he said, sarcastically, â€œâ€”and what weâ€™re expected to eat are knobbly things actually grown in dirt! Um. And the meat isnâ€™t proper meat at all, itâ€™s just dead animals cut up! Actual dead animals, actually cut up! Is this what you want your, um, children to get used to? Digging up their food? And now they tell us we might even have to go to some barn that hasnâ€™t even got proper floorboards for us to live under as Arnold Bros (est. 1905) intended. Where next, we ask ourselves? Out in a field somewhere? Um. And do you know what is the worst thing about all of this? Iâ€™ll tell you.â€ He pointed a finger at Dorcas. â€œThe people who seem to be giving us all the orders now are the very people who, um, got us into this trouble in the first place!â€

â€œNow just you hold onâ€”â€ Dorcas began.

â€œYou all know Iâ€™m right!â€ shouted Nisodemus. â€œThink about it, nomes! Why in the name of Arnold Bros (est. 1905) did we have to leave the Store?â€

There were a few more vague cheers, and several arguments broke out among the audience.

â€œDonâ€™t be stupid,â€ said Dorcas. â€œThe Store was going to be demolished!â€

â€œWe donâ€™t know that!â€ shouted Nisodemus.

â€œOf course we do!â€ roared Dorcas. â€œMasklin and Gurder sawâ€”â€

â€œAnd where are they now, eh?â€

â€œTheyâ€™ve gone toâ€”well, theyâ€™ve gone toâ€”â€ Dorcas began. He wasnâ€™t much good at this, he knew. Why did it have to be him? He preferred messing around with wires and bolts and things. Bolts didnâ€™t keep shouting at you.

â€œYes, theyâ€™ve gone!â€ Nisodemus lowered his voice to a sort of angry hiss. â€œThink about it, you nomes! Use your, um, brains! In the Store, we knew where we were, things worked, everything was exactly as Arnold Bros (est. 1905) decreed. And suddenly weâ€™re out here. Remember how you used to despise Outsiders? Well, the Outsiders are us! Um. And now itâ€™s all panic again, and it always will beâ€”until we mend our ways and Arnold Bros (est. 1905) graciously allows us back into the Store as better, wiser nomes!â€

â€œLetâ€™s just get this clear,â€ said a nome. â€œAre you saying that the Abbot lied to us?â€

â€œIâ€™m not saying anything like that,â€ said Nisodemus, sniffing. â€œIâ€™m just presenting you with the facts. Um. Thatâ€™s all Iâ€™m doing.â€

â€œBut, but, but the Abbot has gone to get help,â€ said a lady nome uncertainly. â€œAnd, and, after all, Iâ€™m sure the Store was demolished. I mean, we wouldnâ€™t have gone to all this trouble otherwise, would we? Er.â€ She looked desperate.

â€œI know this, though,â€ said the nome beside her. â€œSay what you like, but I donâ€™t fancy this old barn everyoneâ€™s talking about. Thereâ€™s not even any electricity there.â€

â€œYes, and itâ€™s in the middle ofâ€â€”another nome began, and then lowered his voiceâ€”â€œyou know. Things. You know what Iâ€™m talking about.â€

â€œYeah,â€ said an elderly nome. â€œThings. Iâ€™ve seen â€™em. My lad took me blackberryinâ€™ a month or two back, up above the quarry, and I seen â€™em.â€

â€œI donâ€™t mind seeing them a long way off,â€ said the worried lady nome. â€œItâ€™s the thought of being in the middle of them that makes me come over all shaky.â€

They donâ€™t even like to say the words open fields, thought Dorcas. I know how they feel.

â€œItâ€™s snug enough here, Iâ€™ll grant you,â€ said the first nome, â€œbut all this stuff you get outside, what dâ€™you call it, begins with an Nâ€”â€

â€œNature?â€ said Dorcas weakly. Nisodemus was smiling madly, his eyes sparkling.

â€œThatâ€™s right,â€ said the nome. â€œWell, itâ€™s not natural. And thereâ€™s a sight too much of it. â€™S not like a proper world at all. Youâ€™ve only got to look at it. The floorâ€™s all rough, â€™nâ€™ it should be flat. Thereâ€™s hardly any walls. All them little starry lights that comes out at night, well, theyâ€™re not much help, are they? And now these humans go where they please, and thereâ€™s no proper Regulations like there was in the Store.â€

â€œThatâ€™s why Arnold Bros Established the Store in 1905,â€ said Nisodemus. â€œA proper place for, um, nomes to live.â€

Dorcas gently grabbed Saccoâ€™s ear and pulled the young nome toward him.

â€œDo you know where Grimma is?â€ he whispered.

â€œIsnâ€™t she here?â€

â€œIâ€™m quite sure she isnâ€™t,â€ said Dorcas. â€œSheâ€™d have had something very sharp to say by now if she was. She may have stayed in the school hole with the children when the bell went. Itâ€™s just as well.â€

Nisodemus has got something on his mind, he thought. Iâ€™m not certain what it is, but it smells bad.

And it got worse as the day wore on, especially since it began to rain. A nasty, freezing sort of rain. Sleet, according to Granny Morkie. It was soggy, not really water but not quite ice. Rain with bones.

Somehow it seemed to find its way into places where ordinary rain hadnâ€™t managed to get. Dorcas organized younger nomes to digging drainage trenches and rigged up a few of the big light bulbs for heat. The older nomes sat hunched around them, sneezing and grumbling.

Granny Morkie did her best to cheer them up. Dorcas began to really wish the old woman wouldnâ€™t do that.

â€œThis ainâ€™t nothing,â€ she said. â€œI remember the Great Flood. Made our hole cave right inâ€”we was cold and drenched for days!â€ She cackled and rocked backward and forward. â€œLike drownded rats, we was! Not a dry stitch on, you know, and no fire for a week. Talk about a laugh!â€

The Store nomes stared at her and shivered.

â€œAnd you donâ€™t want to go worrying about crossing them open fields,â€ she went on, conversationally. â€œNine times out oâ€™ ten you donâ€™t get et by anything.â€

â€œOh, dear,â€ said a lady nome, faintly.

â€œYes, Iâ€™ve been out in fields hundreds oâ€™ times. Itâ€™s a doddle if you stay close to the hedge and keep your eyes open. You hardly ever have to run very much,â€ said Granny.

No oneâ€™s temper was improved when they learned that the Land Rover had parked right on the patch of ground they were going to plant things in. The nomes had spent ages during the summer hacking the hard ground into something resembling soil. Theyâ€™d even planted seeds, which hadnâ€™t grown. Now there were two great ruts in it, and a new padlock and chain on the gate.

The sleet was already filling the ruts. Oil had leaked in and formed a rainbow sheen on the surface.

And all the time, Nisodemus was reminding people how much better it had been in the Store. They didnâ€™t really need much persuading. After all, it had been better. Much better.

I mean, thought Dorcas, we can keep warm and thereâ€™s plenty of food, although there is a limit to the number of ways you can cook rabbit and potatoes. The trouble is, Masklin thought that once we got outside the Store, weâ€™d all be digging and building and hunting and facing the future with strong chins and bright smiles. Some of the youngsters are doing well enough, Iâ€™ll grant you. But us old â€™uns are too set in our ways. Itâ€™s all right for me, I like tinkering with things, I can be useful, but the rest of them, well . . . all theyâ€™ve really got to occupy themselves is grumbling, and theyâ€™ve become really good at that.

I wonder what Nisodemusâ€™s game is. Heâ€™s too keen, if you ask me.

I wish Masklin would come back.

Even young Gurder wasnâ€™t too bad.

Itâ€™s been three days now.

At a time like this, he knew heâ€™d feel better if he went and looked at Big John.

6

I. For in the Hill was a Dragon, from the days when the World was made.

II. But it was old and broken and dying.

III. And the Mark of the Dragon was on it.

IV. And the Mark was Big John.

From The Book of Nome,
Big John Chap. 1, v. Iâ€“IV

BIG JOHN.

Big John was his. His little secret. His big secret, really. No one else knew about Big John, not even Dorcasâ€™s assistants.

Heâ€™d been pottering around in the big old half-ruined sheds on the other side of the quarry, one day back in the summer. He hadnâ€™t really had any aim in mind, except perhaps the possibility of finding a useful bit of wire or something.

So heâ€™d rummaged around in the shadows, straightened up, glanced above him and there Big John was.

With his mouth open.

It had been a terrible few seconds until Dorcasâ€™s eyes adjusted to the distance.

After that, heâ€™d spent a lot of time with Big John, poking around, finding out about it. Or him. Big John was definitely a him. A terrible him, perhaps, and old and wounded, like a dragon that had come here for one last final sleep. Or perhaps it was like one of those big animals Grimma had showed him in a book once. Diner soars.

But Big John didnâ€™t grumble, and he didnâ€™t keep on asking Dorcas why he hadnâ€™t got around to inventing radio yet. Dorcas had spent many a peaceful hour getting to know Big John. He was someone to talk to. He was the best kind of person to talk to, in fact, because you didnâ€™t have to listen to him back.

Dorcas shook his head. There was no time for that sort of thing now. Everything was going wrong.

Instead, he went to find Grimma. She seemed to have her head screwed on right, even if she was a girl.

The school hole was under the floor of the old shed with Canteen on the door. It was Grimmaâ€™s personal world. Sheâ€™d invented schools for children, on the basis that since reading and writing were quite difficult, it was best to get them over with early.

The library was also kept there.

In those last hectic hours, the nomes had managed to rescue about thirty books from the Store. Some were very usefulâ€”Gardening All the Year Round was well thumbed, and Dorcas knew Essential Theory for the Amateur Engineer almost by heartâ€”but some were, well, difficult, and not opened much.

Grimma was standing in front of one of these when he wandered in. She was biting her thumb, which she always did when she was concentrating.

He had to admire the way she read. Not only was Grimma the best reader among the nomes, she also had an amazing ability to understand what she was reading.

â€œNisodemus is causing trouble,â€ he said, sitting down on a bench.

â€œI know,â€ said Grimma vaguely. â€œIâ€™ve heard.â€ She grabbed the edge of the page in both hands and turned it over with a grunt of effort.

â€œI donâ€™t know what heâ€™s got to gain,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œPower,â€ said Grimma. â€œWeâ€™ve got a power vacuum, you see.â€

â€œI donâ€™t think we have,â€ said Dorcas uncertainly. â€œIâ€™ve never seen one here. There were plenty in the Store. Sixty-Nine Ninety-Five With Range Of Attachments For Round-The-House Cleanliness,â€ he added, remembering with a sigh the familiar signs.

â€œNo, itâ€™s not a thing like that,â€ said Grimma. â€œItâ€™s what you get when no oneâ€™s in charge. Iâ€™ve been reading about them.â€

â€œIâ€™m in charge, arenâ€™t I?â€ said Dorcas plaintively.

â€œNo,â€ said Grimma, â€œbecause no one really listens to you.â€

â€œOh. Thank you very much.â€

â€œItâ€™s not your fault. People like Masklin and Angalo and Gurder can make people listen to them, but you donâ€™t seem to keep their attention.â€

â€œOh.â€

â€œBut you can make nuts and bolts listen to you. Not everyone can do that.â€

Dorcas thought about this. He would never have put it like that himself. Was it a compliment? He decided it probably was.

â€œWhen people are faced with lots of troubles and they donâ€™t know what to do, thereâ€™s always someone ready to say anything, just to get some power,â€ said Grimma.

â€œNever mind. When the others get back, Iâ€™m sure theyâ€™ll sort it all out,â€ said Dorcas, more cheerfully than he felt.

â€œYes, theyâ€™llâ€”â€ Grimma began, and then stopped. After a while Dorcas realized that her shoulders were shaking.

â€œIs there anything the matter?â€ he said.

â€œItâ€™s been more than three whole days!â€ sobbed Grimma. â€œNo oneâ€™s ever been away that long before! Something must have happened to them!â€

â€œEr,â€ said Dorcas, â€œwell, they were going to look for Grandson Richard, 39, and we canâ€™t be sure thatâ€”â€

â€œAnd I was so nasty to him before he went! I told him about the frogs and all he could think of was socks!â€

Dorcas couldnâ€™t quite see how frogs had got involved. When he sat and talked to Big John, frogs were never dragged into the conversation.

â€œEr?â€ he said.

Grimma, in between sobs, told him about the frogs.

â€œAnd Iâ€™m sure he didnâ€™t even begin to understand what I meant,â€ she mumbled. â€œAnd you wonâ€™t either.â€

â€œOh, I donâ€™t know,â€ said Dorcas. â€œYou mean that the world was once so simple, and suddenly itâ€™s full of amazingly interesting things that youâ€™ll never ever get to the end of as long as you live. Like biology. Or climatology. I mean, before all you Outsiders came, I was just tinkering with things and I really didnâ€™t know anything about the world.â€

He stared at his feet. â€œIâ€™m still very ignorant,â€ he said, â€œbut at least Iâ€™m ignorant about really important things. Like what the sun is, and why it rains. Thatâ€™s what youâ€™re talking about.â€

She sniffed and smiled a bit, but not too much, because if there is one thing worse than someone who doesnâ€™t understand you, itâ€™s someone who understands perfectly, before youâ€™ve had a chance to have a good pout about not being understood.

â€œThe thing is,â€ she said, â€œthat he still thinks Iâ€™m the person he used to know when we all lived in the old hole in the bank. You know, running around. Cooking things. Bandaging up people when theyâ€™d been hur-hur-hurâ€”â€

â€œNow then, now then,â€ said Dorcas. He was always at a loss when people acted like this. When machines went funny, you just oiled them or prodded them or, if nothing else worked, hit them with a hammer. Nomes didnâ€™t respond well to this treatment.

â€œSupposing he never comes back?â€ she said, dabbing at her eyes.

â€œOf course heâ€™ll come back,â€ said Dorcas reassuringly. â€œWhat could have happened to him, after all?â€

â€œHe could have been eaten or run over or trodden on or blown away or fallen down a hole or trapped,â€ said Grimma.

â€œEr, yes,â€ said Dorcas. â€œApart from that, I meant.â€

â€œBut I shall pull myself together,â€ said Grimma, sticking out her chin. â€œWhen he does come back, he wonâ€™t be able to say, â€˜Oh, I see everythingâ€™s gone to pieces while Iâ€™ve been away.â€™â€

â€œJolly good,â€ said Dorcas. â€œThatâ€™s the spirit. Keep yourself occupied, thatâ€™s what I always say. Whatâ€™s the book called?â€

â€œItâ€™s A Treasury of Proverbs and Quotations,â€ said Grimma.

â€œOh. Anything useful in it?â€

â€œThat,â€ said Grimma distantly, â€œdepends.â€

â€œOh. Whatâ€™s â€˜Proverbsâ€™ mean?â€

â€œNot sure. Some of them donâ€™t make much sense. Do you know, humans think the world was made by a sort of big human?â€

â€œGet out!â€

â€œIt took a week.â€

â€œI expect it had some help, then,â€ said Dorcas. â€œYou know. With the heavy stuff.â€ Dorcas thought of Big John. You could do a lot in a week, with Big John helping.

â€œNo. All by himself, apparently.â€

â€œHmm.â€ Dorcas considered this. Certainly bits of the world were rough, and things like grass seemed simple enough. But from what heâ€™d heard, it all broke down every year and had to be started up again in the spring, andâ€”â€œI donâ€™t know,â€ he said. â€œOnly humans could believe something like that. Thereâ€™s a good few monthsâ€™ work, if Iâ€™m any judge.â€

Grimma turned the page. â€œMasklin used to believeâ€”I mean, Masklin believesâ€”that humans are much brighter than we think.â€ She looked thoughtful. â€œI really wish we could study them properly,â€ she said. â€œIâ€™m sure we could learn aâ€”â€

For the second time, the alarm bell rang out across the quarry.

This time, the hand on the switch belonged to Nisodemus.

7

II. And Nisodemus said, You are betrayed, People of the Store;

III. Falsely you were led into This Outside of Rain and Cold and Sleet and Humans and Order, and Yet it Will become Worse;

IV. For there will be Sleet and Snow, and Hunger in the Land;

V. And There will come Robins;

VI. Um.

VII. Yet those who brought you here, where are they Now?

VIII. They said, We go to seek Grandson Richard, 39, but tribulation abounds on every side and no help comes. You are betrayed into the hands of Winter.

IX. It is time to put aside things of the Outside. . . .

From The Book of Nome,
Complaints v. IIâ€“IX

â€œYES. WELL. THATâ€™S hard to do, isnâ€™t it?â€ said a nome uneasily. â€œI mean, we are Outside.â€

â€œBut I have a plan,â€ said Nisodemus.

â€œAh,â€ said the nomes in unison. Plans were the thing. Plans were what was needed. You knew where you were, with a plan.

Grimma and Dorcas, almost the last to arrive, sidled their way into the crowd. The old engineer was going to push his way to the front, but Grimma restrained him.

â€œLook at the others up there,â€ she whispered.

There were quite a few nomes behind Nisodemus. Many of them Dorcas recognized as Stationeri, but there were a few others from some of the great departmental families. They werenâ€™t looking at Nisodemus as he spoke, but at the crowd. Their eyes flickered back and forth, as though they were searching for something.

â€œI donâ€™t like the look of this,â€ said Grimma quietly. â€œThe big families never used to get on too well with the Stationeri, so why are they up there now?â€

â€œGrubby pieces of work, some of them,â€ said Dorcas.

Some of the Stationeri had been particularly upset about common, everyday nomes learning to read. They said it gave people ideas, Dorcas gathered, which were not a good thing unless they were the right kind of ideas. And some of the great families hadnâ€™t been too happy about nomes being able to go where they pleased, without having to ask permission.

Theyâ€™re all up there, he thought. The nomes who havenâ€™t done so well since the Drive. They all lost a little power.

Nisodemus was explaining his plan.

As he listened, Dorcasâ€™s mouth slowly dropped open.

It was magnificent in its way, that plan. It was like a machine where every single bit was perfectly made, but which had been put together by a one-handed nome in the dark. It was crammed full of good ideas that you couldnâ€™t sensibly argue with, but they had been turned upside down. The trouble was, they were still ones you couldnâ€™t sensibly argue with, because the basically good idea was still in there somewhere. . . .

Nisodemus wanted to rebuild the Store.

The nomes stood in horrified admiration as the Stationeri explained that yes, Abbot Gurder had been right: When they left the Store, they had taken Arnold Bros (est. 1905) with them inside their heads. And if they could show him that they really cared about the Store, he would come out again and put a stop to all these problems and reestablish the Store here, in this green unpleasant land.

That was how it all arrived in Dorcasâ€™s head, anyway. Heâ€™d long ago decided that if you spent all your time listening to what people actually said, youâ€™d never have time to work out what they meant.

But it wouldnâ€™t mean building the whole Store, said Nisodemus, his eyes shining like two bright black marbles. They could change the quarry in other ways. Go back to living in proper departments instead of any old how all over the place. Put up some signs. Get back to the Good Old Ways. Make Arnold Bros (est. 1905) feel at home. Build the Store inside their heads.

Nomes didnâ€™t often go mad. Dorcas vaguely recalled an elderly nome who had once decided that he was a teapot, but heâ€™d changed his mind after a few days.

Nisodemus, though, had definitely been getting too much fresh air.

It was obvious that one or two other nomes thought so too.

â€œI donâ€™t quite see,â€ said one of them, â€œhow Arnold Bros (est. 1905) is going to stop these humans. No offense meant.â€

â€œDid humans interfere with us when we were in the Store?â€ demanded Nisodemus.

â€œWell, no, becauseâ€”â€

â€œThen trust in Arnold Bros (est. 1905)!â€

â€œBut that didnâ€™t stop the Store being demolished, did it?â€ said a voice. â€œWhen it came to it, you all trusted Masklin and Gurder and the Truck. And yourselves! Nisodemus is always telling you how clever you are. Try and be clever, then!â€

Dorcas realized it was Grimma. Heâ€™d never seen anyone so angry.

She pushed her way through the apprehensive nomes until she was face to face, or at least, since Nisodemus was standing on something and she wasnâ€™t, face to chest. He was one of those people who liked standing on things.

â€œWhat will actually happen, then?â€ she shouted. â€œWhen youâ€™ve built the Store, what will happen? Humans came into the Store, you know!â€

Nisodemusâ€™s mouth opened and shut for a while. Then he said, â€œBut they obeyed the Regulations! Yes! Um! Thatâ€™s what they did! And things were better then!â€

She glared at him.

â€œYou donâ€™t really think people are going to accept that, do you?â€ she said.

There was silence.

â€œYouâ€™ve got to admit,â€ said an elderly nome, very slowly, â€œthings were better then.â€

The nomes shuffled their feet.

That was all you could hear.

Just people, shuffling their feet.

â€œThey just accepted it!â€ said Grimma. â€œJust like that! No oneâ€™s bothered about the Council anymore! They just do what he tells them!â€

Now she was in Dorcasâ€™s workspace under a bench in the old quarry garage. My little sanctuary, he always called it. My little nook. Bits of wire and tin were scattered everywhere. The wall was covered with scrawls done with a bit of pencil lead.

Dorcas sat and twiddled a bit of wire aimlessly.

â€œYouâ€™re being hard on people,â€ he said quietly. â€œYou shouldnâ€™t yell at them like that. Theyâ€™ve been through a lot. They get all confused if you shout at them. The Council was all right for when times were goodâ€”â€ He shrugged. â€œAnd without Masklin and Gurder and Angalo, well, it hardly seems worthwhile.â€

â€œBut after all thatâ€™s happened!â€ She waved her arms. â€œTo act so stupidly, just because heâ€™s offered themâ€”â€

â€œA bit of comfort,â€ said Dorcas. He shook his head. You couldnâ€™t explain things like this to people like Grimma. Nice girl, bright head on her, but she kept thinking that everyone else was as passionate about things as she was. All people really wanted, Dorcas considered, was to be left alone. The world was quite difficult enough as it was without people going around trying to make it better all the time.

Masklin had understood that. He knew the way to make people do what you wanted was to make them think it was their idea. If there was one thing that got right up a nomeâ€™s nose, it was someone saying, â€œHere is a really sensible idea. Why are you too stupid to understand?â€

It wasnâ€™t that people were stupid. It was just that people were people.

â€œCome on,â€ he said wearily. â€œLetâ€™s go and see how the signs are getting on.â€

The whole of the floor of one of the big sheds had been turned over to the making of the signs. Or rather, the Signs. Another thing Nisodemus was good at was giving words capital letters. You could hear him doing it.

Dorcas had to admit that the Signs were a pretty good idea, though. He felt guilty about thinking this.

Heâ€™d thought that when Nisodemus had summoned him and asked if there was any paint in the quarry, only now the quarry was being called the New Store.

â€œUm,â€ Dorcas had said, â€œthereâ€™s some old cans. White and red, mainly. Under one of the benches. We might be able to lever the tops off.â€

â€œThen do it. It is very important. Um. We must make Signs,â€ said the Stationeri.

â€œSigns. Right,â€ said Dorcas. â€œCheer the place up a bit, you mean?â€

â€œNo!â€

â€œSorry, sorry, I just thoughtâ€”â€

â€œSigns for the gate!â€

Dorcas scratched his chin. â€œThe gate?â€ he said.

â€œHumans obey Signs,â€ said Nisodemus, calming down. â€œWe know that. Did they not obey the Signs in the Store?â€

â€œMost of â€™em,â€ agreed Dorcas. Dogs and Strollers Must Be Carried had always puzzled him. Lots of humans didnâ€™t carry either of them.

â€œSigns make humans do things,â€ said Nisodemus, â€œor stop doing things. So get to work, good Dorcas. Signs. Um. Signs that say No.â€

Dorcas had given this a lot of thought as teams of nomes sweated to pry the lids off the paint-streaked cans. They still had The High Way Code from the Truck, and there were plenty of signs in there. And he could remember some of the signs from the Store.

Then there was a stroke of luck. Normally the nomes stayed at floor level, but Dorcas had taken to sending his young assistants onto the big desk in the managerâ€™s office occasionally, where there were useful scraps of paper. Now he needed to work out what the signs should say.

Sacco and Nooty came back with the news.

Theyâ€™d found more signs. A great big grubby notice pinned to the wall, covered with signs.

â€œMasses of them,â€ Sacco said, coming back out of breath. â€œAnd you know what, sir? You know what? I read what it said on the notice, and it said, Health And Safety At Work, it said, Obey These Signs, it said, and it said, They Are There For Your Protection.â€

â€œThatâ€™s what it said?â€ said Dorcas.

â€œFor Your Protection,â€ Sacco repeated.

â€œCan you get it down?â€

â€œThereâ€™s a coat hook next to it,â€ said Nooty enthusiastically. â€œI bet we could sling a hook up and then pull it over toward the window, and thenâ€”â€

â€œYes, yes, youâ€™re good at that sort of thing,â€ said Dorcas. Nooty could climb like a squirrel. â€œI expect Nisodemus will be very pleased,â€ he added.

Nisodemus was, especially with the bit that said For Your Protection. It showed, he said, that, um, Arnold Bros (est. 1905) was on their side.

Every bit of board and rusty sheet of metal had to be pressed into service. The nomes went at it cheerfully enough, though, happy to be doing something.

Next morning the sun rose to see a variety of signs hanging, not always squarely, on the battered quarry gate.

They had been very thorough. The signs said: No Etnry. Exit This Way. Dagnerâ€”Hard Hat Area. Blastign In Progres. All Trucks Report To Wieghbridge. Slipery When Wet. This Till Closed. Lift Out Fo Order. Beware Of Flaling Rocks. Road Floooded.

And one that Dorcas had found in a book and was rather proud of: Unexploded Bom.

Just to be on the safe side, though, and without telling Nisodemus, he found some more chain and, in one of the greasy old toolboxes in Big Johnâ€™s shed, a padlock nearly as big as he was. It took four nomes to carry it.

The chain was massive. Some of the nomes found Dorcas painstakingly levering it along across the quarry floor, one link at a time. He didnâ€™t seem to want to tell them where he had found it.

The truck turned up around noon. The nomes waiting in the hedge by the side of the lane saw the driver get out, look at the signs, and . . .

No, that wasnâ€™t right. Humans couldnâ€™t do that sort of thing. It couldnâ€™t be true. But twenty nomes, peering out from the undergrowth, saw it happen.

The human disobeyed the signs.

Not only that, it pulled some of them off the gate and threw them away.

They watched in astonishment. Even Unexploded Bom was whirled into the bushes, nearly knocking young Sacco from his perch.

The new chain, though, caused the human a few problems. It rattled it once or twice, peered in through the wire mesh of the gate, stamped around for a bit, and then drove off.

The nomes in the bushes cheered, but not too happily.

If humans werenâ€™t going to do what was expected of them, nothing was right in the world.

â€œI reckon thatâ€™s it,â€ said Dorcas when they got back. â€œI donâ€™t like the idea any more than anyone else, but weâ€™ve got to move. I know humans. That chain wonâ€™t stop them if they really want to get in.â€

â€œI absolutely forbid anyone to leave!â€ said Nisodemus.

â€œBut you see, metal can be cut throughâ€”â€ Dorcas began, in a reasonable tone of voice.

â€œSilence!â€ shouted Nisodemus. â€œItâ€™s your fault, you old fool! Um! You put the chain on the gate!â€

â€œWell, you see, it was to stop theâ€”pardon?â€ said Dorcas.

â€œIf you hadnâ€™t put the chain on the gate, the signs would have stopped the human,â€ said Nisodemus. â€œBut you canâ€™t expect Arnold Bros (est. 1905) to help us if we show we donâ€™t trust him!â€

â€œUm,â€ said Dorcas. What he was thinking was: Mad. A mad nome. A dangerously mad nome. Weâ€™re not talking about teapots here. He backed out of Nisodemusâ€™s presence and was glad to get out into the bitingly cold air.

Everythingâ€™s going wrong, he thought. I was left in charge, and now itâ€™s all going wrong. We havenâ€™t got any proper plans, Masklin hasnâ€™t come back, and itâ€™s all going wrong.

If humans come into the quarry, theyâ€™ll find us.

Something cold landed on his head. He brushed at it irritably.

Iâ€™ll have a word with some of the younger nomes, he thought. Maybe going to the barn isnâ€™t such a bad idea; we could keep our eyes shut on the way. Or something.

Something else, cold and soft, settled on his neck.

Oh, why are people so complicated?

He looked up and realized that he couldnâ€™t see the other side of the quarry. The air was full of white specks that got thicker as he watched.

He stared at it in horror.

It was snowing.

8

VII. And Grimma said, We have two choices.

VIII. We can run, or we can hide.

IX. And they said, Which shall we do?

X. She said, We shall Fight.

From The Book of Nome,
Quarries Chap. 3, v. VIIâ€“X

IT WASNâ€™T MUCH of a fall, just one of those nippy little sprinklings that come early in the winter to make it absolutely clear that it is, well, the winter. Thatâ€™s what Granny Morkie said.

Sheâ€™d never been very interested in the Council anyway. She liked to spend her time with the other old people, exchanging grumbles and, as she put it, cheerinâ€™ them up and takinâ€™ them out oâ€™ themselves.

She strutted around in the snow as if it belonged to her.

The other old nomes watched her in horrified silence.

â€œCourse, this is nothing to some of â€™em,â€ she said. â€œI mind weâ€™ve had snow, we couldnâ€™t walk round in it, we had to dig tunnels! Talk about a laugh!â€

â€œEr, madam,â€ said a very old nome, gravely, â€œdoes it always drop out of the sky like this?â€

â€œCourse! Sometimes it gets blown along by the wind. You get great big heaps!â€

â€œWe thought itâ€”you see, on the cardsâ€”that is, in the Storeâ€”well, we thought it just sort of appeared on things,â€ said the old nome. â€œIn a rather jolly and festive way,â€ he added, looking embarrassed.

They watched it pile up. Over the quarry, the clouds hung like overstuffed mattresses.

â€œAt least it means we wonâ€™t have to go to that horrid barn place,â€ said a nome.

â€œThatâ€™s right,â€ said Granny Morkie. â€œYou could catch your death, going out in this.â€ She looked cheerful.

The old nomes grumbled among themselves and scanned the sky anxiously for the first signs of robins or reindeer.

The snow closed the quarry in. You couldnâ€™t see out across the fields.

Dorcas sat in his workshop and stared at the snow piling up against the grubby window, giving the shed a dull gray light.

â€œWell,â€ he said quietly, â€œwe wanted to be shut away. And now we are. We canâ€™t run away, and we canâ€™t hide. We ought to have gone when Masklin left.â€

He heard footsteps behind him. It was Grimma. She spent a long time near the gate these days, but the snow had driven her indoors at last.

â€œHe wouldnâ€™t be able to come,â€ she said. â€œNot in the snow.â€

â€œYeah. Right,â€ said Dorcas uncertainly.

â€œItâ€™s been eight days now.â€

â€œYes. Quite a long time.â€

â€œWhat were you saying when I came in?â€ she said.

â€œI was just talking to myself. Does this snow stuff stay for a long time?â€

â€œGranny says it does, sometimes. Weeks and weeks, she says.â€

â€œOh.â€

â€œWhen the humans come back, theyâ€™ll be here for good,â€ said Grimma.

â€œYes,â€ said Dorcas sadly. â€œYes, I think youâ€™re right.â€

â€œHow many of us would be able to . . . you know . . . go on living here?â€

â€œA couple of dozen, perhaps. If they donâ€™t eat much, and lie low during the day. Thereâ€™s no Food Hall, you see.â€ He sighed. â€œAnd there wonâ€™t be much hunting. Not with humans around the quarry the whole time. All the game up in the thickets will run away.â€

â€œBut thereâ€™s thousands of us!â€

Dorcas shrugged.

â€œItâ€™s hard enough for me to walk through this snow,â€ he said. â€œThereâ€™s hundreds of older nomes whoâ€™ll never do it. And young ones, come to that.â€

â€œSo weâ€™ve got to stay, just like Nisodemus wants,â€ said Grimma.

â€œYes. Stay and hope. Perhaps the snow will be gone. We could make a run for the thickets or something,â€ he said vaguely.

â€œWe could stay and fight,â€ said Grimma.

Dorcas growled. â€œOh, thatâ€™s easy. We fight all the time. Bicker, bicker, bicker. Thatâ€™s nomish nature for you.â€

â€œI mean, fight the humans. Fight for the quarry.â€

There was a long pause.

Then Dorcas said, â€œWhat, us? Fight humans?â€

â€œYes.â€

â€œBut theyâ€™re humans!â€

â€œYes.â€

â€œBut theyâ€™re so much bigger than we are!â€ said Dorcas desperately.

â€œThen theyâ€™ll make better targets,â€ said Grimma, her eyes alight. â€œAnd weâ€™re faster than them, and smarter than them, and we know they existâ€”and we have,â€ she added, â€œthe element of surprise.â€

â€œThe what?â€ said Dorcas, totally lost.

â€œThe element of surprise. They donâ€™t know weâ€™re here,â€ she explained.

He gave her a sidelong glance.

â€œYouâ€™ve been reading strange books again,â€ he said.

â€œWell, itâ€™s better than sitting around wringing our hands and saying, â€˜Oh dear, oh dear, the humans are coming and we shall all be squashed.â€™â€

â€œThatâ€™s all very well,â€ said Dorcas, â€œbut what are you suggesting? Bashing them over the head would be really trickyâ€”take it from me.â€

â€œNot their heads,â€ said Grimma.

Dorcas stared at her. Fight humans? It was such a novel idea, it was hard to get your mind around it.

But . . . well, there was that book, wasnâ€™t there? The one Masklin had found in the Store, the one that had given him the idea for driving the Truck. What was it? Gulliverâ€™s Travels? And thereâ€™d been this picture of a human lying down, with what looked like nomes tying it up with hundreds of ropes. Not even the oldest nomes could remember it ever happening. It must have been a long time ago.

A snag struck him.

â€œHang on a minute, he said. â€œIf we start fighting humans . . .â€ His voice trailed off.

â€œYes?â€ said Grimma impatiently.

â€œTheyâ€™ll start fighting us, wonâ€™t they? I know theyâ€™re not very bright, but itâ€™ll dawn on them that somethingâ€™s happening and theyâ€™ll fight back. Retaliation, thatâ€™s called.â€

â€œThatâ€™s right,â€ said Grimma. â€œAnd thatâ€™s why itâ€™s vitally important we retaliate right at the start.â€

Dorcas thought about this. It seemed a logical idea.

â€œBut only in self-defense,â€ he said. â€œOnly in self-defense. Even with humans. I donâ€™t want there to be any unnecessary suffering.â€

â€œI suppose so,â€ she said.

â€œYou really think we could fight humans?â€

â€œOh, yes.â€

â€œSo . . . how?â€

Grimma bit her lip. â€œHmm,â€ she said. â€œYoung Sacco and his friends. Can you trust them?â€

â€œTheyâ€™re keen lads. And lasses, one or two of them.â€ He smiled. â€œAlways ready for something new.â€

â€œRight. Then we shall need some nails. . . .â€

â€œYouâ€™ve really been thinking hard, havenâ€™t you?â€ said Dorcas. He was almost in awe. Grimma was often bad-tempered. He thought perhaps it was because her mind worked very fast, sometimes, and she was impatient with people who werenâ€™t keeping up. But now she was furious. You could begin to feel sorry for any humans who got in her way.

â€œIâ€™ve been doing a lot of reading,â€ she said.

â€œEr, yes. Yes, I can see,â€ said Dorcas. â€œBut, er, I wonder if it wouldnâ€™t be more sensible toâ€”â€

â€œWeâ€™re not going to run away again,â€ she said flatly. â€œWe shall fight them in the lane. We shall fight them at the gates. We shall fight them in the quarry. And we shall never surrender.â€

â€œWhat does â€˜surrenderâ€™ mean?â€ said Dorcas, desperately.

â€œWe donâ€™t know the meaning of surrender,â€ said Grimma.

â€œWell, I donâ€™t,â€ said Dorcas.

Grimma leaned against the wall.

â€œDo you want to hear something strange?â€ she said.

Dorcas thought about it.

â€œI donâ€™t mind,â€ he said.

â€œThereâ€™s books about us.â€

â€œLike Gulliver, you mean?â€

â€œNo. That was about a human. About us, I mean. Ordinary-sized people, like us. But wearing all green suits and with little knobbly stalks on their heads. Sometimes humans put out bowls of milk for us, and we do all the housework for them. And they have wings, like bees. Thatâ€™s what gets put in books about us. They call us pixies. Itâ€™s in a book called Fairy Tales for Little Folk.â€

â€œI donâ€™t think the wings would work,â€ said Dorcas doubtfully. â€œI donâ€™t think you could get the lifting power.â€

â€œAnd they think we live in mushrooms,â€ Grimma finished.

â€œHmm? Doesnâ€™t sound very practical to me,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œAnd they think we repair shoes.â€

â€œThatâ€™s a bit more like it,â€ said Dorcas. â€œGood solid work.â€

â€œAnd the book said we paint the flowers to make them pretty colors,â€ said Grimma.

Dorcas stared at her.

â€œNah,â€ he said eventually. â€œIâ€™ve looked at the colors on flowers. Theyâ€™re definitely built-in.â€

â€œWeâ€™re real,â€ said Grimma. â€œWe do real things. Why do you think that sort of thing goes in books?â€

â€œSearch me,â€ said Dorcas. â€œI only read manuals. Itâ€™s not a proper book, Iâ€™ve always said, unless itâ€™s got lists and part numbers in it.â€

â€œIf ever humans do catch us, thatâ€™s what weâ€™ll become,â€ said Grimma. â€œSweet little people, painting flowers. They wonâ€™t let us be anything else. Theyâ€™ll turn us into little people.â€ She sighed. â€œDo you ever get the feeling youâ€™ll never know everything you ought to know?â€

â€œOh, yes. All the time.â€

Grimma frowned.

â€œI know one thing,â€ she said. â€œWhen Masklin comes back, heâ€™s going to have somewhere to come back to.â€

â€œOh,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œOh,â€ he repeated. â€œOh. I see.â€

It was bitterly cold in Big Johnâ€™s lair. Other nomes never came in, because it was drafty and stank unpleasantly. That suited Dorcas fine.

He padded across the floor and under the huge tarpaulin where Big John lived. It took quite a long time to climb up to his preferred perch on the monster, even using the bits of wood and string heâ€™d painstakingly tied to it . . . him.

He sat down and waited until he got his breath back.

â€œI only want to help people,â€ he said quietly. â€œLike giving them things like electricity and making their lives better. But they never say thank you, you know. They wanted me to paint signs, so I painted signs. Now Grimma wants to fight humans. Sheâ€™s got lots of ideas out of books. I know sheâ€™s doing it to help forget about Masklin, but no good will come of it, you mark my words. But if I donâ€™t help, things will only be even worse. I donâ€™t want anybody to get hurt. People like us canâ€™t be repaired as easily as people like you.â€

He drummed his heels on Big Johnâ€™sâ€”what would it be?â€”Big Johnâ€™s neck, probably.

â€œItâ€™s all right for you,â€ he said. â€œSleeping quietly here all the time. Having a nice rest . . .â€

He stared at Big John for a long while.

Then, very quietly, he said, â€œI wonder . . . ?â€

Five long minutes went past. Dorcas appeared and reappeared among the complicated shadows, muttering to himself, saying things like â€œThatâ€™s dead, thatâ€™s no good, we need a new battery,â€ and â€œSeems okay, nothing that a good clean couldnâ€™t put right,â€ and â€œHmm, not much in your tank. . . .â€

Finally he walked out from under the dusty cloth and rubbed his hands together.

Everyone has a purpose in life, he thought. Itâ€™s what keeps them going.

Nisodemus wants things to be as they were. Grimma wants Masklin back. And Masklin . . . no one knows exactly what it is that Masklin wants, except that itâ€™s very big.

But they all have this purpose. If you have a purpose in life, you can feel six inches tall.

And now Iâ€™ve found one.

Gosh.

The human came back later, and he did not come alone. There was the small truck and a much larger one, with the words Blackbury Stone & Gravel Ltd painted on the side. Its tires turned the thin coating of snow into glistening mud.

It jolted up the lane, slowed down as it came out into the space in front of the quarry gates, and stopped.

It wasnâ€™t a very good stop. The back of the vehicle swung around and nearly hit the hedge. The engine coughed into silence. There was the sound of hissing. And, very slowly, the truck sank.

Two humans got out. They walked around the truck, looking at each tire in turn.

â€œTheyâ€™re only flat at the bottom,â€ whispered Grimma, in their hiding place in the bushes.

â€œDonâ€™t worry about it,â€ whispered Dorcas. â€œThe thing about tires is, the flat bit always sinks to the bottom. Amazing what you can do with a few nails, isnâ€™t it?â€

The smaller truck came to a stop. Two humans got out of that, too, and joined the others. One of them was holding the longest pair of pliers Dorcas had ever seen. While the rest of the humans bent down by one of the flat tires, it strolled up to the gate, fiddled the teeth of the pliers onto the padlock, and squeezed.

It was an effort, even for a human. But there was a snap loud enough to be heard in the bushes, and then a long-drawn-out clinking noise as the chain fell away.

Dorcas groaned. Heâ€™d had great hopes for that chain. It was Big Johnâ€™s; at least, it was in a big yellow box bolted to part of Big John, so presumably it had belonged to Big John. But it had been the padlock that had broken, not the chain. Dorcas felt oddly proud about that.

â€œI donâ€™t understand it,â€ Grimma muttered. â€œThey can see theyâ€™re not wanted, so why are they so stupid?â€

â€œItâ€™s not as if there arenâ€™t masses of stone around,â€ agreed Sacco.

The human pulled at the gate and swung it enough to allow itself inside.

â€œItâ€™s going to the managerâ€™s office,â€ said Sacco. â€œItâ€™s going to make noises in the telephone.â€

â€œNo, itâ€™s not,â€ Dorcas prophesied.

â€œBut it will be ringing up Order,â€ said Sacco. â€œItâ€™ll be sayingâ€”in Human, I meanâ€”itâ€™ll be saying, â€˜Some Of Our Wheels Have Gone Flat.â€™â€

â€œNo,â€ said Dorcas, â€œitâ€™ll be saying, â€˜Why Doesnâ€™t the Telephone Work?â€™â€

â€œWhy doesnâ€™t the telephone work?â€ said Nooty.

â€œBecause I know what wires to cut,â€ said Dorcas. â€œLook, itâ€™s coming back out.â€

They watched it walk around the sheds. The snow had covered the nomesâ€™ sad attempts at cultivation. There were plenty of nome tracks, though, like little bird trails in the snow. The human didnâ€™t notice them. Humans hardly ever noticed anything.

â€œTrip wires,â€ said Grimma.

â€œWhat?â€ said Dorcas.

â€œTrip wires. We should put trip wires down. The bigger they are,â€ said Grimma, â€œthe harder they fall.â€

â€œNot on us, I hope,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œNo. We could put more nails down,â€ said Grimma.

â€œGood grief.â€

The humans clustered around the stricken truck. Then they appeared to reach a decision and walked back to the Land Rover. They got in. It couldnâ€™t go forward but reversed slowly down the lane, turned around in a field gateway, and headed back to the main road. The truck was left alone.

Dorcas breathed out.

â€œI was afraid one of them would stay,â€ he said.

â€œTheyâ€™ll come back,â€ said Grimma. â€œYouâ€™ve always said it. Humansâ€™ll come back and mend the wheels or whatever it is they do.â€

â€œThen weâ€™d better get on with it,â€ said Dorcas. â€œCome on, you lot.â€

He stood up and trotted toward the lane. To Saccoâ€™s surprise, Dorcas was whistling under his breath.

â€œNow, the important thing is to make sure they canâ€™t move it,â€ he said as they ran to keep up. â€œIf they canâ€™t move it, it means it stays blocking the lane. And if it stays blocking the lane, they canâ€™t get any more machines in.â€

â€œGood thinking,â€ said Grimma in a slightly puzzled voice.

â€œWe must immobilize it,â€ said Dorcas. â€œWeâ€™ll take out the battery first. No electricity, no go.â€

â€œRight,â€ said Sacco.

â€œItâ€™s a big square thing,â€ said Dorcas. â€œItâ€™ll need eight of you at least. Donâ€™t drop it, whatever you do.â€

â€œWhy not?â€ said Grimma. â€œWe want to smash it, donâ€™t we?â€

â€œEr. Er. Er,â€ said Dorcas urgently, like a motor trying to get started. â€œNo, because, because, because it could be dangerous. Yes. Dangerous. Yes. Because, because, because of the acid and whatnot. You must take it out very carefully, and Iâ€™ll find somewhere safe to put it. Yes. Very safe. Off you go now. Two nomes to a wrench.â€

They trotted off.

â€œWhat else can we do?â€ said Grimma.

â€œWeâ€™d better drain the fuel out,â€ said Dorcas firmly, as they walked under the shadow of the truck. It was much smaller than the one that had brought them out of the Store, but still quite big enough. He wandered around until he was under the enormous swelling bulk of the fuel tank.

Four of the young nomes had dragged an empty can out of the bushes. Dorcas called them over and pointed to the tank above them.

â€œThereâ€™ll be a nut on there somewhere,â€ he said. â€œItâ€™ll be to let the fuel out. Get a wrench round it. Make sure the canâ€™s underneath it first!â€

They nodded enthusiastically and got to work. Nomes are good climbers and remarkably strong for their size.

â€œAnd try not to spill any, please!â€ Dorcas shouted up after them.

â€œI donâ€™t see why that matters,â€ said Grimma, behind him. â€œAll we want to do is get it out of the truck. Where it goes doesnâ€™t matter, does it?â€

She gave him another thoughtful look. Dorcas blinked back at her, his mind racing.

â€œAh,â€ he said. â€œAh. Ah. Because. Becausebecausebecause. Ah. Because itâ€™s dangerous stuff. We donâ€™t want it polluting things, do we? Best to put it carefully in a can andâ€”â€

â€œKeep it safe?â€ said Grimma suspiciously.

â€œRight! Right,â€ said Dorcas, who was starting to sweat. â€œGood idea. Now letâ€™s just go over hereâ€”â€

There was sudden rush of air and a thump from right behind them. The truckâ€™s battery landed where they had been standing.

â€œSorry, Dorcas,â€ Sacco called down. â€œIt was a lot heavier than we thought. It got away from us.â€

â€œYou idiots!â€ Grimma shouted.

â€œYes, you idiots!â€ shouted Dorcas. â€œYou might have damaged it! Just you come down here right now and get it into the hedge, quickly!â€

â€œHe might have damaged us!â€ said Grimma.

â€œYes. Yes. Yes, thatâ€™s what I meant, of course,â€ said Dorcas vaguely. â€œYou wouldnâ€™t mind organizing them a bit, would you? Theyâ€™re good boys, but always a bit too enthusiastic, if you know what I mean.â€

He wandered off into the shadow, his head tilted backward.

â€œWell!â€ said Grimma. She looked around at Sacco and his friends, who were sheepishly climbing down again.

â€œDonâ€™t just stand there,â€ she said. â€œGet it into the hedge. Hasnâ€™t Dorcas told you about using levers? Very important things. Itâ€™s amazing what you can do with levers. We used them a lot on the Long Driveâ€”â€

Her voice trailed off. She turned and looked at the distant figure of Dorcas and her eyes narrowed.

The cunning old devil is up to something, she thought.

â€œOh, just get on with it,â€ she said, and ran after Dorcas.

He was standing under the truckâ€™s engine, staring intently into the masses of rusting pipework. As she came up, she distinctly heard him say, â€œNow, what else do we need?â€

â€œHow do you mean, need?â€ said Grimma quietly.

â€œOh, to help Bigâ€”â€ Dorcas stopped and turned around slowly. â€œI mean, what else do we need to do to make the thing totally immobile,â€ he said stonily. â€œThat was what I meant.â€

â€œYouâ€™re not planning to drive this truck, are you?â€ said Grimma.

â€œDonâ€™t be silly. Whereâ€™d we go? Itâ€™d never get across the fields to the barn.â€

â€œWell. All right, then.â€

â€œI just want to have a look around it. Time spent collecting knowledge is never wasted,â€ said Dorcas primly. He stepped out into the light on the other side of the truck and looked up.

â€œWell, well,â€ he said.

â€œWhat is it?â€

â€œThey left the door open. I suppose they thought it was all right because theyâ€™d be coming back.â€

Grimma followed his gaze. The truckâ€™s door was slightly ajar.

Dorcas looked around at the hedge behind them.

â€œHelp me find a big enough stick,â€ he said. â€œI reckon we could climb up there and have a look around.â€

â€œA look around? What do you expect to find?â€

â€œYou never know till youâ€™ve looked,â€ said Dorcas philosophically. He peered back underneath the truck.

â€œHow are you all doing under there? We need a hand here.â€

Sacco staggered up. â€œWe managed to get the battery thing behind the hedge,â€ he said, â€œand the canâ€™s nearly full. Smells horrible. Thereâ€™s still lots coming out.â€

â€œCan you get the screw back in?â€

â€œNooty tried and she got all covered in yuk.â€

â€œLet it go on the road, then,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œHang on, you said that would be dangerous,â€ said Grimma. â€œItâ€™s dangerous until youâ€™ve filled the can up, is it, and then not dangerous at all?â€

â€œLook, you wanted me to stop the truck, and Iâ€™ve stopped the truck,â€ said Dorcas. â€œSo just shut up, will you?â€

Grimma looked at him in horror.

â€œWhat did you say?â€ she said.

Dorcas swallowed. Oh, well. If you were going to get shouted at, you might as well get your moneyâ€™s worth.

â€œI said just shut up,â€ he said quietly. â€œI donâ€™t want to be rude, but you do go on at people. Iâ€™m sorry, but thatâ€™s how it is. Iâ€™m helping you. Iâ€™m not asking you to help me, but at least you can let me get on with things instead of badgering me the whole time. And you never say please or thank you, either. People are a bit like machines,â€ he added solemnly, while her face went redder, â€œand words like please and thank you are just like grease. They make them work better. Is that all right?â€ He turned to the boys, who were looking very embarrassed.

â€œFind a stick long enough to reach up to the cab,â€ he said. â€œPlease.â€

They fell over themselves to obey.

9

III. The younger nomes spoke, saying, Would that we were the nomes our fathers were, to ride upon the Truck, and what was it like?

IV. And Dorcas said, It was scary.

V. That was what it was like.

From The Book of Nome,
Strange Frogs Chap. 2, v. IIIâ€“V

IT WAS PRETTY much like the cab of the truck that had brought them from the Store. It brought back old memories.

â€œWow!â€ said Sacco. â€œAnd we all drove one of these?â€

â€œSeven hundred of us,â€ said Dorcas proudly. â€œYour dad was one of them. You were in the back with your mothers. All you lads were.â€

â€œIâ€™m not a lad,â€ said Nooty.

â€œSorry,â€ said Dorcas. â€œSlip of the tongue. In my day girls stayed at home most of the time. Not that Iâ€™ve got anything at all against them getting out and about a bit now,â€ he added hurriedly, not wanting another Grimma on his hands. â€œIâ€™m not against that at all.â€

â€œI wish Iâ€™d been older on the Drive,â€ said Nooty. â€œIt must have been amazing.â€

â€œIt terrified the life out of me,â€ said Dorcas.

The others wandered around the cab like tourists in a cathedral, gawking. Nooty tried to press a pedal.

â€œAmazing,â€ she said, under her breath.

â€œSacco, you get up there and take those keys out,â€ said Dorcas. â€œThe rest of you, no lollygagging. Those humans could be back any time. Nooty, stop making those brrrm-brrrm noises. Iâ€™m sure nice girls shouldnâ€™t make those kind of noises,â€ he added lamely.

Sacco swarmed up the steering-wheel post and wrestled the keys out of the ignition while the rest of the boys poked around in the cab.

Grimma wasnâ€™t with them. She hadnâ€™t wanted to come up into the cab. Sheâ€™d turned very quiet, in fact. Sheâ€™d stayed down in the lane with a sullen look on her face.

But it had needed saying, Dorcas told himself.

He looked around the cab. Letâ€™s see, he thought . . . weâ€™ve got the battery, weâ€™ve got the fuel, was there anything else Big John needed?

â€œCome on, everyone,â€ he called, â€œletâ€™s be getting out of here. Nooty, stop trying to move things all the time. Itâ€™d take all of you to shift the gear lever. Come on, before the humans come back.â€

He made his way to the door and heard a click behind him.

â€œI said come onâ€”What do you think youâ€™re doing?â€

The young nomes stared at him, wide-eyed.

â€œWeâ€™re seeing if we can move the gear lever, Dorcas,â€ said Nooty. â€œIf you press this knob, you canâ€”â€

â€œDonâ€™t press the knob! Donâ€™t press the knob!â€

The first inkling Grimma had that something was going wrong was a nasty little crunching sound and a change in the light.

The truck was moving. Not very fast, because the two front tires were flat. But the lane was steep. It was moving all right, and just because it had started off slowly didnâ€™t mean there wasnâ€™t something huge and unstoppable about it.

She stared at it in horror.

The lane ran between high banks all the way down to the big roadâ€”and the railway.

â€œI said donâ€™t press it! Did I say press it? I said donâ€™t press it!â€

The terrified nomes stared at him, their open mouths a row of Oâ€™s.

â€œItâ€™s not the gear lever! Itâ€™s the hand brake, you idiots!â€

Now they could all hear the crunching noise and feel the slight vibration.

â€œEr,â€ said Sacco, his voice shaking, â€œwhatâ€™s a hand brake, Dorcas?â€

â€œIt keeps it stopped on hills and things! Donâ€™t just stand there! Help me push it back up!â€

The cab was, very gently, beginning to sway from side to side. The truck was definitely moving. The hand brake wasnâ€™t. Dorcas heaved on it until blue and purple spots flashed in front of his eyes.

â€œI just gave the knob on the end a push!â€ Nooty babbled. â€œI only wanted to see what it did!â€

â€œYes, yes, all right . . .â€ Dorcas stared around. What he needed was a lever. What he needed was about fifty nomes. What he needed most of all was not to be here.

He staggered across the bouncing floor to the doorway and cautiously peered out. The hedge was moving past quite gently, as if it werenâ€™t in a particular hurry to get anywhere, but the surface of the lane already had a blurred look.

We could probably jump, he thought. And if weâ€™re lucky, we wonâ€™t break anything. If weâ€™re even luckier, weâ€™ll avoid the wheels. How lucky do I feel, right at this minute?

Not very.

Sacco joined him.

â€œPerhaps if we took a good running jumpâ€”â€ he began.

There was a thump as the truck hit the bank, heeled over, and then bounced back onto the lane.

The nomes struggled to their feet.

â€œOn the other hand, perhaps not a good idea,â€ said Sacco. â€œWhat shall we do now, Dorcas?â€

â€œJust hang on,â€ said Dorcas. â€œI think the banks will keep it on the lane, and I suppose itâ€™ll just roll to a halt eventually.â€ He sat down suddenly as the truck bounced off the bank again. â€œYou wanted to know what a truck ride was like. Well, now you know.â€

There was another thump. The branch of a tree caught the door, swung it open, and then, with a terrible metallic noise, ripped it off.

â€œWas it like this?â€ shouted Nooty, above the noise. To Dorcasâ€™s amazement, now that the immediate danger was over, she seemed to be quite enjoying it. Weâ€™re bringing up new nomes, he thought. Theyâ€™re not so scared of things as we were. They know about a bigger world.

He coughed.

â€œWell, apart from it being in the dark, and we could see where we were going, yes,â€ he said. â€œI think we all ought to hang on to something. Just in case it gets bumpy.â€

The truck rolled down the lane and onto the main road. A car skidded into the hedge to avoid it; another truck managed to stop at the end of four long streaks of scorched rubber on the wet road.

None of the nomes in the cab noticed this at the time. All they felt was another thump as the truck bounced gently off the far side of the road and down the lane that ran toward the railway. Where, with red lights flashing, the barriers were coming down.

Sacco peered out of the stricken doorway.

â€œWeâ€™ve just crossed over a road,â€ he said.

â€œAh,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œI just saw a car run into the back of another car, and a truck ended up going sideways,â€ Sacco went on.

â€œAh. Lucky we got over, then,â€ said Dorcas. â€œThereâ€™s some dangerous drivers around.â€

The gritty sound of the flat tires rolling over gravel gradually slowed down. There was the snap of something breaking behind the truck, a couple of bumps, and then another thump that brought them to a halt.

They heard a low, booming noise.

Nomes hear things differently from humans, and the shrill clanging of the grade crossingâ€™s warning alarms sounded, to them, like the mournful tolling of an ancient bell.

â€œWeâ€™ve stopped,â€ said Dorcas. He thought: We could have pressed the brake pedal. We could have looked for something to press it with and pressed it. I must be getting too old. Oh, well. â€œCome on, no hanging around. We can jump out. You youngsters can, anyway.â€

â€œWhy? What are you going to do?â€ said Sacco.

â€œIâ€™m going to wait until youâ€™ve all jumped out, and then Iâ€™m going to tell you to catch me,â€ said Dorcas pleasantly. â€œIâ€™m not as young as I was. Now, off you go.â€

They got down awkwardly, hanging on to the edge of the sill and dropping on to the road.

Dorcas lowered himself gingerly onto the brink and sat with his legs dangling over the drop.

It looked like a long way down.

Below him, Nooty prodded Sacco respectfully on the arm.

â€œEr. Sacco,â€ she said, nervously.

â€œWhat is it?â€

â€œLook at that metal rail thing over there.â€

â€œWell, what about it?â€

â€œThereâ€™s another one over there,â€ said Nooty, pointing.

â€œYes, I can see,â€ said Sacco testily. â€œWhat about them? Theyâ€™re not doing anything.â€

â€œWeâ€™re right in between them,â€ said Nooty. â€œI just thought I should, you know, point it out. And thereâ€™s that bell thing ringing.â€

â€œYes, I can hear it,â€ said Sacco irritably. â€œI wish it would stop.â€

â€œI just wondered why it was.â€

Sacco shrugged. â€œWho knows why anything happens?â€ he said. â€œCome on, Dorcas. Please. We havenâ€™t got all day.â€

â€œIâ€™m just composing myself,â€ said Dorcas quietly.

Nooty wandered miserably away from the group and looked down at one of the rails. It was bright and shiny.

And it seemed to be singing.

She bent closer. Yes, it was certainly making a faint humming sound. Which was odd. Bits of metal didnâ€™t normally make any noise at all. Not by themselves, anyway.

She looked up at the truck.

As she stared at the truck stuck between the flashing lights and the shiny rails, the world seemed to change slightly and a horrible idea formed in her head.

â€œSacco!â€ she quavered. â€œSacco, weâ€™re right on the railway line, Sacco!â€

Something a long way off made a deep, mournful noise. Two deep, mournful noises, one a little deeper and more mournful than the other.

Dee-dah.

Dee-dah.

From the gateway of the quarry, Grimma had a good view of the road all the way to the airport. She saw the train, and the truck.

The train had seen the truck too. It suddenly started to make the long-drawn-out screaming noise of bits of metal in distress. By the time it actually hit the thing, it seemed to be going quite slowly. It even managed to stay on the rails.

Bits of truck spun away in every direction, like a firework.

10

I. Nisodemus said unto them, Do you doubt that I can stop the power of Order?

II. And they said, Um . . .

From The Book of Nome,
Chases v. Iâ€“II

OTHER NOMES CAME running across the quarry floor, with Nisodemus in the lead, and piled up in a crowd around the gate.

â€œWhat happened? What happened?â€

â€œI saw everything,â€ said a middle-aged nome. â€œI was on watch, and I saw Dorcas and some of the boys go into the truck. And then it rolled away down the hill and then it went over the road and then it stopped right on the railway and then . . . and then . . .â€

â€œI forbade all meddling with these infernal machines,â€ said Nisodemus. â€œAnd I said we were to stop, um, putting people on watch, didnâ€™t I? The watch Arnold Bros (est. 1905) maintains should be enough for humble nomes!â€

â€œYes . . . well . . . Dorcas said he thought it wouldnâ€™t do any harm if we gave him a hand, sort of thing,â€ said the nome nervously. â€œAnd he saidâ€”â€

â€œI gave orders!â€ screamed Nisodemus. â€œYou will all obey me! Did I not stop the truck by the power of Arnold Bros (est. 1905)?â€

â€œNo,â€ said Grimma quietly. â€œNo, you didnâ€™t. Dorcas did. He put nails down in the road.â€

There was a huge, horrified silence. In the middle of it Nisodemus went slowly white with rage.

â€œLiar!â€ he shouted.

â€œNo,â€ said Grimma, meekly. â€œHe really did. He really did all sorts of things to help us, and we never said please or thank you and now heâ€™s dead.â€

There were sirens along the road below and a lot of excitement around the stationary train. Blue lights flashed.

The nomes shifted uneasily. One of them said, â€œHeâ€™s not really dead, though, is he? Not really. I expect he jumped out at the last minute. A clever person like him.â€

Grimma looked helplessly at the crowd. She saw Nootyâ€™s parents in the crowd. They were a quiet, patient couple. Sheâ€™d hardly ever spoken to them. Now their faces were gray and lined with worry. She gave in.

â€œYes,â€ she said. â€œPerhaps they got out.â€

â€œBound to have done,â€ muttered another nome, trying to look cheerful. â€œDorcas isnâ€™t the type to go around dying all the time. Not when we need him.â€

Grimma nodded.

â€œAnd now,â€ she went on, â€œI think even humans will be wondering whatâ€™s happening here. Theyâ€™ll soon work out where the truck came from, and theyâ€™ll be coming up here, and I think they might be very angry.â€

But Nisodemus licked his lips and said, â€œWe wonâ€™t be afraid. We will confront them and defy them. Um. We will treat them with scorn. We donâ€™t need Dorcas: We need nothing except faith in Arnold Bros (est. 1905). Nails, indeed!â€

â€œIf you start out now,â€ said Grimma, â€œyou should all be able to get to the barn, even through whatâ€™s left of the snow. I donâ€™t think the quarry will be a very safe place to be, quite soon.â€

There was something about the way she said it that made people nervous. Normally Grimma shouted or argued, but this time she spoke quite calmly. It wasnâ€™t like her at all.

â€œGo on,â€ she said. â€œYouâ€™ll have to start now. Youâ€™ll have to take as much food and stuff as possible. Go on.â€

â€œNo!â€ shouted Nisodemus. â€œNo one is to move! Do you think Arnold Bros (est. 1905) will let you down? Um, I will protect you from the humans!â€

Down below, a car with a flashing blue light on top of it pulled away from the excitement around the train, crossed the main road, and headed slowly up the lane.

â€œI will call upon the power of Arnold Bros (est. 1905) to smite the humans!â€ shouted Nisodemus.

The nomes looked unhappy. Arnold Bros (est. 1905) had never smitten anyone in the Store. Heâ€™d just founded it, and seen to it that nomes lived comfortable and not very strenuous lives in it, and apart from putting the signs on the walls hadnâ€™t really interfered very much. Now, suddenly, he was going around being angry and upset all the time, and smiting people. It was very bewildering.

â€œI will stand here and defy the dreadful minions of Order!â€ Nisodemus yelled. â€œI will teach them a lesson they wonâ€™t forget.â€

The rest of the nomes said nothing. If Nisodemus wanted to stand in front of a car, then that was all right by them.

â€œWe will all defy them!â€ he shouted.

â€œEr . . . what?â€ said a nome.

â€œBrothers, let us stand here resolute and show Order that we are united in opposition! Um. If you truly believe in Arnold Bros (est. 1905), no harm will come to you!â€

The flashing light was well up the lane now. Soon it would be crossing the wide patch in front of the gates, where the great chain hung uselessly from the broken padlock.

Grimma opened her mouth to say: Donâ€™t be stupid, you idiots, Arnold Bros (est. 1905) doesnâ€™t want you to stand in front of cars. Iâ€™ve seen what happens to nomes who stand in front of cars. Your relatives have to bury you in an envelope.

She was about to say all that and decided not to. For months and months people had been telling nomes what to do. Perhaps it was time to stop.

She saw a number of worried faces in the crowd turn toward her, and someone said, â€œWhat shall we do, Grimma?â€

â€œYeah,â€ said another nome, â€œsheâ€™s a Driver, they always know what to do.â€

She smiled at them. It wasnâ€™t a very happy smile.

â€œDo whatever you think best,â€ she said.

There was a chorus of indrawn breaths.

â€œWell, yeah,â€ said a nome, â€œbut, well, Nisodemus says we can stop this thing just by believing we can. Is that true, or what?â€

â€œI donâ€™t know,â€ said Grimma. â€œYou might be able to. I know I canâ€™t.â€

She turned and walked off quickly toward the sheds.

â€œStand firm,â€ commanded Nisodemus. He hadnâ€™t been listening to the worried discussions behind him. Perhaps he wasnâ€™t able to listen to anything now, except for little voices deep inside his head.

â€œâ€˜Do whatever you think best,â€™â€ muttered a nome. â€œWhat sort of help is that?â€

They stood in their hundreds, watching the car coming closer. Nisodemus stood slightly ahead of the crowd, holding his hands in the air.

The only sound was the crunch of tires on gravel.

If a bird had looked down on the quarry in the next few seconds, it would have been amazed.

Well, probably it wouldnâ€™t. Birds are somewhat stupid creatures and have a hard enough job even coming to terms with the ordinary, let alone the extraordinary. But if it had been an unusually intelligent birdâ€”an escaped mynah bird, perhaps, or a parrot that had been blown several thousand miles off course by very strong windsâ€”it would have thought:

Oh. There is a wide hole in the hill, with little old rusty sheds in it, and a fence in front of it.

And there is a car with a blue light on the top of it just going through a gate in the fence.

And there are little black dots on the ground ahead of it. One dot standing very still, right in the path of the thing, and the others, the othersâ€”

Breaking away and running. Running for their lives.

They never did find Nisodemus again, even though a party of strong-stomached nomes went back much later and searched through the ruts and the mud.

So a rumor grew up that perhaps, at the last minute, he had jumped up and caught hold of part of the car and had clambered onto it somehow. And then heâ€™d waited there, too ashamed to face other nomes, until the car went back to wherever it came from, and had got off, and was living out the rest of his life quietly and without any fuss. He had been a good nome in his way, they said. Whatever else you might say about him, he believed in things, and he did what he thought was proper, so it was only right that heâ€™d been spared and was still out there in the world, somewhere.

This was what they told one another, and what they wrote down in The Book of Nome.

What nomes might have thought in those private moments before they went to sleep . . . well, that was private.

Humans clomped slowly around the train and what remained of the truck. Lots of other vehicles had turned up at what was, for humans, great speed. Many of them had blue lights on top.

The nomes had learned to be worried by things with flashing blue lights on top.

The Land Rover belonging to the quarry men was there as well. One of the quarry men was pointing to the wrecked truck and shouting at the others. Heâ€™d opened the smashed engine compartment and was pointing to where the battery wasnâ€™t.

Beside the railway, the breeze rustled the long grass. And some of the long grass rustled without any wind at all.

Dorcas had been right. Where humans went once, they went again. The quarry belonged to them. Three trucks were parked outside the sheds, and humans were everywhere. Some were repairing the fence. Some were taking boxes and drums off the trucks. One was even in the managerâ€™s office, tidying up.

The nomes crouched where they could, listening fearfully to the sounds above them. There werenâ€™t many hiding places for two thousand nomes, small though they were.

It was a very long day. In the shadows under some of the sheds, in the darkness behind crates, in some cases even on the dusty rafters under the tin roofs, the nomes passed it as best they could.

There were escapes so narrow, a postcard couldnâ€™t have got through them. Old Munby Confectioneri and most of his family were left blinking in the light when a human moved the tatty old box they were cowering behind. Only a quick dash to the shelter of a stack of cans saved them. And, of course, the fact that humans never really looked hard at what they were doing.

That wasnâ€™t the worst bit, though.

The worst bit was much worse.

The nomes sat in the noisy darkness, not daring even to speak, and felt their world vanishing. Not because the humans hated nomes. Because they didnâ€™t notice them.

There was Dorcasâ€™s electricity, for example. Heâ€™d spent a long time twisting bits of wire together and finding a safe way to steal electricity from the fuse box. A human pulled them out without thinking, twiddled inside with a screwdriver, and put up a new box with a lock on it. Then it mended the telephone.

The Store nomes needed electricity. They couldnâ€™t remember a time when they had been without it. It was a natural thing, like air. And now theirs was a world of endless darkness.

And still the terror went on. The rough floorboards shook overhead, raining dust and splinters. Metal drums boomed like thunder. There was the continual sound of hammering. The humans were back, and they meant to stay.

They did go eventually, though. When the daylight drained from the winter sky, like steel growing cold, some of the humans got into their vehicles and drove off down the lane.

They did one puzzling thing before they left. Nomes had to scramble over one another to get out of the way when one of the floorboards in the managerâ€™s office was pulled up. A huge hand reached down and put a little tray on the packed earth under the floor. Then the darkness came back as the board was replaced.

The nomes sat in the gloom and wondered why on earth the humans, after a day like this, were giving them food.

The tray was piled with flour. It wasnâ€™t much, compared to Store food, but to nomes who had spent all day hungry and miserable, it smelled good.

A couple of younger ones crawled closer. It was the most tantalizing smell.

One of them took a handful of the stuff.

â€œDonâ€™t eat it!â€

Grimma pushed her way through the packed bodies.

â€œBut it smells soâ€”â€ one of the nomes warbled.

â€œHave you ever smelled anything like it before?â€ she said.

â€œWell, noâ€”â€

â€œSo you donâ€™t know itâ€™s good to eat, do you? Listen. I know about stuff like this. Where weâ€”where I used to live, in the hole . . . there was a place along the road where humans came to eat, and sometimes weâ€™d find stuff like this among the trash bins at the back. It kills you if you eat it!â€

The nomes stared at the innocent little tray. Food that killed you? That didnâ€™t make sense.

â€œI remember there was some canned meat we had once in the Store,â€ said an elderly nome. â€œGave us all a nasty upset, I remember.â€ He gave Grimma a hopeful look.

She shook her head. â€œThis isnâ€™t like that,â€ she said. â€œWe used to find dead rats near it. They didnâ€™t die in a very nice way,â€ she added, shuddering at the memory. â€œOh.â€

The nomes stared at the tray again. And there was a thump from overhead.

There was still a human in the quarry.

It was sitting in the old swivel chair in the managerâ€™s office, reading a paper.

From a knothole near the floor the nomes watched carefully. There were huge boots, great sweeps of trouser, a mountain range of jacket and, far above, the distant gleam of electric light on a bald head.

After a long while, the human put the paper down and reached over to the desk by its side. The watching nomes gazed at a pack of sandwiches bigger than they were, and a thermos flask that steamed when it was opened and filled the hut with the smell of coffee.

They climbed back down and reported to Grimma. She was sitting by the food tray and had ordered six of the older and more sensible nomes to stand guard around it to keep children away.

â€œHeâ€™s not doing anything,â€ she was told. â€œHeâ€™s just sitting there. We saw him look out of the window once or twice.â€

â€œThen heâ€™ll be here all night,â€ said Grimma. â€œI expect the humans are wondering whoâ€™s causing all this trouble.â€

â€œWhat shall we do?â€

Grimma sat with her chin on her hands.

â€œThereâ€™s those big old tumbledown sheds across the quarry,â€ she said, at last. â€œWe could go there.â€

â€œDorcas saidâ€”Dorcas used to say it was very dangerous in the old sheds,â€ said a nome cautiously. â€œBecause of all the old junk and stuff. Very dangerous, he said.â€

â€œMore dangerous than here?â€ said Grimma, with just a trace of her old sarcasm.

â€œYouâ€™ve got a point.â€

â€œPlease, mâ€™m.â€

It was one of the younger female nomes. They held Grimma in awe because of the way she shouted at the men and read better than anyone. This one held a baby in her arms and kept curtseying every time she finished a sentence.

â€œWhat is it, Sorrit?â€ said Grimma.

â€œPlease, mâ€™m, some of the children are very hungry, mâ€™m. There isnâ€™t anything wholesome to eat down here, you see.â€ She gave Grimma a pleading look.

Grimma nodded. The stores were under the other sheds, what was left of them. The main potato store had been found by some of the humans, which was perhaps why the poison had been put down. Anyway, they couldnâ€™t light a fire and there was no meat. No one had been doing any proper hunting for days, because Arnold Bros (est. 1905) would provide, according to Nisodemus.

â€œAs soon as it gets light, I think all the hunters we can spare should go out,â€ said Grimma.

They considered this. The dawn was a long way away. To a nome, a night was as long as three whole days. . . .

â€œThereâ€™s plenty of snow,â€ said a nome. â€œThat means weâ€™ve got water.â€

â€œWe might be able to manage without food, but the children wonâ€™t,â€ said Grimma.

â€œAnd the old people, too,â€ said a nome. â€œItâ€™s going to freeze again tonight. We havenâ€™t got the electric and we canâ€™t light a fire outside.â€

They sat staring glumly at the dirt.

What Grimma was thinking was: Theyâ€™re not bickering. Theyâ€™re not grumbling. Things are so serious, theyâ€™re actually not arguing and blaming each other.

â€œAll right,â€ she said, â€œand what do you all think we should do?â€

11

I. We will come out of the woodwork.

II. We will come out of the floor.

III. They will wish they had never seen us.

From The Book of Nome, Humans v. Iâ€“III

THE HUMAN LOWERED its newspaper and listened.

There was a rustling in the walls. There was a scratching under the floor.

Its eyes swiveled to the table beside it.

A group of small creatures was dragging its packet of sandwiches across the tabletop. It blinked.

Then it roared and tried to stand up, and it wasnâ€™t until it was nearly upright that it found that its feet were tied very firmly to the legs of its chair.

It crashed forward. A crowd of tiny creatures, moving so fast that it could hardly see them, charged out from under the table and wrapped a length of old electrical wire around its outflung arms. Within seconds it was trussed awkwardly, but very firmly, between the furniture.

They saw its great eyes roll. It opened its mouth and mooed at them. Teeth like yellow plates clashed at them.

The wire held.

The sandwiches turned out to be cheese and chutney, and the thermos, once they got the top off, was full of coffee. â€œStore food,â€ the nomes told one another. â€œGood Store food, like we used to know.â€

They poured into the room from every crack and mousehole. There was an electric heater by the table, and they sat in solemn rows in front of its glowing red bar, or wandered around the cramped office.

â€œWe done it,â€ they said, â€œjust like that Gullible Travels. The bigger they come, the harder they fall!â€

There was a school of thought that said they should kill the human, whose mad eyes followed them around the floor. This was when they found the box.

It was on one of the shelves. It was yellow. It had a picture of a very unhappy-looking rat on the front. It had the word SCRAMOFF in big red lettering, too. On the back . . .

Grimmaâ€™s forehead wrinkled as she tried to read the smaller words on the back.

â€œIt says, â€˜They Take A Bite, But They Donâ€™t Come Back For More!â€™â€ she said. â€œAnd apparently it contains Polydichloromethylinlon-4, whatever that is. â€˜Clears Outbuildings Of Troublesome . . .â€™â€ She paused.

â€œTroublesome what?â€ said the listening nomes. â€œTroublesome what?â€

Grimma lowered her voice.

â€œIt says, â€˜Clears Outbuildings Of Troublesome Vermin In A Trice!â€™â€ she said. â€œItâ€™s poison. Itâ€™s the stuff they put under the floor.â€

The silence that followed this was black with rage. The nomes had raised quite a lot of children in the quarry. They had very firm views about poison.

â€œWe should make the human eat it,â€ said one of them. â€œFill up its mouth with Polyputheketlon or whatever it is. Troublesome vermin.â€

â€œI think they think weâ€™re rats,â€ said Grimma.

â€œAnd that would be all right, would it?â€ said a nome with withering sarcasm. â€œRats are okay. Weâ€™ve never had any trouble with rats. No call to go around giving them poisoned food.â€

In fact the nomes got on rather well with the local rats, probably because their leader was Bobo, who had been a pet of Angaloâ€™s when they lived in the Store. The two species treated each other with the distant friendliness of creatures who could, at a pinch, eat one another but had decided not to.

â€œYeah, the ratsâ€™d thank us for getting rid of a human,â€ he went on.

â€œNo,â€ said Grimma. â€œNo. I donâ€™t think we should do that. Masklin always said that theyâ€™re nearly as intelligent as we are. You canâ€™t go around poisoning intelligent creatures.â€

â€œThey tried.â€

â€œTheyâ€™re not nomes. They donâ€™t know how to behave,â€ said Grimma. â€œAnyway, be sensible. More humans will come along in the morning. If they find a dead human, thereâ€™ll be a lot of trouble.â€

That was a point. But they had shown themselves to a human. No nome could remember it ever being done before. Theyâ€™d had to do it, or starve and freeze, but there was no knowing where it would end. How it would end was a bit more certain. It would probably end badly.

â€œGo and put it somewhere where the rats canâ€™t get it,â€ said Grimma.

â€œI reckon we should just give it a tasteâ€”â€ said the nome.

â€œNo! Just take the stuff away. Weâ€™ll stay here the rest of the night and then move out before itâ€™s light.â€

â€œWell, all right. If you say so. I just hope weâ€™re not sorry about it later, thatâ€™s all.â€ The nomes carried the dreadful box away.

Grimma wandered over to where the human lay. It was well trussed up by now, and couldnâ€™t move a finger. It looked just like the picture of Gullible or whoever he was, except the nomes had got hold of what the nomes in those days had never heard of, which was lots of electric wire. It was a lot tougher than rope. And they were a lot angrier. Gullible hadnâ€™t been driving a great big truck around the place and putting down rat poison.

Theyâ€™d gone through its pockets and piled up the contents in a heap. Thereâ€™d been a big square of white cloth among them, which a group of nomes had managed to tie around the humanâ€™s mouth after its mooing got on everyoneâ€™s nerves.

Now they stood around eating fragments of sandwich and watching its eyes.

Humans canâ€™t understand nomes. Their voices are too fast and too high, like a bat squeak. It was probably just as well.

â€œI say we should find something sharp and stick it into it,â€ said a nome. â€œIn all the soft bits.â€

â€œThereâ€™s things we could do with matches,â€ said a lady nome, to Grimmaâ€™s surprise.

â€œAnd nails,â€ said a middle-aged nome.

The human growled behind its gag and strained at the wires.

â€œWe could pull all its hair out,â€ said the lady nome. â€œAnd then we couldâ€”â€

â€œDo it, then,â€ said Grimma, coming up behind them.

They turned.

â€œWhat?â€

â€œDo it, if you want to,â€ said Grimma. â€œThere it is, right in front of you. Do what you like.â€

â€œWhat, me?â€ The lady nome drew back. â€œI didnâ€™t . . . not me. I didnâ€™t mean me. I meant . . . well, us. Nomekind.â€

â€œThere you are, then,â€ said Grimma. â€œAnd nomekind is only nomes. Besides, itâ€™s wrong to hurt prisoners. I read it in a book. Itâ€™s called the Geneva Convention. When youâ€™ve got people at your mercy, you shouldnâ€™t hurt them.â€

â€œSeems like the ideal time to me,â€ said a nome. â€œHit them when they canâ€™t hit back, thatâ€™s what I say. Anyway, itâ€™s not as if humans are the same as real people.â€ But he shuffled backward anyway.

â€œFunny, though, when you see their faces close to,â€ said the lady nome, putting her head on one side. â€œThey look a lot like us. Only bigger.â€

One of the nomes peered into the humanâ€™s frightened eyes.

â€œHasnâ€™t it got a hairy nose?â€ he said. â€œAnd ears, too.â€

â€œQuite gross,â€ said the lady.

â€œYou could almost feel sorry for them, with great big noses like that.â€

Grimma stared into the humanâ€™s eyes. I wonder, she thought. Theyâ€™re bigger than us, so there must be room for brains. And theyâ€™ve got great big eyes. Surely they must have seen us once? Masklin said weâ€™ve been here for thousands of years. In all that time, humans must have seen us.

They must have known we were real people. But in their minds they turned us into pixies. Perhaps they didnâ€™t want to have to share the world.

The human was definitely looking at her.

Could we share? she thought. They live in a big long slow world and we live in a small short fast one, and we canâ€™t understand each other. They canâ€™t even see us unless we stand still like Iâ€™m standing now. We move too quickly for them. They donâ€™t think we exist.

She stared up into the big frightened eyes.

Weâ€™ve never tried toâ€”what was the word?â€”communicate with them before. Not properly. Not as though they were real people, thinking real thoughts. How can we tell them weâ€™re really real and really here?

But perhaps when youâ€™re lying down on the floor and tied up by little people you can hardly see and donâ€™t believe in, thatâ€™s not the best time to start communicating. Perhaps we should try it another time. Not signs, not shouting, just trying to get them to understand us.

Wouldnâ€™t it be amazing if we could? They could do the big slow jobs for us and we could doâ€”oh, little fast things. Fiddly things that those great fingers canâ€™t do . . . but not paint flowers or mend their shoes . . .

â€œGrimma? You ought to see this, Grimma,â€ said a voice behind her.

The nomes were clustered around a white heap on the floor.

Oh, yes. The human had been looking at one of those big sheets of paper . . .

The nomes had spread it out flat on the floor. It looked a lot like the first one theyâ€™d seen, except this one was called READ IT FIRST IN YOUR SOARAWAY BLACKBURY EVENING POST & GAZETTE. It had more of the great blocky writing, some of the letters nearly as big as a nomeâ€™s head.

Grimma shook her own head as she tried to make sense of it. She could understand the books quite well, she considered, but the papers seemed to use a different language. It was full of PROBES and SHOCKS and fuzzy pictures of smiling humans shaking hands with other humans (TABLERS RAISE Â£455 FOR HOSPITAL APPEAL). It wasnâ€™t difficult to work out what each word meant, but when they were put together they either didnâ€™t mean anything at all or something quite unbelievable (CIVIC CENTER RATES RUMPUS).

â€œNo, this is the bit,â€ said one of the nomes, â€œthis page here. Look, some of the words, theyâ€™re the same as last time, look! Itâ€™s about Grandson Richard, 39!â€

Grimma ran the length of a story about somebody slamming somebodyâ€™s plan for something.

There was indeed a fuzzy picture of Grandson Richard, 39, under the words: â€œTV-IN-THE-SKY HITCH.â€

She knelt down and stared at the smaller words below it.

â€œRead it aloud!â€ they said.

â€œâ€˜Richard Arnold, the Blackbury-based chairman of the Arnco Group, said in Florida today,â€™â€ she said, â€œâ€˜that scientists are still trying to r . . . r . . . regain control of Arnsat 1, the multimillion-pound com . . . communications sat . . . elliteâ€”â€™â€

The nomes looked at one another.

â€œMultimillion pound,â€ they said. â€œThatâ€™s really heavy.â€

â€œâ€˜Hopes were high after yesterdayâ€™s s . . . s . . . successful l . . . lunch in Florida,â€™â€ Grimma read uncertainly, â€œâ€˜that Arnsat 1 would begin test tr . . . tr . . . transmissions today. Instead, it is s . . . sending a stream of strange sig . . . signals. â€˜Itâ€™s like some sort of code,â€™ said Richard, 39â€”â€™â€

There was an appreciative murmur from the listeners.

â€œâ€˜Itâ€™s as if it had a mind of its own,â€™â€ Grimma read.

There was more stuff about â€œteething troubles,â€ whatever that meant, but Grimma didnâ€™t bother to read it.

She remembered the way Masklin had talked about the stars, and why they stayed up. And there was the Thing. Heâ€™d taken it with him. The Thing could talk to electricity, couldnâ€™t it? It could listen to the electricity in wires, and the stuff in the air that Dorcas called â€œradio.â€ If anything could send strange signals, the Thing could. I may go even farther than the Long Drive, heâ€™d said.

â€œTheyâ€™re alive,â€ she said, to no one in particular. â€œMasklin and Gurder and Angalo. They got to the Florida place, and theyâ€™re alive.â€

She remembered him trying to tell her, sometimes, about the sky and the Thing and where nomes first came from, and sheâ€™d never really understood, any more than heâ€™d understood about the little frogs.

â€œTheyâ€™re alive,â€ she repeated. â€œI know they are. I donâ€™t know exactly how or where, but theyâ€™ve got some sort of plan, and theyâ€™re alive.â€

The nomes exchanged meaningful glances, and the kind of meaning they were full of was: Sheâ€™s fooling herself, but itâ€™d take a braver nome than me to tell her.

Granny Morkie patted her gently on the shoulder.

â€œYes, yes,â€ she said soothingly. â€œAnd thank goodness they had a successful lunch. I bet they needed to get some food inside of them. And if I was you, my girl, Iâ€™d get some sleep.â€

Grimma dreamed.

It was a confused dream. Dreams nearly always are. They donâ€™t come neatly packaged. She dreamed of loud noises and flashing lights. And eyes.

Little, yellow eyes. And Masklin, standing on a branch, climbing through leaves, peering down at little yellow eyes.

Iâ€™m seeing what heâ€™s doing now, she thought. Heâ€™s alive. I always knew he was, of course. But Outer Space has got more leaves than I thought. Or perhaps none of it is real and Iâ€™m just dreaming. . . .

Then someone woke her up.

Itâ€™s never wise to speculate about the meaning of dreams, so she didnâ€™t.

It snowed again in the night, on an icy wind. Some of the nomes scouted around the sheds and came back with a few vegetables that had been missed, but it was a pitifully small amount. The tied-up human went to sleep after a while, and snored like someone sawing a thick log with a thin saw.

â€œThe others will come looking for it in the morning,â€ Grimma warned. â€œWe mustnâ€™t be here then. Perhaps we shouldâ€”â€

She stopped. They all listened.

Something was moving around under the floorboards.

â€œIs anyone still down there?â€ Grimma whispered.

The nomes near her shook their heads. No one wanted to be in the chilly space under the floor when there was the warmth and light of the office for the having.

â€œAnd it canâ€™t be rats,â€ she said.

Then someone called out, in that half-loud, half-soft way of someone who wants to make themselves heard while at the same time remaining as quiet as possible.

It turned out to be Sacco.

They dragged aside the floorboard the humans had loosened and helped him up. He was covered in mud and swaying with exhaustion.

â€œI couldnâ€™t find anyone!â€ he gasped. â€œI looked everywhere and couldnâ€™t find anyone and we saw the trucks come here and I saw the lights on and I thought the humans were still here and I came in and I heard your voices and youâ€™ve got to come because itâ€™s Dorcas!â€

â€œHeâ€™s alive?â€ said Grimma.

â€œIf he isnâ€™t, he can swear pretty well for a dead person,â€ said Sacco, sagging to the floor.

â€œWe thought you were all deâ€”â€ Grimma began.

â€œWeâ€™re all fine except for Dorcas. He hurt himself jumping out of the truck! Come on, please!â€

â€œYou donâ€™t look in any state to go anywhere,â€ said Grimma. She stood up. â€œYou just tell us where he is.â€

â€œWe got him halfway up the lane, and we got so tired and I left them and came on ahead,â€ Sacco blurted out. â€œTheyâ€™re under the hedge andâ€”â€ His eyes fell on the snoring bulk of the human. He stared at Grimma.

â€œYouâ€™ve captured a human?â€ he said. He stumbled sideways. â€œNeed a bit of a rest, so tired,â€ he repeated, vaguely. Then he fell forward.

Grimma caught him and laid him down as gently as she could.

â€œSomeone put him somewhere warm and see if thereâ€™s any food left,â€ she said to the nomes in general. â€œAnd I want some of you to help me look for the others. Come on. This isnâ€™t a night for being outside.â€

The expression on the faces of some of the nomes said that they definitely agreed with this point of view, and that among the people who shouldnâ€™t be out on a night like this was themselves.

â€œItâ€™s snowing quite a lot,â€ said one of them, uncertainly. â€œWeâ€™ll never find them in all the dark and snow.â€

Grimma glared at him.

â€œWe might,â€ she said. â€œWe might find them in all the dark and snow. We wonâ€™t find them by staying in the light and warm, I know that much.â€

Several nomes pushed their way forward. Grimma recognized Nootyâ€™s people, and the parents of some of the lads. Then there was a bit of a commotion from under the table, where the oldest nomes were clustering together to keep warm and have a good moan.

â€œIâ€™m cominâ€™ too,â€ said Granny Morkie. â€œDo me good to have a drop of fresh air. What you all lookinâ€™ at me like that for?â€

â€œI think you ought to stay inside, Granny,â€ said Grimma gently.

â€œDonâ€™t you try the beinâ€™-tactful-to-old-people to me, my girl,â€ said Granny, prodding her with her stick. â€œI bin out in deep snow before you was even thought of.â€ She turned to the rest of the nomes. â€œNothinâ€™ to it if you acts sensible and keeps yellinâ€™ out soâ€™s everyone knows where everyone is. I went out to help look for my Uncle Joe before I was a year old,â€ she said proudly. â€œDreadful snow, that was. It come down sudden like, when the men were out huntinâ€™. We found nearly all of him, too.â€

â€œYes, yes, all right, Granny,â€ said Grimma quickly. She looked at the others. â€œWell, weâ€™re going,â€ she said.

In the end fifteen of them went, many out of sheer embarrassment.

In the yellow light from the shed windows, the snowflakes looked beautiful. By the time they reached the ground, they were pretty unpleasant.

The Store nomes really hated the Outside snow. There had been snow in the Store, too, sprayed on merchandise around Christmas Fayre time. But it wasnâ€™t cold. And snowflakes were huge beautiful things that were hung from the ceilings on bits of thread. Proper snowflakes. Not ghastly things that looked all right in the air but turned into freezing wet stuff that was allowed to just lie around on the floor.

It was already as deep as their knees.

â€œWhat you do is,â€ said Granny Morkie, â€œyou lift your feet up really high and plonk them down. Nothinâ€™ to it.â€

The light from the shed shone out across the quarry, but the lane was a dark tunnel leading into the night.

â€œAnd spread out,â€ said Grimma. â€œBut keep together.â€

â€œSpread out and keep together,â€ they muttered.

A senior nome put his hand up.

â€œYou donâ€™t get robins at night, do you?â€ he asked cautiously.

â€œNo, of course not,â€ said Grimma.

â€œNo, you donâ€™t get robins at night, dafty,â€ said Granny Morkie.

They looked relieved.

â€œNo, you get foxes,â€ Granny added in a self-satisfied way. â€œGreat big foxes. They get good and hungry in the cold weather. And maybe you get owls.â€ She scratched her chin. â€œCunninâ€™ devils, owls. You never hear â€™em till theyâ€™re almost on top oâ€™ you.â€ She banged on the wall with her stick. â€œLook sharp, you lot. Best foot forward. Unless youâ€™re like my Uncle Joeâ€”a fox got his best foot, â€™e â€™ad to have a wooden leg, â€™e was livid.â€

There was something about Granny Morkie cheering people up that always got them moving. Anything was better than being cheered up some more.

The snowflakes were caking up on the dried grasses and ferns on either bank. Every now and again some of the snow fell off, sometimes onto the lane, often onto the nomes stumbling along it. They prodded the snowy tussocks and peered doubtfully into the gloomy holes under the hedge, while the flakes continued to fall in a soft, crackly silence. Robins, owls, and other terrors of the Outside lurked in every shadow.

Eventually the light was left behind, and they walked by the glow of the snow itself. Sometimes one of them would call out, softly, and then theyâ€™d all listen.

It was very cold.

Granny Morkie stopped suddenly.

â€œFox,â€ she announced. â€œI can smell it. Canâ€™t mistake a fox. Rank.â€

They huddled together and stared apprehensively into the darkness.

â€œMight not still be around, mind,â€ said Granny. â€œHangs about for a long time, that smell.â€

They relaxed a bit.

â€œReally, Granny,â€ muttered Grimma.

â€œI was just tryinâ€™ to be a help,â€ sniffed Granny Morkie. â€œYou donâ€™t want my help, youâ€™ve only got to say.â€

â€œWeâ€™re doing this wrong,â€ said Grimma. â€œItâ€™s Dorcas weâ€™re looking for. He wouldnâ€™t just be sitting out in the open, would he? He knows about foxes. Heâ€™d get the boys to find somewhere sheltered and as safe as possible.â€

Nootyâ€™s father stepped forward.

â€œIf you look the way the snow falls,â€ he said hesitantly, â€œyou can see the air-conditioning is blowing it this way,â€ he pointed, â€œso it piles up more on this side of things than that side. So theyâ€™d want to be as much away from the air-conditioning as possible, wouldnâ€™t they?â€

â€œItâ€™s called the wind, when itâ€™s outside,â€ said Grimma gently. â€œBut youâ€™re right. That means . . .â€ She stared at the hedges. â€œTheyâ€™d be on the other side of the hedge. In the field, up against the bank. Come on.â€

They scrambled up through the masses of dead leaves and dripping twigs and into the field beyond.

It was desolate. A few tufts of dead grass stuck above the endless wilderness of snow. Several of the nomes groaned.

Itâ€™s the size, Grimma thought. They donâ€™t mind the quarry, or the thickets above it, or even the lane, because a lot of it is closed in and you can pretend there are sort of walls around you. Itâ€™s too big for them here.

â€œStick close to the hedge,â€ she said, more cheerfully than she felt. â€œThereâ€™s not so much snow there.â€

Oh, Arnold Bros (est. 1905), she thought. Dorcas doesnâ€™t believe in you, and I certainly donâ€™t believe in you, but if you could just see your way clear to existing just long enough for us to find them, weâ€™d all appreciate it very much. And perhaps if you could stop the snow and see us all safely back to the quarry as well, that would be a big help.

Thatâ€™s daft, she thought. Masklin always said that if there was an Arnold Bros, he was sort of inside our heads, helping us think.

She realized that she was staring at the snow.

Why is there a hole in it? she thought.

12

III. There is Nowhere to go, and we must Leave.

From The Book of Nome,
Exits Chap. 4, v. III

â€œRABBITS, I THOUGHT,â€ she said.

Dorcas patted her hand.

â€œWell done,â€ he said weakly.

â€œWe were in the lane after Sacco left,â€ said Nooty, â€œand it was getting really cold and Dorcas said to take him the other side of the hedge and, well, it was me who said you can see rabbits in this field sometimes, and he said find a rabbit hole. So we did. We thought weâ€™d be here all night.â€

â€œOw,â€ moaned Dorcas.

â€œDonâ€™t make a fussâ€”I didnâ€™t hurt a bit,â€ said Granny Morkie cheerfully as she examined his leg. â€œNothinâ€™ broken, but itâ€™s a nasty sprain.â€

The Store nomes looked around the burrow with interest and a certain amount of approval. It was nicely closed in.

â€œYour ancestors probably lived in holes like this,â€ said Grimma. â€œWith shelves and things, of course.â€

â€œVery nice,â€ said a nome. â€œHomely. Almost like being under the floor.â€

â€œSmells a bit, mind,â€ said another.

â€œThatâ€™ll be the rabbits,â€ said Dorcas, nodding toward the deeper darkness. â€œWeâ€™ve heard them rustling about, but theyâ€™re staying out of our way. Nooty said she thought there was a fox snuffling around a while ago.â€

â€œWeâ€™d better get you back as soon as possible,â€ said Grimma. â€œI donâ€™t think any fox would bother the pack of us. After all, the local ones know who we are. Eat a nome and you die, thatâ€™s what theyâ€™ve learned.â€

The nomes shuffled their feet. It was true, of course. The trouble was, they thought, that the person whoâ€™d really regret it the most would be the one nome who was eaten. Knowing that the fox might be given a bad time afterward wouldnâ€™t be a lot of consolation.

Besides, they were cold and wet, and the burrowâ€”while it wouldnâ€™t have sounded a very comfortable proposition back at the quarryâ€”was suddenly much better than the horrible night outside. Theyâ€™d staggered past a dozen rabbit holes, calling down into the gloom, before theyâ€™d heard Nootyâ€™s voice answering them.

â€œI really donâ€™t think we need worry,â€ said Grimma. â€œFoxes learn very quickly. Isnâ€™t that so, Granny?â€

â€œEh?â€ said Granny Morkie.

â€œI was telling everyone how foxes learn quickly,â€ said Grimma desperately.

â€œOh, yes. Right enough,â€ said Granny. â€œHeâ€™ll go a long way out of his way for something he likes to eat, will your average fox. Especially when itâ€™s cold weather.â€

â€œI didnâ€™t mean that! Why do you have to make everything sound so bad?â€

â€œIâ€™m sure I donâ€™t mean to,â€ said Granny Morkie, and sniffed.

â€œWe must get back,â€ said Dorcas firmly. â€œThis snow isnâ€™t just going to go away, is it? I can get along okay if Iâ€™ve got someone to lean on.â€

â€œWe can make you a stretcher,â€ said Grimma. â€œThough goodness knows there isnâ€™t much to get back to.â€

â€œWe saw the humans go up the lane,â€ said Nooty. â€œBut we had to go all the way along to the badger tunnel and there were no proper tracks. Then we tried to cut across the fields at the bottom, and that was a mistakeâ€”they were all plowed up. We havenâ€™t had anything to eat,â€ she added.

â€œDonâ€™t expect much, then,â€ said Grimma. â€œThe humans have taken most of our stores. They think weâ€™re rats.â€

â€œWell, thatâ€™s not so bad,â€ said Dorcas. â€œWe used to encourage them to think we were, back in the Store. They used to put traps down. We used to hunt rats in the basement and put them in the traps, when I was a lad.â€

â€œNow theyâ€™re using poisoned food,â€ said Grimma.

â€œThatâ€™s not good.â€

â€œCome on. Letâ€™s get you back.â€

The snow was still falling outside, but raggedy fashion, as if the last flakes in stock were being sold off cheaply. There was a line of red light in the eastâ€”not the dawn, but the promise of the dawn. It didnâ€™t look cheerful. When the sun did rise, it would find itself locked behind bars of cloud.

They broke off some pieces of dead cow parsley stalk to make a rough sort of chair for Dorcas, which four nomes could carry. Heâ€™d been right about the shelter of the hedge. The snow wasnâ€™t very deep there, but it made up for it by being littered with old leaves, twigs, and debris. It was slow going.

It must be great to be a human, Grimma thought, as thorns the length of her hand tore at her dress. Masklin was right, this really is their world. Itâ€™s the right size for them. They go where they want and do whatever they like. We think we do things for ourselves, and all we do is live in odd corners of their worldâ€”under their floors, stealing things.

The other nomes trudged along in weary silence. The only sound, apart from the crunch of feet on snow and leaves, was of Granny Morkie eating. Sheâ€™d found some hawthorn berries on a bush and was chewing her way through one with every sign of enjoyment. Sheâ€™d offered them around, but the other nomes found them bitter and unpleasant.

â€œProbâ€™ly an acquired taste,â€ she muttered, glaring at Grimma.

Itâ€™s one we are all going to have to acquire, thought Grimma, ignoring Grannyâ€™s hurt stare. The only hope weâ€™ve got is to split up and leave the quarry in little groups, once we get back. Move out into the country, go back to living in old rabbit holes and eating whatever we can find. Some groups may survive the winter, once the old people have died off.

And itâ€™ll be good-bye electricity, good-bye reading, good-bye bananas . . .

But Iâ€™ll wait at the quarry until Masklin comes back.

â€œCheer up, my girl,â€ said Granny Morkie, trying to be friendly. â€œDonâ€™t look so gloomy. It may never happen, thatâ€™s what I always say.â€

Even Granny was shocked when Grimma looked at her with a face from which all the color had drained away. The girlâ€™s mouth opened and shut a few times.

Then she folded up, very gently, and collapsed to her knees and started to sob.

It was the most shocking sound theyâ€™d heard. Grimma yelled, complained, bullied, and commanded. Hearing her cry was wrong, as though the whole world had turned upside down.

â€œAll I did was try and cheer her up,â€ mumbled Granny Morkie.

The embarrassed nomes stood around in a circle. No one dared go near Grimma. Anything might happen. If you tried to pat her on the shoulder and say â€œThere, there,â€ anything might happen. She might bite your hand off, or anything.

Dorcas looked at the nomes on either side of him, sighed, and eased himself up off his makeshift carrier. He limped over to Grimma, catching hold of a thorn twig to steady himself.

â€œYouâ€™ve found us, weâ€™re going back to the quarry, everythingâ€™s all right,â€ he said soothingly.

â€œIt isnâ€™t! Weâ€™ll have to move on!â€ she sobbed. â€œYouâ€™d have been better off staying in the hole! Itâ€™s all gone wrong!â€

â€œWell, I would have saidâ€”â€ Dorcas began.

â€œWeâ€™ve got no food and we canâ€™t stop the humans and weâ€™re trapped in the quarry and Iâ€™ve tried to keep everyone together and now itâ€™s all gone wrong!â€

â€œWe ought to have gone up to that barn right at the start,â€ said Nooty.

â€œYou still could,â€ said Grimma. â€œAll the younger people could. Just get as far away from here as possible!â€

â€œBut children couldnâ€™t walk it, and old people certainly couldnâ€™t manage the snow,â€ said Dorcas. â€œYou know that. Youâ€™re just despairing.â€

â€œWeâ€™ve tried everything! Itâ€™s just got worse! We thought it would be a lovely life in the Outside, and now itâ€™s all falling to bits!â€

Dorcas gave her a long, blank look.

â€œWe might as well give up right now,â€ she said. â€œWe might as well give up and die right here.â€

There was a horrified silence.

It was broken by Dorcas.

â€œEr,â€ he said. â€œEr. Are you sure? Are you really sure?â€

The tone of his voice made Grimma look up.

All the nomes were staring.

There was a fox looking down at them.

It was one of those moments when Time itself freezes solid. Grimma could see the yellow-green glow in the foxâ€™s eyes and the cloud of its breath. Its tongue lolled out.

It looked surprised.

It was new to these parts and had never seen nomes before. Its not-very-complicated mind was trying to come to terms with the fact that the shape of the nomesâ€”two arms, two legs, a head at the topâ€”was a shape it associated with humans and had learned to avoid, but the size was the size it had always thought of as a mouthful.

The nomes stood rooted in terror. There was no sense in trying to run away. A fox had twice as many legs to run after you. Youâ€™d end up dead anyway, but at least you wouldnâ€™t end up dead and out of breath as well.

There was a growl.

To the nomesâ€™ astonishment, it had come from Grimma.

She snatched Granny Morkieâ€™s walking stick, strode forward, and whacked the fox across the nose before it could move. It yelped and blinked stupidly.

â€œShove off!â€ she shouted. â€œHow dare you come here!â€ She hit it again. It jerked its head away. Grimma took another step forward and caught it a backward thump across the muzzle.

The fox made up its mind. There were definitely rabbits farther down the hedge. Rabbits didnâ€™t hit back. It was a lot happier about rabbits.

It whined, backed away with its eyes fixed on Grimma, and then darted off into the darkness.

The nomes breathed out.

â€œWell,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œIâ€™m sorry, but I just canâ€™t stand foxes,â€ said Grimma. â€œAnd Masklin said we should let them know whoâ€™s boss.â€

â€œIâ€™m not arguing,â€ said Dorcas.

Grimma looked vaguely at the stick.

â€œWhat was I saying before that?â€ she said.

â€œYou were saying we might as well give up and die right here,â€ said Granny Morkie helpfully.

Grimma glared at her. â€œNo, I wasnâ€™t,â€ she said. â€œI was just feeling a bit tired, thatâ€™s all. Come on. Weâ€™ll catch our death standing here.â€

â€œOr the other way round,â€ said Nooty, staring into the fox-haunted darkness.

â€œThatâ€™s not funny,â€ snapped Grimma, striding off.

â€œI didnâ€™t mean it to be,â€ said Nooty, shivering.

Overhead, quite unnoticed by the nomes, a rather strangely bright star zigzagged across the sky. It was small, or perhaps it was very big but a long way off. If you looked at it long enough, it might just have appeared disk shaped. It was causing a lot of messages to be sent through the air, all around the world.

It seemed to be looking for something.

There were flickering lights in the quarry by the time they got back. Another group of nomes was about to set out to look for them. Not with much enthusiasm, admittedly, but they were going to try.

The cheer that went up when it was realized that everyone was safely back almost made Grimma forget that they were safely back to a very unsafe place. Sheâ€™d read something in the book of proverbs that summed it up perfectly. As far as she could remember, it was something about jumping out of the thing you cook in and into the thing you cooked on. Or something.

Grimma led the rescue party into the office and listened while Sacco, with many interruptions, recounted the adventure from the time Dorcas, out of sudden terror, had jumped out of the truck and had been carried off the rails just before the train arrived. It sounded brave and exciting. And pointless, Grimma thought, but she kept that to herself.

â€œIt wasnâ€™t as bad as it looked,â€ Sacco said. â€œI mean, the truck was smashed, but the train didnâ€™t even come off the rails. We saw it all,â€ he finished. â€œIâ€™m starving.â€

He gave them a bright smile, which faded like a sunset.

â€œThereâ€™s no food?â€ he said.

â€œEven less than that,â€ said a nome. â€œIf youâ€™ve got some bread, we could have a snow sandwich.â€

Sacco thought about this.

â€œThereâ€™s the rabbits,â€ he said. â€œThere were rabbits in the field.â€

â€œAnd in the dark,â€ said Dorcas, who appeared to have something on his mind.

â€œWell, yes,â€ admitted Sacco.

â€œAnd with that fox hanging about,â€ said Nooty.

Another proverb floated up in Grimmaâ€™s mind.

â€œNeeds must,â€ she said, â€œwhen the Devil drives.â€

They looked at her in the flickering light of the matches.

â€œWhoâ€™s he?â€ said Nooty.

â€œSome sort of horrible person who lives under the ground in a hot place, I think,â€ said Grimma.

â€œLike the boiler room in the Store?â€

â€œI suppose so.â€

â€œWhat sort of vehicle does he drive?â€ said Sacco, looking interested.

â€œIt just means that sometimes youâ€™re forced to do things,â€ said Grimma testily. â€œI donâ€™t think he actually drives anything.â€

â€œWell, no. There wouldnâ€™t be the room down there, for one thing.â€

Dorcas coughed. He seemed to be upset about something. Well, everyone was upset, but he was even more upset.

â€œAll right,â€ he said quietly.

Something about the way he said it made them pay attention.

â€œYouâ€™d all better come with me,â€ he went on. â€œBelieve me, Iâ€™d rather you didnâ€™t have to.â€

â€œWhere to?â€ said Grimma.

â€œThe old sheds. The ones by the cliff,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œBut theyâ€™re all tumbled down. And you said they were very dangerous.â€

â€œOh, they are. They are. Thereâ€™s piles of junk and stuff in cans the children shouldnâ€™t touch and stuff like that. . . .â€

He twiddled his beard nervously.

â€œBut,â€ he said, â€œthereâ€™s something else. Something Iâ€™ve been sort of working on, sort of.â€

He looked Grimma in the eye. â€œSomething of mine,â€ he said. â€œThe most marvelous thing Iâ€™ve ever seen. Even better than frogs in a flower.â€

Then he coughed. â€œAnyway, thereâ€™s plenty of room in there,â€ he said. â€œThe floors are just earth, er, but the sheds are big and there are lots of places, er, to hide.â€

A snore from the human shook the office.

â€œBesides, I donâ€™t like being so close to that thing,â€ he added.

There was a general murmur of agreement about this.

â€œHad you thought about what youâ€™re going to do with it?â€ said Dorcas.

â€œSome people wanted to kill it, but I donâ€™t think thatâ€™s a good idea,â€ said Grimma. â€œI think the other humans would get really upset about it.â€

â€œBesides, it doesnâ€™t seem right,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œI know what you mean.â€

â€œSo . . . what shall we do with it?â€

Grimma stared at the huge face. Every pore, every hair, was huge. It was strange to think that if there were creatures smaller than nomes, little people perhaps the size of ants, her own face might look like that. If you looked at it philosophically, the whole thing about big and small was just a matter of size.

â€œWeâ€™ll leave it,â€ she said. â€œBut . . . is there any paper here?â€

â€œLoads of it on the desk,â€ said Nooty.

â€œGo and fetch some, please. Dorcas, youâ€™ve always got something to write with, havenâ€™t you?â€

Dorcas fumbled in his pockets until he found a stub of pencil lead.

â€œDonâ€™t waste it,â€ he said. â€œDonâ€™t know if Iâ€™ll ever get some more.â€

Eventually Nooty came back towing a yellowing sheet of paper. At the top of it, in heavy black lettering, were the words: Blackbury Sand & Gravel Ltd. Below that was the word: Invoice.

Grimma thought for a while, then licked the stub and, in big letters, started to write.

â€œWhat are you doing?â€ said Dorcas.

â€œTrying to communicate,â€ said Grimma. She carefully traced another word, pressing quite hard.

â€œIâ€™ve always thought it might be worth trying,â€ said Dorcas, â€œbut is this the right time?â€

â€œYes,â€ said Grimma. She finished the last word.

â€œWhat do you think?â€ she said, handing Dorcas the pencil lead.

The writing was a bit jagged where she had pressed hard, and her grasp of grammar and writing wasnâ€™t as good as her skill at reading, but it was clear enough.

â€œI would have done it differently,â€ said Dorcas, reading it.

â€œPerhaps you would, but this is the way Iâ€™ve done it.â€

â€œYes.â€ Dorcas put his head on one side. â€œWell, itâ€™s definitely a communication. You canâ€™t get much more communicating than that. Yes.â€

Grimma tried to sound cheerful. â€œAnd now,â€ she said, â€œletâ€™s see this shed of yours.â€

Two minutes later the office shed was empty of nomes. The human snored on the floor, one hand outstretched.

There was a piece of paper in it now.

It said: Blackbury Sand & Gravel Ltd.

It said: Invoice.

It said: We Could Of Kiled You. LEAV US ALONE.

Now it was quite light outside, and the snow had stopped.

â€œTheyâ€™ll see our tracks,â€ said Sacco. â€œEven humans will notice this many tracks.â€

â€œIt doesnâ€™t matter,â€ said Dorcas. â€œJust get everyone into the old sheds.â€

â€œAre you sure, Dorcas?â€ said Grimma. â€œAre you really sure this is a good idea?â€

â€œNo.â€

They joined the stream of nomes hurrying through a crack in the crumbling corrugated iron and entered the vast, echoing chamber of the shed.

Grimma looked around her. Rust and time had eaten large holes in the walls and ceiling. Old cans and coils of wire were stacked willy-nilly in the corners, along with odd-shaped bits of metal and jam jars with nails in them. Everything stank of oil.

â€œWhatâ€™s the bit we ought to know about?â€ she said.

Dorcas pointed to the shadows at the far end of the shed, where she could just make out something big and indistinct.

â€œIt just looks like . . . some sort of big cloth . . .â€ she said.

â€œItâ€™s, um, underneath it. Is everyone in?â€ Dorcas cupped his hands around his mouth. â€œIs everyone in?â€ he shouted. He turned to Nooty.

â€œI need to know where everyone is,â€ he said. â€œI donâ€™t want anyone to be frightened, but I donâ€™t want unnecessary people getting in the way.â€

â€œUnnecessary for what?â€ said Grimma, but he ignored her.

â€œSacco, you take some of the lads and get those things we put in the hedge,â€ said Dorcas. â€œWeâ€™ll definitely need the battery, and Iâ€™m really not certain how much fuel there is.â€

â€œDorcas! What is it?â€ said Grimma, tapping her foot.

Dorcas got like this sometimes, she knew. When he was thinking about machines or things he could do with his hands, he started to ignore people. His voice changed, too.

He gave her a long, slow look as if he were seeing her for the first time. Then he looked down at his feet.

â€œYouâ€™d better, er, come and see,â€ he said. â€œI shall need you to explain things to everyone. Youâ€™re so much better at that sort of thing.â€

Grimma followed him across the chilly floor as more nomes filed into the shed and huddled apprehensively along the walls.

He led her under the shadow of the tarpaulin, which formed a sort of big, dusty cave.

A tire like a truckâ€™s loomed up a little way away in the gloom, but it was far more knobbly than any she had seen.

â€œOh. Itâ€™s just a truck,â€ she said uncertainly. â€œYouâ€™ve got a truck in here, have you?â€

Dorcas said nothing. He just pointed upward.

Grimma looked up. And then looked up some more. Into the mouth of Big John.

13

IV. Dorcas said, This is Big John, Great Beast with teeth.

V. Needs Must. If we are driven, let us Drive.

From The Book of Nome,
Big John Chap. 2,v. IVâ€“V

SOMETIMES WORDS NEED music too. Sometimes the descriptions are not enough; books should be written with sound tracks, like films.

Something deep on an organ, perhaps.

Grimma stared.

Dee-dah-DAH.

It canâ€™t really be alive, she thought desperately. Itâ€™s not really about to bite me. Dorcas wouldnâ€™t have brought me in here if he knew there was a monster about to bite me. Iâ€™m not going to be frightened. Iâ€™m not frightened at all. I am a thinking nome and Iâ€™m not frightened!

â€œI think the knobbly wheels are just to make it grip the ground better,â€ said Dorcas, his voice sounding a long way off. â€œNow, Iâ€™ve had a good look around it and, you know, thereâ€™s nothing really wrong with it, itâ€™s just very oldâ€”â€

Grimmaâ€™s gaze traveled along the huge yellow neck.

Dee-dah-dee-dah-DUM.

â€œThen I thought, Iâ€™m sure he could be started up. These diesel engines are quite easy really, and of course there were pictures in one of the books, although Iâ€™m not sure about these pipes, hydraulics I think itâ€™s called, but there was this book on one of the benches, Workshop Manual, and Iâ€™ve put grease on things and tidied it up,â€ Dorcas gabbled.

Dah-dah-dah-DUM.

â€œI suppose the humans or whatever knew they would be coming back, and Iâ€™ve been up and looked at the controls and, you know, itâ€™s probably easier than the Truck was, only of course thereâ€™s these extra levers for the hydraulics, but that shouldnâ€™t be a problem if thereâ€™s enough fuel, which . . .â€

He stopped, aware of her silence.

â€œIs there something the matter?â€ he said.

â€œWhat is it?â€ said Grimma.

â€œI was just telling you,â€ said Dorcas. â€œItâ€™s fascinating. You see, these pipes pump some sort of stuff that makes those bits up there move, and those pistons are forced out, which makes the arm thing over thereâ€”â€

â€œI didnâ€™t ask you what it does, I asked you what it is,â€ said Grimma, impatiently.

â€œDidnâ€™t I say?â€ said Dorcas innocently. â€œWell, thereâ€™s its name painted on it. Just up there, look.â€

She looked where he pointed. Grimmaâ€™s brow wrinkled.

â€œJohn Deere?â€ she said.

â€œWell, I donâ€™t know him that well,â€ said Dorcas. â€œI call him Big John. Itâ€™s more respectful. And we should show respect. Come and see.â€

She followed him dreamily, and, once more, stared into the darkness under the tarpaulin.

â€œThere,â€ he said. â€œThereâ€™s no mistaking what they are, I hope.â€

â€œOh, my,â€ said Grimma, and raised her hand to her mouth.

â€œYes,â€ said Dorcas. â€œThatâ€™s what I thought. When I first found this I thought, Oh, itâ€™s a sort of truck, well, well, and then I walked up here and I found it was a truck withâ€”â€

â€œTeeth,â€ said Grimma, softly. â€œGreat big metal teeth.â€

â€œThatâ€™s right,â€ said Dorcas proudly. â€œBig John. A sort of truck. A truck with teeth.â€

Dah-DUM.

â€œDoes itâ€”does it work?â€ said Grimma.

â€œIt should certainly. It should certainly. Iâ€™ve tested what I can. Basic principle is like a truck, but thereâ€™s a lot of extra levers and thingsâ€”â€

â€œWhy didnâ€™t you tell me about this before?â€ Grimma demanded.

â€œDunno. Because I didnâ€™t have to, I suppose,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œBut itâ€™s huge. You canâ€™t keep something like this to yourself!â€

â€œEveryone has to have something they can keep to themselves,â€ said Dorcas vaguely. â€œAnyway, the size isnâ€™t important. Itâ€™s just so, well, so perfect.â€ Dorcas patted a knobbly tire. â€œYou know you said humans think someone made the world in a week? When I saw Big John for the first time, I thought, Okay, this is what he used.â€

He stared up into the shadows.

â€œFirst thing weâ€™ve got to do is get the tarpaulin off,â€ he said. â€œItâ€™ll be very heavy, so weâ€™ll need lots of people. Youâ€™d better warn them. Big John can be a bit scary when you see him for the first time.â€

â€œDidnâ€™t frighten me a bit,â€ said Grimma.

â€œI know,â€ said Dorcas. â€œI was watching your face.â€

The nomes looked expectantly at Grimma.

â€œThe thing to remember,â€ she said, â€œis that itâ€™s just a machine. Just a sort of truck. But when you first see it, it can be rather frightening, so hold on to small childrenâ€™s hands. And run smartly backward when the tarpaulin comes down.â€

There was a chorus of nods.

â€œAll right. Grab hold.â€

Six hundred nomes spat on their hands and grasped the edge of the heavy sheet.

â€œWhen I say pull, I want you to pull.â€

The nomes took the strain.

â€œPull!â€

The creases in the tarpaulin flattened out and disappeared.

â€œPull!â€

It began to move. Then, as it slid over Big Johnâ€™s angular shape, its own weight started to tug at it. . . .

â€œRun!â€

It came down like an oily green avalanche, piling up into a mountain of folds, but no one bothered about it because the sun shone through the dusty, cobwebbed windows and made Big John glow.

Several nomes screamed. Mothers picked up their children. There was a movement toward the doors.

It does look like a head, Grimma thought. On a long neck. And heâ€™s got another one at the other end. What am I saying? It has got another one at the other end.

â€œI said itâ€™s all right!â€ she shouted, over the rising din. â€œLook! Itâ€™s not even moving!â€

â€œHey!â€ shouted another voice. She looked up. Nooty and Sacco had climbed out along Big Johnâ€™s neck and were sitting there waving cheerfully.

That did it. The tide of nomes reached the wall and stopped. You always feel foolish, running away from something that isnâ€™t chasing you. They hesitated and then, slowly, inched their way back.

â€œWell, well,â€ said Granny Morkie, hobbling forward. â€œSo thatâ€™s what they looked like. I always wondered.â€

Grimma stared at her.

â€œWhat what looked like?â€ she said.

â€œOh, the big diggers,â€ said Granny. â€œTheyâ€™d all gone when I was born, but our dad saw â€™em. Great big yellow things with teeth that et dirt, he said. I always thought he was just pulling my leg.â€

Big John was still not eating people. Some of the more adventurous nomes climbed on him.

â€œIt was when the motorway was built,â€ Granny went on, leaning on her stick. â€œThey were all over the place, Dad said. Big yellow things with teeth and knobbly tires.â€

Grimma stared at her with the kind of expression reserved for people who turn out, against all expectation, to have interesting and secret histories.

â€œAnd there was others, too,â€ the old woman went on. â€œThings that shoved dirt in heaps and everything. This would have been, oh, fifteen years ago now. Never thought Iâ€™d see one.â€

â€œYou mean the roads were made?â€ said Grimma. Big John was covered with young nomes now. She could see Dorcas in the back of the cab, explaining what various levers did.

â€œThatâ€™s what he said,â€ said Granny. â€œYou didnâ€™t think they was natâ€™ral, did you?â€

â€œOh. No. No. Of course not,â€ said Grimma. â€œDonâ€™t be silly.â€

And she thought: I wonder if Dorcas is right. Perhaps everything was made. Some bits early, some bits later. You start with hills and clouds and things, and then you add roads and Stores. Perhaps the job of humans is to make the world, and theyâ€™re still doing it. Thatâ€™s why the machines have to suit them.

Gurder would have understood this sort of thing. I wish he was back, she thought.

And then Masklin would be back, too.

She tried to think about something else.

Knobbly tires. That was a good start. Big Johnâ€™s back wheels were nearly as high as a human. It doesnâ€™t need roads. Of course it doesnâ€™t. It makes roads. So it has to be able to go where roads arenâ€™t.

She pushed her way through the crowds to the back of the cab, where another group of nomes was already nomehandling a plank into position, and scrambled up to where Dorcas was trying to make himself heard in the middle of an excited crowd.

â€œYouâ€™re going to drive this out of here?â€ she demanded.

He looked up.

â€œOh, yes,â€ he said happily. â€œI think so. I hope so. I imagine weâ€™ve got at least an hour before any more humans come, and itâ€™s not a lot different from a truck.â€

â€œWe know how to do it!â€ shouted one of the younger nomes. â€œMy dad told me all about the strings and stuff.â€

Grimma looked around the cab. It seemed to be full of levers.

Itâ€™d been almost a year since the Long Drive, and sheâ€™d never taken much notice of mechanical things, but she couldnâ€™t help thinking the old truck cab had been a lot less crowded. There had been some pedals and a lever and the steering wheel, and that had been about it.

She turned back to Dorcas.

â€œAre you sure?â€ she said doubtfully.

â€œNo,â€ he said. â€œYou know Iâ€™m never sure. But a lot of the controls are for his mou . . . for the bucket. The thing with the teeth in it. At the end of his neck. I mean, the digging bits. We neednâ€™t bother with them. Theyâ€™re amazingly ingenious, though, and all you have to doâ€”â€

â€œWhereâ€™s everyone going to sit? There isnâ€™t much room.â€

Dorcas shrugged. â€œI suppose the older people can travel in the cab. The youngsters will have to hang on where they can. We can wrap wires and things around the place. For handholds, I mean. Look, donâ€™t worry. Weâ€™ll be driving in the light and we donâ€™t have to go fast.â€

â€œAnd then weâ€™ll get to the barn, wonâ€™t we, Dorcas?â€ said Nooty. â€œWhere itâ€™ll be warm and thereâ€™s lots of food.â€

â€œI hope so,â€ said Dorcas. â€œNow, letâ€™s get on with things. We havenâ€™t got much time. Whereâ€™s Sacco with the battery?â€

Grimma thought: Will there be lots of food at the barn? Where did we get that idea? Angalo said that turnips or something were stored up there, and there may be some potatoes. Thatâ€™s not exactly a feast.

Her stomach, thinking thoughts of its own, rumbled in disagreement. It had been a very long night to pass on a tiny piece of sandwich.

Anyway, we canâ€™t stay here now. Anywhere will be better than here.

â€œDorcas,â€ she said, â€œis there anything I can help with?â€

He looked up. â€œYou could read the instruction book,â€ he said. â€œSee if it says how to drive it.â€

â€œDonâ€™t you know?â€

â€œEr. Not in so many words. Not exactly. I mean, I know how to do it, itâ€™s just that I donâ€™t know what to do.â€

The book was under the bench on one side of the shed. Grimma propped it up and tried to concentrate above the noise. I bet he does know, she thought. But this is his moment, and he doesnâ€™t want me getting in the way.

The nomes moved like people with a purpose. Things were far too bad to spend time grumbling. Funny thing, she thought as she turned the grubby pages, that people only seem to stop complaining when things get really bad. Thatâ€™s when they start using words like pulling together, shoulders to the wheel, and noses to the grindstone. Sheâ€™d found â€œnose to the grindstoneâ€ in a book. Apparently it meant â€œto get on with things.â€ She didnâ€™t see why people were supposed to work hard if you ground their noses; it seemed more likely that theyâ€™d work hard if you promised to grind their noses if they didnâ€™t.

It had been the same with Road Works Ahead on the Long Drive. The road ahead works. How could it mean anything else? But the road had been full of holes. Where was the sense in that? Words ought to mean what they meant.

She turned the page.

There was a big brown ring on this one, where a human had put down a cup.

Across the floor a group of nomes swarmed past around the slowly moving bulk of the battery. They were rolling it on rusty ball bearings.

The can of fuel wobbled past after it.

Grimma stared at the pictures of levers with numbers on them. Suddenly people were keen on the barn. Suddenly, when things were not just averagely awful but promising to be really dreadful, they seemed almost happy. Masklin had known about that. Itâ€™s amazing what people would do, he said, if you found the right place to push.

She stared at the pages and tried to get interested in levers.

The clouds running before the sun were spreading across the pink of the sky. Red sky in the morning, Grimma had read once. It meant people who kept sheep were happy. Or not happy. Or perhaps it was cows.

In the dark office the human awoke, mooed for a while, and tried to jerk free of the cobweb of wires that held it down. After a lot of effort it wriggled most of one arm free.

What the human did next would have surprised most nomes. It caught hold of a chair and, with a great deal of grunting, managed to tip it over. It pulled it across the floor, manipulated the leg under a couple of strands of wire, and heaved.

A minute later it was sitting upright, pulling more wires free.

Its huge eyes fell on the scrap of paper on the floor.

It stared at it for a moment, rubbing its arms, and then it picked up the telephone.

Dorcas prodded vaguely at a wire.

â€œAre you sure the battery is connected the right way round, sir?â€ said Sacco.

â€œI can tell the difference between red wires and black wires, you know,â€ said Dorcas mildly, prodding another wire.

â€œThen perhaps the battery doesnâ€™t have enough electricity,â€ said Grimma helpfully, trying to see over their shoulders. â€œPerhaps itâ€™s all run to the bottom, or gone dry.â€

Dorcas and Sacco exchanged glances.

â€œElectricity doesnâ€™t sink,â€ said Dorcas patiently. â€œOr dry up, as far as I know. Itâ€™s either there or it isnâ€™t. Excuse me.â€ He peered up into the mass of wires again and gave one a poke. There was a pop, and a fat blue spark.

â€œItâ€™s there all right,â€ he added. â€œItâ€™s just that it isnâ€™t where it should be.â€

Grimma walked back across the greasy floor of the cab. Groups of nomes were standing around, waiting. Hundreds of them were clutching the strings lashed to the big steering wheel above them. Other teams stood by with bits of wood pressing, like battering rams, on the pedals.

â€œJust a bit of a delay,â€ she said. â€œAll the electricityâ€™s got lost.â€

There were nomes everywhere. On the Long Drive there had been a whole truck for them. But Big Johnâ€™s cab was smaller, and people had to pack themselves in where they could.

What a ragged bunch, Grimma thought. And it was true. Even in the sudden rush from the Store, the nomes had been able to bring quite a lot of stuff. And they had been plump and well dressed.

Now they were thinner and leaner and much dirtier, and all they were taking with them was the torn and grubby clothes they stood up in. Even the books had been left behind. A dozen books took up the space of three dozen nomes, and while Grimma privately thought that some of the books were more useful than many of the nomes, sheâ€™d accepted Dorcasâ€™s promise that they would come back, one day, and try to retrieve them from their hiding place under the floor.

Well, thought Grimma. We tried. We really made an effort. We came to the quarry to dig in, look after ourselves, live proper lives. And we failed. We thought all we had to do was bring the right things from the Store, but we brought a lot of wrong things too. This time weâ€™ll need to go as far away from humans as possible, and I donâ€™t actually think anywhere is far enough.

She climbed up onto the rickety driving platform, which had been made by tying a plank across the cab. There were even nomes on this. They watched her expectantly.

At least driving Big John should be easier. The leaders of the teams on the controls could see her, so she wouldnâ€™t have to mess around with semaphore and bits of thread like theyâ€™d done when they left the Store. And a lot of the nomes had done this before, too. . . .

She heard Dorcas shout: â€œTry it this time!â€

There was a click. There was a whirr. Then Big John roared.

The sound bounced around the cave of the shed. It was so loud and so deep, it wasnâ€™t really sound at all, just something that turned the air hard and then hit you with it. Nomes flung themselves flat on the trembling deck of the cab.

Grimma, clutching at her ears, saw Dorcas running across the floor, waving his hands. The team on the accelerator pedal gave him a â€œWho, us?â€ look and stopped pushing.

The sound died down to a deep rumbling, a mummummummum that still had a feel-it-in-the-bone quality. Dorcas hurried back and climbed, with a lot of stopping for breath, up to the plank. When he got there, he sat down and rubbed his brow.

â€œIâ€™m getting too old for this sort of thing,â€ he said. â€œWhen a nome gets to a certain age, itâ€™s time to stop stealing giant vehicles. Well-known fact. Anyway. Itâ€™s ticking over nicely. You might as well take us out.â€

â€œWhat, all by myself?â€ said Grimma.

â€œYes. Why not?â€

â€œItâ€™s just that, well, I thought Sacco or someone would be up here.â€ I thought a male nome would be driving, she thought.

â€œTheyâ€™d like to,â€ said Dorcas. â€œTheyâ€™d love to. And weâ€™d be zipping all over the place, I donâ€™t doubt it, with them crying, â€˜Yippee!â€™ and whatnot. No. I want a nice peaceful drive across the fields, thank you very much. The gentle touch.â€

He leaned down.

â€œEveryone ready down there?â€ he yelled.

There was a chorus of nervous â€œyeses,â€ and one or two cheerful ones.

â€œI wonder if putting Sacco in charge of the go-faster pedal is really a good idea,â€ mused Dorcas. He straightened up. â€œEr. Youâ€™re not worried, are you?â€ he said.

Grimma snorted. â€œWhat? Me? No. Of course not. It does not,â€ she added, â€œpresent a problem.â€

â€œO-kay,â€ he said. â€œLetâ€™s go.â€

There was silence, except for the deep thrumming of the engine.

Grimma paused.

If Masklin were here, she thought, heâ€™d do this better than me. No one mentions him anymore. Or Angalo. Or Gurder. They donâ€™t like thinking about them. That must be something nomes learned hundreds of years ago, in this place full of foxes and rushing things and a hundred nasty ways to die. If someone goes missing, you must stop thinking about them, you must put them out of your mind. But I think about him all the time.

I just went on about the frogs in the flowers, and I never thought about his dreams.

Dorcas gently put his arm around her. She was shaking.

â€œWe should have sent some people to the airport,â€ she muttered. â€œIt would have showed that we cared, andâ€”â€

â€œWe didnâ€™t have the time, and we didnâ€™t have the people,â€ said Dorcas softly. â€œWhen he comes back, we can explain about that. Heâ€™s bound to understand.â€

â€œYes,â€ she whispered.

â€œAnd now,â€ said Dorcas, standing back, â€œletâ€™s go!â€

Grimma took a deep breath.

â€œFirst gear,â€ she bellowed, â€œand go forward verrrry slowly.â€

The teams pushed and pulled their way over the deck. There was a slight shudder and the engine noise dropped. Big John lurched forward and jolted to a stop. The engine coughed and died.

Dorcas looked thoughtfully at his fingernails.

â€œHand brake, hand brake, hand brake,â€ he hummed softly.

Grimma glared at him and cupped her hands round her mouth. â€œTake the hand brake off!â€ she shouted. â€œRight! Now get into first gear and go forward very slowly!â€

There was a click, and silence.

â€œStarttheengine, starttheengine, starttheengine,â€ murmured Dorcas, rocking back and forth on his heels.

Grimma sagged. â€œPut everything back where it was and start the engine,â€ she screamed.

Nooty, in charge of the hand brake team, called up, â€œDo you want the hand brake on or off, miss?â€

â€œWhat?â€

â€œYou havenâ€™t told us what to do with the hand brake, miss,â€ said Sacco. The nomes with him started to grin.

Grimma shook a finger at him. â€œListen,â€ she snapped, â€œif I have to come down there and tell you what to do with the hand brake, youâ€™ll all be extremely sorry, all right? Now stop giggling like that and get this thing moving! Quickly!â€

There was a click. Big John roared again and started to move. A cheer went up from the nomes.

â€œRight,â€ said Grimma. â€œThatâ€™s more like it.â€

â€œThe doors, the doors, the doors, we didnâ€™t open the do-ors,â€ hummed Dorcas.

â€œOf course we didnâ€™t open the doors,â€ said Grimma, as the digger began to go faster. â€œWhat do we need to open the doors for? This is Big John!â€

14

V. There is nothing that can be in our way, for this is Big John, that Laughs at Barriers, and says brrm-brrm.

From The Book of Nome,
Big John Chap. 3, v. V

IT WAS A very old shed. It was a very rusty shed. It was a shed that wobbled in high winds. The only thing even vaguely new about it was the padlock on the door, which Big John hit at about six miles an hour. The rickety building rang like a gong, leaped off its foundations, and was dragged halfway across the quarry before it fell apart in a shower of rust and smoke. Big John emerged like a very angry chick from a very old egg and then rolled to a stop.

Grimma picked herself up from the plank and nervously started to pick bits of rust off herself.

â€œWeâ€™ve stopped,â€ she said vaguely, her ears still ringing. â€œWhy have we stopped, Dorcas?â€

He didnâ€™t bother to try to get up. The thump of Big John hitting the door had knocked all the breath out of him.

â€œI think,â€ he said, â€œthat everyone might have been flung about a bit. Why did you want it to go so fast?â€

â€œSorry!â€ Sacco called up. â€œBit of a misunderstanding there, I think!â€

Grimma pulled herself together. â€œWell,â€ she said, â€œI got us out, anyway. Iâ€™ve got the hang of it now. Weâ€™ll just . . . weâ€™ll just . . . weâ€™ll . . .â€

Dorcas heard her voice fade into silence. He looked up.

There was a truck parked in front of the quarry. And three humans were running toward Big John in big, floating bounds.

â€œOh dear,â€ he said.

â€œDidnâ€™t it read my note?â€ wondered Grimma aloud.

â€œIâ€™m afraid it did,â€ said Dorcas. â€œNow, we shouldnâ€™t panic. Weâ€™ve got a choice. We can eitherâ€”â€

â€œGo forward,â€ snapped Grimma. â€œRight now!â€

â€œNo, no,â€ said Dorcas weakly, â€œI wasnâ€™t going to suggest that . . .â€

â€œFirst gear!â€ Grimma commanded. â€œAnd lots of fast!â€

â€œNo, you donâ€™t want to do that,â€ Dorcas murmured.

â€œWatch me,â€ said Grimma. â€œI warned them! They can read, we know they can read! If theyâ€™re really intelligent, theyâ€™re intelligent enough to know better!â€

Big John gathered speed.

â€œYou mustnâ€™t do this,â€ said Dorcas. â€œWeâ€™ve always kept away from humans!â€

â€œThey donâ€™t keep away from us!â€ shouted Grimma.

â€œButâ€”â€

â€œThey demolished the Store, they tried to stop us escaping, now theyâ€™re taking our quarry and they donâ€™t even know what we are!â€ said Grimma. â€œRemember the Gardening Department in the Store? Those horrible statues of garden ornaments? Well, Iâ€™m going to show them real nomes. . . .â€

â€œYou canâ€™t beat humans!â€ shouted Dorcas, above the roar of the engine. â€œTheyâ€™re too big! Youâ€™re too small!â€

â€œThey may be big,â€ said Grimma, â€œand I may be small. But Iâ€™m the one with the giant truck. With teeth.â€ She leaned over the plank. â€œEveryone hang on down there,â€ she shouted. â€œThis may be rough.â€

It had dawned on the great slow creatures outside that something was wrong. They stopped their lumbering charge and, very slowly, tried to dodge out of the way. Two of them managed to leap into the empty office as Big John bowled past.

â€œI see,â€ said Grimma. â€œThey must think weâ€™re stupid. Take a big left turn. More. More. Now stop. Okay.â€ She rubbed her hands together.

â€œWhat are you going to do?â€ whispered Dorcas, terrified.

Grimma leaned over the plank.

â€œSacco,â€ she said. â€œYou see those other levers?â€

The pale round blobs of the humansâ€™ faces appeared at the dusty windows of the shed.

Big John was twenty feet away, vibrating gently in the early-morning mist. Then the engine roared. The big front shovel came up, catching the sunlight. . . .

Big John leaped forward, bouncing across the quarry floor and taking out one wall of the shed like ripping the lid off a can. The other walls and the roof folded up gently, as if it were a house of cards with the ace of spades flipped away.

The digger careered around in a big circle, so that when the two humans crawled out of the wreckage, it was the first thing they saw. Throbbing, with the big metal mouth poised to bite.

They ran.

They ran almost as fast as nomes.

â€œIâ€™ve always wanted to do that,â€ said Grimma in a satisfied voice. â€œNow, where did the other human go?â€

â€œBack to the truck, I think,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œFine,â€ said Grimma. â€œLots of right, Sacco. Stop. Now forward, slowly.â€

â€œCan we sort of stop this and just go, now? Please?â€ pleaded Dorcas.

â€œThe humansâ€™ truck is in the way,â€ said Grimma, reasonably enough. â€œTheyâ€™ve stopped right in the entrance.â€

â€œThen weâ€™re trapped,â€ said Dorcas.

Grimma laughed. It wasnâ€™t a very amusing sound. Dorcas suddenly felt almost as sorry for the humans as he was feeling for himself.

The humans must have been having similar thoughts, if humans had thoughts. He could see their pale faces watching Big John lurch toward them.

Theyâ€™re wondering why they canâ€™t see a human inside, he thought. They canâ€™t work it out. Hereâ€™s this machine, moving all by itself. A bit of a puzzler, for humans.

They reached some sort of conclusion, though. He saw both truck doors fly open and the humans jumped out just as Big Johnâ€”

There was a crunch, and the truck jerked as Big John hit it. The knobbly wheels spun for a moment, and then the truck rolled backward. Clouds of steam poured out.

â€œThatâ€™s for Nisodemus,â€ said Grimma.

â€œI thought you didnâ€™t like him,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œYes, but he was a nome.â€

Dorcas nodded. They were all, when you got right down to it, nomes. It was just as well to remember whose side you were on.

â€œMay I suggest you change gear?â€ he said quietly.

â€œWhy? Whatâ€™s wrong with the one weâ€™ve got?â€

â€œYouâ€™ll be able to push better if you go down a gear. Trust me.â€

Humans were watching. They were watching, because a machine rolling around by itself is something that you do watch, even if youâ€™ve just had to climb a tree or hide behind a hedge.

They saw Big John roll backward, change gear with a roar, and attack the truck again. The windows shattered.

Dorcas was really unhappy about this.

â€œYouâ€™re killing a truck,â€ he said.

â€œDonâ€™t be silly,â€ said Grimma. â€œItâ€™s a machine. Just bits of metal.â€

â€œYes, but someone made it,â€ said Dorcas. â€œThey must be very hard to make. I hate destroying things that are hard to make.â€

â€œThey ran over Nisodemus,â€ said Grimma. â€œAnd when we used to live in a hole, nomes were always being squashed by cars.â€

â€œYes, but nomes arenâ€™t hard to make,â€ said Dorcas. â€œYou just need other nomes.â€

â€œYouâ€™re weird.â€

Big John struck again. One of the truckâ€™s headlights exploded. Dorcas winced.

Then the truck was pushed clear. Smoke was billowing out from it now, where fuel had spilled over the hot engine. Big John backed off and rumbled around it. The nomes were really getting the hang of him now.

â€œRight,â€ said Grimma. â€œStraight ahead.â€ She nudged Dorcas. â€œWeâ€™ll go and find this barn now, shall we?â€

â€œJust go down the lane, and I think thereâ€™s a gateway into the fields,â€ Dorcas mumbled. â€œIt had an actual gate in it,â€ he added. â€œI suppose it would be too much to ask you to let us open it first?â€

Behind them the truck burst into flames. Not spectacularly, but in a workmanlike way, as if it were going to go on burning all day. Dorcas saw a human take off its coat and flap uselessly at the fire. He felt quite sorry for it.

Big John rolled unopposed down the lane. Some of the nomes started to sing as they sweated over the ropes.

â€œNow, then,â€ said Grimma, â€œwhereâ€™s this gateway? Through the gate and across the fields, you said, andâ€”â€

â€œItâ€™s just before you get to the car with the flashing lights on top,â€ said Dorcas slowly. â€œThe one thatâ€™s just coming up the lane.â€

They stared at it.

â€œCars with lights on the top are bad news,â€ said Grimma.

â€œYouâ€™re right there,â€ said Dorcas. â€œTheyâ€™re often full of humans who very seriously want to know whatâ€™s going on. There were lots of them down at the railway.â€

Grimma looked along the hedge.

â€œThis is the gateway coming up, is it?â€ she said.

â€œYes.â€

Grimma leaned down.

â€œSlow down and turn sharp right,â€ she said.

The teams swung into action. Sacco even changed gear without being asked. Nomes hung like spiders from the steering wheel, hauling it around.

There was a gate in the gateway. But it was old and held to the post with bits of string in proper agricultural fashion. It wouldnâ€™t have stopped anything very determined, and it had no chance with Big John.

Dorcas winced again. He hated to see things broken.

The field on the other side was brown soil. Corrugated earth, the nomes called it, after the corrugated cardboard you sometimes got in the Packing Department in the Store. There was snow between the furrows. The big wheels churned it into mud.

Dorcas was half expecting the car to follow them. It stopped instead, and two humans in dark-blue suits got out and started to lumber across the field. Thereâ€™s no stopping humans, he thought glumly. Theyâ€™re like the weather.

The field ran gently uphill, around the quarry. Big Johnâ€™s engine thudded.

There was a wire fence ahead, with a grassy field beyond it. The wire parted with a twang. Dorcas watched it roll back and wondered whether Grimma would let him stop and collect a bit of it. You always knew where you were with wire.

The humans were still following. Out of the corner of his eye, because up here there was altogether too much outside to look at, Dorcas saw flashing lights on the main road, far away.

He pointed them out to Grimma.

â€œI know,â€ she said. â€œIâ€™ve seen them. But what else could we have done?â€ she added desperately. â€œGone off and lived in the flowers like good little pixies?â€

â€œI donâ€™t know,â€ said Dorcas wearily. â€œIâ€™m not sure about anything anymore.â€

Another wire fence twanged. There was shorter grass up here, and the ground curvedâ€”

And then there was nothing but sky, and Big John speeding up as the wheels bounced over the field at the top of the hill.

Dorcas had never seen so much sky. There was nothing around them, just a bit of scrub in the distance. And it was silent. Well, not silent at all, because of Big Johnâ€™s roar. But it looked the kind of place that would be silent if diggers full of desperate nomes werenâ€™t thundering across it.

Frantic sheep ran out of the way.

â€œThereâ€™s the barn up ahead, that stone building on the horizâ€”â€ Grimma began. Then she said, â€œAre you all right, Dorcas?â€

â€œIf I keep my eyes shut,â€ he whispered.

â€œYou look dreadful.â€

â€œI feel worse.â€

â€œBut youâ€™ve been outside before.â€

â€œGrimma, weâ€™re the highest thing there is! Thereâ€™s nothing higher than us for miles, or whatever you call those things! If I open my eyes, Iâ€™ll fall into the sky!â€

Grimma leaned down to the perspiring drivers.

â€œRight just a bit!â€ she shouted. â€œThatâ€™s it! Now all the fast you can!â€

â€œHold on to Big John!â€ she shouted to Dorcas, as the engine noise grew. â€œYou know he canâ€™t fly!â€

The machine bumped up on a stony track that led in the general direction of the distant barn. Dorcas risked opening one eye. Heâ€™d never been to the barn. Was anyone certain there was food there, or was it just a guess? Perhaps at least itâ€™d be warm. . . .

But there was a flashing light near it, coming toward them.

â€œWhy wonâ€™t they leave us alone?â€ shouted Grimma. â€œStop!â€

Big John rolled to a halt. The engine idled in the chilly air.

â€œThis must lead down to the road,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œWe canâ€™t go back,â€ said Grimma.

â€œNo.â€

â€œOr forward.â€

â€œNo.â€

Grimma drummed her fingers on Big Johnâ€™s metal.

â€œHave you got any other ideas?â€

â€œWe could try going across the fields,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œWhere would that take us?â€ said Grimma.

â€œAway from here, for a start.â€

â€œBut we wouldnâ€™t know where we were going!â€ said Grimma.

Dorcas shrugged. â€œItâ€™s either that or paint flowers.â€

Grimma tried to smile.

â€œAnd those little wings wouldnâ€™t suit me,â€ she said.

â€œWhatâ€™s going on up there?â€ Sacco yelled up.

â€œWe ought to tell people,â€ Grimma whispered. â€œEveryone thinks weâ€™re going to the barnâ€”â€

She looked around. The car was closer, bumping heavily over the rough track. The two humans were still coming the other way. â€œDonâ€™t humans ever give up?â€ she said to herself.

She leaned over the edge of the plank.

â€œSome left, Sacco,â€ she said. â€œAnd then just go steadily.â€

Big John bounced off the track and rolled over the cold grass. There was another wire fence in the far distance and a few more sheep.

We donâ€™t know where weâ€™re going, she thought. The only important thing is to go. Masklin was right. This isnâ€™t our world.

â€œPerhaps we should have talked to humans,â€ she said aloud.

â€œNo, you were right,â€ said Dorcas. â€œIn this world, everything belongs to humans, and we would belong to them, too. There wouldnâ€™t be any room for us to be us.â€

The fence came closer. There was a road on the other side. Not a track, but a proper road with black stone on it.

â€œRight or left?â€ said Grimma. â€œWhat do you think?â€

â€œIt doesnâ€™t matter,â€ said Dorcas, as the digger twanged through the fence.

â€œWeâ€™ll try going left, then,â€ she said. â€œSlow down, Sacco! Left a bit. More. More. Steady at that. Oh, no!â€

There was another car in the distance. It had a flashing light on the top.

Dorcas risked a look behind them.

There was another flashing light there.

â€œNo,â€ he said.

â€œWhat?â€ said Grimma.

â€œJust a little while ago you asked if humans ever gave up,â€ he said. â€œThey donâ€™t.â€

â€œStop,â€ said Grimma.

The teams trotted obediently across Big Johnâ€™s floor. The digger rolled gently to a halt again, engine idling.

â€œThis is it,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œAre we at the barn yet?â€ a nome called up.

â€œNo,â€ said Grimma. â€œNot yet. Nearly.â€

Dorcas made a face.

â€œWe might as well accept it now,â€ he said. â€œYouâ€™ll end up waving a stick with a star on it. I just hope they donâ€™t force me to mend their shoes.â€

Grimma looked thoughtful. â€œIf we drove as hard as we could at that car coming toward usâ€”â€ she began.

â€œNo,â€ said Dorcas, firmly. â€œIt really wouldnâ€™t solve anything.â€

â€œItâ€™d make me feel a lot better,â€ said Grimma.

She looked around at the fields.

â€œWhyâ€™s it gone all dark?â€ she said. â€œWe canâ€™t have been running all day. It was early morning when we started out.â€

â€œDoesnâ€™t time fly when youâ€™re enjoying yourselves?â€ said Dorcas gloomily. â€œAnd I donâ€™t like milk much. I donâ€™t mind doing their housework if I donâ€™t have to drink milk, butâ€”â€

â€œJust look, will you?â€

Darkness was spreading across the fields.

â€œIt might be an ellipse,â€ said Dorcas. â€œI read about them: It all goes dark when the sun covers the moon. And possibly vice versa,â€ he added doubtfully.

The car ahead of them squealed to a halt, crashed backward across the road into a stone wall, and came to an abrupt stop.

In the field by the road the sheep were running away. It wasnâ€™t the ordinary panic of sheep ordinarily disturbed. They had their heads down and were pounding across the ground with one aim in mind. They were sheep who had decided that this was no time to waste energy panicking when it could be used for galloping away as fast as possible.

A loud and unpleasant humming noise filled the air.

â€œMy word,â€ Dorcas said weakly. â€œTheyâ€™re pretty damn terrifying, these ellipses.â€ Down below, the nomes were panicking. They werenâ€™t sheep, every nome could think for itself, and when you started to think hard about sudden darkness and mysterious humming noises, panicking seemed like a logical idea.

Little lines of crawling blue fire crackled over Big Johnâ€™s battered paintwork. Dorcas felt his hair standing on end.

Grimma stared upward.

The sky was totally black.

â€œItâ€™s . . . all . . . right,â€ she said, slowly. â€œDo you know, I think itâ€™s all right!â€

Dorcas looked at his hands. Sparks crackled off his fingertips.

â€œIt is, is it?â€ was all he could think of to say.

â€œThat isnâ€™t night, itâ€™s a shadow. Thereâ€™s something huge floating above us.â€

â€œAnd thatâ€™s better than night, is it?â€ said Dorcas.

â€œI think so. Come on, letâ€™s get off.â€

She shinned down the rope to Big Johnâ€™s deck. She was smiling madly. That was almost as terrifying as everything else put together. They werenâ€™t used to Grimma smiling.

â€œGive me a hand,â€ she said. â€œWeâ€™ve got to get down. So he can be sure itâ€™s us.â€

They looked at her in astonishment as she wrestled with the gangplank.

â€œCome on,â€ she repeated. â€œHelp me, canâ€™t you?â€

They helped. Sometimes, when youâ€™re totally confused, youâ€™ll listen to anyone who seems to have any sort of aim in mind. They grabbed the plank and shoved it out of the back of the cab until it tilted and swung down toward the floor.

At least there wasnâ€™t so much sky now. The blue was a thin line around the edge of the solid darkness overhead.

Not entirely solid. When Dorcasâ€™s eyes grew used to it, he could make out squares and rectangles and circles.

Nomes scurried down the plank and milled around on the road below, uncertain whether to run or stay.

Above them one of the dark squares in the shadow moved aside. There was a clank, and then a rectangle of darkness whirred down very gently, like an elevator without wires, and landed softly on the road. It was quite big.

There was something on it. Something in a pot. Something red and yellow and green.

The nomes craned forward to see what it was.

15

I. Thus ended the journey of Big John, and the nomes fled, looking not behind.

From The Book of Nome,
Strange Frogs Chap. VII, v. I.

DORCAS CLAMBERED DOWN awkwardly onto Big Johnâ€™s oily deck. It was empty now, except for the bits of string and wood that the nomes had used.

Theyâ€™ve dropped things just any old how, he thought, listening to the distant chattering of the nomes. Itâ€™s not right, leaving litter. Poor old Big John deserves more than this.

There was some sort of excitement going on outside, but he didnâ€™t pay it much attention.

He bumbled around for a bit, trying to coil up the string and push the wood into tidy heaps. He pulled down the wires that had let Big John taste the electricity. He got down on his hands and knees and tried to rub out the muddy footprints.

Big John made noises, even with the engine stopped. Little pops and sizzles, and the occasional ping.

Dorcas sat down and leaned against the yellow metal. He didnâ€™t know what was going on. It was so far outside anything heâ€™d ever seen before that his mind wasnâ€™t letting him worry about it.

Perhaps itâ€™s just another machine, he thought wearily. A machine for making night come down suddenly.

He reached out and patted Big John.

â€œWell done,â€ he said.

Sacco and Nooty found him sitting with his head against the cab wall, staring vacantly at his feet.

â€œEveryoneâ€™s been looking for you!â€ Sacco said. â€œItâ€™s like an airplane without wings! Itâ€™s just floating there in the air! So you must come and tell us what makes it go . . . I say, are you all right?â€

â€œHmm?â€

â€œAre you all right?â€ said Nooty. â€œYou look rather odd.â€

Dorcas nodded slowly. â€œJust a bit worn out,â€ he said.

â€œYes, but, you see, we need you,â€ said Sacco insistently.

Dorcas groaned and allowed himself to be helped to his feet. He took a last look around the cab.

â€œIt really went, didnâ€™t it?â€ he said. â€œIt really went very well. All things considered. For his age.â€

He tried to give Sacco a cheerful look.

â€œWhat are you talking about?â€ said Sacco.

â€œAll that time in that shed. Since the world was made, perhaps. And I just greased him and fueled him up and away he went,â€ said Dorcas.

â€œThe machine? Oh, yes. Well done,â€ said Sacco.

â€œButâ€”â€ Nooty pointed upward.

Dorcas shrugged.

â€œOh, Iâ€™m not bothered about that,â€ he said. â€œItâ€™s probably Masklinâ€™s doing. Perfectly simple explanation. Grimma is right. Itâ€™s probably that flying thing he went off to get.â€

â€œBut somethingâ€™s come out of it!â€ said Nooty.

â€œNot Masklin, you mean?â€

â€œItâ€™s some kind of plant!â€

Dorcas sighed. Always one thing after another. He patted Big John again.

â€œWell, I care,â€ he said.

He straightened up and turned to the others. â€œAll right,â€ he said, â€œshow me.â€

It was in a metal pot in the middle of the floating platform. The nomes craned and tried to climb on one anotherâ€™s shoulders to look at it, and none of them knew what it was except for Grimma, who was staring at it with a strange quiet smile on her face.

It was a branch from a tree. On the branch was a flower the size of a bucket.

If you climbed high enough, you could see that inside it, held with its glistening petals, was a pool of water. And from the depths of the pool, little yellow frogs stared up at the nomes.

â€œHave you any idea what it is?â€ said Sacco.

Dorcas smiled. â€œMasklinâ€™s found out that itâ€™s a good idea to send a girl flowers,â€ he said. â€œAnd I think everythingâ€™s all right.â€ He glanced at Grimma.

â€œYes, but what is it?â€

â€œI seem to remember itâ€™s called a bromeliad,â€ said Dorcas. â€œIt grows on the top of very tall trees in wet forests a long way away, and little frogs spend their whole lives in it. Your whole life in one flower. Imagine that. Grimma once said she thought it was the most astonishing thing in the world.â€

Sacco bit his lip thoughtfully.

â€œWell, thereâ€™s electricity,â€ he said. â€œElectricity is quite astonishing.â€

â€œOr hydraulics,â€ said Nooty, taking his hand. â€œYou told me hydraulics was fascinating.â€

â€œMasklin must have got it for her,â€ said Dorcas. â€œVery literal-minded lad, that lad. Very active imagination.â€

He stared from the flower to Big John looking small and old under the humming shadow of the Ship.

And felt, suddenly, quite cheerful. He was still tired enough to go to sleep standing up, but he felt his mind fizzing with ideas. Of course there were a lot of questions, but right now the answers didnâ€™t matter; it was enough just to enjoy the questions, and know that the world was full of astonishing things, and that he wasnâ€™t a frog.

Or at least he was the kind of frog who was interested in how flowers grew and whether you could get to other flowers if you jumped hard enough.

And, just when youâ€™d got out of the flower, and were feeling really proud of yourself, youâ€™d look at the new, big, wide endless world around you.

And eventually youâ€™d notice that it had petals around the horizon.

Dorcas grinned.

â€œIâ€™d very much like to know,â€ he said, â€œwhat Masklin has been doing these past few weeks. . . .â€

EXCERPT FROM THE BROMELIAD TRILOGY: WINGS

AIRPORT: A place where people hurry up and wait.

From A Scientific Encyclopedia
for the Inquiring Young Nome
by Angalo de Haberdasheri

LET THE EYE of your imagination be a camera. . . .

This is the universe, a glittering ball of galaxies like the ornament on some unimaginable Christmas tree. Find a galaxy. . . .

Focus

This is a galaxy, swirled like the cream in a cup of coffee, every pinpoint of light a star.

Find a star. . . .

Focus

This is a solar system, where planets barrel through the darkness around the central fires of the sun. Some planets hug close, hot enough to melt lead. Some drift far out, where the comets are born. Find a blue planet. . . .

Focus

This is a planet. Most of it is covered in water. Itâ€™s called Earth.

Find a country. . . .

Focus

. . . blues and greens and browns under the sun, and hereâ€™s a pale oblong which is . . .

Focus

. . . an airport, a concrete hive for silver bees, and thereâ€™s a . . .

Focus

. . . building full of people and noise and . . .

Focus

. . . a hall of lights and bustle and . . .

Focus

. . . a bin full of rubbish and . . .

Focus

. . . a pair of tiny eyes . . .

Focus

Focus

Focus

Click!

Masklin slid cautiously down an old burger carton.

Heâ€™d been watching humans. Hundreds and hundreds of humans. It was beginning to dawn on him that getting on a jet plane wasnâ€™t like stealing a truck.

Angalo and Gurder had nestled deep into the rubbish and were gloomily eating the remains of a cold, greasy french fry.

This has come as a shock to all of us, Masklin thought.

I mean, take Gurder. Back in the Store he was the Abbot. He believed that Arnold Bros made the Store for nomes. And he still thinks thereâ€™s some sort of Arnold Bros somewhere, watching over us, because we are important. And now weâ€™re out here, and all weâ€™ve found is that nomes arenâ€™t important at all. . . .

And thereâ€™s Angalo. He doesnâ€™t believe in Arnold Bros, but he likes to think Arnold Bros exists just so that he can go on not believing in him.

And thereâ€™s me.

I never thought it would be this hard.

I thought jet planes were just trucks with more wings and less wheels.

Thereâ€™s more humans in this place than Iâ€™ve ever seen before. How can we find Grandson Richard, 39, in a place like this?

I hope theyâ€™re going to save me some of that potato. . . .

Angalo looked up.

â€œSeen him?â€ he said, sarcastically.

Masklin shrugged. â€œThereâ€™s lots of humans with beards,â€ he said. â€œThey all look the same to me.â€

â€œI told you,â€ said Angalo. â€œBlind faith never works.â€ He glared at Gurder.

â€œHe could have gone already,â€ said Masklin. â€œHe could have walked right past me.â€

â€œSo letâ€™s get back,â€ said Angalo. â€œPeople will be missing us. Weâ€™ve made the effort, weâ€™ve seen the airport, weâ€™ve nearly got trodden on dozens of times. Now letâ€™s get back to the real world.â€

â€œWhat do you think, Gurder?â€ said Masklin.

The Abbot gave him a long, despairing look.

â€œI donâ€™t know,â€ he said. â€œI really donâ€™t know. Iâ€™d hoped . . .â€

His voice trailed off. He looked so downcast that even Angalo patted him on the shoulder.

â€œDonâ€™t take it so hard,â€ he said. â€œYou didnâ€™t really think some sort of Grandson Richard, 39, was going to swoop down out of the sky and carry us off to Florida, did you? Look, weâ€™ve given it a try. It hasnâ€™t worked. Letâ€™s go home.â€

â€œOf course I didnâ€™t think that,â€ said Gurder irritably. â€œI just thought that . . . maybe in some way . . . thereâ€™d be a way.â€

â€œThe world belongs to humans. They built everything. They run everything. We might as well accept it,â€ said Angalo.

Masklin looked at the Thing. He knew it was listening. Even though it was just a small black cube, it somehow always looked more alert when it was listening.

The trouble was, it spoke only when it felt like it. Itâ€™d always give you just enough help, and no more. It seemed to be testing him the whole time.

Somehow, asking the Thing for help was like admitting that youâ€™d run out of ideas. But . . .

â€œThing,â€ he said, â€œI know you can hear me, because there must be loads of electricity in this building. Weâ€™re at the airport. We canâ€™t find Grandson Richard, 39. We donâ€™t know how to start looking. Please help us.â€

The Thing stayed silent.

â€œIf you donâ€™t help us,â€ said Masklin quietly, â€œweâ€™ll go back to the quarry and face the humans, but that wonâ€™t matter to you because weâ€™ll leave you here. We really will. And no nomes will ever find you again. There will never be another chance. Weâ€™ll die out, there will be no more nomes anywhere, and it will be because of you. And in years and years to come youâ€™ll be all alone and useless and youâ€™ll think, Perhaps I should have helped Masklin when he asked me, and then youâ€™ll think, If I had my time all over again, I would have helped him. Well, Thing, imagine all that has happened and youâ€™ve magically got your wish. Help us.â€

â€œItâ€™s a machine!â€ snapped Angalo. â€œYou canâ€™t blackmail a machineâ€”!â€

One small red light lit up on the Thingâ€™s black surface.

â€œI know you can tell what other machines are thinking,â€ said Masklin. â€œBut can you tell what nomes are thinking? Read my mind, Thing, if you donâ€™t think Iâ€™m serious. You want nomes to act intelligently. Well, I am acting intelligently. Iâ€™m intelligent enough to know when I need help. I need help now. And you can help. I know you can. If you donâ€™t help us, weâ€™ll leave right now and forget you ever existed.â€

A second light came on, very faintly.

Masklin stood up and nodded to the others.

â€œAll right,â€ he said. â€œLetâ€™s go.â€

The Thing made the little electronic noise that was the machineâ€™s equivalent of a nome clearing his throat.

â€œHow can I be of assistance?â€ it said.

Angalo grinned at Gurder.

Masklin sat down again.

â€œFind Grandson Richard Arnold, 39,â€ he said.

â€œThis will take a long time,â€ said the Thing.

â€œOh.â€

A few lights moved on the Thingâ€™s surface. Then it said, â€œI have located a Richard Arnold, aged thirty-nine. He has just gone into the first-class departure lounge for flight 205 to Miami, Florida.â€

â€œThat didnâ€™t take a very long time,â€ said Masklin.

â€œIt was three hundred microseconds,â€ said the Thing. â€œThatâ€™s long.â€

â€œI donâ€™t think I understood all of it, either,â€ Masklin added.

â€œWhich parts didnâ€™t you understand?â€

â€œNearly all of them,â€ said Masklin. â€œAll the bits after â€˜gone into.â€™â€

â€œSomeone with the right name is here and waiting in a special room to get on a big silver bird that flies in the sky to go to a place called Florida,â€ said the Thing.

â€œWhat big silver bird?â€ said Angalo.

â€œIt means jet plane. Itâ€™s being sarcastic,â€ said Masklin.

â€œYeah? How does it know all this stuff?â€ said Angalo suspiciously.

â€œThis building is full of computers,â€ said the Thing.

â€œWhat, like you?â€

The Thing managed to looked offended. â€œThey are very, very primitive,â€ it said. â€œBut I can understand them. If I think slowly enough. Their job is to know where humans are going.â€

â€œThatâ€™s more than most humans do,â€ said Angalo.

â€œCan you find out how we can get to him?â€ said Gurder, his face alight.

â€œHold on, hold on,â€ said Angalo, quickly. â€œLetâ€™s not rush into things here.â€

â€œWe came here to find him, didnâ€™t we?â€ said Gurder.

â€œYes! But what do we actually do?â€

â€œWell, of course, we . . . we . . . that is, weâ€™ll . . .â€

â€œWe donâ€™t even know what a departure lounge is.â€

â€œThe Thing said itâ€™s a room where humans wait to get on an airplane,â€ said Masklin.

Gurder prodded Angalo with an accusing finger.

â€œYouâ€™re frightened, arenâ€™t you,â€ he said. â€œYouâ€™re frightened that if we see Grandson Richard, 39, itâ€™ll mean there really is an Arnold Bros and youâ€™ll have been wrong! Youâ€™re just like your father. He could never stand being wrong either!â€

â€œIâ€™m frightened about you,â€ said Angalo. â€œBecause youâ€™ll see that Grandson Richard is just a human. Arnold Bros was just a human, too. Or two humans. They just built the Store for humans. They didnâ€™t even know about nomes! And you can leave my father out of this, too.â€

The Thing opened a small hatch on its top. It did that sometimes. When the hatches were shut, you couldnâ€™t see where they were, but whenever the Thing was really interested in something, it opened up and extended a small silver dish on a pole, or a complicated arrangement of pipes.

This time it was a piece of wire mesh on a metal rod. It started to turn slowly.

Masklin picked up the box.

While the other two argued, he asked, quietly, â€œDo you know where this lounge thing is?â€

â€œYes,â€ said the Thing.

â€œLetâ€™s go, then.â€

Angalo looked round.

â€œHey, what are you doing?â€ he said.

Masklin ignored him. He said to the Thing: â€œAnd do you know how much time we have before he starts going to Florida?â€

â€œAbout half an hour.â€

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TERRY PRATCHETTâ€™s novels have sold more than thirty-two million copies and have inspired a devoted worldwide following. In addition to his best-selling adult books about Discworld, Mr. Pratchett has also written several books for young readers, including THE WEE FREE MEN and the Johnny Maxwell trilogy: ONLY YOU CAN SAVE MANKIND, JOHNNY AND THE DEAD, and JOHNNY AND THE BOMB. Mr. Pratchett was awarded Britainâ€™s highest honor for a childrenâ€™s novel, the Carnegie Medal, for THE AMAZING MAURICE AND HIS EDUCATED RODENTS.

Visit him online at www.terrypratchettbooks.com

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

OTHER WORKS

The Wee Free Men
A Hat Full of Sky
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
The Carpet People
The Dark Side of the Sun
Strata

THE JOHNNY MAXWELL TRILOGY
Only You Can Save Mankind
Johnny and the Dead
Johnny and the Bomb

The Unadulterated Cat (illustrated by Gray Jolliffe)
Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)

THE DISCWORLD SERIES

The Color of Magic
The Light Fantastic
Equal Rites
Mort
Sourcery
Wyrd Sisters
Pyramids
Guards! Guards!
Eric
Moving Pictures
Reaper Man
Witches Abroad
Small Gods
Lords and Ladies
Men at Arms
Soul Music
Feet of Clay
Interesting Times
Maskerade
Hogfather
Jingo
The Last Continent
Carpe Jugulum
The Fifth Elephant
The Truth
The Thief of Time
Night Watch
Monstrous Regiment
The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable

(illustrated by Paul Kidby)

CREDITS

Cover art Â© 2004 by S. Saelig Gallagher

Cover design by Bradford Foltz

COPYRIGHT

HarperTrophyÂ® is a registered trademark of
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

The Bromeliad Trilogy
Copyright Â© 1998 by Terry and Lyn Pratchett including

Diggers

THE BROMELIAD TRILOGY Copyright Â© 1998 by Terry and Lyn Pratchett including
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

First Harper Trophy edition, 2004
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EPub Edition Â© JANUARY 2012 ISBN 9780062193810

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* Nome generations, that is. Nomes live ten times faster than humans. To them, ten years is a long time.