‘Beer helps everything.’ She winked. ‘It will relax them.’ She clapped and laughed. ‘Try again. Grouchy, you on the bottom. I think you’re the hardiest!’

There were exclamations of protest as each of the dwarves wanted to be the strongest in Snow White’s eyes, even though they knew in their hearts that she loved them all equally. Grouchy, squinting in the warm sunshine, steadied himself and then Feisty clambered onto his shoulders. When he was steady the next climbed the rickety ladder to perch on his shoulders.

‘Keep going! It’s amazing!’ Snow White said, smiling. ‘We can do this! You can do this!’

‘It’ll go wrong at the top. It’s the coat. It unbalances them.’ Dreamy took a swallow of beer from the mug.

‘Hmmm,’ Snow White frowned, looking at Bolshy, drowning in the overcoat designed to cover them all and with his shoulders padded out with quilted coat hangers to make him ridiculously broad. ‘You might have a point. Maybe Grouchy needs to be at the top.’

A few moments, and another tumble to the grass later and she was proved right. Luckily although the dwarves weren’t good at balancing, they were good at landing. The mines weren’t safe and tunnels often gave way, dropping them great heights to the rocks below. If they didn’t know how to land, they didn’t live long. The grass might as well have been cushions for what they were used to and so after more giggles, more beer and a dusting down, they began again, this time with Grouchy draped in the coat and going up last.

‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’ Dreamy asked. He’d been wondering it for a while, but had been caught up in the fun of it with the rest of them, and when Snow White was enthusiastic about something it was hard not to get swept along. But now that he was sitting out and watching, doubts niggled at him.

‘What do you mean? It’ll be funny.’

‘I’m sure it could be funny,’ he said, slightly hesitant. ‘But I’m not sure your step-mother has a sense of humour.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong.’ Snow White smiled and squeezed his knee. ‘She used to have one. When she first got here. I remember we used to laugh a lot. She laughed yesterday.’ She looked away from him. ‘She’s just lost her reasons to have fun, that’s all. Maybe that’s what being married does to you.’ Snow took the mug from Dreamy. ‘I’m getting it now. She just doesn’t like being married very much. And that must make someone quite unhappy.’

‘She’s not unhappy,’ Dreamy muttered. ‘She’s plain mean.’