The Baker

We had a white Christmas this year. The snow didn't last for long on Christmas Day before the rain arrived and left us with ice, but it was a very white Christmas Eve. The garden gnomes made their own snow people and arranged them in a scene. It looks like a bank raid gone wrong.

My aunt Bridget used to visit a local baker called Des at least twice a week. When he announced that he was closing down his business it was a sad day for all concerned, for Des and his customers. All concerned would have fitted into the small baker's shop at the same time, and they did at five o' clock on Des's final day. Almost all of his customers were dedicated ones. Having numerous uncaring customers was more profitable than securing a handful of ardent followers who'd tell all their friends and relations about Des's incomparable cakes, but it wasn't as fulfilling. This is what had made the struggle with his finances worthwhile for so long. Either his customers didn't have many friends and relations or his creations only appealed to a certain type of person, someone capable of appreciating the peculiar character of a cake and recognising its superiority to the mass-produced, character-less clones in supermarkets, and willing to pay more for it. He reached the stage where the benefits of an early retirement seemed greater than the satisfaction he got from his job, and he announced his decision to close his bakery.

His customers were disturbed. They all tried to convince him to change his mind. Many of them promised to eat more cakes, even vowing to become obese to save his business. But his mind was made up. He was looking forward to his retirement because he'd finally get a chance to start the vegetable garden he'd been planning for years. He'd be able to visit his sister in Scotland and his brother in a tree.

After his customers had accepted his decision, their thoughts turned to expressing their gratitude for the countless delights he'd provided over the years. Bridget organised a meeting in her house to discuss what they'd do for him. They agreed to surprise him with a party in his shop on his final day, and they'd buy him a present to mark the occasion. When someone suggested giving him a cake, the room went quiet. A party wouldn't be a party without a cake, and it wouldn't be a good party without a cake made by Des, but you couldn't get the guest of honour to make his own cake. They could make a cake themselves to show how much they cared, but anything they made would shrivel with an overwhelming sense of inferiority when it was revealed in Des's shop.

The silence was broken by a man called Jeff, who stood up and said, "We could always get someone else to make the cake, someone who'd do a much better job than we could. A neighbour of mine, Laurence, is supposed to be an outstanding baker. I've heard people swear by him. I've heard people swear at him too. He's a funny sort of fellow. A bit eccentric. Sometimes he angers people by picking flowers from their gardens or asking them if they're wearing a wig. He doesn't do these things in a malicious way. He just doesn't think. He'd chance anything without thinking. You can order a cake from him and he'll make it in his kitchen. I was thinking about getting him to make a birthday cake for my mother after hearing some great things about him. I wanted to suss him out a bit more first, so I called around to his house. I told him I was interested in finding out more about the windows he had fitted because I was thinking of getting new windows myself. He was very friendly. He gave me a tour of his house, or at least he started to. It was the strangest house I've ever seen. That's what I was saying to myself after seeing the cobble stones around the fireplace in the dining room. And then we came to the study. All four walls were hidden behind shelves. The shelves on one wall were filled with glass jars and in each jar was a single spider. At first glance it was difficult to tell if the spiders were living or dead. One glance was one more than enough for me. Having said that, I'd rather stay with the spiders than take my chances in the room where he kept the hair, which he promised to show me after the study. Fortunately there was another option. I told him I had to go and see a man about a boil, which was true. I decided not to get him to make my mother's birthday cake. But I still hear great things about his skills."

"I've heard of him as well," Bridget said. "People have told me he's just as good as Des. Loyalty to Des prevented me from ever sampling any of Laurence's work, but I suppose now is a good time to start. We do have to think about life after Des... So what became of the boil?"

"It was hastily dispatched. But sitting down can still be uncomfortable. I wouldn't have made this suggestion if I hadn't wanted to stand up, because I don't think it's a very good suggestion. I still can't stop thinking of those spiders and wondering how bad the hair room could be."

"I think we should give him a chance," Bridget said. "We'll get him to make two cakes. We'll eat one ourselves and if it's good enough we'll give the other one to Des."

Laurence's cakes were more than good enough. Bridget and the other customers presented one of them to Des in his shop on his final day, along with a gift of a silver pen. He was touched by their affection for him. When he asked where they got the cake, Bridget just winked and said, "Maybe we made it ourselves."

All eyes were on Des as he tasted the cake. The customers were expecting to see a look of pleasant surprise, but instead they saw anger in his eyes. "He made this," he said.

"Who?" Bridget said.

"Laurence."

"Oh. Ah... Yes. Is that a problem?"

"Please remove this cake from my shop."

"We're terribly sorry. We didn't mean any offence. We just thought it would be nice to have a cake worthy of the occasion."

After Bridget and the other customers had convinced him that they had no idea he'd have a problem with a cake made by Laurence, he explained the reason for his anger. "I taught Laurence everything he knows," he said. "Twenty years ago, when the business was going well, I took him on as an apprentice. He had talent -- there's no doubt about that -- but he couldn't be tamed. He kept coming up with outlandish designs, like a cake in the shape of a shepherd who's just been given permission to perform an operation on his brother. He added expletives to the messages on top of birthday cakes. He said that ten-year-olds would love to see a message like that on their birthday. He might have been right about that, but it was still wrong. He was damaging my reputation, so I had to let him go.

"He set up his own bakery. He was funded by a rich cousin called Steve whose hobby was buying expensive sports cars and crashing them into holes. Digging enormous holes was another hobby. Because of his money, Laurence didn't have to worry about making a profit. His cakes were much cheaper than mine. People didn't seem to care that the cakes were swearing at them, as long as the price was right. You could say that about the cakes in the supermarket. All sorts of supermarket food jeers and swears at people as they put these things in their trolley. Laurence's cakes had real quality as well, at least in terms of taste, if not looks. My business was on the point of collapse and he didn't give a damn. I was only saved because Steve was arrested for fraud and his assets were frozen. Other charges followed, such as vandalising public gardens by digging holes and building a wizard's house. Steve insisted that there was nothing to worry about. His plan was to dig a hole and escape from prison, but it never came to fruition. Laurence's business went bust instead of mine. He didn't seem to give a damn about that either. I haven't spoken to him since."

Bridget and the other customers felt awful about the way they had ruined Des's final day. The only way to make up for what had happened was to repair relations between Des and Laurence. Laurence was only too happy to offer an olive branch. He would have been only too happy to do almost anything they suggested, as long as it didn't involve losing any of his hair. He made a cake for Des. In the icing on top he wrote a message expressing his admiration for Des and gratitude for the skills his teacher had imparted. He managed to fit many heartfelt sentiments into the top of the cake, and an extraordinary amount of expletives.

Des accepted Laurence's apology and his cake. They spoke about Des's plans for his retirement. Laurence already had a vegetable garden, and he was able to help Des with his. Laurence grew vegetables in his own idiosyncratic way. He made hundreds of tiny scarecrows. Some of them were made entirely out of hair. They didn't have much of an effect on the crows but they kept most people away.

The moose's head over the fireplace is looking forward to our fancy dress party on New Year's Eve. He's going as Laurel and Hardy. Not that he's going anywhere. He's staying as Laurel and Hardy. There isn't much more to his costume than two hats hanging off his antlers, and yet no one ever confuses him for a hat stand. People immediately recognise who he's meant to be. My Popeye costume is very detailed, but people often mistake me for a leprechaun. This also happens when I'm not wearing my Popeye costume.

Rudolf the Wolf

The garden has been looking like an image from a Christmas card recently. Snow, frost and ice have been prominent features of the past few days. People can go sledding on the hills or ice-skating in the fields still submerged after the floods. The wife's aunt can glide gracefully across the ice, even though her enormous hat looks as if it's constantly on the verge of collapse. It's covered in holly, tinsel, lights and an angel smoking a pipe on top.

My cousin Isobel joins a group of carol singers every year. They perform in halls, on streets and on doorsteps in the week leading up to Christmas. Members of the group don't need to be good singers but they do need a flair for making extraordinary hats. To audition for the group you have to wear your best hat. You can sing as well, if you want to. The audience don't mind how badly the group sound because they're too distracted by the headgear. Isobel's hat has a banjo in it. It's possible to play the banjo, but not while she's wearing it.

One year a man called Clive became a member with a top hat that had a stuffed penguin on top. He never sang because he believed that silence would enhance the effect created by his hat. The penguin proved to be popular with the audience. The singers drew a big crowd when they performed in the town's square on a Saturday afternoon, even though there were many other distractions in the town at that time. One popular event taking place that day was the annual smelling contest. The event was first staged many years earlier, when it was meant to be a spelling contest for kids, but someone misspelled 'spelling' on the poster advertising it. The locals were much more interested in smelling than spelling. It became an annual event, and it was opened to people of all ages. Contestants wore blindfolds and they had to guess what they were smelling. In the later rounds of the competition, contestants would be expected to identify ten different items that were put together in a bucket. The buckets could contain food, flowers, tools, batteries, socks, Christmas decorations or just about anything that would fit into the bucket. The best smellers practised all year long, and they were able to guess the titles of books based on smell.

A few days before Christmas, the carol singers started visiting houses. When they came to the home of the winner of the smelling contest, a man called Brendan, they congratulated him on his success before performing 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen'. He seemed preoccupied with a smell as they sang or stood still. At the end of the carol he looked at Clive and said, "Why is there a turtle in your hat? Or is it in the penguin?"

Clive remained silent. After they had left Brendan's house, the leader of the group proposed a motion to expel Clive for concealing something in his hat that was inappropriate for carolling. They had a brief debate on the issue. Isobel contended that the turtle was perfectly appropriate for carolling, and even enhanced the hat. She put forward a very strong case, but when they voted on the motion, Clive lost by one vote. Before leaving, he leant forward and let his penguin glare at those who had voted against him.

On the following day, Clive got a visit from Isobel and JJ, another member of the group who had supported him. JJ was the only member who didn't have to wear a hat because any headgear would have diminished the effect of his hair, which was as impressive as any hat. It looked as if his head was full of antennae, and he claimed he could receive channels through these antennae. They provided visions of the future. His most recent vision was of Clive delivering Christmas gifts late at night, leaving these gifts on doorsteps.

"It all makes perfect sense," Isobel said to Clive. "You give gifts to the people who voted against you and they'll let you back in. You should probably give gifts to the people who voted for you as well because you don't want to upset them."

"That's a fantastic idea," Clive said. "Or nearly a fantastic idea. I'll give gifts to the people who voted against me, and my gifts will definitely upset them. That vision was of me getting revenge. I've been trying to come up with a plan for revenge since last night, and this is perfect. I'll give them something nice that's covered in earthworms."

Clive was afraid of earthworms but he had no fear of knives. He'd never been injured by an earthworm but he'd need both hands if he wanted to count on his fingers the amount of times he was rushed to hospital because of an accident with a knife, and two hands wouldn't be sufficient if he hadn't been able to reach the surgeons with the skills to re-attach his fingers. He was going to get his brother to collect the earthworms that he'd give to the carol singers who had voted against him. His brother loved knives and earthworms.

Isobel said, "I'm sure JJ's vision wasn't of you getting revenge."

JJ thought about this. He said, "The smile on your face suggests you're trying to please people rather than upset them."

"The smile on my face suggests that I'm very pleased to be upsetting people."

"That's your interpretation of JJ's vision," Isobel said, "and it's very dangerous for anyone but JJ to interpret his visions. Last year a man called Peter was in our group. JJ had a vision of him being attacked by old women unless he abandoned plans for a hamster cannon. Peter said, 'I met a hair dresser who claimed to have a little birdcage in her ears and there was a tiny bird in the cage. Her ear rings looked like bird cages that had been pulled apart. The little bird told her things that triggered visions in her head. She told me about a modified washing machine that you can put your head into and when you take it out a few minutes later you'll have an amazing hair style. She said that if I put my head into this I'd get a huge hairstyle that seagulls are trying to escape from, and I'd be wondering if the seagulls were going to die, but if I didn't put my head into the machine everything would be fine, no matter how many hamster cannon I build.' He was being sarcastic. And do you know what happened to him?"

"What?"

"Exactly what JJ said would happen, and on top of that, mice set up home in his hat."

"Okay. I'll do what JJ saw me doing. I'll deliver Christmas gifts tonight."

Isobel suspected that Clive was going to add earthworms to these gifts, so she prepared alternative earthworm-free gifts for the people who had voted against him. She'd leave them on doorsteps in place of Clive's gifts, if Clive's gifts were designed to upset people. To determine if his gifts contained earthworms, she got Brendan to help her. They waited in a car near the house where the leader of the group lived. They saw Clive leaving a small box on the doorstep. The box was wrapped in Christmas paper, and it came with a card signed by Clive. He certainly looked pleased.

After he had gone, Isobel and Brendan went to the door. Brendan smelled the box and he was easily able to identify the smell of chocolates and earthworms.

"I knew it," Isobel said. "I'm tempted to leave the earthworms here so he'll never be let back into the group. But I like him. And his penguin. I love his penguin."

She had brought a box of chocolates that didn't contain any earthworms. She left this on the doorstep and took Clive's present away. As they were walking back towards the car they saw what looked like a dog walking towards them, but then Brendan noticed the eyes and he said, "Oh no! It's Rudolf! He actually exists!"

Isobel had often heard the legend of the wolf who prowls the streets of the town around Christmas. There was a red glow to his eyes, and that's why he was known as Rudolf. Isobel had stopped believing in him years earlier. The idea of a wolf with red eyes seemed outlandish enough, and the legend was made to sound even more far-fetched by tales of Rudolf howling to the music played by a woman with a glass harp.

"I hope he doesn't think we're stealing Santa's gifts," Isobel said. "Why didn't JJ tell me this would happen?"

Her phone rang. It was JJ. "I've just had an amazing vision of your future," he said. "In it, you've just discovered a shop that sells teabags. Nothing but teabags."

"That isn't really of any help to me right now. We're having trouble with Rudolf, the wolf. He's real, and he's walking towards us. Not just 'walking' towards us. He's advancing on us."

"I've heard that he has some very strange tastes in food, like chicken and lipstick."

"How about chocolate and earthworms?"

"Maybe that's what he's advancing towards."

Isobel opened Clive's gift and she threw it towards Rudolf. He devoured all of the chocolates and earthworms in seconds, and then he sat down on the footpath.

"He looks pleased with himself," Brendan said.

"If he follows us it'll be like all his Christmasses have come at once."

Rudolf stood up as soon as he heard this. He followed them to all of houses where Clive had left gifts. He was as friendly as a pet Labrador by the time he'd eaten all of the chocolates and earthworms. People returning from Christmas parties blamed alcohol for the sight they saw.

Clive was allowed back into the group. At first he was angry that his plan for revenge had been thwarted, but he couldn't deny that he enjoyed performing with the carol singers, standing in silence to show off the penguin hat. Isobel got Clive's brother to collect more earthworms. She put them into a bucket with some chocolates and she left it outside her front door on Christmas Eve. She ran downstairs on Christmas morning and she was delighted to find that the bucket was empty.

The moose's head over the fireplace is intrigued by the Christmas card we got from the wife's uncle. On the front of it there's an image of ice-skating ducks made of diamonds. He's been sending strange Christmas cards to everyone this year. One of his 'lady friends' received a card with an image of a goose drinking from a wine bottle. She was upset by this. She sent him a card with an image of a bowler hat floating in a swimming pool. She gave him a bowler hat for his birthday this year.

A Christmas Train

We've found dry land again. Most of the decorations are up in the garden. The gnomes' footprints suggest that they've been trying to operate Santa's sleigh at night, now that their ship is stuck in the mud. But the sleigh isn't going anywhere either. Santa's sack is full of bricks to stop it blowing away in the wind. Some people think I did my Christmas shopping by knocking down a brick wall. It has been suggested that bricks would be far superior to the presents I normally give. If you're going to get someone a present that's likely to anger them (and in my experience it's extremely difficult to get anything else), you're better off giving something that isn't going to cause a serious injury when they throw it back at you. That's why socks are the ideal gift.

My cousin Charlotte uses natural decorations in her house at Christmas. She'll fill her house with things she finds in the woods, as much for the smell as for the look. A few days before Christmas one year she went out to search for holly and anything else that would add to the festive feeling. She found some moss and bark in the woods, and two logs that would look good next to the fireplace, even though she didn't have the heart to burn them. When she got to the pond she met Justin. He told her he was looking for a bag of nettles. He'd been collecting them all morning. He was going to take the nettles home and beat himself with them because someone had told him that this was a good way to cure boredom. He had misplaced the bag.

He was very surprised to hear that she was collecting wild Christmas decorations. She said she preferred simple things: home-grown vegetables rather than processed foods; vinyl records rather than CDs; acoustic eels rather than electric ones. She said she'd help him look for his nettles if he helped her look for decorations, and he agreed.

Their search failed to yield a bag of nettles, but they did find more moss, pine cones and twigs for Charlotte's house. When Justin saw a plastic bag stuck in a tree he said, "If I was decorating a Christmas tree it would probably end up looking like that. I'm no good with these things. That's why I'm perfectly happy waiting until spring when nature decorates the trees with leaves."

Charlotte hated the sight of the bag in the tree. She knew she wouldn't be able to forget about it if she left it there, so she climbed the tree to remove the bag. She found it very easy to forget about the bag after the branch broke and she fell to the ground, hitting her head off a root of the tree. She forgot where she was as well, but she recognised Justin, even though she called him Kevin. Justin could see that she needed medical attention. She was able to walk, so he led her back to his place, and then he drove her to a doctor's surgery. He was worried that she wouldn't have recovered her faculties enough to be able to pay the doctor, or that she'd have recovered her faculties enough to be able to pretend that she hadn't recovered her faculties enough when the time came to pay. This was why he took her to a doctor called Paul, who was known to be the cheapest doctor in the area. They'd get a very good deal from him, even though this was before his January sale.

Shortly after Charlotte finally figured out that she wasn't in a tree she realised that she was in a doctor's surgery. Paul held up four fingers in front of her and said, "How many spider's legs am I holding up?"

There were dozens of spiders on his hand, and they kept moving, so it was impossible to count them. And even if she could, she didn't think it would be safe to assume that all of those spiders had eight legs. She chose to ignore his question. She said, "How did you lose your finger?"

"I didn't lose it," he said. "I gave a loan of it to my brother."

"What's he doing with it?"

"He's using it to attract lightning. He thinks he won't get hurt if he holds my finger over his head in a storm. He probably thinks I'll get hurt instead. I'd tell him the truth about that, but I'd like to see him get hurt."

She noticed a headless mechanical Santa on his desk. She said, "Does that Santa keep his head in the sack on his back?"

"If any other doctor heard a question like that they'd say you're concussed, but my reaction is to point out that we have a lot in common."

Charlotte didn't have any reaction to that. A voice at the back of her mind told her she was concussed. She told him about her natural decorations and she asked him how he decorated his home. "I have no decorations at home," he said. "I hate being reminded of Christmas. The decorations here are for my patients. I'll be going home in a few minutes, and I can't wait to get back to a train carriage devoid of flashing lights and tinsel."

"We certainly have that in common, but I love being reminded of Christmas. What have you got against it?"

"When I was ten, all of my Christmas presents were made out of jelly. I cried as I ate the train set I asked for. Ever since then I've disliked the season. Although right now I can see the appeal of a jelly train. A woman used to come to my house in the evenings and cook a stew for me. As she cooked, I'd smoke cigars and tell her about my day's work. One evening she complained about my cigar smoke. I told her it added to the flavour of the stew. She was insulted. She said her stews didn't need any extra flavour, that she had brought them to a state of perfection and that anything added would necessarily diminish them. I should have apologised then, but I pointed out that she kept saying 'shoes' instead of 'stews'. I asked her if this was a Freudian slip. She's more sensitive about her shoes than she is about her stews. She left and she never came back. I've been trying to make my own dinners since then."

"I'd be delighted if you'd join me for dinner this evening. I'll cook."

"I'd be even more delighted to let you."

Justin was more delighted than anyone when he heard that he wouldn't have to pay. She invited him for dinner as well. The three of them went back to her place. Paul liked her Christmas decorations because they didn't remind him of Christmas at all.

As they were eating the dinner, Charlotte said, "Maybe the blow to my head has made me mix up what you told me about the jelly train, but did you say something about living in a train carriage?"

"I did. I do. I used to live in a house, but I sold that to buy a barge on the river, which was my dream. The barge sank. This also happened in my dream. I didn't have any insurance so I was forced to look for a more basic form of accommodation. I found that all I could afford was a coffin. The coffin-makers gave me a discount because I'd sent business their way before. Noel, my uncle, let me put it in one of his fields. I really enjoyed my time in the coffin, though I did have to put up with frequent visits from gravediggers looking for work. Noel's hobby is building towers. In the field where I lived he built a tower with wheels along one side so that when it fell over, as all of his towers do, he could use it as a train. When it fell over it crushed my coffin. I was at work at the time. I was lucky I wasn't killed when my coffin was destroyed because they'd have buried me in a cardboard box. Noel said I could live in one of the carriages of his new train. It's much better than the coffin. The train keeps moving, but only very slowly because he has to build new tracks every day."

Justin and Charlotte both said they'd like to see his carriage. Paul said they could call around on the following evening.

Noel had just finished work on the latest section of tracks when they arrived. The train had moved three feet that day. Paul gave them a tour of his carriage, which was very lavishly decorated. It reminded Charlotte of the Orient Express.

Charlotte came back to the carriage on Christmas Day with a present she'd made herself. It was an edible train set. The engine was made out of turkey. It was tied together with string to keep the stuffing inside. The final carriage was a cake that was iced. This meal was enough to restore Paul's love of Christmas. When they'd finished eating the train they went out to hunt for decorations to put up in his carriage. They saw a cardboard reindeer stuck in a tree. Charlotte was very tempted to bring it down and burn it, but she managed to forget about this one.

The moose's head over the fireplace loves the smell of Christmas cakes and puddings. He's in such a good mood he can even tolerate the occasional Christmas song, though he still frowns on anything I attempt to produce with an accordion. My great-grandfather could use the accordion to evoke the spirit of Christmas at any time of year. His accordion was always being invited to parties and he was expected to accompany it. To cope with the busy party schedule at Christmas, he learnt how to play and sing in his sleep. People were always telling him that he produced the most beautiful music they ever heard when he played in his sleep, but he could never remember the music and neither could they.

Finding a Fork

It's time to start getting the outdoor decorations out of the shed. This year I'll need boats for Santa and his reindeer. One of our neighbours is building an arc in her garden. She's going to fill it with elves, reindeer, Santa and his wife. It would be a strange world if it was populated entirely by elves, flying reindeer and the progeny of Santa. At Christmas they'd need something more magical than they are, like flying unicorns and a man who enters houses through taps at night to deliver gifts that will have grown their own legs by the morning so the elves and Santa's ancestors will wake up to find their presents walking into walls as they wait to grow eyes.

My cousin Hugh always did his best to avoid a man called Terence, who behaved in a way that made most peace-loving people want to avoid him. If he wasn't up to no good, he was on his way up. People who angered him could expect retribution, and it was very easy to anger him. One of Hugh's friends had a dog who once ran into Terence's garden to relieve himself. The garden was in such a bad state that the dog's present wouldn't have done anything to diminish its beauty. If anything, it would have been a slight improvement. But Terence didn't see it this way. He responded by dumping a load of dead badgers on the lawn of the dog's owner. He'd been collecting them for years. Some of the badgers hadn't fully defrosted when Hugh's friend found them.

It wasn't always possible to avoid Terence. One evening he turned up on Hugh's doorstep with a bucket of sugar. "Do you want to buy a bucket of sugar?" he said. "It's only twenty euros."

If Hugh ever found himself wanting a bucket of sugar, it would be very unlikely that he'd want it enough to get it from Terence. But he certainly didn't want to annoy Terence. He chose to annoy himself by buying the bucket and its contents. Judging by the smell from the sugar, it would have been more likely to spoil food than to sweeten it, unless that food smelled even worse than the sugar, like Terence's garden being beautified by what the dog left behind. Hugh threw the sugar away.

On the following evening, he got a phone call from his fiancee, Annabel, who said she was calling around and they'd be going to visit her aunt, Stephanie. Hugh was annoyed because he hated visiting Stephanie. She never stopped asking him questions about his life and his views on life. She'd be disappointed if he didn't give a good answer to questions like 'Would you rather spend a week in the south of France or knock down a wall with a sledge hammer?'.

Shortly after this phone call, the doorbell rang. It was Terence again. "Do you want to buy another bucket of sugar?" he said. "It's only thirty euros."

Hugh was already annoyed after being told of his trip to see Annabel's aunt, and the additional irritation provided by Terence made him behave in a way he never would have foreseen. "Go away," he said, and he slammed the door.

He regretted his actions immediately. He knew he should have saved this reaction for Stephanie and humoured Terence. It would be almost impossible to avoid Terence. For the next few days, Hugh was nervous every time he left the house. He kept looking around him, terrified that Terence would emerge from behind a hedge and attack him.

He had to wait until Friday evening before the inevitable meeting arrived. Terence came over to him in the pub and said, "I want a word with you. I was very surprised by the way you reacted the other day. I never knew you were like that. I didn't think you had it in you. You've got balls. I need someone to help me with a job, and I think you're just the person. I want a lookout man, someone who won't lose his nerve and run away."

"What sort of job are you doing?"

"I want to get my fork back. The fork ended up at Janet's house because she offered me some cream cake when I was there. She was going to give me one of her own forks to eat it, but I prefer to use my own. I had it in my pocket. I could tell you lots of stories about people being poisoned by forks, and all of those people deserved it, no matter what any of them will tell you. When I was sitting down to my dinner later that evening I put my hands into my pockets to get my knife and fork. I found the knife in my right pocket but my left pocket was empty. I realised I must have left the fork at Janet's house, so I went back there. She told me she had washed it and put it into her cutlery drawer, but when she looked in there she couldn't find it. Fergus had called and she had given him some cake as well. He had used my fork and he must have put it into his pocket when he was finished with it. It was probably force of habit, she said, but I'd say if I asked him for the fork he'd tell me he'd never seen it before in his life. I need to get it back. That fork has sentimental value. I'd be here for the rest of the night if I started telling you about all the things it's been embedded in. I'm going to break into Fergus's house tomorrow morning when he's out walking his dog. I don't know how long I'll be inside because he might have hidden the fork somewhere. I want you to stay outside his front gate and if he comes back, stall him. Talk to him about... I don't know. I'll leave that up to you. Whatever you're comfortable talking about."

Hugh suspected that Terence was planning on taking much more than the fork, but he agreed to help because he was relieved to find that he wasn't on Terence's 'ten most wanted' list.

Terence called to Hugh's house on the following morning and they went to Fergus's place. They hid behind a ditch as they waited for him to leave with his dog. After he had gone, Terence went around to the back of the house and Hugh took up his post outside the front gate.

Hugh didn't think it was likely that Terence would be in there for very long. He had years of experience at getting in and out as quickly as possible, his pockets stuffed with plenty of things to keep his knife and fork company. But this job was taking longer. Perhaps he really did want the fork, and he was having trouble finding it. Hugh started to think about what he'd say if Fergus arrived back.

He had to think very quickly when Fergus arrived back sooner than expected. "I wanted to talk to you about something," Hugh said. "The thing I wanted to talk to you about was... Someone was telling me you had an interest in... ahm... Norway. This person might have been mistaken about that, but I have an interest in Norway myself. A slight interest. So I thought I'd come to see you and talk about Norway."

"I know why you're really here," Fergus said.

"You do?"

"People never come straight out with it. They always have to beat around the bush. They feel embarrassed by it, but I'm not in the slightest bit embarrassed by the fact that I can communicate with the dead."

"You're not?"

"No. I've never tried to hide the fact that I have a dead friend who follows me around."

"A ghost?"

"No. He's dead."

"Is he here now?"

"He's right behind me. His name is Jack. We solve crimes together."

"Are you sure you haven't got this idea from a TV show?"

"No. A TV show got the idea from me. Isn't that right Jack?... Really?... Are you sure?... I'm very disappointed to hear that."

"Did Jack tell you that you got the idea from a TV show?"

"No. He didn't. He told me that you're only out here to stall me while Terence is in my house."

"I don't know where he'd get an idea like that. From a TV show, most likely. What have you been watching on TV, Jack?"

"I'm going inside to deal with Terence and I'll leave Jack out here to deal with you."

Fergus went in. Hugh waited outside for a few minutes, but nothing happened. "Are you finished dealing with me, Jack?" he said to the empty space in front of him. The empty space didn't respond. "Then I suppose I'll be off home," Hugh said, and he left.

He forgot about Jack later that day when Annabel informed him that they had to pay another visit to Stephanie to cheer her up after she broke her china teapot.

As he tried to go to sleep that night his mind was full of the questions she had asked, like 'Do you think you could train a sheep to understand how traffic lights work?'. He was only able to forget about her when he became preoccupied with something more serious. He started to get a feeling that something was wrong, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

When he heard noises downstairs he wished he hadn't been able to put his finger on it at all and that he was still thinking about Stephanie. He'd even settle for still being with Stephanie, still answering her questions about electricity and cheese. He knew he had to go out to investigate. He got a golf club to protect himself.

As he was walking down the stairs he saw something that couldn't be beaten away with a golf club. It was the ghost of a man who looked as if he had been alive in the nineteenth century.

Hugh started screaming, but he stopped when the lights came on. Fergus was there, and he was holding a camera. "It's a night vision camera," he said. "I've recorded your reaction. It's hilarious. I would have been completely against modern technology a few years ago, but here I am with my night vision camera and my digital projector to create the illusion of a ghost. God only knows what I'll be using next year. Jack knows as well, but he won't tell me because he doesn't want to ruin the surprise."

"I thought you were going to let 'Jack' deal with me."

"I was going to, but then I remembered that you thought Jack was a ghost. I had the ability to create the illusion of a ghost and you believe in ghosts. I couldn't let an opportunity like that slip by. So I let Jack deal with Terence instead."

Hugh was angry that Terence, the brains behind the operation, had gotten off so lightly, and he was afraid that Terence would be furious with him for throwing a spanner in the works. He'd say the operation required scalpels and tweezers, not spanners and pliers. Hugh couldn't help thinking that his face would need scalpels and tweezers in the safe hands of a medical practitioner after Terence had performed surgery with spanners and pliers. He tried to avoid Terence for as long as possible, but a meeting seemed inevitable a week later when Hugh saw him approaching on the street. Hugh feared the worst, but Terence walked right past without even looking at Hugh. He seemed preoccupied, as if he'd seen something much worse than a ghost. Of course, he might have just been pining for his fork.

The moose's head over the fireplace is wearing his red Christmas scarf instead of his green one. This is the only concession he'll make to the season at this stage. He refuses to listen to any Christmas music, so we never turn on the radio. He won't be happy if he sees the Christmas decorations floating past the window, so I'm going to have to tie them to a tree. The wife's aunt is wearing a grey hat that she intends to take off in January. It's just a plain grey hat now, but she's going to be decorating it over the coming weeks. The last time she did this, the hat became so big that she had to go down on her knees when she was going through doors.

The Twins

Whenever the rain lets its guard down it allows winter to sneak in. The lawns were covered in frost on Monday morning. The dry weather gave me a chance to fix some of the holes in the roof of the shed. When I was in there I found my grandfather's home-brewing kit. After you had picked out all the biscuits from his beer there wasn't much left to drink. You had to eat the biscuits if you wanted to get drunk.

My cousin Ronan and his friend, Shane, were once hired to tidy a shed and to catalogue all of the items in it. A woman called Delia hired them to do the job after she heard a story about how they had used a robot to clean a room in a neighbour's house. This story had been altered as it passed from person to person. In a more accurate version, the word 'clean' would be replaced by the word 'destroy'. Delia had inherited the shed and its contents from her father. It was a big shed, but it was so full of junk that it was impossible to move around inside it. She had been meaning to clean it out for years, but she kept putting it off because it seemed too daunting.

Ronan and Shane agreed to do the job for her, though they did have some reservations. They were afraid of her sons, Nick and Karl, who were twelve-year-old twins. They often behaved strangely. They had taken up photography, and they were using a glasshouse as a dark room. They had covered the entire glasshouse in layers of black canvas. Their mother believed that the twins had telepathic powers. They made a model of a ship in a bottle without saying a word to each other as they worked. There were two tiny boxers fighting on the deck of the ship. Every day the twins got one of the boxers to throw a punch. They told this story about why the boxers were fighting: One of the boxers, a man called Frederick, had spent years telling tales about his days as a penguin-hunter. It turned out that he'd never hunted penguins at all, and that these tales were based on stories in a book called 'Making Penguins Dizzy'. The other boxer was a friend of his called Emmerdale, and he believed the stories until he came across the book in a second-hand bookshop one day. He accused Frederick of telling lies, but Frederick insisted that he really had been on expeditions to the Antarctic to hunt penguins. Emmerdale took Frederick to a ship to give his friend a chance to demonstrate his knowledge of seafaring. It became apparent very quickly that Frederick knew nothing about ships. Emmerdale was angry about being fooled for so long, and he challenged Frederick to a fight on the ship.

When Delia's father's brother called around one evening the twins showed him the ship in the bottle and they told him the story of the boxers. He said that the book 'Making Penguins Dizzy' really existed, and that their grandfather once owned a copy. When Delia heard this she took it as further evidence of their special powers. She wondered if the book was still in the shed, and this is what made her finally get around to doing something about the shed and its contents.

Ronan and Shane thought it would take weeks to tidy the shed and catalogue everything in it. After working on the job for a few hours they started to fear that they'd be doing it for months. Progress was slow. They realised that there were many more objects in the shed than they had previously guessed. Everything was tightly packed together, as if it had been neatly stacked to make maximum use of the space. In the first hour they filled pages of their catalogue with details of books, brass statues, taps, a phone, a silver brooch in the shape of a harpoon and glass beads.

They were surprised when they came across an empty space. It was just about big enough for Shane to crawl through. He could never resist crawling through spaces that were just about big enough for him to crawl through. He often had to do this when he was searching for ghosts, and this is why he always carried a flashlight with him. He shone the light into the space and he started crawling. He soon realised that it was actually a tunnel. "The twins must have created this," he said to Ronan. "This is how they knew about the book. They must have found it in the shed."

He kept crawling through the tunnel, and Ronan followed him. They were able to make their way all around the shed. At the end of the tunnel there was a trap door in the ground. It seemed easier to go forward than to go back because there wasn't enough room to turn around, so Shane opened the trap door and they climbed down a ladder.

The tunnel at the bottom of the ladder was big enough for them to walk through if they crouched. This one led them to another ladder, and thankfully this ladder went up. There was a trap door at the top of it, and above that they found a room that was decorated in a maritime theme. They found a barometer, and ropes that looked like the rigging from a ship. The timber railings and brass fittings added to the effect.

They realised they were in the glasshouse when the twins removed the black canvas. They noticed that there was no handle on the inside of the door, and there was no handle on the top of the trap door either, so they couldn't go back down the ladder.

"Ye're trapped," Karl said. "If ye want to get out, ye're going to have to fight, just like the boxers on our model ship in the bottle."

"We could fight," Ronan said. "Or we could just smash the glass to get out."

"Go ahead and try," Nick said. "We've installed Plexiglas."

Karl threw a hammer at the glasshouse and it bounced back. Ronan was worried at his easy access to a hammer.

"I suppose we better put on a show for them," Ronan said to Shane.

"I have a better idea," Shane whispered with a smile. "Let them think we have a better idea. We'll fool them into thinking we have a cunning plan, just to frighten them."

Ronan looked out at the twins and smiled. He nodded. "The only problem with that," he whispered, "is that they're not easily frightened."

"All we have to do is exactly what we're doing now. Just look out at them and smile as if you know what's coming their way, and keep whispering. Who wouldn't find that disconcerting?"

"They don't look very disconcerted to me. They haven't reacted at all."

"They never react to anything, but that doesn't mean there's nothing going on inside their heads. This project of theirs proves that."

"This project of theirs proves that they're not going to be disconcerted by two trapped men smiling at them."

"When you trap people they're not supposed to smile at you. That's the worst thing that can happen when you trap people. They're supposed to be terrified and do whatever you tell them to do. Now they're more terrified than we could ever be. They know what they've done to us, and they think we have something worse planned for them, but they don't know what it is. They'll crack. It's just a matter of smiling and waiting."

The stand-off went on for over an hour. It came to an end when the twins looked at each other and nodded. Nick said, "It's time to confess that we don't really have telepathic powers."

"I told you they'd crack," Shane whispered to Ronan.

"But we do have exceptionally good hearing," Karl said. "So start fighting."

"I suppose we don't have any choice," Shane said, and he threw a punch at Ronan.

Ronan just shook his head and said, "You're going to have to punch me harder than that to satisfy them."

"If I punch you harder I'm going to hurt you."

"That's what they want."

"I'm not sure I can do that."

"What if I made fun of your attempt to seduce Belinda?"

Shane punched Ronan hard enough to hurt him and he said, "Why don't you go ahead and see what happens."

After Ronan had regained his senses he charged at Shane. In the fight that followed they wrecked the maritime-themed interior of the glasshouse. They broke railings to use as weapons. Anything that wasn't nailed down was used as a missile, and anything that was nailed down was torn up. They didn't notice how upset the twins were to see all their hard work destroyed. The boxers in the model ship had never behaved like this. Nick and Karl replaced the covers to stop the fight.

The twins were furious. They insisted that Ronan and Shane repair all the damage they had done. Serious consequences were threatened if the interior of the glasshouse wasn't fully restored. Ronan and Shane said they'd start work on it after they'd finished their work in the shed.

They only said this because they wanted time to think of a way out of restoring the glasshouse. It could take months to do that job. They could refuse to do it, but they were worried by the threat of these unspecified 'serious consequences'. That sounded serious, coming from the twins.

As they were working in the shed they stumbled across a way out of their problem. Ronan found a box that was full of photos. The twins featured in all of them. In one photo they were wearing teddy bear costumes.

Ronan showed it to Shane. "It's easy to see why they'd hide this," he said. "The rest of the photos are just as bad. They must have taken these from family photo albums and hid them in here."

"We should copy these as soon as possible, and hide the copies somewhere secure."

"And maybe enlarge a few copies as well."

"And remind them that we have our own newspaper."

"Maybe we shouldn't mention the newspaper if we want them to take us seriously."

The twins did take them seriously. Their facial expressions actually changed when they saw Ronan holding an enlarged copy of the teddy bear photo. Their expressions didn't change back for a few days. The look of horror remained frozen on their faces, and most people found this reassuring. It was much better than the blank expression they normally wore.

The moose's head over the fireplace is still wearing his green scarf, but now it's more about celebrating the rugby team rather than protesting against the fate of the soccer team. The wife's uncle says that he once wore a scarf for five weeks during one winter. He spent that time at a succession of Christmas parties. There were so many to get through that he couldn't stay at any one of them for long enough to take his scarf off. When he finally removed it on Christmas Day he found a nest with four chicks. He was surprised to find that the source of the noise wasn't in his head after all.