The Wee Free Men

was wearing a Jolly Sailor outfit, with an oilskin coat and a huge yellow oilskin rain hat that covered most of his face. They started to wander about, bumping into one another.
    My dream! Tiffany thought. The drome uses what it can find in your head…but this is my dream. I can use it.
    Wentworth had gone quiet. He was staring at the waves.
    There was a boat pulled up on the beach. As one pictsie, or small yellow mushroom, the Nac Mac Feegle were flocking toward it and clambering up the sides.
    “What are you doing?” said Tiffany.
    “Best if we wuz leavin’,” said Rob Anybody. “It’s a good dream ye’ve found us, but we canna stay here.”
    “But we should be safe here!”
    “Ach, the Quin finds a way in everywhere,” said Rob, as a hundred pictsies raised an oar. “Dinna fash yersel’, we know all about boats. Did ye no’ see Not-totally-wee-Georgie pike fishin’ wi’ Wee Bobby in the stream the other day? We is no strangers to the piscatorial an’ nautical arts, ye ken.”
    And they did indeed seem to know about boats. The oars were heaved into the oarlocks, and a party of Feegles pushed the boat down the stones and into the waves.
    “Now you just hand us the wee bairn,” shouted Rob Anybody from the stern. Uncertainly, her feet slipping on the wet stones, Tiffany waded through the cold water and handed Wentworth over.
    He seemed to think it was very funny.
    “Weewee mens!” he yelled as they lowered him into the boat. It was his only joke, so he wasn’t going to stop.
    “Aye, that’s right,” said Rob Anybody, tucking him under the seat. “Noo just you bide there like a good boy and no yellin’ for sweeties or Uncle Rob’ll gie ye a skelpin’ across the earhole, okay?”
    Wentworth chuckled.
    Tiffany ran back up the beach and hauled Roland to his feet. He opened his eyes and looked blearily at her.
    “Wha’s happening?” he said. “I had this strange drea—” and then he shut his eyes again and sagged.
    “Get in the boat!” Tiffany shouted, dragging him across the shingle.
    “Crivens, are we takin’ this wee streak o’ uselessness?” said Rob, grabbing Roland’s trousers and heaving him aboard.
    “Of course!” Tiffany hauled herself in afterward and landed in the bottom of the boat as a wave took it. The oars creaked and splashed, and the boat jerked forward. It jolted once or twice, as more waves hit it, and then began to plunge across the sea. The pictsies were strong, after all. Even though each oar was a battleground as pictsies hung from it, or piled up on one another’s shoulders or just heaved anything they could grasp, both oars were almost bending as they were dragged through the water.
    Tiffany picked herself up and tried to ignore the sudden uncertain feeling in her stomach.
    “Head for the lighthouse!” she said.
    “Aye, I ken that,” said Rob Anybody. “It’s the only place there is! And the Quin disna like light.” He grinned. “It’s a good dream, lady. Have ye no’ looked at the sky?”
    “It’s just a blue sky,” said Tiffany.
    “It’s no’ exactly a sky,” said Rob Anybody. “Look behind ye.”
    Tiffany turned. It was a blue sky. Very blue. But above the retreating beach, halfway up the sky, was a band of yellow. It looked a long way away, and hundreds of miles across. And in the middle of it, looming over the world as big as a galaxy and gray-blue with distance, was a life preserver.
    On it, in letters larger than the moon, were the words:

    “We are in the label?” said Tiffany.
    “Oh, aye,” said Rob Anybody.
    “But the sea feels…real. It’s salty and wet and cold. It’s not like paint! I didn’t dream it salty or so cold!”
    “Nae kiddin’? Then it’s a picture on the outside, and it’s real on the inside.” Rob nodded. “Ye ken, we’ve been robbin’ and running aroound on all kinds o’ worlds for a lang time, and I’ll tell ye this: The universe is a lot more comp-li-cated than it looks from the ooutside.”
    “We are in the label?” said Tiffany.
    “Oh, aye,” said Rob Anybody.
    “But the sea feels…real. It’s salty and wet and cold. It’s not like paint! I didn’t dream it salty or so cold!”
    “Nae kiddin’? Then it’s a picture on the outside, and it’s real on the inside.” Rob nodded. “Ye ken, we’ve been robbin’ and running aroound on all kinds o’ worlds for a lang time, and I’ll tell ye this: The universe is a lot more comp-li-cated than it looks from the