The Wee Free Men

She was in the weird picture. The picture was the dream, or the dream was the picture. Which way around didn’t matter, because she was right in the middle of it. If you fell off a cliff, it wouldn’t matter if the ground was rushing up or you were rushing down. You were in trouble either way.



Somewhere in the distance there was a loud crack! and a ragged cheer. Someone clapped and said, in a sleepy sort of voice, “Well done. Good man. Ver’ well done.”



With some effort Tiffany pushed her way between the blades of grass.



On a flat rock a man was cracking nuts half as big as he was, with a two-handed hammer. He was being watched by a crowd of people. Tiffany used the word people because she couldn’t think of anything else that was suitable, but it was stretching the word a bit to make it fit all the…people.



They were different sizes, for one thing. Some of the men were taller than her, even if you allowed for the fact that everyone was shorter than the grass. But others were tiny. Some of them had faces that you wouldn’t look at twice. Others had faces that no one would want to look at even once.



This is a dream, after all, Tiffany told herself. It doesn’t have to make sense, or be nice. It’s a dream, not a daydream. People who say things like “May all your dreams come true” should try living in one for five minutes.



She stepped out into the bright, stiflingly hot clearing just as the man raised his hammer again, and said, “Excuse me?”



“Yes?” he said.



“Is there a Queen around here?” said Tiffany.



The man wiped his forehead and nodded toward the other side of the clearing.



“Her Majesty has gone to her bower,” he said.



“That being a nook or resting place?” said Tiffany.



The man nodded and said, “Correct again, Miss Tiffany.”



Don’t ask how he knows your name, Tiffany told herself.



“Thank you,” she said, and because she had been brought up to be polite, she added, “Best of luck with the nut cracking.”



“This one’s the toughest yet,” said the man.



Tiffany walked off, trying to look as if this collection of strange nearly-people was just another crowd. Probably the scariest ones were the big women, two of them.



Big women were valued on the Chalk. Farmers liked big wives. Farmwork was hard, and there was no call for a wife who couldn’t carry a couple of piglets or a bale of hay. But these two could have carried a horse each. They stared haughtily at her as she walked past.



They had tiny, stupid little wings on their backs.



“Nice day for watching nuts being cracked!” said Tiffany cheerfully as she went past. Their huge pale faces wrinkled, as if they were trying to work out what she was.



Sitting down near them, watching the nut cracker with an expression of concern, was a little man with a large head, a fringe of white beard, and pointy ears. He was wearing very old-fashioned clothes, and his eyes followed Tiffany as she went past.



“Good morning,” she said.



“Sneebs!” he said, and in her head appeared the words: “Get away from here!”



“Excuse me?” she said.



“Sneebs!” said the man, wringing his hands. And the words appeared, floating in her brain: “It’s terribly dangerous!”



He waved a pale hand as if to brush her away. Shaking her head, Tiffany walked on.



There were lords and ladies, people in fine clothes and even a few shepherds. But some of them had a pieced-together look. They looked, in fact, like a picture book back in her bedroom.



It was made of thick card, its edges worn raggedy by generations of Aching children. Each page showed a character, and each was cut into four strips that could be turned over independently. The point of the whole thing was that a bored child could turn over parts of the pages and change the way the characters were dressed. You could end up with a soldier’s head on a baker’s chest wearing a maid’s dress and a farmer’s big boots.



Tiffany had never been bored enough. She considered that even things that spend their whole lives hanging from the undersides of branches would never be bored enough to spend more than five seconds with that book.



The people around here looked as though they’d either been taken from that book or had dressed for a fancy-dress party in the dark. One or two of them nodded to her as she passed but didn’t seem surprised to see her.



She ducked under a round leaf much bigger than she was and took out the toad again.



“Whap? It’s sti’ cooold,” said the toad, hunching down on her hand.



“Cold? The air’s baking!”



“There’s just snow,” said the toad. “Put me back, I’m freezing!”



Just a minute, thought Tiffany. “Do toads dream?” she said.



“No!”



“Oh…so it’s not really hot?”



“No! You just think it is!”



“Psst,” said a voice.



Tiffany put the toad away and wondered if she dared to turn her head.



“It’s me!” said the voice.



Tiffany turned toward a clump of daisies twice the height of a man. “That’s not a lot of help.”



“Are you crazy?” said the daisies.



“I’m looking for my brother,” said Tiffany sharply.



“The horrible child who screams for candy all the time?”



The daisy stems parted and the boy Roland darted out and joined her under the leaf.



“Yes,” she said, edging away and feeling that only a sister has a right to call even a brother like Wentworth horrible.



“And threatens to go to the toilet if he’s left alone?” said Roland.



“Yes! Where is he?”



“That’s your brother? The one who’s permanently sticky?”



“I told you!”



“And you really want him back?”



“Yes!”



“Why?”



He’s my brother, Tiffany thought. What’s why got to do with it?



“Because he’s my brother! Now tell me where he is?”



“Are you sure you can get out of here?” said Roland.



“Of course,” Tiffany lied.



“And you can take me with you?”



“Yes.” Well, she hoped so.



“All right. I’ll let you do that,” said Roland, relaxing.



“Oh, you’ll let me, will you?” said Tiffany.



“Look, I didn’t know what you were, all right?” said Roland. “There’s always weird things in the forest. Lost people, bits of dreams that’re still lying around…you have to be careful. But if you really know the way, then I ought to get back before my father worries too much.”



Tiffany felt the Second Thoughts starting. They said: Don’t change your expression. Just…check.



“How long have you been here?” she asked carefully. “Exactly?”



“Well, the light doesn’t really change much,” said the boy. “It feels like I’ve been here…oh, hours. Maybe a day.”



Tiffany tried hard not to let her face give anything away, but it didn’t work. Roland’s eyes narrowed.



“I have, haven’t I?” he said.



“Er…why do you ask?” said Tiffany, desperately.



“Because in a way it…feels like…longer. I’ve only been hungry two or three times, and been to the…you know…twice, so it can’t be very long. But I’ve done all kinds of things…it’s been a busy day….” His voice trailed off.



“Um. You’re right,” said Tiffany. “Time goes slowly here. It’s been…a bit longer.”



“A hundred years? Don’t tell me it’s a hundred years! Something magical has happened and it’s a hundred years, yes?”



“What? No! Um…nearly a year.”



The boy’s reaction was surprising. This time he looked really frightened. “Oh, no! That’s worse than a hundred years!”



“How?” said Tiffany, bewildered.



“If it was a hundred years, I wouldn’t get a thrashing when I got home!”



Hmm, thought Tiffany. “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” she said aloud. “Your father has been very miserable. Besides, it’s not your fault you were stolen by the Queen—” She hesitated, because this time it was his expression that gave it all away. “Was it?”



“Well, there was this fine lady on a horse with bells all over its harness, and she galloped past me when I was out hunting and she was laughing, so of course I spurred my horse and chased after her, and…” He fell silent.



“That probably wasn’t a good decision,” said Tiffany.



“It’s not…bad here,” said Roland. “It just keeps changing. There’s…doorways everywhere. I mean, entrances into other places…” His voice tailed off.



“You’d better start at the beginning,” said Tiffany.



“It was great at first,” said Roland. “I thought it was, you know, an adventure? She fed me sweetmeats—”



“What are they, exactly?” said Tiffany. Her dictionary hadn’t included that one. “Are they like sweetbreads?”



“I don’t know. What are sweetbreads?”



“The pancreas or thymus gland of a cow,” said Tiffany. “Not a very good name, I think.”



Roland’s face went red with the effort of thought. “These were more like nougat.”



“Right. Go on,” said Tiffany.



“And then she told me to sing and dance and skip and play,” said Roland. “She said that’s what children were supposed to do.”



“Did you?”



“Would you? I’d feel like an idiot. I’m twelve, you know.” Roland hesitated. “In fact, if what you say is true, I’m thirteen now, right?”



“Why did she want you to skip and play?” said Tiffany, instead of saying, “No, you’re still twelve and act like you’re eight.”



“She just said that’s what children do,” said Roland.



Tiffany wondered about this. As far as she could see, children mostly argued, shouted, ran around very fast, laughed loudly, picked their noses, got dirty, and sulked. Any seen dancing and skipping and singing had probably been stung by a wasp.



“Strange,” she said.



“And then when I wouldn’t, she gave me more sweets.”



“More nougat?”



“Sugarplums,” said Roland. “They’re like plums. You know? With sugar on? She’s always trying to feed me sugar! She thinks I like it!”



A small bell rang in Tiffany’s memory. “You don’t think she’s trying to fatten you up before she bakes you in an oven and eats you, do you?”



“Of course not. Only wicked witches do that.”



Tiffany’s eyes narrowed. “Oh yes,” she said carefully. “I forgot. So you’ve been living on sweeties?”



“No, I know how to hunt! Real animals get in here. I don’t know how. Sneebs thinks they find the doorways in by accident. And then they starve to death, because it’s always winter here. Sometimes the Queen sends out robbing parties if a door opens into an interesting world, too. This whole place is like…a pirate ship.”