Oh do shut up, Alys! Carla snapped. Then she quickly apologized: Sorry, Alys!

POOR, DEAR MISS HAHN IS … IS DEAD!

I – meanwhile – had torn open the bag and pulled the blue sheet (actually more of a tea towel) partially aside with my nose and my teeth. Yes. Oh yes. I had managed to do that quite successfully.

Well done, Mr Huff! Miss Hahn kindly congratulated me.

SHE’S DEAD!

Hmmn. I don’t suppose I need to describe in too much detail what I found balled up inside, eh? Hidden beneath?

‘Drat!’ I exclaimed.

Gracious me! Miss Hahn gasped, then burst into peals of delighted laughter.

‘Mr Huff?’ Miss Drury half turned, frowning.

‘Drat! Drat!’ I repeated.

The coat! Miss Hahn cheered.

‘Mr Huff? Are you sure you’re all right back there?’

Yes! The coat! Orla’s coat! Orla’s sodding … the sodding coat.

The coat! Miss Hahn repeated.

AAARGH! JUST GIVE IT A REST, MISS HAHN, WILL YOU? YOU’RE DEAD, YOU INFERNAL CREATURE! DEAD! DEAD! DEAD!

REMEMBER?

36

Miss Carla Hahn

I suppose my abiding impression of being dead, and (like Rogue – or other still more lofty antecedents) suddenly returning back to life again, is that there’s quite a lot of apologizing to be done afterwards. It would be foolish (intensely foolish – naive even) to think the aftermath was all untrammelled joy and popping champagne corks. The standard response (in my experience) is generally one of inarticulate rage. Pique. Irritation.

And some people are deeply suspicious. They think you might even have set the whole thing up on purpose. To get attention (Oh yes, yes, I engineered a massive landslip and then ran away and just … just hid. Out of … out of pure spite. Or an unbridled sense of mischief! Or simply as an experiment. To see if I’d be missed. Which – so far as I can tell – I wasn’t. Miss-ing, yes, but … but missed? Missed? Um. No.).

Shimmy was incandescent! He even went so far as to refuse me access to the house. ‘So selfish, bubbellah!’ he screeched through the letterbox. ‘Oi! Ze stress! Und zat golem brings me ze skim melk! Skim! Is he crayzee?! How’s a mensch to drink hiz cafe, bubbellah! Wiz zis skim melk? Wiz no creeem, bubbellah! Eh? Eh?!’

I actually got the distinct impression that some people (zat golem, Clifford Bickerton, for one) might even have preferred it if I’d remained …

What was I? What had I been? Submerged? Crushed? Swept away? Or simply …

Just … just lost.

Lost.

Which is funny.

Because I’ve never really been ‘found’ so far as I can tell.

I’ve never been ‘found’! I’ve never felt ‘found’. I’ve always been strangely absent. Or present but not … not entirely adequate. The wrong fit. Part of a faulty batch. Except, perhaps …

‘Offer it up,’ a little voice whispered.

And I was just starting to think about doing exactly that (If I ‘offer it up’ will I be able to … I don’t know … to pass it on? And so finally stop …?) when Mrs Barrow stormed into the kitchen (clutching a large box of sea salt, several old newspapers and an industrial-sized container of a generic, petroleum-based baby emollient), in the most revolting temper.