There was a growl.
To the nomes' astonishment, it had come from Grimma.
She snatched Granny Morkie's walking stick, strode forward, and whacked the fox across the nose before it could move. It yelped and blinked stupidly.
"Shove off!" she shouted. "How dare you come here!" 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 further down the hedge. Rabbits didn't hit back. It knew where it was with rabbits. It whined, backed away with its eyes fixed on Grimma, and then darted off into the darkness.
The nomes breathed out. "Well," said Dorcas.
"I'm sorry, but I just can't stand foxes," said Grimma. "And Masklin said we should let them know who's boss." "I'm not arguing," said Dorcas.
Grimma looked vaguely at the stick.
"What was I saying before that?" she said.
"You were saying we might as well give up and die right here," said Granny Morkie helpfully. Grimma glared at her.
"No I wasn't," she said. "I was just feeling a bit tired, that's all.
Come on. We'll catch our death standing here."
"Or the other way around," said Sacco, staring into the fox-haunteddarkness.
"That's not funny," snapped Grimma, striding off.
"I didn't mean it to be," said Sacco, shivering.
Overhead, quite unnoticed by the nomes, a rather strangely bright starzigzagged across the sky. It was small, or perhaps it was really very bigbut a long way off. If you looked at it long enough, it might just appeardisc-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 withmuch enthusiasm, admittedly, but they were going to try.
The cheer that went up when it was realized that everyone was back safelyalmost made Grimma forget that they were safely back to a very unsafeplace. She'd read something in the book of proverbs that summed it upperfectly. As far as she could remember, it was something about jumpingout of the thing you cook in and into the thing you cooked on. Orsomething.
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 carriedoff the rails just before the train arrived. It sounded brave andexciting. And pointless, Grimma thought, but she kept that to herself.
"It wasn't as bad as it looked," Sacco said. "I mean, the truck wassmashed but the train didn't even come off the rails. We saw it all," hefinished. "I'm starving."
He gave them a bright smile, which faded like a sunset.
"There's no food?" he said.
"Even less than that," said a nome. "If you've got some bread, we couldhave a snow sandwich."
Sacco thought about this.
"There's the rabbits," he said. "There were rabbits in the field."
"And in the dark," said Dorcas, who appeared to have something on hismind.
"Well, yes," admitted Sacco.
"And with that fox hanging about," said Nooty.
Another proverb floated up in Grimma's mind.
"Needs must," she said, "when the Devil drives."
They looked at her in the flickering light of the matches.
"Who's he?" said Nooty.
"Some sort of horrible person that lives under the ground in a hot place, I think," said Grimma.
"Like the boiler room in the Store?"
"I suppose so."
"And what sort of vehicle does he drive?" said Sacco, looking interested.
"It just means that sometimes you're forced to do things," said Grimma testily. "I don't think he actually drives anything."
"Well, no. There wouldn't be the room down there, for one thing."
Dorcas coughed. He seemed to be upset about something. Well, everyone was upset, but he was even more upset.
"All right," he said quietly.
Something about the way he said it made them pay attention.
"You'd all better come with me," he went on. "Believe me, I'd rather you didn't have to."
"Where to?" said Grimma.
"The old sheds. The ones by the cliff," said Dorcas.
"But they're all tumbled down. And you said they were very dangerous."
"Oh, they are. They are. There's piles of junk and stuff in cans the children shouldn't touch and stuff like that."
He twiddled his beard nervously.
"But," he said, "there's something else. Something I've been sort of working on, sort of." He looked her in the eye. "Something of mine," he said. "The most marvellous thing I've ever seen. Even better than frogs in a flower."
Then he coughed. "Anyway, there's plenty of room in there," he said. "The floors are just earth, er, but the sheds are big and there are lots of places, er, to hide."
A snore from the human shook the office.
"Besides, I don't like being so close to that thing," he added.
There was a general murmur of agreement about this. "Had you thought about what you're going to do with it?" said Dorcas.
"Some people wanted to kill it, but I don't think that's a good idea," said Grimma. "I think the other humans would get really upset about it."
"Besides, it doesn't seem right," said Dorcas.
"I know what you mean."
"So ... what shall we do with it?"
Grimma glared 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 likethat. If you looked at it philosophically, the whole thing about big andsmall was just a matter of size.
"We'll leave it," she said. "But ... is there any paper here?"
"Loads of it on the desk," said Nooty.
"Go and fetch some, please. Dorcas, you've always got something to write with, haven't you?"
Dorcas fumbled in his pockets until he found a stub of pencil lead.
"Don't waste it," he said. "Don't know if I'll ever get any more."
Eventually Nooty came back towing a yellowing sheet of paper. At the top of it, in heavy black lettering, were the words BLACKBURY SAND AND GRAVEL INC. Below that was the word INVOICE.
Grimma thought for a while, and then licked the stub and, in big letters, started to write. "What are you doing?" said Dorcas. "Trying to communicate," said Grimma. She carefully traced another word, pressing quite hard.
"I've always thought it might be worth trying," said Dorcas. "But is this the right time?"
"Yes," said Grimma. She finished the last word.
"What do you think?" 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 wasn't as good as her skill at reading, but it was clear enough.
"I would have done it differently," said Dorcas, reading it. "Perhaps you would, but this is the way I've done it."
"Yes." Dorcas put his head on one side. "Well, it's definitely a communication. You can't get much more communicating than that. Yes." Grimma tried to sound cheerful. "And now," she said, "Let's see this shed of yours."
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 AND GRAVEL INC.
It said: INVOICE.
It said: We Could of Kiled You. LEAV US ALONE.