The Wee Free Men

dream. I’d have never have got it right by myself.
    A crab crawled out of the surf by the drome’s feet and settled down to dream crab dreams.
    It looks as though a drome can get lost in its own dream, she thought. I wonder if it’ll ever wake up?
    She turned to the Nac Mac Feegle. “In my dream I always wake up when I reach the lighthouse,” she said.
    The pictsies looked up at the red-and-white tower and, as one Feegle, drew their swords.
    “We dinna trust the Quin,” said Rob. “She’ll let ye think ye’re safe, and just when ye’ve dropped your guard, she’ll leap oout. She’ll be waitin’ behind the door, ye can bet on it. Ye’ll let us go in first.”
    It was an instruction, not a question. Tiffany nodded and watched the Nac Mac Feegle swarm over the rocks toward the tower.
    Alone on the jetty, except for Wentworth and the unconscious Roland, she lifted the toad out of her pocket. It opened its yellow eyes and stared at the sea.
    “Either I’m dreaming or I’m on a beach,” it said. “And toads don’t dream.”
    “In my dream they can,” said Tiffany. “And this is my dream.”
    “Then it is an extremely dangerous one!” said the toad ungratefully.
    “No, it’s lovely,” said Tiffany. “It’s wonderful. Look at the way the light dances on the waves.”
    “Where are the notices warning people they could drown?” complained the toad. “No life preservers or shark nets. Oh, dear. Do I see a qualified lifeguard? I think not. Supposing someone was to—”
    “It’s a beach,” said Tiffany. “Why are you talking like this?”
    “I—I don’t know,” said the toad. “Can you put me down, please? I feel a headache coming on.”
    Tiffany put it down, and it shuffled into some seaweed. After a while she heard it eating something.
    The sea was calm.
    It was peaceful.
    It was exactly the moment anyone sensible should distrust.
    But nothing happened. It was followed by nothing else happening. Wentworth picked up a pebble from the beach and put it in his mouth, on the basis that anything might be a candy.
    Then, suddenly, there were noises from the lighthouse. Tiffany heard muffled shouts, and thuds, and once or twice the sound of breaking glass. At one point there was a noise like something heavy falling down a long spiral staircase and hitting every step on the way.
    The door opened. The Nac Mac Feegle came out. They looked satisfied.
    “Nae problemo,” said Rob Anybody. “No one there.”
    “But there was a lot of noise!”
    “Oh, aye. We had to make sure,” said Daft Wullie.
    “Weewee men!” shouted Wentworth.
    “I’ll wake up when I go through the door,” said Tiffany, pulling Roland out of the boat. “I always do. It must work. This is my dream.” She hauled the boy upright. “Can you bring Wentworth?”
    “Aye.”
    “And you won’t get lost or—or drunk or anything?”
    Rob Anybody looked offended. “We ne’er get lost!” he said. “We always ken where we are! It’s just sometimes mebbe we aren’t sure where everything else is, but it’s no’ our fault if everything else gets lost! The Nac Mac Feegle are never lost!”
    “What about drunk?” said Tiffany, dragging Roland toward the lighthouse.
    “We’ve ne’er been lost in oour lives! Is that no’ the case, lads?” said Rob Anybody. There was a murmur of resentful agreement. “The words lost and Nac Mac Feegle shouldna turn up in the same sentence!”
    “And drunk?” said Tiffany again, laying Roland down on the beach.
    “Gettin’ lost is something that happens to other people!” declared Rob Anybody. “I want to make that point perfectly clear!”
    “Well, at least there shouldn’t have been anything to drink in a lighthouse,” said Tiffany. She laughed. “Unless you drank the lamp oil, and no one would dare do that!”
    The pictsies suddenly fell silent.
    “What would that be, then?” said Daft Wullie in a slow, careful voice. “Would it be the stuff in a kind o’ big bottle kind o’ thingie?”
    “Wi’ a wee skull and crossbones on it?” said Rob Anybody.
    “Yes, probably, and it’s horrible stuff,” said Tiffany. “It’d make you terribly ill if you drank it.”
    “Really?” said Rob Anybody thoughtfully. “That’s verra…interesting. What sort o’ ill would that be, kind o’ thing?”
    “I think you’d probably die,” said Tiffany.
    “We’re already dead,” said Rob Anybody.
    “Well, you’d be very, very, sick, then,” said Tiffany. She gave him a